Chapter 56
Gregor makes small talk with the Worldkeepers as we enter the deep passages of the academy.
But I don’t pay attention to what’s being said; instead, I studiously observe Vaduin and the route he’s taking.
It’s not the one that leads to the bridge passage as I would’ve expected.
Instead, we head deeper, into more and more decrepit passageways in an opposite direction of the workshop of the Fool.
Vaduin opens a heavy door, revealing a crumbling stair. “Watch your step.”
With every step, the weight of what I’m about to do settles on me. The halls become so quiet, the lower passages so still, that the tiny flame flickering in the lantern Vaduin holds to chase away the unyielding dark seems loud. My movements are measured, and with every one, I feel a presence.
Mother.
I can almost see the ghost of her walking through the tunnel where the stairway ends. For how long I’ve chased her specter. Hunting down those who had hurt her. Searching for the answers to the secrets she kept.
It’s hard to get my bearings so deep, but my gut tells me we’re headed away from Eclipse City. Just when I’m about to ask Vaduin where we’re going and how much longer it will take to get there, the lamplight illuminates something man-made: another staircase, slightly wider than the last, ascending.
Vaduin glances over his shoulder. “Are you ready to see the home of our forefathers?”
I nod, looking back to Gregor. His eyes are wide, excitement practically vibrating off him.
We ascend, and Vaduin stops at the top, saying, “Welcome to the Stone Citadel.”
The Stone Citadel is a hidden town carved into the very heart of a mountain.
We stand in a massive cavern, its domed ceiling studded with glittering crystals that catch the light through fissures splitting the mountain’s peak.
Basking in their glow, carved around the ceiling are giant statues of men and women, all bearing shields and arms. The statues flank carvings of numbers one through twenty.
At the apex of the dome is twenty-one, glittering and proud.
Underneath, houses have been hewn into the rock of the walls and erected in the central area.
They stack like a child’s blocks, leaning against one another.
Mostly stone, but some with rooms added with wattle and daub.
Given the cracks and worn wood, as well as the stylistic choices, the construction looks ancient.
On the far side of the town from where we stand, the mountainside has split in two. The fissure lets in light, and empty balconies and plazas bask in its glory. A waterfall cascades down one side of the citadel. It fuels a stream that lends fresh water to the cavernous town before disappearing.
“This…this was hidden in the mountains outside the city all along?” Gregor stands in awe. Vaduin wears a pleased smile and nods. “Why have the Worldkeepers been slinking in tunnels beneath Eclipse City and running through alleys to escape enforcers? Why not hide here?”
“We can’t risk it.” Vaduin begins to walk. “We’ve reason to believe King Naethor could know of this place, so it would be far too dangerous to frequent it.”
“Then why hasn’t he set up a permanent encampment here to catch Worldkeepers?” Gregor asks what I was immediately wondering.
“Who’s to say?” Vaduin looks around, as if it’s something he’s wondered whenever he visits this place. “Perhaps he doesn’t think it’s worth the resources. Or perhaps he knows of its existence but not its exact location. Either way, Laylis had us swear to never return outside of the rites.”
It’s eerie to cross between endless empty houses. It’s as if everyone who was once here neatly packed up all at once and left. Or like they never existed at all…It reminds me of what Vaduin said about the Worldkeepers being hunted between worlds by Naethor.
“Vaduin?” I ask as we continue to cross in the direction of the waterfall.
He glances my way. “How does the World’s wish work?
” Kaelis and I have spoken about it, and I’ve worked to do my own research, but I haven’t asked Vaduin directly yet.
Given his personal scholarly proclivities and his position as the current leader of the Worldkeepers, he might have unique information.
“As you know, the first step is finding the Majors and having them ink their golden cards. Then the vessel must be made. Once all twenty golden cards are presented at the font of the World in the academy, in the presence of the vessel, the World is made.” As he speaks, I think of the memories Kaelis showed me.
“At any time following, the World can be cast.
“The wish ends up being a combination of what is asked for by the wisher, what they envision, their intention behind the ask, and fate’s interpretation of the wish.”
“How detailed can the wish be?” I’m already wondering if there’s a way to structure my wish so that Kaelis will remember me.
“Not very, so far as our records show. It is portrayed to be a single thought when the card is cast. But it is not as though any of us have cast it ourselves.”
We enter a narrow opening, hidden by the waterfall, that leads to a circular staircase. Mists waft inside. Icy water spills down the stairs and flows around the soles of our shoes. The roar of the falls reverberates in the narrow space, making it impossible to speak to one another.
The air grows colder as we reach the base of the stairs. Before us is a slightly curving tunnel. For a moment, there’s hardly any light to see by, and I feel like I’m back in the academy’s deep passageways.
Clara. It’s almost as though Kaelis whispered directly into my ear. I halt and whip around, searching for him. Gregor and the other two Worldkeepers look at me, confused.
“You all right?” Gregor asks.
I draw a shaky breath, giving one final look around. I swear I felt him there…
“Clara?” Vaduin has come to a stop at the apex of the tunnel’s curve. A distant light illuminates his figure.
“I’m fine. Sorry.” I quickly nod and continue, writing off the sensation to my racing thoughts about preserving his memories.
As I round the corner, the tunnel finally gives way to another chamber carved into the mountainside.
Like a smaller version of the main cavern of the Stone Citadel, this room is somewhat circular, with a domed ceiling.
A third of the circle has been sheared off, exposed to the mountain air.
We can see thin wisps of clouds dancing around distant peaks.
More sculptures of knights circle the walls, each holding a deck of cards with solemn reverence.
At their feet is a shallow channel of water that I know is anything but—it possesses the same glow as the pool that surrounds the statue of the World.
At the center of the space is a perfectly smooth, flat, rectangular slab of pale slate, as though waiting for an offering.
“The altar of the vessel,” I surmise based on what they’ve told me, slowly approaching, drawn to the empty slate.
My hand hovers above its surface for a second before making contact.
It’s warmer than I would’ve expected, given the temperature at this altitude.
As if it’s been sitting in the sun for hours, even though dawn has just broken.
“Are you all ready?” I ask. Really I’m asking myself if I’m ready.
Nods from everyone. No one seems to want to speak, as if too nervous about breaking the somber and serious atmosphere. Vaduin steps forward and hands me a blank card. It doesn’t feel different from a normal scrap of paper, but I know it is.
He returns to his place with the rest of them and I place the blank card in the center of the altar.
Next, I carefully remove the stopper on a small jar I brought that contains the slightest amount of iridescent powder.
It is every glittering fragment I could split from the powders I took from the workshop of the Fool, and the crystallized fragments from the scrap of the reversed card Gregor gave me.
It should be enough. I have just one attempt to make the vessel.
They regard me skeptically as I cross from the slate and dip a brush into the water that collects at the feet of the statues.
I brought a binder for the pigment, but my instinct tells me this is better.
My suspicions are confirmed by how the liquid collects on the brush; just like at the statue of the World.
I mix this with the powder, and the moment I do, magic charges the air.
The skin on my arm holding the brush feels too tight.
It’s so much it’s nearly painful. Sucking in a breath, I brace myself, tightening every muscle as I finish carefully mixing.
Satisfied, I return to the altar. But it’s not slate and a blank card that I see.
It’s our kitchen table, the tablecloth pulled off.
A blank scrap of paper has been placed in the center of countless drawings upon drawings.
Mother stands on the opposite side. My eyes drift up toward the open air.
I can almost see her there, the same ghost that followed me here, yet different—a radiant outline of the woman I knew transposed with how I imagine her to be after all these years.
We are all a line painted upon a card that captures something greater, she tells me, like she told me back then. The world itself is magic. We are its stewards and its children; we are both the art and the artist.
I move my brush from one corner of the altar to the opposite, looping and swirling.
I lift and lower, breaking up the lines and cutting new ones.
The liquid sinks into the slate, shining in the brightening sunlight.
Not quite gold. Not quite silver. A sort of shimmering platinum iridescence that feels more magical than anything I’ve made before.
Power surges within me, and the lines I paint begin to hover in the air.
I can feel whatever force this is guiding my movements.
My eyes flutter closed, but my brush continues to move.
I paint with Mother’s hand on mine, by her teachings…
by the glimpse of the World I saw in Kaelis’s vision that gave me the final pieces I needed to ink this vessel.
When I open my eyes again, I see how the lines that I’ve painted across the altar all coalesce on the blank card I placed in its center.
The statues glow with a hazy light, and the water at their feet gives off blue motes like fireflies.
The air crackles and hums as the card rises off the stone and into the air.
The lines of ink that were drawn beyond the card’s edges and onto the stone of the altar, now multicolored and shining, cling to it, lifting from the stone table and hovering, like a magical net that barely contains its power. Something ancient and fearsome.
And then…a whisper.
It doesn’t come from the people around me, nor from any one direction. It’s not something I hear, but I feel it within me. It is as if a thousand people speak all at once.
The World only truly ever answers to fate, not mortal hands. Beware the Fool who would try to contain it.
The words vibrate in the marrow of my bones.
I hear them in my mother’s voice. Yet I also somehow recognize the rest of the unseen speakers.
As if I can blink and see all at once every Worldkeeper who carried the knowledge of the vessel before me.
A continuous line—an unbroken brushstroke throughout time immemorial.
Reaching out, my fingers close around the suspended card.
The ink, which has now turned into hovering threads of magic, shatters into a thousand crystalline shards—almost identical to the powder that was used to ink them.
But these glowing fragments fade before they hit the ground.
The card thrums underneath my fingertips as though it has a pulse.
At its center is a blank circle—a void waiting to be filled. A vessel. In a way, it reminds me of the first Wheel of Fortune card I ever inked. As if fate has been guiding my hand to this moment. Willing a change. Waiting on the World.
Waiting for me.
A shudder rips through me that I fight to hide. I hold my head high even as the magic draining from me leaves violent shakes in its wake. My grip tightens on the card; much like the golden Majors, it now feels like it’s made of a thin sheet of metal.
I did it.
I inked the vessel. The golden cards are at my whim. My sister is healing, and soon her golden card will be in hand. And now, in my palm, I carry the vessel that will harbor the power to change the world.
I thought I would feel powerful.
But I have never been more terrified.