Chapter 1 - Rabb
Icouldn’t breathe.
Almost imperceptibly slower today, the dull ticking of the giant clock echoed hollow around me. Creaks and groans filled the old tower’s structure, the gentle, rhythmic ticking and clinking of massive metal gears and mechanical workings, amidst the occasional howling winds of the remote corner of the land I called home.
Desolate.
Quiet.
It had been so for centuries.
And I liked it that way.
I grasped at the collar of my shirt in an attempt to catch my breath, to escape from this unknown stifling sensation.
I glanced up from my wooden desk to look around.
My loft was nestled within the top of the clock tower, its worn furnishings and faded velvet drapes from the tall windows blending seamlessly with the clock’s inner workings. Small. Functional. But the place was never so unkempt as it was today.
Piles of books were haphazardly strewn, scrolls and papers cluttered about the floor. Dusty shelves previously only used to store bottles of ale had become host to a disarray of mismatched paraphernalia as I had spent the better part of the last three weeks head buried in my research.
I’d barely slept, barely eaten.
Yet still, what I was searching for eluded me.
I should have been content with my life. I was the most powerful sorcerer assassin for hire in the land. I could have anything I wanted. There was absolutely nothing I could want for.
Except perhaps answers…
For questions that hadn’t plagued me at all until quite recently.
The perpetual cloud cover of my desert home permitted scant streaks of sunlight to filter through the skies. According to the reliable clock, that was built and has been running without requiring fine-tuning for centuries, it was mid-morning.
Sitting back in my seat, I frowned as I took a deep breath. My nose was stuffed, my throat constricting for no apparent reason. I slammed my fist on the table, rattling the bottle of brandy sufficiently enough for my snifter to tip over and its contents to spill over my papers.
Oh, for god’s sake.
Burying my face into my hand, I groaned at the telltale alarm.
Ignoring the splattered mess, I stood abruptly, my chair scraping the wooden floor as it pushed back. “What the hell is she doing?”
Stopping to take a deep breath, I closed my eyes to locate that girl in my mind. I stopped short, my frown deepening, and with a loud, grumbling sigh, I whirled to grab my cloak off the hook by the door and teleported away.
With a burst of smoke, I reappeared above a lush, green landscape.
My nose twitched at the pungent scent of earth from the recent rain mingling with the fragrant trees wafting up to me. The cheery, yellow sun was bright in the sky amongst an assortment of fluffy, white clouds. The air was alive with the cawing, hoots, and howls of the forest animals.
Nothing at all like my remote, desolate corner of the world.
Tulgey Woods was a deceptive place. From a distance, it appeared to be a serene and peaceful forest, filled with charming little animals, and trees and flowers that were wont to chat you up if you dallied for too long.
But the wood was actually the home of a monstrous creature.
With eyes of flame, jaws that bite, and claws that catch, it would arrive like a dark shadow to engulf the entire forest if it sensed even a smidge of mystical power on its grounds.
Not exactly an ideal place to go gallivanting.
Spotting the young woman emerge from the darkness of the forest, my breathing eased a little. She probably almost got suffocated by the trees and flowers in the thick woods, but had fortunately made it out before any of the more carnivorous plants caught her scent.
Folding my arms across my chest, I hovered atop a Tumtum tree a few yards away.
Walking up toward a giant mushroom in a clearing, the girl tucked back her unruly brown hair blowing in the slight breeze. Her long, white lab coat fluttered behind her like a cape. She still wore the same clothes she was wearing when I’d found her.
The mystical fungus a shade too tall for her to prop her elbows on, the girl leaned on the tiptoes of her loafers to regard an inordinately large caterpillar that was perched upon it with a narrow-eyed look. “Hello?”
Not startled at all at the sight of her, the languid blue creature, three feet tall with a slimy, semi-transparent body, puffed smoke out from his gaudy hookah. “Who are you?”
The girl’s nose wrinkled in deep thought. “You know…I actually really literally don’t know.”
The pipe of the hookah poised near its mouth, the caterpillar shot her a look of ridicule. “What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!”
She chewed on her inner cheek, her tone matter-of-fact. “Oh, I don’t really understand it all myself so I’m afraid I can’t tell you who I really am. See?”
The caterpillar folded its arms across its chest. “I don’t see.”
“It’s just…I can’t seem to remember things.”
“Can’t remember what things?” the caterpillar prompted.
She frowned in contemplation. “Well, I heard I was found in an icy cave in the frozen wastes, left for dead. One of your world’s wizard guys rescued me. But when I woke up, I didn’t remember anything. Who I was.” She twirled a lock of hair around her index finger. “How I got here. Where I’m from.”
Wizard? My eyebrows snapped together in distaste at the term.
And how did she know what had happened anyway?
She wasn’t even telling it right—since I absolutely did not rescue her.
I wasn’t supposed to be at the frozen wasteland that day, those remote fringes along Wünder which people rarely visited, since I was in the middle of an assignment from the Queen.
But when I investigated inside that small, almost hidden cave, I’d found her.
Alone. Frozen. Nearly dead.
Then again, it wasn’t unusual.
Unscrupulous, or perhaps desperate, citizens often froze to death attempting to brave the many frigid frozen wastelands in search of mystical Heartfire embers.
The Queen certainly wasn’t handing them out. No, the Queen hired sorcerers like me to seek out and extract Heartfire magic from arguably its easiest source.
Thus, after a quick assessment determined that the girl was still alive, naturally, my first instinct had been to harvest her heart.
It should have been simple.
I would have left her body, delivered her heart to the Queen, and gone back to my clock tower to enjoy my life of solitude until I was called to duty once again.
End of story.
It wasn’t.
For the last couple of weeks, the strange young woman had spent delirious days in bed, indisposed, recovering from frostbite and near death. Installed in the little storage studio beneath my loft, I had successfully hidden her presence from the Queen’s envoys and the rest of the world—for now.
I had even intentionally selected to bed women who, while additionally skilled in medical training to check in on her to ensure her survival, were also steadfast with discretion. No mean feat.
So far, all I’d managed to gather by the reports from my women were hints that, judging by the girl’s clothing and manner of speaking, she may not be from Wünder altogether, which was a mystery in itself. Not to mention the fact that, for some reason, apparently, magic amazed her. It seemed that, to her, everything here was bizarre and new.
Since she wasn’t yet fit for questioning, I hadn’t spoken more than five words to her, let alone had any opportunities to tell her anything about what had happened. She couldn’t possibly have known about the cave.
Of course, there was no accounting for her guile. I didn’t know her at all. For starters, I couldn’t fathom how she’d escaped my tower to get all the way to this forest. According to the last report I had received, the girl was still meant to be bedridden, supposedly too weak.
She must have recovered faster than she was letting on. She must have been sneaking around and eavesdropping the other day when that cat had dropped by again to snoop around and prattle my ear off about things.
A nerve ticked in my cheek in my annoyance. I swear to god—
I was going to gut that cat the next time I saw it.
After I gutted her.
“Who are you?” the caterpillar snapped again.
The girl winced at the creature’s brusque response but she probably figured she might as well respond. “I guess you can call me Allie,” she declared, looking a bit miffed. “Honestly, it’s been quite a rough few weeks. I mean, if you forgot who you were, and found yourself in a strange place, you could probably really use something to relax too, couldn’t you?”
“Not a bit.”
Allie’s forehead creased. “Why am I even having this discussion with a talking caterpillar?” Shaking her head, she blinked a few times before turning away.
“Come back!” the caterpillar called out. “I’ve something important to say!”
She glanced over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“You’ll get used to it in no time,” the caterpillar stated, put the hookah back into its mouth, and began smoking again.
She looked around, at a loss. “What, you mean being here?”
The caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth once more and yawned. Then it began to slither slowly down off the mushroom, crawling away on the grass, merely remarking as it went, “One side will bring you up, and the other side will bring you down.”
Her lips pursed. “The sides of what?”
“Of the mushroom,” the caterpillar finished before it disappeared into the woods.
Just then, a low rumbling from across the valley caught my attention. Glancing up, I clenched my jaw.
Here it comes.
The shadow.