The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©

Chapter Thirteen: Introductions

              “What do you mean ‘he ran away’?” Izreea demanded the projected image of Jareth’s face in front of her.

She was in the attic again, having raced out of bed to answer Jareth’s surprise communication request. He was only supposed to call at specific times unless there was an emergency. Although this did classify as some sort of emergency, she was still frustrated at being awoken and angry at the fear he had caused by calling in the first place. After all, they could have been injured.

“‘From me.’ I said, ‘he ran away from me,’” Jareth said a little louder than he had intended, which earned him a hard glare in return. He decided to try again.

“He did not ‘run away,’ which implies he intended to get away from me. He was running after some path of flowers that appeared to be disintegrating, and he just went faster and faster until I could no longer see him,” Jareth explained.

“Disintegrating lowers?” Izreea said out loud but softly, as if she was speaking to herself.

“I doubt they were real flowers. They seemed to be piggybacked magic off of one of my ward stones but used in a way I had never seen before,” Jareth said in response to her unintended question.

“Jareth, let’s focus on finding him and making sure he is safe. Then, we can figure out what happened with these flowers. Do you have any idea where he ended up?” She asked.

“That’s the main reason why I contacted you. When he left, he was holding a ward stone, so I could scry its location since it was my own magic I was looking for. However, the location is exactly where I placed the glyph on the Jackal, so I want to make sure the scrying was accurate. Can you confirm where he is using the beacon on his cloak? That way, I can confirm with my scrying that I did indeed find him,” Jareth explained.

Izreea’s breath caught in her throat at the thought of the glyph and the Jackal, and from the look in Jareth’s eye, he had the same concerns. If that Jackal gets a hold of the boy before the glyph fades, she will either lose Jareth or the world. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Trying to mask her concerns as she knew Jareth was, Izreea responded.

“I can activate the beacon, but once I activate it, anyone searching that area will also be able to find him like a moth to the flame, and we can only deactivate it in person.”

“I don’t see what choice we have. Let’s hope no one is looking there, as we shouldn’t be anywhere near that place yet,” Jareth responded.

“Well, if he is there, all we can do is get to him as soon as possible. As much as I hate to admit it, the warlocks could shave weeks off of the journey since they know the area well enough to portal around,” Izreea said.

“True enough, I’ll heal the horses to strengthen them so I can keep a fast pace. I should be able to reach their nearest village a day early. Hopefully, that isn’t a bad omen to them for some reason. You know how they are,” Jareth said with disdain.

“Be careful, Jareth. Healing isn’t exactly your specialty. Oh, and do me a favor … do not heal the pack horse. He is on a special diet and will not need healing. You’ll see what I mean when you get to The Garden,” Izreea said like it was an everyday request.

There was no chance she would have missed a transformation spell of her people, so she was fully aware that the pack horse was the druid and did not want Jareth to interact with him. She thought of exposing him and letting Jareth deal with the intruder, but she thought she saw a concealment spell on his face just before the druid turned into a bird and darted away. It was very well done, but for the briefest moment, she saw Jonathan as he was as a man standing before her. She had no proof, only suspicion rolled into an exhausted moment from a stressful day, so she had decided not to tell Jonathan. The news would send him into a frenzy, and they must stay focused on the task at hand. One rescue at a time.

Jareth was visibly perplexed by her request not to heal the horse and didn’t quite know what to say. Her request didn’t make sense, even with her natural abilities, since she could have provided the same dietary benefit to all the horses. She knew he would never follow her instructions if she left them as they were and that she had to give him more information.

“Jareth, I need you to trust me. There is something special about that animal, and I don’t want you to heal him, please.”

“Izzy, that doesn’t make any-”

“No questions, Jareth,” she said with finality.

Izreea knew her husband well enough to know that he hated everything about this. He hated not knowing why she was asking this of him and why she wasn’t explaining herself. He felt guilty for wanting to ignore her request, to heal the animal anyway, and to metaphorically dissect the entire situation, animal included, to see what was so special about it. He hated that he would let her get away with something like this in the middle of a crisis, and they both knew that he loved her enough to leave all of this unspoken, even if it was plain as the nose on his face.

“Very well,” he said with a long sigh of released frustration.

She puckered her lips and blew him a kiss to let him know he was appreciated. He gave her an eye roll and a small smile.

“Alright, go ahead and activate the cloak and tell me where your map shows him to be.”

Izreea purposefully walked to the stacked containers against the wall holding all their storage items. She had recently assembled a chest specific to this journey for quick access, just in case she needed to find a few items in a hurry. She quickly located it, pulled it down from the pile, and walked it over to the desk on the opposite wall.

The chest was large enough to hold some possessions but small enough to easily lash to a horse behind a rider if necessary. There were five oddly shaped buttons on the lid close to the seam of the bottom and top portions of the chest. The shapes were distinct enough to show five individual buttons, but they all fit together like a puzzle to create a solid bar of ivory. The symbols were only simple letters in the alphabet of her people, but few humans could understand or speak her tongue, let alone read it.

Izreea had associated the code with the tune of a child’s lullaby to help her memorize it, and she hummed the tune to herself as she pressed the buttons in the correct order to open the chest, some buttons being pressed multiple times. She was very careful to get it right since the chest would become permanently locked if the code was entered enough times incorrectly. Then it would have to be opened by a locksmith of her people, which would require a very long journey.

She finished the melody, and with a small click, the chest unlocked. Two bars slide out of the sides of the lid, one on the left side closest to Izreea and one on the right side close to the back of the box. They were simple handles to help remove the lid as it did not have a hinge. She lifted the lid off the chest and set it on the floor next to her.

Inside the chest were a few common odds and ends suitable for traveling, such as a compass and a flint stick. There were also over a dozen unique items. There was a rolled-up map bound with a leather string, a feather from Jonathan’s body, a small sphere of hollow glass with a glowing thread inside, and a lock of Jareth’s hair which they had exchanged at their wedding ceremony.

Next to those was a pair of small unique sickle scythes. The handles were short like a hatchet, and the entire piece had been forged from one smooth piece of ore the color of the sea. The blade’s curve was not nearly as prominent as a farmer’s sickle nor as sharp, although they were still sharp enough to pierce flesh. The weapons were also enhanced with dark runes, designed to be hidden in the shadows since glowing runes would give away your presence and position. With enough light, the runes were plainly visible.

The entire purpose of these weapons was to grapple onto a lycanthrope or revenant and not let go of them. Once the weapon was embedded in their skin the runes would act as an anchor to this world, blocking the shadow. This would keep a revenant from disappearing into the shadows around you and instantly change a lycanthrope back into human form. In either situation, you still had to fight them, but the odds of victory significantly increased.

Izreea reached into the chest and grabbed the rolled-up map and the hollow glass sphere with the glowing thread, the same thread she had used to sew the symbol on the back of the boy’s cloak. She removed the string holding the map and unrolled it on top of the table while holding onto the sphere.

The map was alive with information the moment it was open. It glowed slightly, and objects appeared to stand up from the map’s surface with vivid detail. It was an illusion, of course. Touching the glowing map revealed it to be smooth, but watching it was still mesmerizing. There were also very simple colors used on the map. Blue for water, green for vegetation, brown for roads and buildings, and gray for mountains. The map always centered on the location of the person using it, so the very center of the map was a bird’s eye view of her house. All around her house was the city of Dule Van in great detail, as accurate as if the map was written yesterday, and the landscape around it stretched for a few miles in each direction.

Very faint perpendicular dotted lines crisscrossed the map, creating a grid system. She could touch any intersecting line on the map and see a number code for that square. There were any number of mapping systems approved by the cartography guild in Jersal, but this system was by far the most common and the most accepted. She had no idea what the numbers were derived from, but she understood how to use them to find what she needed.

The map was the most valuable item she owned. It was a gift from Ferin when she passed her trials to become a Night Stalker. Her parents had been adamantly against her becoming a Night Stalker. When Ferin gave her this gift, she felt he was the only one who understood her youthfully rebellious decision to become a Night Stalkers in the first place.

Close to thirty years of marriage to a master of the arcane had opened her eyes to many things, including the cost of certain magical items. This item required information to be willingly extracted from the memory of people in the locations mapped. This was far more accurate than a hand-written map, and there was no danger or harm done to the person giving the memories, all of whom were members of the cartographer’s guild. Once that is done, the hundreds of downloaded locations that had been separately mapped were magically combined into this one map.

It was impossible for Ferin, or his family even, to have purchased or created such a map. The only logical conclusion would be that Izreea’s parents must have funded the gift. If she had known that at the time, things would have been different between them. At least she would have known they supported her decision on some level.

 Izreea was pulled from her thoughts when she heard a horse whinny through the communication portal Jareth was using. Shaking off the moment, she dropped the glass ball onto the attic floor, where the tempered glass broke without shattering. She sifted through the square pieces, grabbed the thin string, and placed it on the map. Immediately the thread floated into the air and hovered a few inches over the map.

The map’s surface began to slide towards the south as if a scroll was constantly being unrolled on one end of the map and rolled up on the other. The speed of the scrolling gradually increased until the landscape was nothing but blurred colors racing by. This continued for a moment or two until the scroll suddenly stopped.

The landscape on the map appeared to be the outer edge of an old forest next to a large open area. The open green area ended near the ascending slope of a mountain, which was barely visible on the outskirts of the map. The open area was large, more than a day’s journey across on horseback, and was light green, which usually meant small vegetation such as grass, flowers, or bushes.  The trees on the map were dark green and mounded out of the map’s surface with its magical illusion to show the height of the vegetation.

By this time, Izreea had noticed the thread had floated back to the very center of the map, landing directly on the border between the forest and the field on the opposite side of where the mountains were located. Izreea touched the area of the map where the thread lay, and the number system built into the map raised itself for her to read. She wrote down the number with a pencil and a piece of paper found in one of the drawers of the workbench so she wouldn’t forget it and walked back over to the communication portal.

“I have the coordinates, Jareth. It looks like he is close to The Garden, so that is some good news, at least. He is on the south side of The Great Scar on the edge of the trees and is currently not moving,” Izreea said while reading the numbers to him for good measure.

“Where the portal opened …” Jareth said firmly before taking a deep breath and continuing with, “…well, that confirms the direction and distance of the ward-stone, any further, and I wouldn’t have found it at all,” Jareth said loud enough to be heard, but softly as if to himself.

Izreea knew he would often speak like that when he was deep in thought, usually trying to narrow down his options and having difficulty doing so. Eventually, he would start to speak his thoughts out loud as if he wanted help, but she learned years ago that help was the last thing he wanted in those situations. She respected and admired her husband’s decision-making skills, and he always came to the same outcome that she would have come to if she were making the decision, but they were running out of time and did not have the luxury of processing.

Firmly, but not unkindly, she started to speak.

“Now that the beacon is activated, you must reach him as soon as possible. Jonathan is meeting you today, right? I think you two should travel to the warlocks as fa-”

“Darling, are you still planning on coming with him to meet me?” Jareth said suddenly, taking her completely off guard.

She stared at him silently for quite some time before responding with a simple “Yes.”

“Then I have an idea, it’s a long shot, but if we time it right, we should be able to pull it off,” Jareth said.

“What is your idea,” Izreea said, far too calmly for someone being called out on keeping a secret, and they both knew it.

It was one thing for him to find out about her coming with Jonathan and confront her about it, but knowing and saying nothing was another matter entirely. For all she knew, he had taken steps to prevent it and wasn’t saying anything about it.

That was just the type of thing he and his brother would do to me, she thought to herself, knowing how silly it was the moment she thought it.

Jareth may claim ignorance of information to avoid a confrontation he knew he would lose, but he was not about to deceive her into getting his way. That sounded much more like his brother. Jareth had also noticed how calm she was when she responded and wisely chose to ignore it and instead explained his idea.

“Even changed as he is, Jonathan continues to study the unknown, and being a familiar has given him a unique perspective on how familiars can trav-”

Jareth cut himself off when he noticed how his wife looked at him.

“Yes, well, the details can wait. Essentially Jonathan thinks he can combine the teleporting he can do and the gateways we can make so that anyone can travel the way he does as long as he is with them,” he said quickly.

“Setting aside the fact that you have to imprint with an area by being in it for some time before you can attempt to make a gateway to it, and the fact that none of us could make a gateway to a place that far away … what would be the point? The result is the same; whether we just make a gate or use this mixed transportation, we will still arrive in the same place,” Izreea said as softly as before, still unsure if she wanted to be angry.

Jareth quickly muttered something under his breath, but she only caught a few words that sounded like “This … I like … explain mys-….” before he continued in a normal voice again.

“Right, it is basically the same concept, except anyone could exit or enter the portal at any time between the two points of the gate, at least as long as the gates are open,” he said with as non-confrontational of a voice as he could muster.

“So essentially, when the gates and portal are combined, it makes some sort of magical tunnel with doorways between the entrance and exit of the gates,” Izreea said.

“Exactly! Theoretically, it would work the same way some entities shadow walk; you are still physically walking somewhere, but the distance is significantly shortened.” Jareth said with excitement, his cautious tone giving way to the usual enthusiasm he showed when teaching something new to someone.

He really is a great teacher, she thought to herself.

“What if the gates are closed while people are inside the tunnel?” She asked with some semblance of warmth in her voice, pausing before asking more questions. “Has Jon been able to test any of this? Are you sure he can even open such a tunnel?” Izreea asked.

“He has some experience opening portals to other dimensions and is very knowledgeable about gates and how they work, so he should be able to create the tunnel,” he replied.

“And I assume you wish to enter the tunnel and use it to meet us at the far end, but how will you find it?” She asked.

“I don’t think I could find the tunnel if I wanted to since that part of the spell is made up of the familiar’s world, but I know I could find you as you traveled through the tunnel,” he said firmly.

He was referring to their bonding, a traditional ceremony her people used to link two individuals together. The ceremony was most commonly used in marriages, but a version had also been adopted for pairs of Night Stalkers. The benefits were mild, such as knowing the general location of someone you are linked to, their extreme moods, or if they died. That was why Izreea had a white streak in her hair from Ferin’s death.

“Some simple magic could increase the strength of the bond, turning it into a short-distance beacon, but then what? How will knowing I’m in a tunnel you cannot create, no matter how close you are to me, help you to join me in that tunnel,” she asked fervently.

“It won’t, but it will help you know how close you are to me, and you’ll be with my brother so you can tell him when to make a doorway in the side of the tunnel he created,” he replied.

“Jareth … this seems like a very long shot, and why did you not use this to reach The Garden in the first place?” she said.

“Jonathan absolutely refused to try. He said it was only theoretical and had no idea how it would affect anyone traveling in the tunnel. When I tried to press the issue, he went off on a tangent about insects or animals entering the tunnel and swapping bodies with people,” Jareth replied with some frustration.

Jareth so rarely spoke ill of his brother that she almost felt he deserved to be able to say something negative, but this was again not the time for things like that.

“He’s a little traumatized by what happened. You can’t blame him for being overly cautious, especially with his own family,” she said, choosing her words carefully.

“I know he is, the same way I know he is listening to this conversation,” Jareth said with a raised voice.

Jonathan suddenly appeared standing on the scrying pillar in the center of the room near Jareth’s projection as if he had been there all along, thankfully without the eccentric bolt of lightning that he was so fond of. His entire neck and head bristled with blue feathers, and he stood stiffly without moving. At first, Izreea thought he was angry.

“That gated tunnel is dangerous, Big-J, and you know it,” Jonathan said with much less anger than Izreea had anticipated.

The lack of anger in his voice and the use of a ridiculous school pet name for his brother confirmed that Jonathan was on the defensive, not angry, much more so than she thought he would be for simple eavesdropping. That was mild, almost expected of him from her point of view.

“Maybe because you are about as forthright in your reasoning against the tunnel as you are in all of our conversations Little-J,” Jareth shouted back.

Jonathan and Jareth started speaking simultaneously, throwing accusations and defensive arguments at each other, trying to shout over each other in their attempts to be heard.

As Izreea tried to piece together bits and pieces of the conversation, she realized that Jareth was also not acting as expected for catching his brother doing something so simple as eavesdropping. Between that fact and the bits and pieces of words they were shouting at each other, Izreea realized she was being excluded from a much deeper conversation and would be having none of that.

“Silence! Both of you,” She demanded at the top of her lungs.

They both fell silent and looked at her in surprise.

“Jareth, it is obvious that you know something that Jon has been hiding, but you aren’t sure if what you know is the only thing he is hiding. So you are trying to bait him into giving more information away,” she said, pointing her finger at the man’s projection before ripping it over to Jonathan while taking a breath.

“And judging by your defensive reaction, you were caught doing something you thought was untraceable, and you do not know what other secrets of yours may have been uncovered, and you are too afraid to admit anything until you do,” she snapped at the bird, whose feathers had flattened against his body.

She was thoroughly convinced that both men in her family were too flustered and focused on each other’s faults to realize that she had no idea what was happening and preferred it that way.

“Now, Jonathan. Are you aware of what happened with the boy and where he is currently located? Or were you not eavesdropping long enough to hear that part?”

“He is anything but a boy, but yes, I am aware of what happened,” Jonathan said curtly, a feather or too bristling as he spoke.

Izreea realized her window of coercing him into spilling his secrets was shrinking and said, “We are running out of time. Tell us everything.”

There was a long stretch of silence where Jonathan stared at her. For a moment, she thought he would retreat into his shell and keep his secrets to himself, but eventually, he spoke … in the form of a spell.

She immediately recognized the spell as a truth spell, something short-lived but binding, causing the one who casts it and anyone who heard it to tell the truth. These spells were simple and weak, and any child with even a year’s training could have stopped it from working on them if they wanted to. Knowing she could break the spell any time, Izreea decided to play along and let the spell work itself on her without resistance.

“I do not see the point, but I’ll play along,” she said.

“The point is I’m tired of not being trusted, and if something this simple will make you believe me, then I’m going to do it,” Jonathan said bluntly.

The bird let out a huge sigh before beginning.

“Several months ago, I ran into the dignitary from the kanidians. They send one every year to inspect our castle’s weaknesses. After one hundred years of peace, it had become simply a tradition for the high council, but Jaya treated it as a solemn duty that could save lives, and I respected her for that.”

“She is a seeker, which alone should have commanded all of your respect, notwithstanding her dedication to a tradition you find worthless,” Jareth interrupted.

Jonathan turned to his brother’s projection, even though he knew Jareth couldn’t see him without a seer stone, and put his wings in the air as if to calm him down.

“I know, and I showed her respect. I really did! You can ask Izreea.”

Izreea still did not know why seekers were so respected and wanted Jonathan to continue with his story, so she simply nodded to end the argument.

Jareth seemed pacified, so Jonathan turned back to Izreea and continued.

“When we first met, she knew a lot about me, things that pretty much you two and only a few select high council members knew. She never once thought I was a bird or even a familiar. She knew my name and Kentor. She knew who you two were and even knew about Katerina before I told her and Izreea about her. I mean, she didn’t know what happened or any details about her, just that I had an old pain I covered up. She said she could read it in my shadow, although I’m still not sure what that actually means.

“Anyway, in time, we became friends. We often met in the library to discuss books she had found about magic, history, stories, legends, and prophecies. I enjoyed our discussions and continued to meet with her, sometimes daily. Over time I began to see a pattern in our discussion. No matter how many topics or subjects we discussed, she always brought our conversation back to prophecies concerning the return of the dragons and the end of time. I didn’t think much of it until those slavers arrived with a bunch of slaves, including some boy who somehow drained the energy from an arcane orb, something we thought was impossible.

“Jaya asked me about the incident in the market before I had even heard what had happened. Later, Jareth and I discussed what had happened and what it could mean, and I started thinking about what Jaya and I had discussed. It dawned on me that she had stayed at the school months longer than any of her predecessors, and she clearly had an agenda of some kind.”

“She’s a seeker, Jon. What possible agenda could she have that wasn’t aimed at improving the world?” Jareth asked.

“Can someone please tell me what a seeker is?” Izreea demanded suddenly, causing Jonathan to jump in surprise. “Besides the observable concept of a mystical, female kanidian, of course.”

Jareth seemed to take point on this one.

“Izzy, I know this is a simple question, but please bear with me; you remember what a revenant is?” Jareth asked.

With an annoyed tone, she said, “Yes, a deceased body brought back to life by a lost soul wanting to live again. Something I have hunted and killed countless times. What of it?”

“Yes, and there are many different kinds based on the age of the soul, the body, if they were murdered, magical in life, etc.” Jonathan added before Jareth took back over.

“Okay, so a seeker is a kanidian who has undergone a death ritual, causing their body to become a reservoir for those discontented lost souls. They can absorb and hold these souls within their body without causing the seeker any harm or becoming a revenant themselves,” Jareth said.

“What a minute; so, she’s actually dead? So how is she not considered a revenant already?” Izreea asked with alarm, her eyes shifting to the chest on the desk with her runed scythes in them.

“Although she indeed died so her body could be altered to hold other souls, she was revived before any permanent damage was done. It would be the same as someone drowning and briefly being considered dead, but then being resuscitated before their body was affected by the death.” Jareth said.

“Okay, we’ll talk about how they did all of that later, but what happens to the souls once she absorbs them?” Izreea asked

“There is a place she can take the souls to be … deposited, for lack of a better word. I do not know where they actually go, but it is far better than allowing them to become revenants and hurt people,” Jareth said.

“So, for being willing to harness these souls, they are deeply respected?” she asked.

“Well, it isn’t just about harvesting souls, although that is indeed part of it. In addition, they also give up the ability to have children and risk becoming lich when they die. You probably already know this, but a lich is one of the most powerful and rarest forms of revenants, but a closely guarded secret of the kanidians is that a lich is only created when a seeker dies while holding multiple souls within them. The souls, or at least their malice, somehow fuses with the seeker’s soul to create the lich,” Jareth said.

Izreea had a wealth of emotions overcome her as she listened to her husband’s words. She had never given him the details of how Ferin had passed, and he had not pried, feeling it was none of his business. He could not have known that underestimating a lich was why she held a white streak in her hair. Knowing where lich came from only made her more confused about why human magi greatly respected seekers.

She realized she had been lost in thought, and Jonathan had just started saying something to her.

“I’m sorry. Could you start over, please? I was … thinking,” she said politely.

“I was saying the souls which seekers harness from the world are documented when they are deposited, so we can know the names of souls saved that belonged to our order, souls that could have become powerful revenants. When the war with the Jackals was over, seekers came by the dozens and took any discontented souls that had perished from the battle, so they could have their chance at finding peace. A very large number of magi struck down by the Jackal were numbered among these souls, so we respect and honor the seekers to this day,” Jonathan said.

Izreea could see somewhat why the magi had such strong respect for seekers, and in some ways, she could also find respect for them. Volunteering one’s body and fertility to pursue a life of saving lost souls with the hope of preventing monsters from being created is certainly respectable. It reminded her somewhat of the great heroine in her society who gave up their entire mathenetal to save their people.

However, knowing the source of the lich, a creature that caused her so much grief and pain, stirred some memories from her past that she had not dwelt on in a very long time. She knew she still had some inner demons to deal with, and she was not sure she was ready to face them.

“Thank you both for explaining what a seeker was. I believe Jonathan was telling an unbelievable story before I interrupted him…” she said casually with an open hand, inviting him to take over the conversation.

Jonathan took the invitation with a curt nod and said, “Right, right, as I was saying. I had grown a little … curious about the seeker’s motivations for staying at the school so long and for discussing these ancient prophecies and legends involving the return of the guardian and the end of the world.

“So, I started following her, which was difficult considering she can shadow walk. It took a few weeks, but eventually, I followed her to this hidden room that had not been used for centuries. I still have no idea how she knew it was there, but inside the room, all of these statues were on these long tables. At the very end of the table was a gesangnus, a very weak gesangnus, I might add,” Jonathan said

The information was received with stunned silence. Izreea and Jareth knew well what a gesangnus was. It meant ‘prison’ in the old tongue, and there had only been a handful of them ever made, and all of them had been made for a very specific entity to be contained. When one prison weakened, the soul was transferred to the next. The transition was meant to be smooth, but twice, the soul had escaped and had to be hunted down before it was contained again.

“Are you telling me that the seeker has found the most current gesangnus, that it is weak enough that the creature could escape, and the seeker is not doing anything about it?” Jareth asked.

“I do not have any proof, but I believe the seeker was communicating with the creature somehow,” Jonathan replied.

“But to what end?” Izreea asked quizzically.

 “Everyone knows this creature has done nothing but sow death and corruption every time it has escaped. The last time it was released, our entire continent was almost overrun by a few thousand Jackals, all imbued with immunities and powers from that creature,”.

“Well, since this is a soul, an extremely evil and powerful soul, but still a soul, I can only speculate she is here as a seeker to make sure it is contained when it does break free. I have full trust in her end goals, but I believe she is misguided in her process to accomplish those goals. Communicating with the beast will not help anyone.”

“I find it disturbing that you so casually leave out facts that would incriminate your own schemes, my son,” Jaya’s voice said from the darkness around them.

Instantly Izreea entered the wick and threw her most powerful protection spell around her body while casting an orb of light from her left hand into the attic rafters. The orb spun into the air, quickly gaining strength in a matter of seconds until it shone as bright as the sun into the room, blocking all shadows from forming. As the darkness fled the room, Jaya was thrown out of the wall as the shadow she had been hiding in disappeared.

Jaya hit the ground with a grunt, covering her sensitive eyes from the sudden light. Izreea took the seeker’s momentary disorientation to race to the desk where her chest was to grab her scythes. With one in each hand, she whirled around to face her target and crouched down on the haunch of her right leg with her left leg extended in front of her but touching the ground for balance. One scythe was held over her head at a ninety-degree angle, and the other straight out in front of her. She was ready to dance with the kanidian.

Jonathan started laughing, and even Jareth had a smile on his face looking at the projection of his wife ready to battle creatures of the night with her scythes. It was an impressive display. Izreea could see Jaya’s dazed and surprised expression, and it was clear she had not come to do battle. She even glimmered softly from the truth spell, which she had not tried to prevent when Jonathan had cast it.

Their mirth was lost to Izreea, who was having flashes in her mind of a lich ripping the soul from Ferin’s body. She knew she was not here to fight a lich, and she knew her reaction to Jaya’s entrance was to the extreme, but she was tired of secrets and schemes and people coming out of thin air in her own home, a home that was strongly warded to prevent such things. She continued to stand battle ready if only to show she would not take any more filth from anyone.

As Izreea stood her ground, Jonathan and Jareth silenced their laughter. They realized that Izreea was on edge but weren’t entirely sure why. On the other hand, Jaya knew exactly why Izreea was acting the way she was. The kanidian rose slowly to her feet and bowed to Izreea deeply. She then straightened and spoke quickly and with the utmost respect.

“Matriarch of this home, I apologize for entering without permission and submit myself to your will,” Jaya said.

She is perceptive. I’ll give her that, Izreea thought to herself.

Izreea held her stance for another moment before slowly raising to her feet, her arms still held in their position, one above her head and the other pointing at Jaya. She slowly dropped her arms but kept her defensive shield to drive her point home.

Izreea pointed a scythe at Jaya and then let it sweep across to the projection of her husband and then to Jonathan.

“I’m tired of secrets. I’m tired of surprises. I’m tired of rushing from my bed to hear bad news. Everything is on the table right now, or I’ll go find this boy myself, and he and I will save the world, and you all can drown for all I care,” she said angrily.

There was nothing but silence in the bright attic as Izreea calmly placed the two scythes into the chest on the desk, canceled her shield spell, and sat in the chair next to the desk. She then pointed a finger at Jaya.

 “You start.”

Jaya gave a small bow of acknowledgment, then looked at the orb hovering in the rafters for a moment, her eyes squinting. Izreea sighed and reduced the light from the orb to that of a standard lantern and tied it off so it would last about an hour. Then she gave the seeker a sarcastic smile.

Jaya ignored the smile completely.

“I know some of what I am about to tell you is already known, so I will try to be brief for the sake of time.

“It is true that my people send a seeker every year to inspect the defenses of Dule Van, more specifically, the castle which houses your school of gifted. Although we are diligent in this task, it is only a cover for our true purpose: to monitor the status of the current gesangnus. The room that holds the gesangnus does not exist in our world, although truthfully, my people don’t know where it came from. I can only assume it was created for the singular purpose of housing this beast.

“In this room, I was privileged to speak with the memory of the seeker responsible for our current gesangnus. He taught much which was unknown to me and my kind. Apparently, thirteen of these prisons were originally created by dardwain seekers, not kanidians as our history tells.”

Jonathan appeared excited by this information, but before he could say anything, Jaya waved him to silence and continued speaking.

“Each Prison was designed to last a dispensation of one thousand years. Thirteen thousand years should have been enough time to find a way to permanently imprison, or preferably destroy the beast. Unfortunately knowing they had thirteen thousand years made people feel comfortable with putting the issue aside for another generation to deal with.

“At some point, my ancestors began keeping a vigil of the gesangnus, but our records are based on generations, not rotations of the planet and the sun, so the exact number of years was not counted as it should have been. The beast had plenty of time to learn the workings of its cages. According to your calendar, the current gesangnus is barely one hundred years old, and it is already close to breaking.”

“Are there any prisons left?” Jareth asked.

“We thought there was one more left, but our records are less than accurate, and there is no other gesangnus in the room with the beast. It appears all of them have been used in less than five thousand of your years instead of the thirteen which had been anticipated.

“It was not until our annual visit last year that our mistake had been fully realized, which is why I was sent to deal with the beast this year. I am not just a seeker. I am the Muddrea Seeches, the Mother Seeker, the strongest seeker of my people. If the beast broke free, my body could potentially act as a temporary prison until another gesangnus could be constructed.

“This is why I am still here. This is why your council has given me unfettered access to the castle and why they feared this young Sparrow you stole away from them, Master Jareth. Did you ever wonder why you were not pursued when you left the school? Or why they did not come down on your home and your mate with retribution? I do not believe Marcus could have stopped them without the use of force, which he is not yet willing to do.”

 Rather than waiting for him to answer, she answered her own question.

“Because many of your high council answer to another on the matter of your young ward. They believe you are already traveling to your doom, so why give chase? I do not know the details of their arrangement with the warlocks, but they would turn the boy over to them.”

Before Jareth had time to respond, Jaya turned to Jonathan and spoke.

“And they also fear the empty one, which I helped secret away from them for Master Jonathan, more than they fear the Sparrow, I believe. I fear him as well, for he is a shell without a soul and thus would make a perfect home for the beast once he is freed. This is why I agreed to remove him from the castle and placed him in the care of my granddaughter and her adopted father.”

“What!?” Jonathan exclaimed loudly with his beak hanging open from shock.

“Yes, Jonathan, my dear friend. I have deceived you once again. Although my intentions were honorable, and I still hope you find a way to transfer yourself into that body as you planned, it was my wish that the empty shell leaves the castle in secret to create distance from the imprisoned beast, and you facilitated that need while also keeping him hidden for me.”

Izreea immediately picked up on the fact that seekers were supposed to be infertile, but Jaya had just stated she had a granddaughter. Izreea assumed it was possible that Jaya had children before becoming a seeker, or she could have adopted someone who later had a child. Regardless of what had happened, Izreea felt it was not important enough to ask.

“I think I have more questions than answers at this point, but where are these people you mentioned?” Izreea asked from her chair.

Jonathan was shaking his head in dumbfounding disbelief and muttering about plans and deceptions.

“Why not! I guess it’s my turn to spill the beans! Not that it hasn’t all been according to someone else’s puppet strings anyway,” he grumbled loudly as he turned to the corner of the room and created a gateway.

As the gate snapped and rotated open, a view of the inside of an expensive-looking inn greeted them. Sitting at a small table was an extraordinarily plain-looking man, or boy; it was impossible to tell which, staring at the gate. There was also an empty, four-post bed and a couch with a matching loveseat by a fireplace. On the loveseat sat a kanidian staring at the portal while lowering a book from her face. Then an extremely lean man came from somewhere out of view, probably another room behind the gateway, and started giving directions to grab traveling bags from the corner of the room.

The kanidian started loading a bag on each shoulder as the skinny man prodded the person at the table to his feet, almost pulling him before he responded slowly. Once he was standing, the skinny man put a backpack on the other man, or boy, and tied the two straps across his chest with a leather rope. It was apparent from the way the person stood that the backpack would have fallen off his shoulders without the strap, and he would not have noticed.

The trio walked through the gate into the slightly crowded attic, and the skinny man immediately walked up to Izreea and bowed low. He straightened and took her hand in his.

“Good Morning, my dear. My name is Colson. Might I have the pleasure?” Colson said without a trace of his Acondan accent.

Jonathan growled and muttered, “Found his ‘g’s I see,” before flapping his wings loudly to get the room’s attention.

“Okay, listen up! All of you know me, and apparently, all of you now know Jaya! The angry-looking dardwain by the desk is Izreea, and she’s married to Jareth, the floating head in the center of the room, who is also my Brother, a recently defrocked Elder of Dule Van.

“From Jaya’s lovely description, I’m sure we have all figured out that the skinny one is Colson, the much younger, although somehow graying kanidian is Myrum, and Drock is the clueless one staring at Jareth’s projection. Don’t take it personally, Jareth. He just stares at the strongest source of magic in the room, which just so happens to be your face at the moment.”

Jonathan kept talking before anyone could say or do anything, except for Izreea taking her hand back from Colson.

“Now that introductions are out of the way, let’s catch everyone up, shall we? The boy, as some people call him, somehow ran all the bloody way to the meadow located outside the stone garden in just about ten minutes flat. He most likely has no idea how he did it or how to get back to Jareth and will probably sleep for a few days from the strain he put on his body because magic is funny that way.

“Additionally, the angry one by the desk activated a beacon on the boy so we could locate him, which will also draw the attention of anyone else scrying for him, which we now know includes some contracted warlocks. So! We need to get to him before they do, and the only idea we have so far is an experimental blend of gates and portals which could kill anyone using it. Any suggestions would be welcome,” he finished sarcastically, puffing out his feathered chest.

“Thank you for that informative display of hope and enlightenment, brother,” Jareth said calmly from his projection.

Izreea laughed softly at how ridiculously timed the family banter was when she realized everyone was chuckling or smiling softly to themselves. Well, everyone except the oddly blank-looking man staring at Jareth.

Humor wasn’t such a bad thing for the situation this group was facing, she thought to herself.

Then her husband ruined the moment by reminding everyone of the tasks at hand.

“I still believe the wisest course of action is to use the portal I’ve suggested by combining traditional gates with Jonathan’s teleportation ability,” he said.

“Master Jareth, I disagree,” Jaya said respectfully. “I believe it would be unwise to attempt to incorporate a gateway with Master Jonathan’s teleporting skill since he is the only sentient being to have used it. He doesn’t even know how he teleports the way he does. It is as simple to him as breathing.”

“Why don’t we make a shadow gate then?” Myrum asked passively from the other side of the room.

Jaya let out an instant bark of anger, a literal bark like an animal, and snapped with a growl, “Hold your tongue, child!”

Myrum said nothing in response, but the scruff on her neck rose visibly, and her tail lashed slightly. Jaya’s scruff rose in response, and they stood there staring at each other with their nostrils flaring.

It was not clear whether Myrum was simply irritated at being reprimanded or challenging her grandmother, and there was no sign of any mental communication between them. Izreea wondered if the tension between them was due to a family hierarchy, a cultural hierarchy, or a mix of the two. Regardless the awkwardness was thick as silt as the room watched the two silently battle for dominance.

“Jaya, if Myrum inherited even the smallest portion of the resolve I have seen you display, you could be fighting for control for quite some time. If there is a chance it could help us reach the Garden, please let her speak,” Jonathan said cautiously.

The family members continued to stare at each other for a moment before Myrum backed down. The scruff of her neck smoothed, and she seemed to relax visibly. Despite submitting to her grandmother’s will, she had an air of satisfaction about her, most likely due to Jonathan’s support.

“Master Jonathan,” Jaya said with a tight voice as she turned to stare at him. She was clearly insulted and not trying to hide it. “My granddaughter and I did not just have a feral battle for dominance like some archaically symbolic wolf pack! Myrum broke tradition by even speaking of shadow gates, let alone suggesting we create one.”

It was clear that Jonathan did not mean to offend the kanidians, which was about as typical as the man-turned-familiar could get. He stammered for a moment before catching himself.

“I did not mean any offense, Seeker,” he said.

The use of her title seemed to pacify Jaya somewhat, reminding her that she had a responsibility to fulfill. She put both hands up to her face and rubbed her eyes while letting out a long sigh before sitting on the ground as if in defeat.

“I have been feeling my age as of late,” Jaya said softly, sighing again as she sat staring at the ground, seeking an escape from the inevitable conversation before her.

Kanidian’s fur did not change color with age, but there was a mantle of wisdom that only time and experience could bring to any being. That mantel weighed heavily upon Jaya as she sat on the attic floor. After a moment, Myrum walked over to her grandmother and sat beside her. She did not touch her in any way, but anyone could see she was hovering protectively over her grandmother.

Myrum’s presence brought her eyes up from the ground to look at her descendant, and she gave her a small smile, accepting the support. She looked over the others in the room and noticed that all of them, except Drock, were standing awkwardly, unsure of what to say.

“Very well. We all know that this boy you call Sparrow is actually a fragmented portion of the ancient Guardian of Time. We also know he could doom or save the world depending on how he is reunited with the rest of his soul … which is the imprisoned beast I have been guarding. The risk is worth the attempt. She then looked at each person in turn and gave them instructions.

“Mistress Izreea, I remember you had some paper and a pencil in that workbench at your side. Can you make a list? We will need quite a few items from town. Myrum, my dear, I know you have had in-depth dealings with the warlocks that live by our groove; can you communicate with Master Jareth to help him create some defenses until we arrive to collect him? I believe he is being hunted as we speak.”

“Of course, grandmother,” Myrum said as she stood and approached Jareth’s projection in the center of the room.

Izreea knew the scrying pillar was reaching its limits as far as energy was concerned, so she met Myrum halfway to the pillar and handed her the scrying stone from around her neck so the two of them could communicate using less power. Izreea then turned to the scrying pillar in the center of the room and turned the projecting device off with some basic words of power. Myrum accepted the stone, placed it around her neck, and walked away from Jareth’s fading projection to the corner of the room so their conversation wouldn’t disturb the others.

“Master Colson, Izreea’s home is most likely being watched, so she will need your help collecting the materials for the shadow gate since her action will be monitored. You, however, can move freely about the city. I would recommend Jonathan or Izreea make you a gateway to the outer wall. Then you can return to the city through the northern gate like any traveler.

“Jonathan, your task is a simple one, but believe me when I say it is our most  important task,” Jaya said to the bird, still standing on the pillar.

               “I’ll do my best, Seeker,” he said plainly.

“Very good. Now your task is to mask the presence of the empty vessel … Drock, you called him? Just his presence in the shadow realm will act as a lure to every creature of ill intent, especially Revenants. He needs to be undetectable by any means,” Jaya said.

“For how long?” Jonathan asked.

There was an intense curiosity in Jonathan’s tone of voice, which reminded Izreea of her husband’s excitement for sharing knowledge with a new student.

“With our group … I am honestly not sure. For the most part, distance is irrelevant when shadow walking. It depends on one’s own desire to reach a specific destination. However, I have been shadow walking for many decades, and in that time, I have come to realize that our own expectations of how long it would take to reach a destination in our own realm can influence how long it takes to reach it in the shadow,” Jaya answered.

“I see, so I should plan on several days just in case then,” Jonathan said more as a matter of fact than a question.

“That perspective alone can affect how long it takes to reach the Garden, yet with such a large group, there will be many perspectives and influences on how long it takes to travel so that it may lengthen or shorten the journey,” Jaya answered as if she was teaching a pup.

Jonathan appeared on the verge of saying something but was hesitating, his beak opening and closing as he debated what and how he would respond. Jaya could see his hesitation and gave out a tiny sigh of resignation.

“Several days will work fine, Master Jonathan, thank you.”

Myrum returned then and handed the still-activated scrying stone necklace to Izreea, who placed it around her neck where it belonged. Jareth could still hear the conversation in the room but could no longer see the face of the wearer of the scrying stone. Myrum turned to Jaya and reported her results.

“He is as ready as he can be. I told him how to hide his presence from their rune bones and to avoid certain shadows during the day. At night, he will seek a pool of water and form defenses while continuing to hide. With luck, it will take several days for them to find him, and he should be able to hold them at bay with the water for at least another day after that.”

“Very good,” Jaya said formally, as if she was speaking to a soldier in her army rather than her granddaughter. Jaya looked around the room and seemed satisfied with what she saw.

“The Council may leave Izreea alone for the moment if only to preserve political ties with the dardwain, but as soon as the warlocks realize Sparrow is not with Jareth and report that fact to the council, then political immunity may no longer apply. We need to be within the gate before that happens or ready to fight our way out of the city.”