Private Tales Hypothetically Harmless

[Santiago Castelle]

Santiago nodded, nearly dozing in a late afternoon glow. The tail of summer warmth kissed his cheeks, trickled from a skein of leaves and trees that crested a city of tents strewn as palisades about the perimeter of nearby ruins. When he squinted, shadows of the Spine loomed well in the distance; fancies of the Eldyr Tree, of dancing fae and a dreamland of magic beyond. He found himself far from the walls of Elbion, from the academy's civilized gates.

His weekslong journey had rounded on its destination. A nameless ruin theorized to be of faerie make sprawled before them. Crumbled towers, piles of ruined slate, and mural remnants laid deep in the forest's embrace. Vines and roots needled through stone, moss populated shadowed pockets. But for the proud encampment set at its foot, only the boldest of explorers might have noted it as any more than a living whole of the woods.

Thirty odd students comprised the bulk of his peerage. A handful of professors and aids accompanied them, and a dozen mercenaries hired to proctor this excursion. Several restless days spent waiting for scouting parties that cased the ruins' interior. Reports filtered in at regular intervals of mundane traps, eroded dolomite walkways, chipped fixtures, and the ever presence thrum of long faded magic.

A deep excitement, tinged so with anxiety, filled the students. They aided in translations, ciphering codes etched into tablets and restored scrollwork. Scattered conversation offered theories on the nature of their work, on the nature of the magic they came to investigate. The professors smiled indulgently, seasoned chaperones quite familiar with these routine excursions. For they knew it to be nothing if not ordinary.

Santiago's fingers traced glyphened wards that caught hold of him.

Several reports made mention of such sigils: comprised of a white, salt-like substance (powdery, course) and curiously resistant to attempts at washing it away, these sigils were markedly harmless. The latest proposal christened them works of lost artificing, spells disarmed with the passage of time. It made for the bulk of their studies; isolate markings, determine a pattern, and recover residues where possible.

But these wards beneath his fingers burned themselves black into the stone. Perfect, overlapping circles linked loosely in the center by a group of parallel triangles with a scattering of dots embellishing the interior. He drew closer, head pressed near to brushing the sigils. Not circles; they were formed of irregular lines. Webbed together, curved in an eye-wrenching manner, beckoning a single word. A word that hummed at the base of his skull. Split with an electrifying jolt that passed his fingers, tightened his brow. And his lips moved of their own volition:

"Halcyon."

Breath hitched in his throat. The last syllable tore itself from him, from teeth that snapped shut with such force that blood welled at his lips. His shoulders went rigid, paralyzing him in a painful crouch. Spine crooked, his fingernails scraped at the lines of the wards. Twitched. Spasmed. Dug into the stone until that last jolt slipped from his mouth.

Light suffused his vision. He was blind, and in blind panic felt himself freed from the pull that drew him to the glyph; he wrenched his hands from the sigils, kicked to his knees, and braced himself. The world lurched. A peel of cracking trees, of stone erupting in pyroclastic frenzy. Screams, surprise, noise. He recounted little of it, focused instead on blinking the pale white from his eyes.

A violent silence was bequeathed unto him.

 

[Santiago Castelle]

A groan trembled from the back of Santiago's throat. Sweat poured from his face, dribbling down his chin and staining the linen of his shirt. It laid course against him, heavy and thick. Confining. He was laying on the ground, chest packed into stone and arms splayed in front of him. For a time, he concentrated his efforts on stilling his own breathing, on dulling the feverish pounding of his heart.

Next his eyes: caked shut, throbbing sharply with the burning light that sufficed them, he forced them open. Pried back the lids, wetted the milky sclera beneath. Veins burst within, red webbing straight to his pupils (dilated, near black in their fullness). He blinked. Again, until the light recessed, until focus returned to him. Only then did he uncoil, pry his arms close to massage feeling back into them... and froze.

Wet, ichorous resin coated his fingers, trailed black to the crook of his elbows.

He took one shuddering breath, gritted his teeth, and struck his palm against the floor. Sparks rose, cackled, and an ember flickered to life. He cupped it in his palm, lifted it to get a better view of himself. Wrinkled clothes swathed him, both boots accounted for. Hair disheveled, tangled about his shoulders. A substance akin to ink painted his arms. No further abnormalities.

He steadied himself, drew up to his knees, his feet, and took stock of his surroundings. Silence. The gentle cacophony of insects and conversation, of brush underfoot and the crinkle of reed left a stark absence. Others had surrounded him; a quick survey revealed none of the guards or any of his peers.

The forest was gone. In its stead, he stood within a walled chamber. Dolomite. Course, rough stone bereft the weathering that afflicted the ruins. And running along its surface stood powdery white lines. Lines that led directly to his feet. Or from them.

"Very well," he said. Only one direction to go. Forward.

He marched out of the chamber, guided by the lines of faded power.

 

[Santiago Castelle]

The light in Santiago's hand made little dent in the darkness beyond his chamber. It hung at the precipice of shadow only to be enveloped by the etched sigils along his path. Peering ahead, even casting the light before him brought shallow solace. It would land with flat inertia, glow captivated in the span separating it from him.

Any deviation brought him closer. Gently; a protrusion in the wall here, an uncomfortable incline there. A wall erect at knee height where his gaze lingered only above.

His steps were being guided. Distance eluded him; each pace followed a singular, measured beat. When he quickened, the lines stretched. When he slowed, they followed, never straying from that queasy picture of passage. He could but retrieve his light and continue.

He cradled it in his hand and pressed forward.

At times he mustered enough defiance to shut his eyes, to trust to his feet as his guide. And yet he followed those powdery lines, trailed deeper into the still accompanied by not even the plod of his own boots against stone.

Another bend. He rounded it, the weight of darkness content to slump across his shoulders. Another step. His breath was measured, practiced.

A door creaked, shy the edge of perception.

He jumped, light falling from his grasp, and before his eyes it sunk. As through molasses, his light dribbling into the dark, welled and surged and gasped a flicker farewell.

And he was left truly alone.

 

[Santiago Castelle]

Santiago wavered with gaze upcast beneath the crest of an incipient murk. Breath denied him, coming in halting gasps that poured liquid into his lungs. Thicker than smoke and pallid as dreams, he stared unseeing into an ever expanding dark. Watchful shadows stood sentinel over him, enmeshed in a sea of panic.

He floated. Light, soft, the tension in his neck and shoulders and back uncoiled. Serpentine, each movement of the hand and kick of his feet strained across a distance greater than perception allotted. Where once he had assumed silence, even the noise of his own drum came dull. Stilled. Wan.

Only the accompanying sigils below tugged at the gossamer strands of his awareness. Motes of idle guidance, not quite light, lay at the precipice. In wait, they taunted him. Hunted his sanity, his composure. Tore at the routine calm that shielded him.

Suspended in pitch and inky black, Santiago wavered. Time passaged around him, bade him countenance it; and he did. Each painful expulsion of breath, each foolish, greedy influx. It made him all too familiar with the seconds as they bled around him. The minutes. Like hands on a clock, they ticked recklessly by.

Voices drew him from reverie. The glister of magic. Faded, effervescent. It cackled, eddying his preconceptions. Lulled him. Teased his eyes open where blindness had gripped him prior. A light. Woefully incandescent, blissfully dangling in the ether beyond.

He reached for it. So close. He strained, stretched fingers nearly to the point of disjointing. He reached for that light and plucked himself from the murk. The liquid boiled around him. Bubbled. Popped. And he washed forth in a rush of air, spluttering and gasping as he impacted the ground.

His arms struck stone, snared in the warding lines. Something gurgled from his throat.

"Who?" He coughed. A figure before him, and he lacked even the strength to confront it. All effort focused inward, he paced himself. Forced steadiness into his gaze if nothing else.

With vision returned to him, he peered up. Defiant.

 

[Santiago Castelle]

That voice struck like birdsong in the omnipresent silence. The reverberations rung through his skull, forcing his chin up from its precarious perch against the ground; he cast his gaze, pupils thick in the sudden light, and it landed upon a woman. Slightly frazzled, a bit worse for wear. A familiar shape.

He crooked himself up on an arm, struggled to his knees. Braced against a blackened palm, he rocked onto his feet. Staggered, stumbled, and scrabbled at the wall for support. He righted himself. Stilled the trill of his heart, the ragged tenor of his breath.

"None to note," he said.

The last gasps settled in his chest. After several moments, he collected himself. Patched the pieces of his composure together, offered an abashed smile. It splayed sickly on his lips.

"I am Santiago. Excuse the presentation. I've rarely had call to grant hospitality in such circumstances."

 

[Santiago Castelle]

In following, Santiago's steps quickened; as did his breath, as did his gaze in its frenetic meandering. Words played soft echoes on the surrounding walls, hemming him in. Entwining him in a weave of forced movement. He marched.

And as quickly as that, he stumbled. Stuttered. His chin drew lower, his shoulder sunk. The wheres withheld him.

"I, no," he said, and swallowed. Blinked. "I recall only the shadows' snare."

He moved to overtake the woman, to put himself squarely ahead.

"No. The group with whom I sojourned vanished some time ago. You were among those in the camp, yes? Was anyone else with you, or?"

A hand ran along the length of the wall, hesitant as he turned his stride to look back at her. Perhaps he averted his gaze. Sifted a measure of guilt in the fingers that parted his hair.

 

[Santiago Castelle]

"Well," Santiago said, still braced against the wall. He scanned the bifold passage, hesitation a shroud about his shoulders (gratitude crowing at the corners of his eyes; he paid grace to his positioning, that he remained abreast of the woman, Aldrae).

Eyes filtered through the darkness, picking out the chalklike lines that patterned both paths. A muttered "look" escaped his lips, and he pointed at them. The leftmost lines were inverted, creating crescents that pointed back towards their approach. Transfixed with dots that peppered the lines, it lent a mocking reversal. Dared them to return.

His hand moved to the other: similar shapes but pointed away. Beckoningly away, as if urging them to follow. Almost frenetic. Hasty in composition.

"Were I to gamble, I'd wager my coins on the right," he said, taking a step in that direction.

After another, he continued:

"Perhaps the split is illusory. The shadows that carried me felt real, imposed a sense of drowning, but I'm otherwise unharmed. No residue on my tongue, no lingering scent in my olfactory. I can't be certain, but the magic strikes me as seeming."

 

[Santiago Castelle]

Santiago held his peace for some time. He wore it about him for several steps, working the words around his mouth, testing them before they could fully form. The path unfurled ahead, and he diverted them right at the bend.

There, with his head crooked back, he said, "The sigils along the path are similar in form to the glyphs we studied above."

He gestured broadly.

"I would hazard that it is less the machinations of an active fae and akin more to that of a trap sprung. Perhaps these markings are manifestations of 'leylines' as they are purported to draw from?"

A hint of panic. His voice lilted by the end into a question that he had not considered. A hitch in his breath, in his step.