The Artifact of Foex (43 page)

Chet cleared his throat and everyone in the
cave went abruptly silent. “It
is
true. When I was a
Magician, I did kill children. When I found out what my past held,
I could barely believe it. I feel sick and guilty as Abyss—probably
always will. We did horrible things back in those days.”

“You aren’t helping,” Journey whispered out
of the corner of her mouth.

A Shadow Dancer stepped forward. “Look, these
claims are pretty incredible. You don’t
look
special.”

“I’m not,” Chet agreed readily. He wasn’t
sure where he was going with this, but he needed to rise to the
occasion, if only to be the person his friends believed he was and
to validate their trust in him. “I was an archeology graduate
student at Semaphore University before the Raptus turned my life on
its head last week. I was deeply in love with the past, with
history and antiquities of old. But you know something? No matter
how beautiful the past might have been with its mysteries and
secrets, the present is far more important.” He reached out and
took Rory’s hand, emboldened. “This is what the Raptus takes away
from us. It doesn’t just remove our free will, no, not at all. Its
power is divisive. It’s easy to split a family, to split friend
from friend, when people are hypnotized to hurt one another.”

“Do you want to destroy the Raptus, Chet?”
Rory said, pitching her voice to carry. A public question.

“Yes. To have it used upon you is a terrible
experience. No one—not now, nor future generations—should suffer
because of our pride and false notions of progress. I don’t know if
I
can
destroy it, but I vow to try. If it swallows me
whole, if I try to use it to hurt anyone... you can kill me.” He
looked Zamie in the eye.

Her eyebrows rose, her expression a tad less
skeptical. Maybe she’d noticed Rory hadn’t let go of his hand.
“That’s unbelievably brave of you.”

“Ma’am, I’ve had two friends and a mentor
recently murdered—and an ally flung into lucid mud—because of this
thing. The fate of the world is at stake if we fail. Our lives, our
futures, our children... all endangered by the Raptus.”

“But no pressure or anything,” Journey
murmured, grinning.

Zamie nodded, arms crossed over her chest.
“All right, you have one shot. Guys, bring the box over here.”

Rory drew close to Chet and kissed him on the
cheek. “Good luck,” she whispered. She let go of his hand and
stepped back.

Chet gazed down at the unlocked Raptus. It
was glowing a deeper green but seemed otherwise unchanged. He
closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then lifted it out of the
box and into his lap. He still didn’t feel any pain—indeed, the
thing seemed to be at home in his lap. The Raptus, as if sensing
his readiness, pulsed at him through the bond. The bond. It had
grabbed him first thing, it had wanted
him
. Why?

The answer was instantaneous, though shy.
Mama,
someone whispered.

“What?” Chet jerked back, staring at the
glowing magical relic in his lap.

“No one said anything,” Rory murmured. She
was kneeling a short distance away, watching him closely.

“Just—something unexpected. Give me a
moment,” Chet said, closing his eyes again. Maybe he could
think
at the Raptus to communicate with it.

Who is Mama?

The answer was clear, though there were no
words. The voice—voices?—inside the Raptus were certain that
he
was Mama.

“But I’m a guy,” he mumbled aloud.

It didn’t seem to matter to the voices. The
other parent was mean, harsh. The other parent, Dada, wanted to
dominate and hurt, and he used them to do it. There was a distinct
feeling of being trapped, forced. Violated.

Dada... is Fenimore? The Magician
Tene?
Chet thought.

There was an affirmation, though a little
quizzical this time. The voices didn’t know names—they felt
energy.

“That’s how you knew me. That’s why you
wanted me, bound me to the others. You wanted me to protect you...
to follow you.”

Yes. Mama, we’re tired. Please, we’re so
tired.

Who are you?
he asked.

Pictures formed in his head. The faces of
little girls, and Chet knew those faces. He especially recognized
the one from his dream. These were the girls he’d killed—by his own
hand—for their blood, the energy to fuel creation of the Raptus.
Oh, Pantheon
.

“You’ve been trapped inside this whole
time?”

The affirmation was more than instantaneous,
it was
loud
. The girls were screaming at him, crying and
upset. They were fully awake for the first time in centuries, and
they were hurting. Chet wanted to cover his ears but couldn’t. The
noise was inside his brain.

What did they want? Well, what did every
small child want? They wanted
Mama
. Chet was the only
person around whom they liked and trusted, despite everything.
Fenimore had been the disciplinarian, demanding obedience from the
Raptus as he would from any tool. Chet knew without question that
the Magician Tene had never spoken to or interacted with these lost
souls. Instead, he’d worked his will on the Raptus.

It was Foex’s way, wasn’t it? Foex had been a
high-energy, economizing, misogynistic ex-general in a war that
he’d eventually won. Foex, who’d drank himself to death when even
being a god had lost its shine. Chet, as the Magician Zang, had
been loyal to Foex. He’d been loyal to the end, though he’d
experienced the same conditions Aureate had described; he, too, had
been killed when he’d been born a girl.

Just like these children had been, their
souls trapped for thousands of years. Cornered and forced to hurt
people on a daily basis.

“Shhhh,” he murmured to the children—his
children. His girls. “I’m here. Mama’s here.”

“Chet? Are you still... yourself?” Rory was
gazing at him with a worried look. The Shadow Dancers around her
were bristling with weaponry, all of it focused on him. They, too,
looked worried.

“It’s okay, Rory.” Chet found that he was
crying. “It’ll be okay. Please, just let me work.”

He could feel their little bodies clinging to
him. Gathering in his lap. Some were sucking their thumbs. Chet
sang them the first song that came to mind, an old lullaby. The
Flame had guessed right, even in their ignorance. They’d chosen
children’s poems and nursery rhymes to lock the Raptus, sending
these girls to sleep in the best manner possible. At least
some
of the centuries had been bearable.

You’ve a right to be tired, babies.
People have been so cruel to you. I was, too, though I didn’t mean
to be. I’m very sorry for putting you in here. Now I’m going to set
you free.

How?
they asked sleepily.

Good question. Chet cradled the Raptus in his
hands. He took hold of a spike and exerted pressure. The girl who
had been slaughtered to create that spike sat up in his lap, her
eyes round. He didn’t want to cause her more pain, but how to free
her from this... this matrix? How had he and Tene created it in the
first place?

An answer emerged from deep inside of him
beyond conscious thought. Chet’s fingers began undoing the
intricate, web-like magic that held the spike together. It was like
a body memory, the way his feet recalled a dance long after his
head had forgotten; some part of him knew exactly what to do.
It's easy if you know which string to pull,
a voice said
from within him.
Unmaking is always easier than making. Can’t
reverse the chaos of the universe, you know.

The girl grew translucent as he worked.
Then—as the spike disintegrated in his hands—she gave a little sigh
and was gone. Chet sat on the cavern floor and worked, freeing each
girl from the Raptus. He wept freely, snot running down his chin
and dripping to his muddy, ruined clothing. The final girl, not by
accident, was the charcoal burner’s daughter from Chet’s dream.

Oh, beautiful,
he murmured into her
hair.
Maybe you’ll come back to Uos—to Mother Earth—in a new
form, with a new mommy and daddy. I hope they’ll be good to
you.

She smiled up at him, her expression trusting
and open.
Thank you, Mama.

He freed her as he had the others, the spike
crumbling in his hands as she vanished.

The Raptus was less impressive now. Chet held
it up and let go. It hovered in place. He breathed on the Raptus
and it crumpled, growing smaller and smaller until it was a tiny,
spiraling hunk of metal. Chet clapped his hands once, and it
vanished. Winking out of existence.

Shadow Dancers applauded. People slapped him
on the shoulders, cheering. Someone helped him to his feet. They
were chattering all around him. But Chet couldn’t celebrate. He
closed his eyes, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

Someone touched him gently around his waist,
pulling him into a hug. He caught his breath, hoping it was Rory,
but when he opened his eyes, Journey smiled at him. “Hi, sweetie.
You just saved the world. What would you like to do next?”

Chet laughed at the unexpected question. He
wiped his tears, which had turned the dry mud wet again—sort of.
Non-water based indeed. “I’d like a
shower
.”

Chet emerged from the second-floor bathroom
of Knife’s house, wrapped in a towel. The Shadow Dancers had left a
few minutes ago. Before leaving, they’d gone upstairs to the third
floor with Journey, and they’d spent a long time up there. Chet
assumed the Shadow Dancers taken care of Knife’s body—maybe they'd
taken the body into their Cluster for later disposal.

Chet didn’t want to go to the third floor
himself, not yet. He’d do it after he’d slept. He’d sit in Knife’s
study and drink, maybe even shed a private tear or two. Chet had
been able to say goodbye when Knife had been alive, but it had been
an aborted goodbye. There hadn’t been time for every little matter.
It still peeved Chet that Knife hadn’t trusted him enough to take
him into her confidence back in Wetshul, instead of slamming him
against the wall and making threats, but Knife hadn’t had a reason
to trust him back then. Chet knew he’d miss Knife no matter what.
Would Rory be there with him, or would he be drinking alone? A good
question.

He found Rory lolling on the bed in a guest
bedroom, wearing a plush bathrobe, her hair still glistening from
her own shower. She was lying on her belly, looking into the
roaring fire in the fireplace. Chet glanced that way, too—a figure
was curled upon the lengthy andiron.

“How does Journey breathe in there?” Chet
said.

“I don’t know, but she occasionally reaches
out for another split log and places it in a strategic location
near her body. I’m not hungry yet, are you?”

“I’m not sure,” Chet admitted. He was all
tumbled up inside. Shaky. It had been the strangest week and a half
of his life, and it wasn’t over yet.

“Chet... could you tell me what happened when
you destroyed the Raptus?” she said, eyeing him with a worried
expression. “When you were talking to it, it didn’t sound like you
were fighting. It sounded
strange
.”

Chet settled beside her on the bed. He’d
fought at Rory’s side, but they hadn’t really reconnected, not in
an emotional way. Though nothing was resolved, he felt
fizzy
, as if being in close proximity to her was a drug.
Chet didn’t want to screw this up.

“It's difficult.”

Would she judge him his actions from when he
was Zang? Why not? Chet did. He’d been Zang for umpteen lifetimes,
and Chet Baikson for only one—a short one at that. Was he, Chet, a
real person, or was he a mask for the long-gone Zang?
I’m
real,
he thought, bristling at the thought. Young but no
longer untested, he’d overcome the challenges in his path. Zang was
more like a dead ancestor than a ghost living inside him, he
decided. A famous, pushy kind of ancestor, sure, but dead all the
same.

Now if only the rest of his past would settle
down and quit bugging him.

“Tell me.” Rory reached up and brushed a
stray hair off his forehead.

His heart beat harder at her touch; he
realized he was hers to command. Chet bowed his head and explained.
At one point he choked up, and Rory squeezed his hand. It gave him
strength to continue.

“Wow,” she said when he’d finished. “That’s
not how I thought it was at all.”

“Me, either. But I’m glad they’re free. I’ll
always feel guilty about it, but at least they’re not in pain
anymore.”

“It wasn’t you who killed them, Chet. You’re
your own person with your own experiences and ambitions.”

“Yeah. Except everything’s a little too close
to home, too many coincidences. I figured out how I knew Fenimore
last time around.” He shook his head. “No wonder Knife’s
explanation of how Fen ended up in lucid mud always seemed off to
me, why Fenimore’s version was so different.”

“What do you mean?” Rory blinked at him, her
expression bemused.

“I remembered just now in the shower. It’s
like I’m a colander and information from past lives keeps trickling
down through me. I think—no. I
know
I was the servant who
accompanied Fenimore to Wetshul back in 7305. The one who betrayed
him.”

“Huh. Clearly, I’ll have to get the full
story some other time. Did you figure out you were Zang then,
too?”

“No, I was an agent working for Prince
Konstantine. His court really
was
hip-deep in spies. I
remember pursuing Fenimore in that carriage we uncovered in the
dust—I think I must have stolen it—before cornering him against the
lucid mud pit. He went in and I didn’t. I’m the one who lied about
it, years later, to Knife.” Chet vented an ironic chuckle. “Think
about the course of events from Fen’s perspective. One minute he’s
fighting me in the monsoon rain and darkness, then he loses and
dives into lucid mud bearing his prize. Next thing he knows,
Fenimore wakes up in the ambulance next to
me
—with a new
face and body—three centuries later.”