The Dreamer's Curse (Book 2) (9 page)

Sevana jerked to her feet and tore down the hallway,
scrambling in her pouch for a shielding charm and a wand with her free hand
even as she ran. Sarsen followed closely at her heels, yelling, “Jacen?! Are
you alright? Answer me!”

The flames still licked along the floor in little puddles at
the very end of the hallway, silently indicating where they needed to go. Sevana
skidded to a stop in front of the open doorway, avoiding the larger chunks of
wood that used to be the door. She took in the sight with wide eyes and a
whistle.

Pre-explosion, this had probably been Jacen’s potions lab or
something along those lines. Three tables sat in a large “I” shape, with the
remains of vials, mortars, bottles and the like spread out along the surfaces.
She couldn’t begin to guess what he had been working on judging from what
little had survived the explosion, but the blue-green fire indicated that the
highly volatile substance of captured shiranui had been involved somehow.

The brunet Artifactor huddled underneath the tables in the
fetal position, hands around his head, eyes screwed shut. He didn’t even looked
singed, so the explosion must have gone up and outward, the tables protecting
him.

She and Sarsen sighed at the same time, “Jensen.”

The man on the floor tentatively lowered his hands and opened
his eyes. “Yes?”

Sarsen waved his wand over the room, snuffing out what
remained of the flames, before sinking down onto his haunches so he could meet
the other man’s eyes. “Jensen, how did this happen?”

“Ah, well, the book I wanted to show you was in this room on
the back shelf—”

A shelf under very heavy shields and wards, Sevana noted in
amusement, likely to prevent Jensen from touching them or inadvertently
destroying them.

“—but I knocked into the corner of the table accidentally,
and when I did, something fell over. I lost my balance and went straight to the
floor, so I can’t tell you what it was, as I didn’t see it, but flames
immediately went
WHOOSH!
” his hands spread out in demonstration. “What
was that?”

“Shiranui fire and something else,” Sevana supplied, a grin
slowly spreading over her face. Oh, Jacen would be livid when he saw
this
mess. And he had no one to blame but himself, in a way.

Jensen slowly climbed out from under the table and gained
his feet. He looked around the room from one corner to the other, taking in the
destroyed tables, the scorch marks on the wooden floor and (previously) white
walls, the way the wards on the bookshelves still flickered in defense, and his
face fell in open dismay. “Jacen’s not going to be happy about this.”

“Understatement,” Sevana assured him, finding great pleasure
in all of this. Visiting this place never got old.  

Sarsen sighed, and having pity on Jensen, offered, “We’ll
help you clean this up, as much as we can.”

“Oh, would you? Thank you ever so much.” Jensen went toward
the main table with outstretched hands. “What should we do with all of this, do
you—oops.”

Several remains of glass bottles and vials fell from the
table and crashed to the floor in a loud spray, sending glass shards in every
direction. Jensen froze, hands poised over the table, and gave them a sheepish
look.

Sarsen looked at Sevana and muttered, “Do you think that if
I shake him really hard, he’ll switch over to Jacen?”

“Not a chance,” she denied pleasantly. “But I’d pay good money
to watch you do it.”

Jacen was indeed not happy when he came back to himself.
Jensen switched out after the worst of the mess had been cleared away. Sevana
knew almost instantly when the switch had been made because the other
Artifactor stopped mid-motion, blinking as if coming to himself, and he took a
good look around the room as if he hadn’t seen it before. Then his head fell
back and he groaned, “
What
did Jensen do this time?”

“Welcome back, Jacen,” Sevana greeted with an evil smile.

He shot her a dark look. “What, you couldn’t prevent him
from doing this?”

“We weren’t actually sure it wasn’t you,” Sarsen apologized,
putting the last of the remains of the door into a trash bag. He actually did
regret it, unlike Sevana, who found the whole thing funny. “It’s hard for us to
tell the difference between you and Jensen right off.”

Jacen waved this away, as he’d heard similar things many
times before, and turned to brace his back against the wall with a soft thud.
“So what did he do?”

“He knocked whatever potion you had brewing with shiranui
fire over,” Sevana told him benignly. “Or so I assume, judging from the
spectacular fireworks we saw of blue-green fire.”

If it were possible for one personality to strangle another
one, Jacen would have done it at that moment. He looked ready to commit murder,
anyway. But he blew out a deep breath, letting go of his anger, and asked
instead, “How long have you two been here?”

“About three hours,” Sarsen answered, finally setting the
cleanup work aside. “We actually came for your expertise.”

“Oh?” Jacen’s eyes stopped roving over the half-destroyed
room and finally settled on his two guests. “That sounds intriguing. You came
across something from the old magicks?”

“Something that is still active and causing trouble,” Sarsen
confirmed with an unhappy stretch of the mouth. One couldn’t really describe it
as a smile.

Jacen, conversely, perked up with true interest. “It’s rare
that anything from that time is still functional, much less capable of
activating itself. What is it doing? And where is it?”

Sevana mentally resigned herself to explaining all of this
again
(since Jacen hadn’t heard it the first time) and started from the top. As she
explained the situation, Jacen interrupted her with questions now and again and
even dove for his protected bookshelf at one point and grabbed an empty
notebook to take quick notes in. She catalogued that reaction for future
reference. If this situation ever came up again, the surefire way of knowing
the difference between Jacen and Jensen would be that
Jacen
would ask
questions.

By the time she finished, Jacen worried at his bottom lip
with his teeth, staring at the notebook in his hands with unfocused eyes.
“Sevana…I don’t like this picture you’re painting.”

“What, you think I do?”

“I can see why you’re worried. In fact,
I’m
worried.”
He finally put the notebook aside so he could look at her directly, expression
and voice intense. “I have never seen an artifact from that time rated so high
in power. For that matter, I’ve never seen one that will use magic constantly
like this, unchecked. They will occasionally activate themselves, certainly,
but it usually only happens once. Mayhap twice. And you say this has been going
on for
months?
”

“About five, I believe.”

He scrubbed at the back of his neck with an open hand,
turning so that he could pace the width of the room in an agitated stride. “Are
you sure that the shield’s power rating isn’t skewing the overall reading?”

“Positive. The shield itself is an eight in power.”

He stopped abruptly, facing his bookshelf, and stayed like
that for several taut seconds, thinking so hard that it seemed he barely
breathed for a moment. “I think I know what this is.”

Sevana let out a pent-up breath. Best news she’d had all
week. “Go on.”

“Magicians of that time often made tools and such for people
that had either no magical ability or were still in the learning process.
Gadget magic is what they were called, or gadgicks for short. ” He shot them
both a crooked smile. “Rather like we do today with our charms and bottled
potions. But their inventions were on a much more powerful scale, and with a
more…hmmm…how to say this? A more intuitive approach. The devices were designed
to pick up the
intent
of the user more than any spoken command.”

Sevana’s stomach started twisting in sick understanding. So
she’d only been half-right. The artifact worked because it was actively
searching for destinations to send people to, and it chose anyone that pictured
a different place, even in sleep.

“Some of the gadgicks that they used for transportation are
like yours. Or so I’ve read in some of the more ancient texts. I found a
description once in a catalogue, or what looked like one, of a merchant’s wares
that claimed it could transport any cargo or body of people any distance.”

Sarsen leaned against a table’s edge, bracing his hands on
the top of the surface, and let out a long sigh. “Couldn’t describe it any
better than that.”

“With so many people around it, thinking of different
locations and images in their minds, even subconsciously, the gadgick must feel
that it needs to be constantly on.” Jacen stared at the floor and muttered, “Or
it’s developed some pretty interesting quirks over the past few hundred years.”

“I’m betting on the latter,” Sevana grumbled. “Alright, so
you recognize this thing. How do we turn it off?”

“Have you tried taking everyone out of the village?”

“It doesn’t work for any length of time, or so I’m told,”
she answered with a resigned shrug. “One of the magicians they hired suggested
they do that, but the device brought them all back again the next night. It
must have some sort of ‘return home’ clause in it?” When Jacen nodded wryly,
she grimaced. Stone the crows, she hated being right sometimes. “Did those long
dead magicians think of every fail-safe?”

“It was their job to do so.”

“Shut it, Sarsen, I don’t want to hear that right now.
Jacen, the only thing we could think to do was to destroy the shield first and
then tackle the artifact—gadgick, whatever—next. Can we do that without
creating a dangerous backlash in power?”

Jacen held a hand in front of him and tipped it back and
forth in an uncertain gesture. “Perhaps? I’d like to look at those scans you
took before giving you a firm answer. But that’ll take me at least a few hours
and some research. What time is it?”

Sarsen pulled out a pocket watch from his jacket before
answering, “Nearly four in the afternoon.”

“Then I should probably get dinner started first.”

Who knew how many meals Jacen had accidentally skipped today
because his other personalities hadn’t bothered to eat, or assumed a different
personality would take care of it? “Why don’t
I
cook while you and
Sarsen research?”

Jacen shot her a hopeful smile. “Would you? I’m thoroughly
sick of my cooking at this point.”

“It sounds like a fair trade to me.”

~ ~ ~

Jacen, mercy be praised, had a fully stocked kitchen so she
had a good selection of ingredients to cook from. The place reminded her oddly
of a potions lab in its setup, though. Aside from the main table, she only had
one long stretch of counter space, a sink with some very interesting stains,
and a single cold box. Did the man only cook to survive?

She ended up making a thick stew and biscuits, as it looked
like several of his vegetables wouldn’t survive another day. The men came in like
hungry wolves, their noses in the air, sniffing their way into the kitchen with
comments of the smell alone killing them.

Everyone pitched in to get bowls and dinner on the table,
and then they ate with gusto and a distinct lack of conversation until half the
pot of stew had been consumed, and only then did the spoons stay in the bowls.

“Alright,” Sevana turned to Jacen. “How goes it?”

“Your scans are exquisitely detailed, as always,” he praised
her, sitting back with a contented sigh. “It almost feels like I’m standing in
that village square when I look at them. I’d like to run a few more
calculations, double-check a fact or two, but my initial impression is: no.
Destroying the shield shouldn’t cause any backlashes and you will be able to
attack it directly. Note that I do not mean
safely
attack it directly. I
think that there will be another fail-safe once you get past that shield. What
that might be is anyone’s guess. So if you’re going to attack that shield, you
must be ready to instantly attack the gadgick itself, otherwise I can’t predict
what will happen.”

A fact she’d already thought of, but she nodded to show her
understanding. He, after all, was the expert on this.

“Why don’t the two of you stay the night?” he offered. “I’ll
stay up and do some more research, get you some more facts to work off of. It’s
rather too late to leave anyway unless you want to try flying about in the
dark.”

“I’m not a bat, so I’ll pass on that idea,” Sevana snarked.
“But you understand that if you switch over to Jocelin again, we’ll lock you in
a room somewhere.”

He blinked at her. “Jocelin came out today?”

“We met
everyone
today,” Sarsen assured him dryly.

“Oh. So that’s how I lost half the day…” Jacen trailed off
and shrugged. After twenty years of this, he’d grown accustomed to holes in his
memory or whole hours of time passing without his knowing. “Fine, if Jocelin
causes you problems, lock us in a room somewhere. Just make sure it’s a room
that I have idiot-proofed. I never know what the others will try.”

Sevana personally felt no need to sleep so she offered, “Why
don’t I stay up and research with you? I usually work late at night anyway.”

“Oh.” Jacen lit up in a delighted smile. “That sounds fun.
In that case, dishes can wait. Let’s go up to my library.”

~ ~ ~

They spent the entire night reviewing things in more depth,
cross-referencing it with other gadgicks that Jacen had previously researched
that came from the same era, and double-checking math and theories. They
sketched out designs, elements, and possibilities until their eyes crossed and
their heads felt fit to explode. Without their notice, the night fell way to
day, and the sun crept in through the library window, making the lamps they’d
lit unnecessary.

Sarsen ambled into the room, stifling a yawn behind one
hand, looking bleary-eyed but unfairly rested. “Oh? You two are still at it?”

Sevana gave him a sleep-deprived glower.

“Right. Obviously a stupid question.”

They’d slowly emptied the shelves during the course of the
night, stacking them up on the large table and the two armchairs, which was how
Sevana and Jacen eventually ended up on the floor. Easing past her, Sarsen sank
into the only other available seat—a half-cluttered loveseat that had seen
better days. As he did so, he looked at Jacen who lay flat on the floor, his
hands propped behind his head, and ventured, “Good morning, Jacen?”

“Morning,” Jacen responded, a tired smile etched into his
face. “Not sure if it’s a good one yet.”

“Oh?”

Sevana slouched further into herself, back braced against a
chair, nearly folded in half. She made grumbling, inarticulate noises, not
about to explain what they had deduced. She didn’t even want to think about it,
much less say it aloud.

Sarsen pointed a finger at her and said, “Judging from that
expression, I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“We sure don’t.” Jacen heaved a heavy sigh and sat upright,
crossing his legs comfortably before he started to explain. “I can run you
through the numbers, logic, and such later if you wish, but here’s the gist of
it: first and foremost, I do not believe that this device was meant to
transport just people.”

“Uhh?” Sarsen said in confusion, as if Jacen was suddenly
speaking in a foreign language.

“Yes, I realize that it has only been transporting people,”
Jacen responded patiently. “But the only time I have seen a design like this
was for a transport that would handle caravans and the like. So, not just
people, but objects of all sorts. Also, it was made to use for very long
distances. So it’s recent habit of transporting people a very long way is
actually a fundamentally sound feature and not some erratic behavior.”

Sarsen scratched at the back of his head for a moment,
weighing that in his mind before offering, “I can’t say that makes me feel any
better. If it was supposed to transport things as well, how’d they manage it?”

“They had a way of marking things that needed to be
transported. Because no one is doing that, only people are going.” Jacen
shrugged, grimacing. “Yes, I’m aware that you’re not sure how the people are
marked either. These are logical deductions, you understand, I don’t have a
great deal of concrete evidence to support my theories. I’m simply making
educated guesses depending on what you and Sevana are telling me.”