Wordscapist: The Myth (The Way of the Word Book 1) (22 page)

     On second thoughts, denying that wasn’t a good idea. And then I remembered my entire honest bluff sequence with Akto, and decided what worked once could definitely work again! Only I decided to skip the outrage. I took a deep breath and spoke, “I’m sorry. I’m just shocked. I have never done anything like this before. Meeting you yesterday was bad enough. You attacked and I reacted with pure instinct. I had no clue what you did or what I did. It’s only after that, through conversations with my mentor and Akto that I have learned about the existence of things like the Way of the Word, the Guild or the Free Word. It’s only then that I recognised that I do indeed have the gift. In all those words he used, I heard the word ‘cipher’ - that came the closest to describing what I was. That’s why I used that word when I tried to tell you who I was, what I was. I do not know anything more than this, Dew.” I said her name for the first time, tasting the way it sounded; liking it very much.

     She gave me a long suffering sigh. “Really? That is your story? You’ll have to do better than that. You resisted my elemental attack like it was nothing, bouncing it right back at me, and you expect me to believe this ‘I-don’t-know-what-I-did’ story? You figured all of this out and wove up a murderous faerie because of conversations with Akto and this mysterious mentor you met today? Are you going to come out with the truth or shall we just say goodbye to each other now? You can figure this mess out by yourself!”

     “No! No goodbye!” the words left me almost before I could stop them. I was completely flummoxed. I’d given her the truth, and she had brushed it off as hogwash. It was ironic that this was happening to me, someone who had passed off hogwash as the truth so many times! I was acting like a total imbecile in front of a woman I found extremely attractive. I tried to make some swift repairs to my already irredeemable image, “Dew, that is the truth. It might sound insane, but really, if I was a powerful wordsmith, I would have come up with a better cover story! Going by that logic alone, you need to cut me some slack and at least try to believe that there might be some truth in what I’m saying.”

     She gave me a long, hard look, reminding me of the ones Akto had shot in my direction all morning. “You know, that is a completely crazy story. But I will go along with it for now. However, I need you to come with me to meet Akto and the rest of the Free wordsmiths. We can’t have you roaming around and murdering people like this. Before the warren, the whole truth will be out for sure. For your sake, let’s hope you’re not lying. Let’s go.”

     She stomped off, and for a couple of seconds, I was left staring after her. And then I quietly followed her. That was where I had been headed anyway. Only now, my chances of making it through the night alive were looking even bleaker.

CHAPTER 10

To Hunt a Wordscapist

The spider wove

Her perfect web

The fly played its part

And blundered right in

A moment later

Chaos broke loose

The fly it seems

Had forgotten its cue

The Historian

     Zauberin believed in hiding in a crowd. The meeting was to happen in a tent at the Saturday Night Market in Anjuna, a place that was bound to be jam-packed with crowds of rabid shoppers and hippies high on marijuana. I was to bring along my mobile equipment, ready for recording the minutes of the crucial meeting of the Free Word where war would be declared on the Guild. I could not help feeling a shiver of apprehension go down my spine at the sheer magnitude of what this crazy group was attempting. A revolution against the Guild was an incredible concept.

     We got there a couple of hours before midnight, which was the designated time of the meeting. The ‘gypsy’ Zauberin met earlier was playing host. I wondered at the concept of letting norms in on the secrets of the Way of the Word. In the Guild, the very thought of something like that would have earned you instant execution! Historians were not regarded as norms because of their responsibilities, but in the ‘gifted’ sense, we were norms ourselves. So in a way, it felt good to know that there was someone else around who could not twist reality. It made me feel slightly more at ease at the thought of meeting some of the most powerful and rowdy wordsmiths the Way had ever known.

     I was herded by one of the guys who drove us there to one of the tents. It was surprisingly quiet inside. I was left alone in the tent to set up my equipment. I wondered if there would be any scape-weaving, and then decided to just set up basic recording equipment. If a scape was announced, I would use my handheld recorder to figure out what the rest of the equipment could not capture.

      I was checking the angles on different cameras when the strange looking gypsy called Aktomentes came in. He nodded to me and opened a cooler, pulling out a couple of beers. He offered one to me, but I politely refused. The beer was a local brand and looked highly suspect. He shrugged and returned one beer to the cooler. He cracked the crown cap open with his teeth and settled down in a corner, chugging the beer like his life depended on it. So much for ‘someone like me’. I went back to my equipment calibration. After a while, a pretty young girl stomped in, clearly worked up about something. She called the man ‘Papa Loon’ and then rattled off something in a language that sounded like a mix between Spanish and Italian. I could just about make out the words ‘wordscape’, ‘wordsmith’ and ‘cipher.’ Aktomentes, apparently also known as ‘Papa Loon’, didn’t waste a moment and rushed out, closely followed by the girl. There was high drama afoot!

     A couple of minutes later, Zauberin came in. She looked around and nodded on seeing my preparations. She made herself comfortable on a little stool in a corner. It was fascinating to see so much woman fit into so little space. I wondered whether I should tell her of the exchange I had witnessed, and then decided not to. It was bound to come out sooner or later.

     Soon, the others started arriving. I could only gape as I watched them walk in. I had seen their faces on wanted posters and Guild pamphlets. These were the legendary renegades of the Way. There were saints and sinners, killers and spooks, those who looked really normal and others who were eccentric as hell. Zauberin took me around making quick introductions, which mostly comprised exchanging names and handshakes. They all used their scape-names, their real names abandoned along with their Guild IDs and associated lives.

    The first one was the Healer. He had made quite a lot of noise before defecting to the Free Word. He specialised in using wordscapes as a healing therapy, even on norms. He had created several spells to cure tumours of all kinds and was rumoured to be close to engineering a rune that could cure any virus-driven illness. The Healer had refused to work with the pharmaceutical industry, disgusted by their price control and elitist strategies. He had quit the Guild to practise undisguised healing. He had become a miracle man to the norm masses who led severely limited lives bound by what science could define and achieve. He had been hunted by the Guild ever since for jeopardising their secrecy. The Healer had proved to be elusive though, and had escaped several traps and assassination attempts by the Guild Hunters. I wondered at the motivation of a man who so empathised with norms. But ironically, these very norms were clueless about his world. He was dressed in local attire, which I learnt later was called a kurta-pyjama. He nodded a brief hello as he continued to mutter a spiritual energy scape that he was known to sustain at all times; a meditative and protective measure.

    Watching him with amusement was Gaia, the oldest renegade in the group. I had read of her escapades in the archives, going back more than a century. She hardly looked like a centenarian. She would have passed for 50, albeit a very matronly 50. Gaia led the Free Word’s environmental wing, engineering hundreds of sabotages, flummoxes and even assassinations every year that dealt crucial blows to industries dealing in any business that hurt the environment. Several Guild wordsmiths involved in corporate control had been inducted into the Free Word or terminated, as appropriate, at the hands of this crazy woman. She was one of those who was rumoured to be capable of killing a person, actually many people, to save one butterfly (if the butterfly was lucky enough to catch her fancy). She had gaily-coloured dreadlocks and was dressed in a free-flowing gown that flattered her physique. She took a moment to smile and give me a quick hug of welcome, and then went back to studying the Healer with that same strange look of amusement. I was still recovering from the surprise of the hug when Zauberin manoeuvred me to the next wordsmith in the line. I would have preferred to miss this one. Lonigan, or Lone-Gun as he was better known, was the Free Word’s answer to the deceased Jimmy Sau. Assassin par excellence and a maverick who insisted on operating alone, Lonigan added a notch to his scape staff for every Guild Hunter he brought down, in homage to the legendary gunsmiths of the Wild West. He was a lean whip of a man, corded and coiled like a snake readying to strike. Dressed in black shirt and jeans, he looked every inch the deadly killer he was. He looked at me with his watery, pale-blue eyes, offering no other acknowledgment.

     “Don’t mind Lonigan. He likes to spook people out.” Zauberin said with what was meant to be a comforting smile. It did not quite work. The next person in line did not help either.

     Necros was the spookiest wordsmith I had ever met, by far. If Lonigan was the Free Word’s Jimmy Sau, Necros was its Zyx. Necros, as the name would imply, was a necromancer. It was not clear to me whether Necros was a man or a woman, but for the sake of narrative, I shall assume it was a ‘he’. He was heavily made up, with kohl-shadowed eyes, blood red lips and slicked back hair. His gnarled scape-staff was adorned with a ram skull, and a robe that looked like it was made of raven feathers added to the effect. I shuddered as I wondered how many dead people he had brought back to undead-ness and demon-hood using that staff. I had heard of demon attacks on Guild wordsmiths that had Necros’s signature all over them. He hissed a greeting and smiled, revealing teeth filed to points.

    “I guess I should not mind him either?” I asked Zauberin, trying a bit of sarcasm.

     “Necros?” She asked, “Why would you mind him? I thought he was rather nice to you.”

     I did not know if she was joking. For the sake of my own sanity, I assumed that she was. Next in line was a nervous looking kid who would apparently need to wait for a year or two before he could drink in a pub. I was not fooled. The Guild and the Free Word had almost come to an open war over the Silent Kid. The Kid, as he was called, was the only mute wordsmith who had made it from the trainee ranks of inksmiths to the hallowed ranks of apprentice breathsmiths. He had been kidnapped by Zauberin before he could be made a full-fledged Guild wordsmith; or so it was said. There had been rumours that the kid was the Wordscapist, because he was considered a thoughtsmith. Most wordsmiths assumed he was one because he could not really speak. But then it was discovered that he did mouth the words, though no sound came out. It had sparked many studies that challenged conventional wisdom about how wordscapes worked. The Kid was a gifted wordsmith though, and was sure to be a valuable addition to the Free Word. I could not help wondering if the loosed scape had come to this kid in its hunt for fulfilment. But then, Zauberin would hardly have been so warm to him. She would have handed him over to Sign in a flash.

     There were three more Free wordsmiths in the tent. I didn’t recognize them. They were the normal looking ones. I wondered if it took strangeness to achieve fame or notoriety. I stored away their names for future reference though; Isis, Wind and Chains.

     Zauberin turned towards our host, “And this is our beloved Akto; Aktomentes Loon; Andy’s blood-brother; a norm, co-conspirator and our magnanimous host.” Loon hardly nodded at me and proceeded to whisper to Zauberin. I wracked my brains for the name ‘Andy’. A moment later, it struck me. Andy or Andrew Wallachian had been one of Silvus’s inner circle. His defection to the Free Word had come as a shock to everyone. It was rumoured that Silvus had gone all out in his hunt for Andy, breaking many CCC laws in his quest for vengeance. Andy however had remained untraceable. However, I soon forgot all about Andy when I saw Zauberin’s expression. She drew back to give Akto a serious look and asked him in a low voice, “Are you sure?”

     His words were audible this time, “Dew saw him at it. She mentioned that the spirit was one of the people of the mounds. She tried to stop it and failed. It would have killed her if he hadn’t called it off. That too with a couple of words, like it was his pet or something. The scape was powerful, mistress. The CCC is probably on its way to the spot. We might need to split up sooner than we had planned.”

     Zauberin looked at Akto for a long moment, digesting his words. Each one of the Free wordsmiths was looking intently at them. The people of the mounds were faerie that eluded Wordkind for centuries and were even hostile to them. A wordsmith who could summon the fey ones was unheard of!

     “How dangerous is he?” Zauberin asked, just a hint of fear in her words. I felt a thrill of terror running through me. I could understand Zauberin being terrified by Sign. But now this mysterious wordsmith made her uncomfortable too.

    “He’s a strange one,” Akto replied. “Dew managed to bring him here without a struggle. I met him, and he seemed terrified of me; couldn’t stop me from taking him down and nicking him with steel. Dew does think he’s dangerous, but I haven’t seen it yet.”

     I could see the determination come back into Zauberin’s eyes. Anything Akto wasn’t afraid of, the great Zauberin could definitely face! Her voice was grim: “Bring him here. I would like to meet this gifted cipher.”