Message Bearer (The Auran Chronicles Book 1) (9 page)

‘I must praise your kind.
You never give up, even when the end is certain, you still cling on to some
vague sense of optimism. It is a credit to you, it really is.’

Before Steve could protest,
the woman pinned him against the wall with one hand. Her face came close to
his, her breath misting in the cold.

‘The keys to your
vehicle. Where are they?’

Steve didn’t answer. He
stared at her, unblinking.
Hold on, it can’t be too long now.

The woman sighed and
shook her head.

‘Tell me where they are,
or I will take your pretty little wife and I will make her watch as I gut your
daughter from sternum to throat.’

A numbness fell upon him
as all hope died. There were no sirens, no blue lights. He was going to perish,
cold and alone. He could only hope that his last action would at least spare
the life of his wife and daughter.

‘In the hall, by the
phone.’

The woman’s scowl
lessened. ‘Good. Now, I just need to know how to drive it.’

Without warning, she gripped
his face in both hands, pinning his head back against the wall. Her eyes met
his, and then his mind was ripped from his body.

***

Sylph stood and leaned against the wall. She
wheezed in breath after breath, gritting her teeth against the agony that
burned in her mind, the effects of challenging the Consensus draining the last
ounces of energy she had left.

In a situation that had
been less time-constrained she would’ve applied the procedure more delicately,
probing to find the embedded patterns and muscle memory required over several
hours. This was not one of those situations, and she’d ripped the knowledge out
of his mind with brute force. It would come back, in time, the body and mind
anchored together by the Weave. The poor bastard would have a hell of a headache,
but he would live.

She pushed open the door
with a gentle nudge. The hinges creaked as it swung inwards. She caught the
edge before it collided with a washing machine that was positioned just behind
it.

‘Steve? Are you okay?’

The woman came rushing
down the stairs. She stumbled at the last step, slumping against the banister
as she saw Sylph, silhouetted in the door frame.

‘Who are you? Where’s
Steve?’ the woman’s voice cracked as Sylph staggered forwards, exposing the
caked-on blood on her arms and face, and the curved blade she clutched in her
good hand.

‘You stupid bitch, why
did you have to come down?’ Sylph said, moving further into the house.

‘I’ve called the police,
they’re on their way.’ The woman said, her voice shrill.

Sylph paused and
scrutinised further. The woman’s pupils were small. Her neck pulsed as her
heart raced. She could’ve been lying, but Sylph’s instincts told her that she
wasn’t. She shook her head and approached.

Why did they always have
to be so stupid?

Sylph dumped the car after driving for a
couple hours north. It had been a bumpy ride at first, and she’d hopped and
juddered the vehicle along as she edged it out of the farmyard, but eventually
she’d reached an uneasy compromise with the vehicle. Sticking to the B roads
she made her way towards home without any further mishaps.

It was late afternoon as
she finally saw the familiar sight of Ledhill, the familiar sight of home going
some way to remove the unease that had grown on her since she left the farm
house. No doubt the police had arrived there by now, and the husband and wife
would’ve given them a vivid description of the woman who broke into their house
and threatened their lives.

Why hadn’t she killed
them?

The question came again,
as it had done on several occasions already on the trip back. Marek would be
beyond pissed. The mission was the priority, he would say, anything, or anyone
else, was expendable.

Yeah? Well, she didn’t
agree. She’d made it back, the mission was a success, of sorts. It didn’t always
have to end in bloodshed.

She turned down a side
street and parked the car in the forecourt of Hayway’s Garage. Keith waddled
out of his office as she got out and ambled towards her across the concrete.

‘Looks like you’re
famous, Sylph.’

‘Shut it. Dispose of
this,’ she said, tossing him the keys.

‘Master Marek will not be
pleased,’ Keith said, smirking in that way that always invited a punch.

‘I’m sure he will be
satisfied when he sees what I have for him.’ She nodded down, looking at the
stained hooded fleece that stretched over Keith’s belly. ‘Give me that. Now.’

‘What? It’s sub-zero out
here and the heater’s on the blink!’

‘I’m sure you’ve got more
than enough insulation to ward off the cold,’ she said, before adding, her eyes
hardening, ‘Unless you want me to remove that for you as well?’

Keith shook his head, his
jowls wobbling in a way that made her stomach heave. He tossed it over, Sylph
catching it with her good arm. The other had stopped bleeding now, the healing
effects finally taking hold. She threw the fleece over her. The garment stunk,
but it would do. There was no point getting caught now, so near to home. She
pulled up the hood and stalked out of the garage.

Luchar glanced up briefly as Sylph walked
into the dining hall before looking down again.

‘You made it then?’ he said. He had one of
his heavy boots on the table, giving it a polish.

‘Just about.’ She grabbed
a bread roll from a half-empty basket on one of the counters before sitting at
the edge of the table. ‘You make it out okay?’

‘A few got in the way.’
He glanced up at her, sniffing the air. ‘You look like shit. And you smell the
same.’

‘I missed you too.’ She
looked around at the empty hall. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Evening prayer?’ Luchar
said, raising a chastising eyebrow.

‘Of course.’

‘Marek’s pissed with you,
you know.’

Here we go.

‘Really?’

‘You left three alive in
that farmhouse. Plus a cop at the morgue.’

‘So?’

Luchar slid his boot back
on and stood up. ‘Don’t play clever, Sylph. I don’t know what your problem is
but you messed up. You risk the mission when you leave loose ends.’

‘They were innocent,’ she
said, and meant it.

‘No one’s innocent.’

Luchar turned and left
her alone. Screw him. They didn’t all have to be blind automatons. Balor
worshipped individuality, independent thought. Well, time to get it over with.
She devoured half the roll, leaving the rest on the side. She sank a pint of
water before leaving by the stairwell that led to Marek’s office. Her arm still
ached, and she did stink, but the Master would not wait.

***

‘Come in, child.’

Sylph pushed open the
large iron door and stepped into Marek’s study. The warmth hit her like a wave.
A large log fire burned in the hearth. Marek stood there, one hand resting on
the mantle. His white eyes stared into the fire. Most people thought he was
blind, but even if he was, the other powers he possessed more than negated that
impairment. Sylph wasn’t sure either way. It wouldn’t have surprised her if it
was all part of the masquerade, exposing weakness where there was none. When he
turned and looked directly at her it did nothing to dispel that suspicion.

‘Come, come, my dear.’ He
beckoned her in, motioning to the other armchair near the fire. Sylph obeyed,
welcoming the chance to finally sit down.

‘You are injured,’ he
said, a concerned frown on his face.

‘It’ll heal.’

‘Perhaps, but you are
clumsy. We don’t want you to scar.’

He waved a hand. A
burning itch crawled all over the scabby, mangled flesh on her forearms. As she
watched the skin reformed and moulded, the damaged tissue vanished, young skin
replacing old. At the same time the aches in her limbs evaporated away, a
weight lifting from her. As the itch subsided, Marek nodded. Satisfied.

‘Thank you, Master,’ she
said.

‘Gratitude is not
necessary. Now, it sounds like you had an eventful couple of days. Tell me,
child. Were you successful?’

She nodded. ‘I managed to
retrieve the memories from the traitor.’

‘Excellent work. Did you
happen to see what she saw?’

Was there an edge to his
voice? She shook her head. ‘No, Master.’

‘Good, very good. It
would be a shame if you were somehow
tainted
by her experiences.’

A silence hung in the
air, the veiled threat clear between them.

‘I follow your orders,
Master. I am loyal to the mission.’

‘Of course you are. I had
no doubt.’ He moved over to her, drifting like a ghost. He held out two
slender, pale hands. ‘Come, child. Let me remove the burden of your mission
from you.’

She swallowed hard and
leaned forwards. She knew this was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier.

Cold hands pressed
against her temple. She closed her eyes.

‘Relax, child. Lower your
defences. This won’t hurt.’

She did as instructed,
lowering the mental shields that she kept up on a near-permanent basis. The
process began in an instant. Icy tentacles burrowed into her mind, the cold
descending in random slivers that spread throughout her body, numbing her limbs
so that they felt almost distant, disconnected.

An image flashed before
her, a brief scene, vivid and full of detail. It vanished as quickly as it came.

‘That’s it, we’re done.’

She looked up at the
smiling Marek. The tentacles receded from her. Warmth returned to her body as her
mind became hers again. Mental barriers rose in an instant.

‘Thank you, Master. Did
you get all you needed?’

She shoved the image out
of mind.

‘I believe so. There are
a lot of memories in there that aren’t your own. It will take time to filter
out what I need.’

‘I’m sorry, Master, I
didn’t have much time. I -’

Marek held up a silencing
hand. ‘It wasn’t a rebuke, Sylph. I’m aware of the constraints you were under.
Now, take your leave, child. You have served the Lord many times over in the
past few days. Take some time off. Meditate. We will resume your training in a
few days.’

Sylph stood and nodded. ‘Thank
you, Master.’

She went to the door.

‘Sylph?’

Her hand was resting on
the cold handle as she turned back.

‘Yes, Master?’

‘You made a mistake
leaving survivors. In the future, kill them.’

She left without a word.

***

Marek watched the door close. When Sylph’s
aura faded out of sight he turned and picked up the phone. The recipient
answered almost straight away.

‘I have retrieved the
last memories of the infiltrator.’

‘And?’

‘It is confirmed. You
were right. The boy now has the pattern. She passed it to him before she died.’

‘How much did she get?’

‘Everything.’

A pause followed. ‘Understood.
I’ll be in touch.’

Seb sat at the edge of his bed, watching
the door, willing the knock to come. The clock read 7:56, four minutes before
he was due to be summoned and three hours after he’d woken up with his heart
fluttering. He’d sat at the window overlooking the lawn, watching the sun crest
the horizon and bathe the grounds in a warming pink haze.

 Last night he’d returned
to the quarters with his head throbbing. By all rights he should have simply
walked out of this mad house, if they’d let him. The thought had crossed his
mind several times already.

Yet why was he still
here?

The Weave. Shards. Magi.
How could any of this stuff exist in the real world? It beggared belief. It
couldn’t be real, but yet his memories didn’t lie. He’d seen those things,
those
sheol
. Those black eyes. Those poison-tipped talons. And then
there was Cade and the Brotherhood. Sure, the yellow eyes could be contacts,
but everything else? The super speed? The shadow melding thing? No way. Just no
way.

When the door had shut
behind him last night he’d decided one thing. If he was there in the morning
after a night to think about it he would stay. Maybe they were insane, just
some crazy cult with a Matrix fetish, but deep down he knew that wasn’t the
case. No, if he was there when the sun came up he would give them a crack. It’s
not like he had anywhere else to go, anyway.

Well, the sun was up, and
here he was.

The knock came just as he
was drifting away to someplace else. He snapped to, jumping from the bed. He
opened it to reveal Don, the guy that had dropped him off the night before.

‘You’re awake, good,’ Don
said. He held out a folded up tunic and pants like the ones he wore. ‘Come with
me.’

Moments later Seb
followed Don down the corridor to the same flight of stairs he knew led to the
main hallway. Rather than exiting into the garden this time they turned left,
emerging out into a wide hallway that ran the length of the front of the
mansion. Massive windows appeared at regular intervals streaming warming rays
into the corridor.

No one else joined them
as they moved along the hallway, which puzzled him, but he did not comment.
They followed the hallway down to the end where another set of double doors
loomed. For a moment Seb thought they were heading out into the gardens, but at
the last moment they veered right, heading down a narrow corridor that ended in
a rusted, iron door. Don stopped and turned back to him.

‘This is where I leave
you.’

‘What is this place?’ Seb
said, looking over the door. At one time it looked like some kind of ornate
markings or designs had been etched into the metal, but a combination of time
and lack of maintenance had led to the surface simply looking weathered, with
random half-symbols and images appearing here and there without any specific
meaning.

‘This is where you will
study,’ Don said. Was that a tone of sadness in his voice?

‘In here? Are there other
students inside?’

Don sighed and shifted on
his feet. He glanced over Seb’s shoulder, apparently checking that they were
definitely alone.

‘There are no other
students, at least not in here.’

‘What? Where are they?’

‘There are only six other
acolytes currently based at Skelwith. As you are without a Family they are
forbidden from interacting with you and vice versa. As the only Adept on site
today it was left to me to deal with the outcast.’

‘What? What outcast?’
Then it hit him. ‘I see.’

‘It’s not your fault,
kid,’ Don said. He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. ‘Listen, the
magi, they’re a people of tradition. It’s more important than anything to them.
You, you’re not from a Family, so you literally have no status amongst them.’

‘So what are you saying?’
Seb said, something hot building behind his eyes, ‘I’m just here for that thing
in my head?’

Don shrugged. ‘I’m sorry,
I am. I just…I don’t know what to say.’

‘Great. Just great.’ He
nodded at the door. ‘So what’s in there? A set of chains and a bowl of gruel?’

‘Someone like you.’

Don edged past him and
nearly ran down the corridor. Seb stood, dumbfounded. Stunned didn’t cut it.
There was an itch on his skin, his stomach crunching in painful spasms. He didn’t
cry. He wouldn’t cry. He hadn’t done that since he was a boy, before, well,
just before. Instead, he pushed the door open, revealing a set of irregular
stone steps that dropped down into darkness. As he stepped into the gloom he
did what he’d always done in his life when he’d received his latest knock back.
He took the insult, the shame that had been dumped on him, and channelled it.
Somewhere, deep inside, where hurt and sadness would normally dwell, a small,
hot flicker of anger blossomed.

He weathered the
treacherous descent for what felt like several minutes. On more than one
occasion his feet slipped from under him. By the time the stairway levelled out
into a wide corridor he was nursing several bruises and a cut brow. A narrow
channel of water ran down the middle of the passage. Slimy moss covered the
curved walls on either sides.  Water dripped to the floor from several points
in the ceiling, the sound echoing throughout the tunnel. He pressed on ahead,
not afraid, but eager to get to the source of the glow that emanated from
around a bend up ahead.

The distance to the light
source was further than he’d realised and it took a few more seconds of walking
before the tunnel opened up into a massive, oval chamber. The channel
terminated in the middle, the water trickling through a metal grille into
somewhere far below. High above, in the centre of the chamber, he could make
out a similar grill through which shafts of sunlight shone, illuminating the
room.

Seb took a step into the
chamber, almost slipping on a step that was overgrown with lichen. Around the
sides of the room was an assortment of boxes, sheets, racks and other odds and
sods. It seemed more like a dumping ground of waste rather than a storage room
for anything specific.

What the hell was this
place?

A clattering from the
shadows made him start. An old man came stumbling out of an alcove, his arms
full of rolled up scrolls. One scroll tumbled out of his grasp as he lurched
towards the table near the centre. Seb lunged for it, yanking it out of the
chilly pool of water.

‘Ah, shit! That’s going
to set me back another day now!’ The man said, snatching the soggy parchment
from Seb.

‘I’m sorry, I -’

‘Why, did you drop it?’

‘No.’

‘Then why are you sorry?’

‘Erm, for your
inconvenience?’ Seb said eventually, quite unsure how this conversation was
going to play out.

‘Boy, life’s too short to
worry about other people’s inconveniences,’ the man said, rolling the parchment
out flat onto a dry section of table, batting a candlestick out of the way to
make room. Seb dived to one side as other scrolls threatened to roll off onto
the floor. He caught them and placed them on a stack of wooden crates that
seemed relatively free of damp.

‘So, you’re the outcast
they told me about eh?’ the man said, stepping back and appraising Seb with
narrow eyes.

Seb blinked and swallowed
down the heat that rose in his throat. Why the hell was he even stood here and
taking this shit? The old man obviously picked up on his sudden tension.

‘Now, now, we need to get
that out of you sharpish.’

‘Get what?’

‘The attitude. You won’t
last five minutes with that massive log on your shoulder weighing you down!’

Seb spun away and flopped
into a dust-covered armchair that was only half-covered in junk.

‘Oi, stand up,’ the man
said. His eyes were fixed on Seb, his jaw set. Seb sighed and looked away.

‘Up. Now.’

Something in the man’s
voice gripped Seb’s mind, demanding attention. Without even thinking, the idea
of resistance somewhere far away, he rose to his feet.

‘Now, I’m guessing you’ve
heard rumours about why you’re here?’

‘Sure have. Teach me some
stuff then when I’ve learned enough you’ll be able to rip this secret message
I’ve got out of my head and probably cast me aside, use served.’

The man clapped his hands
together. ‘Good, glad that’s out of the way. For a minute I thought it was
going to be awkward!’

What the hell? Was this
guy for real? ‘Are you serious? Is this funny to you?’

The man came closer. He
smelled of must and garlic. His skin was weathered, like hard leather. His eyes
shone a piercing blue that bored right through him.

‘No, not funny, not
really. You want to know something, boy? I’m exactly the same as you. I was an
outcast. Still am in fact. I’d been kicked out of my Family for reasons I won’t
go into. My stay here was only temporary, apparently. That was forty years ago.
But you know what I did?’

‘Hid down here?’

The man laughed. Several
teeth were missing. ‘Not quite, although sometimes it feels like I did. No,
boy. I made myself useful. You think this place just runs itself with those
lazy bastards upstairs? No, of course not. There are many things that need
doing that they don’t want to get their hands dirty with. I made myself useful
by picking those up until I got to the point where they
couldn’t
get rid
of me. And soon, you will be the same.’

The man grunted and nodded
to himself. Seb stood for a moment, wondering if the man knew he hadn’t
actually spoken for a few seconds. When he couldn’t take it any longer he
opened his mouth -

‘What’s your name?’ the
man said, cutting him off just as the words were forming in his head.

‘Erm, Seb. Seb. It’s Seb,’
he stammered.

‘You sure, Seb? You want
to think about it for a bit longer?’

He laughed at that. ‘No,
Seb’s right.’

‘Your parents lazy, Seb?
They only give you one name?’

He sniggered again. He
liked this guy. ‘Seb Wilkinson.’

‘Wilkinson, eh?’ the man
said, nodding as he scratched the end of his beard. ‘And your folks, what
happened to them?’

Seb shrugged. ‘No idea, I’ve
been in foster care all my life, they could be dead for all I know.’

‘Okay,’ the man said.
Unusual that, most people seemed keen to press on when confronted with this
fact, trying their own brand of amateur psychology as to why Seb, this
obviously lost soul, ended up the way he had. This man was different though,
accepting his answers at face value, not judging, at least not visibly. Seb
found himself warming to him already.

‘And I presume you know
why you’re here?’

‘Like I said, I’ve got
some kind of message in my head. You lot need it out, but can’t do that without
me being trained, whatever that means.’

‘That’s pretty much the
sum of it,’ the man said.

‘Are you the one who’s
going to train me?’

The man nodded. ‘Of a
fashion. I’m going to steer you in the direction you need.
You
are going
to do the training. At the end of the day only you can do this. No one else.’

The man left the table
and gathered the remaining parchments into a large satchel, reminiscent of the
packs Seb had seen in art class - when he’d actually bothered to turn up. ‘Now,
let’s not tarry, we’ve got deliveries to make today and I’m behind already.’

The man shuffled off to a
rusted hook in the wall where a thick overcoat hung. Seb winced at the curved
metal, wondering what it had been used for in its former life.

‘What’s your name?’ Seb
said, his voice trailing off as the man ventured towards the stairs.

‘Caleb,’ Caleb said, not
slowing. ‘Now come on, we need to get a move on.’