The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) (23 page)

— 52 —

Blinding white is all there is, all around us, all inside of me. The light has filled the spaces within me where air used to be, where blood used to rush through my veins, when suddenly the white
shifts
to an interminable black, and I worry that I’ve gone unconscious—worse, that I’ve ceased to exist. I have to struggle for breath, but when I finally conquer the vacuum of my lungs, the darkness fades away, vanishing with my first inhalation, sucking itself inside of me, nearly knocking me on my ass.

I reach for Kyla, find her hand already stretched towards me. Our hands clasp tight, and we hold each other up until the world stops spinning.

“Welcome to Sheol, kittens,” Lykos drawls. “Not much to look at, is it?”

I breathe deep, trying to ground myself, and am met with a sharp, dusty smell that tickles my nose and dries my throat. The air is warm and still—not as warm as you would think, for being the closest thing to hell, but arid and summery. The sky, if that’s what it is, is a black cloud laced with firelight, charred and red, golden and sharp. It does little to illuminate this world, but something must be casting light, if not radiating it. When I look around us, I find a red, rubble-strewn wasteland stretching out in all directions. Distant shadows on the horizon hint at cities and settlements; far, far out ahead of us, I see what looks like huge, jagged teeth—a mountain range, I think. The ground around us is cracked up into huge chunks, dark gaps forming a web from our feet, stretching out as far as the eye can see.

“No, it doesn’t look like much at all,” I agree with Lykos.

“So, where to?” Kyla asks, fingering the knife in her belt loop, undaunted.

I study her, still awash in my own feelings of surprise and awe at having entered another world—dimension?—but I’m not surprised by how unshaken she is. She’s Kyla. She can weather all storms.

“If he’s still down here, he’s in the Black Gash,” Lykos says, and gestures.

I can’t tell what direction it is, but I think I can follow it. I study the distance between us and the horizon. The cracks in the earth are big enough to walk between, small enough to jump over—but the height of the rocks themselves is only enough to cover us below the waist. It would be excellent if we needed to hide, but if we find ourselves
needing
to hide it will probably already be too late. “There’s not much cover,” I point out.

“There’s nothin’ out here besides snakes and salamanders,” Lykos points out. “And the Zee people in their wagons. But we’d see ‘em coming. Anyway, the rocks drop a little ways off, and there’ll be some cover when we get closer to the Gash. Come on then.” He leads us forward, gliding across the rocks.

I take my first hesitant step, and am almost surprised at how solid the ground is beneath me.

“Sura ain’t generally the kind of creatures to roam around deserts meditating and whatnot,” Lykos tells us as we walk. “They have cities they prefer to congregate in. Their power is greater there, where they form a hub. And they need all the power they can get to push each other through the veils, when they go.”

“Do they work together then?” Kyla wonders. “I had an image of the Sura as being kind of chaotic and selfish.”

Lykos shrugs. “Oh sure, a lot of ‘em are, but they’re willing to work together if it means personal benefit. Not all of ‘em are in cahoots, but there are plots and plans among ‘em, and I don’t doubt kidnapping Trebor has somethin’ to do with one of ‘em.”

I cringe inside. “Which means…I have something to do with one of their plots.”

Lykos looks back at me with his ghost-like eyes, and there is such earnest tenderness there I miss my own father for a moment. I wish I could tell him about all of this, and I wish he might have a solution—but he wouldn’t.

“We all have a part to play, sweet pea,” Lykos tells me. “In their plots, and in the Malakiim’s, and in your own. Just follow your heart, and you can’t regret nothin’.”

Kyla touches my arm, gives me a curious look and a reassuring smile. “You’ve got this, A. You always do.”

I hope she’s right.

— 53 —

As Lykos promised, the rocks drop off a few hundred yards ahead. They reveal a rocky landscape peppered with scrubby growth and black, withered, cactus-like plants. Huge spines protrude from the pseudo-cacti, like darning needles, white as bone except for where they drip bright red poison from the point.

The sky glows overhead, steady flashes of lightning, without thunder, flickering behind the clouds. I sense the tension in the sky—a storm brewing, swelling,
this close
to breaking. I don’t think it ever has, or ever will, but I can feel the yearning of the wasteland for the deluge, as if it is my own. Maybe it is.

We wander between rocks and death-dripping needle points, silent, until Kyla speaks up.

“When we get to the Gash, how will we know where Trebor is?” she asks.

“Well, Ana should be able to tell,” Lykos replies.

“I will?”

“Of course. Otherwise we wouldn’t a bothered comin’ down here.”

I frown. “What if I can’t, though?”

Lykos laughs. “Sweetheart, you and I both know what’s goin’ on between you and Trebor. If you can’t find him, no one can. And I’m confident we’re gonna find him.”

Kyla raises her eyebrows. “What’s going on between you and Trebor?”

I shrug. “Nothing. He’s been training me to use magic, that’s all.”

“Ana!” Kyla elbows me. “Oh my god, this is serious, isn’t it?”

“What? Did you not hear me? Nothing is going on!”

“You’re in denial, that means everything is going on. Or it should be.” She smirks.

I shake my head. “You always think things are going on between me and boys. Trebor’s not even a boy. He’s like two years older than me, and not human.”

Kyla shrugs. “So? Looks human enough to me. And
two years
is nothing. I mean, Vanessa’s mom is almost ten years older than her boyfriend. And age of consent is seventeen in New York State, so, no worries
there
.”

I shake my head again. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
What happened to being brave?
I ask myself. I guess that was before I found out he was a fugitive, and that we’re both on the angels’ and demons’ Most Wanted lists.

Kyla looks sullen.

“I’m sorry, Kyla. I—” My ears perk at the sound of
clacking
up ahead—soft clinking of horseshoes against stone.

“Down!” Lykos whispers, and Kyla and I duck into the cracks of the rocks to our right. Lykos disappears as the clacking gets closer. After a few moments, he reappears behind us.

“Zee,” he hisses.

We crouch low, hidden in the cold folds of rock around rock. The space is narrow, sharp—I cut my hand leaning too hard forward to glimpse the passing threat, and my bruised ribs ache as I twist to peer around the rocks.

They arrive like something out of the past—horse and human and covered wagon—but with twists. The canvas over the wagon is filthy with red dust from the rocks. The horse is huge and black and
six-legged
, like an insect, towering above us as they pass. The human, even, has eyes so bright that they glow through the red-dark, and features so sharp and predatory I can’t help but shrink away, some part of me screaming to find cover in the farthest shadows from here. But I can’t risk moving now—the whisper of clothing, the distraction of movement—it could be enough to end us.

I hold my breath, waiting for them to pass.

Further down, the man at the reins pulls up, and the horse slows, snorting and stomping all six hooves in turn. The man speaks to someone inside the wagon in a swift and lyrical language I don’t understand, but is still somehow familiar.

A hand falls on my shoulder, and I jump, twisting back, up against Kyla. She clings to me.

“He wants me to invite the three of you to dine with us,” the Zee says, crouched above us on the rocks, greasy tendrils of black hair hanging around his face. His fingers dig into my shoulder, and his yellow eyes blaze as he grins. “I suggest you accept the invitation.”

— 54 —

It might be night here in Sheol—it seems to have grown darker than just dim, and the fire crackling against the darkness makes the contrast even more severe. It paints the Zee around us with gold and black, making demons of human faces, if they are even human at all anymore. An old woman sits on a rock next to me, two dead-white eyes staring into the flames while she shuffles a deck of cards. An old man sits beside Kyla, chewing on his own teeth.

Men and women young and old surround the fire, chattering, eating, staring, ignoring. They are pale and dark, black and white, fair and coarse. All sorts of people, joined as one, a band of nomads in a hellish wasteland. All of them, Fallen—all of them Sura, in human form.

“You have come for the Irin, I suppose,” the old woman muses at my side, drawing a card from her battered deck. The Hierophant looks up at me from the weathered card. “He is your teacher? Or your student?” She turns her ghostly eyes on me, sliding her thumb over the card as if she can glean information from the texture. A wide, crooked grin spreads over her face, gap-toothed and yellowed. “No. He is your destiny. Oh, how lovely to have such destiny.”

I decide it’s probably better not to speak until I’m asked something directly. The less they know, the better. The less I talk, the less chances I have of screwing things up.

Lykos hovers behind us. His one power is to lift the veils between worlds—it leaves him helpless in situations like this, but also invulnerable. He cannot be captured, but he cannot help, either. He just hovers, glaring, arms crossed over his chest, instead.

“You are a long way from home,” the man who found us says, his voice heavy with a brogue I’m unfamiliar with. He smiles, dark eyebrows curling up in a mischievous stare as his eerie yellow eyes dart between the two of us.

Kyla glares back.

“And you’re on our land,” he points out, clasping his hands before him.

“There ain’t no such thing as Zee land,” Lykos spits. “Yer nomads. Gypsies and mercenaries. Your home is in your wagon.”

The man frowns. “Silence,
ghost
. We possess the land we occupy. This is our realm, our home.
You three
are trespassing.” He looks plainly at Kyla and me. “My name is Ishmael. What are your names? And remember—” He holds up a finger and grins. “I will know if you are lying.”

I swallow. “Anastasia.”

“Kyla.” Her voice is like a growl, like her name has been pried from her tongue against her will.

“Lovely,” Ishmael comments, cocking his head. “Now, what can you offer me in trade, children of Iritz?”

“Trade for what?” I ask.

“For safe passage through our land, of course.” Ishmael smiles.

“This isn’t your land—” Kyla starts.

I touch her arm and stop her. “We don’t have anything worth trading.”

Ishmael looks us up and down, kneeling before us. He reaches for Kyla’s throat, and she slaps him away.

“Don’t you touch me,” she hisses, feral.

“Ouch, little one,” Ishmael laughs, and holds out his hand. “Your necklace, please.” A familiar, smoky scent emanates from him when he moves, as if he’s spent his entire life shoveling soot. The smell illuminates something inside of me, makes me remember that I should remember something, but I don’t. If I had the attention to spare, it would drive me mad.

Kyla frowns and looks at me, then back to Ishmael. She pulls the necklace out of her shirt and over her head. “It’s just a necklace,” she says, holding onto it tightly.

“Ah,” Ishmael‘s eyes grow large. “That is more than just a necklace. That pendant contains power from the World Tree. Very rare indeed.” He reaches for it, but Kyla closes her hand.

World Tree?
I wonder. Do they know about the Crimson Oak? Is it maybe something else entirely?

“Why would you want it?” Kyla asks.

Ishmael glowers at her. “That’s none of your business. A trade, then? Safe passage, in exchange for that amulet. You can make more of them, surely, if you know how to find the Tree?”

Kyla glances at me, doesn’t say that it’s mine, that I’m the one with magic, the one who can find the tree, not her.

“Unless there’s something else you wish to receive,” the old woman beside me murmurs. “Something more valuable to you than the Irin.”

Kyla is silent, staring at the little metal pendant, tiny glyphs chiseled into its uneven face.

The old woman draws another card: The Magician.

“You wish to know a name.” She touches the face of the man on the card, standing at his altar, wand raised towards the heavens. “The name of your father.”

I feel a lump form in my stomach. Kyla narrows her eyes at the necklace in her hand.

“I am my own person,” she says quietly, like a litany. “I don’t need to know him to know who I am.” She looks up at Ishmael, eyes swallowing the firelight, darker than I’ve ever seen. “If you’ll let us pass safely to our destination, you can have it.”

“Deal!” Ishmael snatches the pendant from her, laughing.

I stand quickly and pull Kyla with me. “Let’s go,” I say, and the Zee laugh at us as we hurry to leave.

“Oh, child,” the old woman rasps. “For a thing as eternal as what you are after, it is amazing how impatient you humans can be.” She titters dryly from within the shadows of her headscarves, gnarled hands fidgeting with her tarot deck.

And what is it I’m after?
I want to bite back, suddenly defensive. But I’m afraid of what she’ll tell me—of what I already know. My fists clench, and my heart thumps a tiny bit harder, heavier, in my chest. “There is nothing eternal about my quest,” I reply, throat suddenly parched. “I’m just trying to help a friend.”

“Ah.” She bobs her head up and down. “Aha. That is what is in your mind. But it is not what’s in your
heart
.”

Looking from face to face, I can see that the Zee people have all guessed at the old woman’s meaning. They are smiling coyly, making kissy faces at me, laughing.

Kyla glares at the old woman. I grab my friend by the arm and turn to leave, hurrying into the shadows beyond their fire.

“Dark one!” the old woman calls after.

Kyla stops and looks back, as if she can’t help it. For a moment, her face is transformed, unfamiliar, wild. All the hair on my body stands on end when I look at her, and I swear I see someone else looking out through Kyla’s eyes.

The old woman grins, and her dead eyes glow like the lightning pulsed sky overhead. “I will give you something for free, tonight. Because, even though you don’t remember me,
I know you.
” She lowers her head and sends the whisper across the air to us, perhaps by magic. “
There is no name to be found
.”

Kyla’s stare is intense, her eyes black and cold as they try to penetrate the old woman, but her lips have gone white. The old woman cackles.

I pull Kyla away from the Zee and their fire and their horrible trades. Lykos hurries ahead of us, the slight glow of him illuminating the dark. My arm is around Kyla’s, but her hand finds mine, and squeezes.

“I’m fine,” she assures me with an unhappy smile.

“She’s lying,” I say. “Trying to unsettle you.”

“I know,” Kyla says quietly. “Obviously. Nothing she said made any sense.” But it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. “Lykos, how far to the river?”

Lykos slows and hovers at her side. “Well, one nice thing about this whole situation—that wagon ride took a few hours off our travelin’ time. The Gash is up ahead, ‘bout a hundred yards. Ana, you know which way to go?”

I shake my head, listening to the ache and pound of my tired heart. “I need a minute. Kyla—are you okay?”

She gives me a funny look. “Of course. A, I told you, I’m done with that drama. Some lying old demon hag isn’t going to get me upset.”

I nod. “Okay. I just… okay.” I nod again.

Then I take a deep breath, and try to un-focus. I can’t tell Kyla and Lykos that I’ve never successfully used magic before, at least not without Trebor’s help. But I do what I’ve done before—spreading my mind out to the farthest edges of my perception, aware of nothing and everything all at once—

“Oh,” I say, clutching my stomach as shadows thick as spider webs funnel into me, connecting me to Sheol through its native magic. “It’s so
heavy
here.”

“The magic is different in Sheol, sweet pea,” Lykos confirms. “Be careful.”

As he says it, I feel him—a strange light in the dark, like a collage, pictures of pieces of him, out of place. And then there’s Kyla, pulsating with ferocity—fierceness—life—maybe even her own magic. I try not to focus too severely on either of them, instead stretching out, exhaling my consciousness across Sheol, calling to Trebor. I listen to the knocking of my heart inside my chest, and follow its echo across the wasteland.

“There,” I say, and I feel him stir inside my heart and brain, the echo calling back to me. My body moves, tugged by invisible hands, flashing a photograph of a gnarled tree and three white rocks, standing like sentinels at the river bank. “This way.”