Wordscapist, The Myth
Chapter 21: Loose Ends

I exist

I am the

Wordscapist

Dew

I came to with a whopping headache and blurry vision. It took a while for things to clear and a while longer before I dared open my eyes. The first thing I saw was Slick’s face. He was right beside me, cradling me in his arms. I raised my head slightly to look around, pushing his hand away as he shushed me and tried to put my head back down. It didn’t take me more than a couple of seconds to recognise the place. We were back in Skye, safe inside De Vorto’s hideaway. The last I remembered, we were in the midst of a very tight situation and a door had crashed in my face. I also had some vague purple memories that felt very scary. How the hell did we get back here?

My head started spinning and I lay back down, closing my eyes. I waited for the buzzing and dizziness to pass and then opened my eyes again. Now I had Slick looking at me with a soppy expression, smoothing my hair back.

“Slick,” my voice escaped as a croak that didn’t sound anything like me.

“Yes sweetheart,” came the reply.

“Set my head down gently and back off at least two feet. If you don’t do it immediately, I will knee you really, really hard in a soft place. That is after an hour or so, when I can move my head without everything spinning.” I had to give him this much credit, he realised when he needed to act right away. He followed my instructions to the letter and then sat back with an innocent expression.

My headache was receding a little too fast and I saw the expression on his face. He was weaving a remedy through thoughtscapes. Again! I let him continue though, at least until my headache eased into a dull throb. I whacked him one on his knee nevertheless. He really should know better! He gave me an injured expression and then dropped it when he saw my face. That was the good thing with him. All the drama ceased the moment he knew I could see through it.

“So tell me,” I managed to speak with a voice slightly closer to mine, “what did I miss?”

“Oh, not much!” he tried waving it off, and failed miserably. Modesty was really not his strong point. “I got us out of a dual attack from Silvus and Zauberin, right into Sign’s universe. Then I faced Sign down and froze her up. I set up a mental link and figured out what her deal is. Finally, I tied her cats up to her throat, picked you up and brought you back. Oh yes, Silvus and Zauberin were still around. I fenced with them for a bit and left them to fight it out and brought us here. That’s about it.”

I guess my jaw had dropped to gape position when he mentioned Sign’s universe. It was still there. Knowing Slick, I could guess that was pretty much what happened. He tended to exaggerate the simple stuff and simplify the fantastic stuff. With this much brevity, I could only imagine what must have actually happened.

“Run that by me again. Slowly.” And then he did. In lurid detail. I was guessing there was some exaggeration this time, but the stuff was incredible enough for any exaggeration to be merely stylistic. I could give him that much. When he got to the combating Sign part for the third time, I realised what he was telling me. I leaned closer and took a good look at his eyes. It just took one look. There was no missing it. I slowly let myself back into a lying position and closed my eyes. I needed some more rest before I could deal with this.

Slick

I didn’t need to ask Dew to know what had happened. She had asked to see my eyes. And then there was a look of complete shock before she lay back down. It wasn’t the pleasant kind of shock I had been expecting either. It was the terrified kind.

My eyes had bothered me ever since that day in Goa when I had discovered that one had suddenly turned a sinister green. I learned to ignore it and took to wearing dark glasses to keep my eyes shaded. The colour was still quite disconcerting whenever I happened to notice my eyes in the mirror. But slowly, the weirdness had begun to fade out, and much like everything else about my body, I had begun to accept it as normal. Dew’s reaction brought back all the initial fear I’d felt on seeing my dual-coloured eyes for the first time. What had happened now? Did I have vertical slits like that of a snake?

I looked around and saw the pond. That would work, and I scooted over to get a look at myself. The pond was nice and clear, and I could see my face in all its glory. Both my eyes were green now. I guess the word for that colour was eldritch; eldritch green. I felt my stomach do a flip-flop as the fear came right back into my head.

A couple of hours later, De Vorto finally arrived. True to his word, he knew exactly where to replace us. There were still lots of unanswered questions, but I was already looking at him very differently. After the mental link with Sign I now knew the true importance of being called the Wordscapist; a title that I had foolishly claimed as my own.

The two hours that had passed since my eye examination and De Vorto’s arrival had been quiet. Dew and I sat beside each other, staring into space, the occasional sentence leading to some stilted conversation, which would be followed by more silence. Both of us knew pretty much exactly what had happened. I had claimed the gift of the Wordscapist for myself. It was part of me now. It was true that I could feel no presence in my head anymore, no surge of external power. It was all part of me. The problem was I now couldn’t stop myself from drawing on it. It had become part and parcel of who I was and would be there, innately and intricately linked to every action of mine, every word. I was stuck with it for the rest of my life. Perhaps even after that. I didn’t really understand how this entire Wordscapist deal worked.

When De Vorto fluttered in, it took him a moment to realise something was wrong, and one look at my eyes to realise what I had done. He was furious.

“What were you thinking, Slick? Why would you do that?”

“But you don’t know what I did...”

“I can see it for myself, can’t I? You’ve claimed it for yourself. You gave into the power, became one with it!”

“I had to! I was in Sign’s world! Nothing else worked there!”

“You were where?” At this, De Vorto went very still.

“Yes, I was trying to teleport out and ended up in Sign’s trap.”

“I told you not to teleport.”

“You weren’t there. You didn’t know how it was!”

“I told you not to teleport.” De Vorto was going an alarming shade of red.

“But damn it, I didn’t have a choice! I was stuck between Silvus and Zauberin! And Dew was unconscious!”

De Vorto paused for a moment there. He looked at Dew. “Are you alright?” She nodded. He got back to glaring at me. “There must have been another way. You didn’t look hard enough.”

“Damn it, Alain! Give me a break!” I felt like shoving him back, but knew that I couldn’t. I shouted instead. “I just fought off Amra, her interrogator, a zombie that won’t stay dead, Silvus, Zauberin, Sign, and her cats! I got us both back here alive and well without any assistance from you! And all you can tell me is that I should have looked for another way?”

De Vorto gave me a long, sad look. When he spoke again, he was much softer, “Slick, I just got the CCC death warrant on your name cancelled. I convinced the Yen assigned to this plane that you were right, and they were wrong. I even agreed to go on trial for my own deeds conducted half a millennium ago. And after all that, I came back to try and replace a way to free you from this curse.” Another long look, and then De Vorto lost it! He screamed right in my face, “But no! What do I see! I see a wordsmith who has given into the corruption, who has become the Word, who has become the Wordscapist! Have you seen your eyes, you foolish boy!”

I felt tears prickling my eyes. “But I had to save Dew. And what I had wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have a choice, De Vorto. I had to become. I saw my reflection. I feel what’s inside. I know...But I wouldn’t have done it any differently. I couldn’t have let any of those horrible people, zombies, or elementals have her.”

At this, I felt Dew’s arms come up around me from behind. She gave me a tight hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. And then, she looked up at De Vorto, who was still looking very sad. “Remember what you told me on the boat, Alain? We are all he has. And now, after what he has done, he needs us all the more.”

De Vorto sighed and then nodded. “I’m afraid you don’t have too much time, my boy. The gift will rage in you even more. You will not be able to control it as a separate entity. It is a part of you. It’s time to get down to some serious training.”

I groaned inwardly. I was careful not to let De Vorto see that, though. I shot Dew a quick grimace. There was no choice though. It was time to get down to work.

“So what do you suggest,” I asked Alain. Dew had already established that wordsmith lessons weren’t for me; they wouldn’t really work.

“Practice,” De Vorto said grimly, “You fought norms and wordsmiths, and even Sign herself. But you need to start lower down. The zombie was only the beginning, Slick. There are a many more monsters. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, succubae, incubi.”

My eyebrows had shot up as he went through the list. Say what!

“Yes, they’re all real,” Dew offered. “Just like the ghosts you munched up.”

“Oh yes, they’re real,” De Vorto said. “They are the spawn of wordscapes gone wrong. Some are shades of wordsmiths who refused to die. Others are victims who weren’t killed right. Some of my life’s work was to set up protection scapes for humanity against these monsters. I am sure there’s a lot more to do there. I think that’s a good place to start.”

I was staring at De Vorto with my mouth slightly agape. This was beyond insane! He wanted me to go hunt monsters! I turned around and looked at Dew. She was grinning at my reaction.

“But didn’t you say that it was potentially fatal for me to weave?” I asked, half tentatively.

“I think you’ve fixed part of the problem, boy,” De Vorto said, giving me a piercing look. “I told you that you weren’t made to be the Wordscapist. It looks like you wrenched yourself into shape. You should be alright. I’m more worried about the world around us.”

I chewed that for a while. There was one other question though, the most important question of all.

“De Vorto,” I spoke and hesitated. De Vorto’s expression changed. He sensed it, but didn’t say anything. He just looked at me expectantly. “What about the Lirii? We can’t let them go, not after what they did to Lorna, to you.”

There was a long pause. I could literally see the thoughts running through his head.

“You read Sign’s thoughts?” he just about whispered the question.

I nodded sheepishly.

He went a shade of red I had never seen before. I was half afraid he would explode. But then he swallowed and flitted around until he resumed some of his calm.

“How much do you know,” he asked, his voice still strangled.

“Most of it,” I said, unable to keep the guilt out of my voice. I had, after all, peeked into a very private part of his life. I just didn’t know it then. I could see Dew’s face burning with curiosity, but she wisely kept silent.

De Vorto flitted around some more and finally spoke, this time almost in a normal voice, “We will talk about this later. There is much you need to know. You’re not ready for the Lirii yet. But you will be. I think you have proven yourself. However, if I hear you try anything as stupid ever again, I will work my way back into your head and drive you insane. Is that clear?”

I nodded quietly. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I would give him the benefit of doubt any day.

“Then, let’s get started. We have a lot of work to do.” With these words, De Vorto did his disappearing act. I turned back to look at Dew. She was almost bursting. I sat her down and started telling her the details.

Amra

The teams had been at work for two weeks, repairing the office. It had been a mess. Entire chunks of wall and floor were missing, especially near the interrogation area. The tapes, those of them that survived, showed the biggest battle had been between Silvus and Zauberin. I guess it was too much to hope that they would snuff each other out. They exhausted each other to a stalemate, and then Silvus bailed out with a teleport. Zauberin tarried long enough to discover that the CCC backup team had arrived before taking Silvus’s lead, teleporting with an untraceable port. Not much of the Free Word survived that assault. There were a few that escaped. However, the CCC backup team had orders to attack with extreme prejudice. And that meant take no prisoners. There was a terrified historian in the mix, who was caught alive. He provided enough evidence to lock down a watertight case and put a shoot-on-sight bounty on Zauberin’s head. It also helped establish the innocence of the Free wordsmiths who did not play an active part in the attack. He was still being interrogated and had turned out to be extremely cooperative. He was almost relieved to be dealing with normal human beings and not wordsmiths. Can’t say I blame him.

Silvus and Zauberin were on the run, but not for long. We had teams on the lookout for them, and it wouldn’t be long before they were caught. Slick or the Wordscapist, call him what you will, was also at large with the girl. They were still wanted by the CCC for prosecution, but the most serious charges against them had been dropped. I tried hard to build a strong case, but with my Yen going soft after his conversation with De Vorto, I had very few options left. De Vorto stood trial for his crimes against Wordkind and humanity, presented a watertight case, and bailed under the spirit with no host clause. He walked free - or flitted free - and was now no doubt with that absconding couple. I tried to hook a trace on him, but with no corporeal body or scape sign to lock down that proved impossible. The entire forgive and forget approach didn’t go down very well with me. My Yen might not understand, but I had another appointment with the Lirii. I would replace all the help I needed there. I would catch that twerp after all. And when I had him...well, I could always claim he resisted arrest and I had no choice but to terminate him.

The last two weeks had been tough, back to the cat-and-mouse game. Only, this time I didn’t have complete CCC backing and was acting under my own steam. My Yen was more amused than anything else at my persistence. Nothing had gone according to plan, but all that was going to change soon. Slick had been on a monster hunting campaign of sorts since his escape. He had been going after the worst kind of scape nightmares, presumably honing his skills in the bargain. It wasn’t illegal, but it was still vigilantism. And it set down a pattern of behaviour that I could track and use to capture him. We had a fair idea what the next target was; a succubus, one of the worst. That should be interesting. This time I would go myself. I might just get to catch him. Well, a girl can live in hope, can’t she…