Teller of Fate
Fourth Movement: Custodians of the Incunabulum
Chapter Thirty-Seven
* * *
Rarely in his long life, had the Thief felt pain like this. He fought to keep from losing awareness. It took more effort than it should have. In the end, it didn’t matter.
The body of the Airkhart woman couldn’t handle it and simply shut down. The light faded somewhat, and he could see the other Airkhart, her brother, hardly more than a silhouette against the glare.
He and Erahn were in a storeroom with the male Custodian, the door closed and barred. A table was the only furniture in the room, other than a few bare shelves.
Someone was pounding on the door from the hall. There were shouts.
Airkhart did something with his hands and the shouts ceased so abruptly, their echo was momentarily audible.
With a look of concern for she whom he thought his sister, he turned toward the Thief, walked across the room, and knelt by her.
The Thief was lying sprawled beside Erahndira on the far side of the room. His eyes were open just a slit; Airkhart, it appeared, didn’t notice.
He tried to wake Jane. She was, of course, insensible. The Thief couldn’t yet move but would be able to before long.
It was then he realized he was no longer the Thief, but the Templar again, his memories and will fully his. He was Nameless. The latest trap had been completely neutralized.
Again, he had been subjected to the nightmare of being in another, lesser psyche. It had been the Dark Man’s mind again, this time openly working as a thief.
When he had begun his search for the Incunabulum, the Templar hadn’t bothered to hide his identity. His imprisonment had been managed without his knowledge, again.
Only one being he knew of had that kind of power and it had to be the one in front of him, pretending to be John Airkhart: The Wanderer in the Wastes. Pain had broken the spell.
But that wasn’t right. The Templar’s enemy wouldn’t have done anything to free a deadly foe. Though the power displayed by John clearly indicated another entity present, Airkhart appeared to be his own person and so ignorant of much the Wanderer would have known. A mistake, and one that Nameless intended to exploit.
Jane’s brother didn’t spend much time trying to revive her as he quickly noticed the satchel at the Templar’s side.
With a cry, he pulled out the Incunabulum, the book that Nameless had quested for for so long.
The key to locking the White God back in ITs prison was now in the hands of the Templar’s enemy.
The look Airkhart turned on Erahndira chilled Nameless. The Templar didn’t love her, but he’d come to value her as a companion. The thought of harm coming to her angered him. He could do nothing without revealing himself. He couldn’t afford that until his plan was ready.
Airkhart picked Erahn up and lay her on the table. He tied her to it with chain. Sometime during this, the Miu woke from her stupor.
Airkhart began to question her. To his horror, the Templar realized he thought Erahn was the thief and had been responsible for the murders of allies and for sending him, John Airkhart, on to his death.
This line of questioning startled the Templar. John Airkhart had returned alive from an audience with the Lord of Entropy itself.
The Wanderer must be only a passive part of John’s psyche, biding its time.
That John Airkhart had stunned his sister without noticing the presence of the last free Templar within gave the latter an edge.
He tried to move. Whatever Airkhart had done, it had effectively paralyzed him.
Airkhart’s questions were accompanied by Erahndira’s pain. Anger moved the Templar to greater effort.
Whether it was that extra push or just the ending of some spell, Nameless’s efforts to move began to have some result. Airkhart had his back to him and didn’t notice. Erahn’s cries of pain increased his rage.
His anger didn’t cost him his reason, though. Neither Airkhart nor the Wanderer knew about his presence. Deranged as his ordeal had made him, the Custodian still recognized and cared about his sister. That offered some protection.
Getting to his feet quietly was harder than it should have been but with the help of the wall, he managed it.
Two strides and he managed to grab Airkhart’s arm before it could inflict more pain. “John!”
Airkhart spun around, a look of rage giving way to puzzlement. He lowered his fist.
It took a moment for his eyes to focus. Then, almost as if a light had come on behind them, he recognized her. “Jane!”
He grabbed the Templar’s by the biceps and smiled. “I thought she’d done something to you. Did she hurt you? Did she say why she wanted the Book? I need to know who she was going to sell it to and for what. We must stop whatever’s going to happen here, then we must get home. This place isn’t safe for us.”
And on he went.
The Templar tried to interrupt, but Airkhart didn’t seem to realize he was babbling. He tried breaking Airkhart’s grip on his upper arms and found that he couldn’t. He settled for screaming to get Airkhart’s attention. “SHUT UP A MINUTE!”
Airkhart finally spluttered to a stop. The Templar was able to shrug his hands off.
Rubbing his upper arms, he asked, “What happened to you? The trap on that dead world, I mean. How did you survive? How did you get here?”
That seemed to confuse him again.
Again, his face went blank, like he was digging around for the right referent so that he could find the answer. Guess confirmed; the Wanderer in the Wastes had John’s psyche in a tight grip, yet he still couldn’t see his enemy hiding behind Jane’s eyes.
Finally, after a longer interval than before, “I was rescued by ahh…I don’t know who he was, actually. He told me about the Thief and what the Book was doing and that I should stop it—”
“Okay, okay. Now how did you get here?”
“He sent me here.”
“How?”
“I…I don’t…” John just trailed off.
Back to that later, then. “We have the Book. We can go.” If Nameless could get physical possession of the Book, the plan could still be saved.
“No! The Thief—”
“She’s not the Thief.” The Templar realized his mistake as soon as the words were out.
“Not…? But then who is? Where is he? You two were alone with the Book. If the Thief was gone, then—
“No! No, not you. Say it wasn’t you!” He struck the Templar across the left side with his fist. The blow was wickedly fast and hard.
Nameless flew across the room and struck a wall, sliding down it and landing in a heap. Once again, he couldn’t move. He did see Airkhart, a look of panic on his face, grab the Incunabulum and flee the room.
Enough.
He wasn’t going to get the Book back, at least not yet. But he now knew his guess was right: after several losses over many ages, the Wanderer in the Wastes had decided to flip the game board over.
He looked at Erahn, senseless again, and decided to spare her any more pain.
Carefully so as not to further damage Jane, Nameless extracted himself from her body.
Heavy, rapid footsteps foretold Airkhart’s return.
Not waiting to make a new body, the Templar fled the room as an unsensable wraith.
The White God would soon be freed. That the Wanderer had chosen Glyph for His stage meant the former would be the lesser evil.
It was time for reinforcements.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved
