The Angel of Elydria (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 1) (42 page)

P
enny’s heart filled with dread at the sight of the approaching stranger. A black bandana obscured the lower half of the man’s face and another wrapped around the top of his head. Wind-swept silver hair hung around his face and curious eyes peeked out from the space between the fabrics. The eidolorbe gripped in his bony hand was full of souls swimming and bouncing around inside their cage. The light emanating from the souls acted as a flashlight as the stranger brought it close to Annette’s face and gave a strangled gasp. She was covered in Hector’s blood.

“Our friend is hurt! We’re stranded out here―please help us,” Annette begged, hands clasped together.

The man pocketed the eidolorbe and rummaged around in the voluminous black jacket he wore before pulling out a tiny glass vial that appeared to have a few drops of water inside it. He shook it and sighed.

“I was saving this, too,” he muttered. His voice was flat and held no note of shock or worry, which puzzled Penny. With a small start, Penny noticed that his irises appeared to be bright yellow in color, just like an owl’s. He uncorked the vial and turned the mouth of it toward the sand, pouring the water out in a spiral shape.

Everything was still for an instant, and then the sand around them erupted as if something underneath the ground had exploded. The sand began swirling around in a rapid tornado until the world disappeared into the torrent. When the wind died down and the sand blew away into oblivion, they found themselves standing in a small apartment.

Penny goggled at their new surroundings. From the walls to the floor were cluttered strange, otherworldly objects and decorations. The ceiling was strung with small colored lights, paper lanterns, shimmering stones, and a dingy chandelier. In one corner of the room was a spiral staircase leading up to a loft and beside it a closed door. The walls were an explosion of paint splotches, scraps of wallpaper, posters, masks, and something that looked like a large collection of ticket stubs. It was as if a dingy, battered rainbow had crash-landed into the room many years ago and been left to disassemble itself and collect dust.

The man with the bandanas crossed the room to where a kitchenette was crammed into the corner. Plucking up items from a massive pile of paraphernalia, he tossed a bull’s horn, tambourine, musty blanket, and an old doll onto the floor, uncovering the same type of miniature Sophotri Penny had seen Gavin make calls with before they left Iverton. The man tapped it, called for the sanctuary, and spoke with someone on the other end.

“Hey, Gorra, it’s me. I need a surgeon and an alchemist here immediately. It’s a life or death kind of thing,” he said in heavily Andronian-accented Gobblish, showing he was originally from the Nation of Men.

Annette raised an eyebrow at Penny, but she was too busy watching Hector’s still form to acknowledge her. He was bleeding out all over the floor, his breath shallow. The silver-haired man joined them and looked over Hector, nudging the folds of his tattered shirt aside to inspect his wounds.

“Fomorian bite?” the man asked.

“Uh-huh,” Annette burbled. The man glanced sideways at Annette once more, as if checking on something, and then cast his gaze away, the skin behind his bandanna almost as pale as his hair. He reached into his pockets and pulled out two cross-shaped pieces of wood.

With a rattle and a shake two small objects, each about a foot tall, rose out of his deep pockets as if animated of their own accord. Controlled by the man’s twitching fingers, they floated up into the air and over to Hector with blank eyes and frozen smiles. A chill ran up Penny’s spine; they were grotesquely bizarre marionette puppets.

She dove to protect Hector, and the man shook his head.

“They won’t hurt him,” he said, and she edged away just enough that the puppets were able to grab Hector, one by his shoulders and the others by his ankles. Still controlled by their master, the puppets carried Hector upstairs and into the loft, his blood dripping as they moved. Penny shot a nervous glance at Annette as the man called the puppets back, set them down, and glanced at where Simon lay unconscious on the floor. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung open as he took rhythmic, rattling breaths.

“He okay?” the stranger questioned.

“He just fainted,” Penny said in a thin voice. The man regarded them for a moment, then went off to search among his collection of things until he found a pillow and a few blankets. He helped lift Simon onto the makeshift bed and handed two more blankets to Penny and Annette, who wrapped themselves up.

Moments later a knock sounded at the door. Annette and Penny drew closer to each other as the door opened, revealing two female goblins. They were dressed in similar robes to the ones Armonie wore, except these colors were darker.

“Where is the patient?” one of them asked the man in Gobblish. He stood aside to let the goblesses inside and they followed the man up the staircase, glancing back at Penny and Annette. Penny was bewildered as to why, and then realized they were both sopping wet, covered in blood and sand, and wearing their nightgowns.

Once the trio disappeared up the spiral staircase, Penny and Annette were left alone in a ringing silence. For a long while they stood, listening to the low murmur of voices and footsteps above their head. After it appeared the goblesses were not going to be back down for a while, the girls sat at a table with an assortment of old, mismatched chairs encircling it.

The full weight of dread was sinking in. Penny was sure that she was coming out of some form of shock, and that cold reality was preparing to tear her to pieces. The two puppets rested on the table beside them, eerie in their stillness. They each wore strange clothes that looked as if they had been sewn by hand, and their sculpted faces looked like something out of a half-formed nightmare. Each appeared to be humanoid, but more like twisted caricatures than accurate representations.

Losing what strength she had left, Penny covered her head with her hands, trying to work out what had happened, guessing that during the course of the vivid nightmare she had somehow started sleepwalking. This rationalization bothered her, because she had no history of being a sleepwalker. It was as if the masked entity had taken over her entire body.

The notion tormented her. She had chosen not to tell anyone about her dreams, chosen to ignore them, and because of this everything she cherished was now in jeopardy.

Penny’s miserable thoughts were broken by the sounds of footsteps. The man was returning. He descended the staircase, feet now bare, and removed the bandana that previously hid his nose and mouth.

Penny had assumed from the color of his hair that the man was quite old, but seeing his face for the first time she was startled to realize he was probably in his mid-twenties. Beneath his startling yellow eyes Penny could see grayish purple discoloration―a sign that this was someone who lacked sleep. A golden earring was set in one earlobe, and gray trousers clung to bony legs. The large jacket seemed tent-like over his skinny frame. Despite his aquiline nose, his face looked as if it could be quite handsome if not for the lifeless, exhausted look to it. He studied the girls, crossing the room to join them at the table. His eyes strayed again to Annette, and after being stared at for too long, she grew agitated.

“What?” she spat. To Penny’s surprise the man grinned, showing a single crooked tooth in an otherwise impeccable smile.

“It’s really you,” he murmured. “You’re Annette Deveaux, aren’t you?”

“You know who I am?” The anger in her face disappeared and a wave of dull shock replaced it.

“
Everyone
knows you,” he said with a lopsided grin.

Penny frowned, wondering how such trivialities could matter to them at a time like this. “Excuse me, sir, hate to interrupt, but is Hector okay?” Penny demanded, feeling her voice growing hoarse.

“So his name’s Hector, is it?” the man wondered aloud, sounding somewhat interested before he shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Looks like he got chewed up pretty good, but if anyone can save him, it’s those two. Oh, and by the way, my name’s Argent. No need for that ‘sir’ crap.” He leaned back in his chair, observing Penny with interest. “What’s your name?”

“Erm, it’s Penny.”

“And how is it that you know each other? Oh, and how is that you fell into the ocean? And why is it that you’re all…in pajamas?” Argent inquired, not waiting for them to answer as he got up, shuffled over to the kitchenette and began rummaging through the cupboards.

Penny and Annette shared a befuddled look, both lost for words. Argent leaned back to confirm they’d heard him, giving them both an imploring glance with his queer eyes as he set a dusty kettle on the wood-burning stove.

“It’s a long story,” Annette murmured in a voice that communicated she had no intention of telling him anything. Argent swept back to the table, his bare feet padding along the dusty floor of his apartment. He grabbed the control of the puppet, and with a careful twitch of his hand, it sprang to life and began moving around the kettle, gathering cups and sugar as Argent’s hand commanded. Penny was transfixed by his skills as a puppeteer and watched, mesmerized, until Argent spoke again.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, and I assume you’d like to stick around until there’s news about your friend,” Argent said, his hand still commanding the puppet with practiced ease.

Annette frowned again. “Well, what were
you
doing on the beach in the early hours of the morning?” she challenged, seeming to think a taste of his own medicine might cure him of his curiosity.

Argent lowered his heavy eyelids, the ends of his mouth twitching up into the same lopsided grin. “I was collecting souls. What were
yooou
doing?” he asked, imitating her previous intonation.

“Collecting souls!? Whatever for?” Annette shot back as Penny started to doubt the morality of their would-be savior.

Argent made a small tutting noise with his tongue and shook his head. “Now, now. You can’t expect me to go rambling on when you’re keeping all those secrets to yourself. First, tell me what you were doing in the ocean―other than trying to get yourselves killed, of course,” he pried, his yellow eyes blazing behind his calm exterior.

“We fell from an airship and our friend Hector saved us by using a bit of magic to slow the fall, but we landed in the sea. We got away with using
his
wand―” Penny jerked her head in the direction of Simon snoring on the floor, “but Hector got attacked by the fomorian. Is that good enough for you?” She huffed and Argent’s smile broadened. He looked down toward his pocket for a mere moment, and then back at her with something reminiscent of admiration.

“Indeed,” he approved. “I was collecting souls so I can make some more of these.” Argent laid his hand on the other puppet and it shuddered under his white fingers.

Penny shivered. “You…you put people’s
souls
inside those things? How horrible!”

Argent shrugged. “I don’t force them in. I only take the ones that want to come, the ones that aren’t ready to leave yet. They’re free to go any time they please, right Kasper?”

The doll shuddered again, and a hatch in the midsection opened of its own accord. A faintly purple wisp oozed out like incandescent mist and circled around Argent’s shoulders before finding its way home, back inside the hollow body of the puppet.

“How do those things work? What do you use them for?” Penny asked, now enthralled.

Argent looked pleased by her interest, which seemed to perturb Annette. She crossed her arms over her chest and her lips puckered into a pout.

“Why were you on an airship all the way out here with someone like her?” he asked Penny in response, honing in on the fact that he was not going to get any answers from Annette.

Penny sighed. “We were going to Hulver to see King Yulghrat on official business from Iverton,” she offered.

Argent raised an eyebrow as he glanced back down into his pocket. “Now
that…
is an unusual bit of news,” he said as the other puppet brought mugs of steaming tea to Annette, Penny, and himself. Argent took a quick sip of tea and made a face as it burned his tongue. Penny grabbed hers up, enjoying the cup’s warmth that stung her frozen hands.

“Tell me everything,” he requested and Penny scoffed.

“If we’re playing by your idiotic rules, you should at least answer Penny’s question first!” Annette argued, her anger evident.

Argent studied her until Annette’s anger deflated and she fizzled back into an annoyed and embarrassed silence.

Argent looked away from them, propping his chin on his hand as he spoke. “The way I see it, you owe me quite a bit…I don’t have to let you stay here. I didn’t have to use the last bit of my Whirlwind Water, which was very expensive I might add, to transport us here, and honestly you are not entitled to my help in any way.” He let his words resonate for a moment. “Disregarding that, I really do hate to see a person in trouble―that and I’m an avid fan of the theater,” he added, pointing toward the wall where his patchwork of ticket stubs had been tacked up. “Now, if you’re quite finished being obstinate, I’d like to hear the story, please.”

“Why do you want to know so badly? It doesn’t really concern you,” Penny argued, trying to sound casual.