Chapter 2
2553 Words
2
There was nothing ghostly about the solid figure that stood before us, but the edges of his person were. . .off. Almost like they were frayed. It meant I couldn’t quite focus my eyes on his person.
The professor chuckled. “You two look as though you have seen a ghost.”
My eyes bulged and I whipped my head to Asher. “Is that a thing here?”
He looked as stumped as me, and a little wary of our deceased companion. “There have always been stories, but I haven’t seen anything myself.”
Cosimos grasped his hands behind his back and arched a bushy eyebrow in bemusement. “Might I turn your attention to the box that Cait touched?”
Asher and I half-turned to face the table and the tell-tale box, and what a tale. I picked it up and looked back to the poltergeist professor. “Is this another Heart of God?”
Cosimos grinned and shook his head. “Not quite. It is a box to contain not the essence of an immortal, but the soul of a mortal.”
“You left a part of your soul inside the box,” Asher guessed.
The professor nodded. “Quite right! Quite right indeed! I thought perhaps such an expedition as you described would require more than one adventure, and so I left a little bit of my being inside the box. In case you should have need of it.”
“Then you expected to die?” I asked him.
Some of his humor fled as he turned his face to one side and pursed his lips. “Let us say that the likelihood was there, and so I took precautions.”
I looked him up and down, and now my eyes began to see what they had at first refused to see. The edges of his body rippled like the frayed strands of a shawl in a slight breeze. There was also a touch of an unearthly light that emanated from his person. In the darkness of the room I could see it, but guessed that out in daylight it would be impossible to view.
“Then you are sort of a ghost, aren’t you?” I wondered.
“Now that my body is no more, I suppose that is the proper title,” he mused. There was a tinge of sadness in his voice, but he cleared his throat and turned his attention back to us. “But that is in the past, and I must surmise that your being here means I may still be of use to this world.”
“We received a letter from Leon that Davy chartered a ship to take him to Bradach,” Asher informed him.
Cosimos’s eyebrows crashed down and his face tightened. “I see. That is worrisome news. Did the letter state his intentions?”
Asher shook his head. “No, but we thought perhaps your writings might illuminate his reasoning.”
Cosimos glanced around. It was kind of eerie watching someone whom you knew to be dead act with such normal gestures. There was something distinctly abnormal about the whole thing. “I haven’t much left of any particular books. They went the way of all things.” He absently waved his hand at the hearth. A pile of ash had spilled out onto the floor. “Much that is left in my collection are the basic-” He paused and his bushy eyebrows crashed down.
His eyes zeroed in on a particular spot on one of the far bookshelves. He marched over and searched the shelves for a moment before he spun around to face us. “The book is gone!”
“What book?” Asher questioned him as we joined our deceased companion at the wall.
Cosimos stepped aside and gestured to the empty hole. I could see a dust spot where a book had once stood on end. “My first academic writings on the subject of gods! Someone has stolen it!”
“What exactly did you write about?” Asher wondered.
Cosimos shook his head. “Nothing of great importance, but I believe it was the only copy left in existence. There were notes on the research into the gods that were done by one of my ancestors and Arzat, such as their possible abilities and limitations, and the location of Amalthea.”
I felt a strange twinge run up my spine, like a tingle of fear and creeping realization. The funny part was I had the strangest feeling it wasn’t my fear that clouded my mind. “The power of gods?”
Cosimos nodded. “Yes, though that knowledge was a limited scholarly subject due to the secluded nature of the gods and what was known from legends. I could hardly make a half book out of the subject, and that was only due to Arzat’s notes.”
Asher stepped closer to me and set his hand on my shoulder. The touch jolted me from my strange fright and I whipped my head up to him. His eyes bore into mine with a worried intensity. “Are you alright?”
I shook my head. “I. . .I don’t know. I just feel-” I grasped my left arm and hugged Cosimos’s box against me as I bit my lower lip. “I just feel scared.”
Cosimos’s own keen eyes studied me. “You clutch your arm very unusually, Miss Miller. Why?”
I looked down at my arm as though it was the first time I’d seen it. “I-I don’t know. It just feels cold.”
“Amalthea?” Asher guessed.
The professor stroked his chin. “I would venture to guess that you are correct.”
“The piece of Amalthea inside me?” I asked the pair.
Cosimos dropped his hand and nodded. “Quite right. There is evidently something amiss that the piece of her blessing you hold greatly dislikes.”
I pushed the troubling emotions aside and raised my chin. “Who else besides Davy could have taken the book?”
Cosimos shook his head. “No one would have any use for such a small pamphlet, and there were some protection spells around my home that would allow only those I deemed worthy to enter.”
“Unless they had the power granted to them by a god,” I finished for him.
He inclined his head. “Yes, and with that in mind we had better venture out as soon as possible. The Gate of Heaven itself is a three days’ carriage ride.”
Asher grinned. “Not with my driver.”
Cosimos wrinkled his nose. “Thank the gods that I no longer have a body to ache beneath his rough ‘driving.’”
That brought my thoughts back to the box in my hands. I set my palm over the top and studied the container. “Could anybody touch the box and summon you?”
After a moment when I didn’t hear a reply I looked up to find that Cosimos had turned his back on us. “Do you perhaps remember our first meeting? I commented that you had an unusual aura about you, did I not?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but-” A realization struck me and my eyes widened. I pointed a finger at myself. “You mean. . .you set me up to open the box?”
Cosimos looked over his shoulder and his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Perhaps, but shall we go?”
In a blink of an eye he transformed into a ball of light and darted into the box. The container glowed for a second before it went dark.
I looked up at Asher and raised the box a little. “Think we could use him as a lamp?”
“I heard that,” Cosimos’s voice floated out of the container. “Now stop dawdling and hurry along now! There is no time to waste, even for my timeless existence!”
My eyes widened. “Are you. . .are you immortal now?”
“Not if you bore me to death with your incessant questions, now hurry along!” he insisted.
I tucked the box under my arm, and together Asher and I exited the house. We found our friends waiting, albeit impatiently. Actually, they appeared to have started a war between themselves.
“Another filter will not help!” Ratatoskr snapped at the pixie above his head. He leaned over the hood of his strange vehicle with his feet dangling in the air. His furry cheeks were smudged with oil of some kind and gloves covered his clawed hands.
“But it would be soooo much cleaner,” Leith insisted as it flitted above the rodent. “Ever so much cleaner, and so much more fun because we will have to replace it! That means-”
“Taking it off and putting on a new one,” Ratatoskr finished as he rolled his eyes. He waved a wrench at his curious companion. “There’s more to machinery than just taking apart and putting back together, ya know.”
“But what could be more fun!” Leith squealed.
“Keeping everything together, for one. . .” Ratatoskr muttered before he noticed us. He dropped onto the ground and removed the leather gloves. “Well? Find anything?”
I patted the box in my hand. “All the answers we could ever want.”
Ratatoskr arched an eyebrow as he studied the container. “In that tiny thing? What’s it got, a small encyclopedia?”
“More or less,” Asher confirmed with a sly smile at the corners of his lips. He inspected the vehicle. “Are you ready to return us home?”
“Ready and willing,” Ratatoskr confirmed as he slammed the hood shut. “But I’ve got a feeling you’re not going to be there for long. You’ve got that look in your eyes that spells trouble.”
“Trouble, no doubt, that you would like to avoid?” Asher teased.
Ratatoskr twitched his whiskers. “Well, if there’s more bacon to be had, I wouldn’t turn down an offer for help.”
Asher shook his head as he led me toward the back seat of the vehicle. “You wouldn’t want to go where we are headed. The high seas are not a place for a rodent.”
Ratatoskr’s face turned slightly pale. “The puddle of horrible wetness?”
“Just that,” Asher confirmed.
“Well, I guess I wouldn’t then,” Ratatoskr mused with a shrug.
“The high seas? Is that the ocean?” Leith spoke up as it flitted between them.
“A load of filthy water, that’s what it is. . .” Ratatoskr mumbled.
Leith flew in front of his face and clasped their hands together. “Can we see it? Please?”
Ratatoskr waved his hand in the direction of the port. “You can see it any time you like out there.”
“But I want to see more of it,” Leith pleaded as it clasped its hand together. “There must be more greens and blues in it, and so many more creatures to play with!”
The sneak wrinkled his whiskers. “Then you can see it as much as you like, but I’m not ending up like my great-granddad and being a drowned rat.”
Leith’s face fell and it hung its head. “Oh. . .” The disappointed pixie turned away and sniffled. “O-okay. I-I guess I don’t want to see such a pretty thing, anyway.” Leith kicked at the air with one foot. “It’s just been a dream of mine forever. Just a little glimpse of the waters. . .”
Ratatoskr shut his eyes and slapped his hand over his face. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but fine.”
Leith spun around and its face lit up with joy. “Really?”
Ratatoskr dropped his hand to his side and sighed. “Yeah, really.”
Leith squealed and flung itself at him. The tiny pixie enveloped his neck in a tight hug. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“Don’t go doing that soft stuff on me,” Ratatoskr scolded his companion as he yanked the pixie off of him. “I’m not saying we’re going to be going on a ship with them. We’ll just take them to port, and that’s all.”
“Yes! That would be wonderful enough!” Leith agreed.
“Now then-” Ratatoskr mused as he returned his attention to Asher. “What’s this all about, anyway? What takes you to that overgrown puddle?”
“Destiny,” Asher replied.
Ratatoskr frowned and squinted his eyes at Asher. “You’re in that bad, aren’t you?”
Asher’s smile didn’t falter as he nodded. “That bad.”
“The god mess like on Athas?”
“Worse. Davy.”
“Well, that settles in then,” Ratatoskr announced as he crossed his arms over his chest. “We’re going with you to keep you out of trouble, and there’s nobody faster than my machine.”
A devilish smile slipped onto Asher’s lips as he folded his arms over his chest. “I had thought to employ Gregor.”
Ratatoskr wrinkled his whiskers. “Those horses and that rickety carriage? They wouldn’t make it half a day keeping up with my beauty. That’s why you need us.”
“So very much us!” Leith spoke up as the little pixie zoomed up to flutter between us. “I want to see the ocean!”
Asher’s expression took a serious turn as he studied our small rodent friend. “I would be lying if I said we didn’t have a chance of dying during this trip.”
Ratatoskr snorted and shrugged. “So what’s new? Besides, if you kick the bucket then I’ve got myself a lot more bacon.”
“And I still want to see the ocean!” Leith insisted.
Asher sighed, but the corners of his lips turned upward into a smile. “Very well, but pack quickly. We leave in an hour.”
Ratatoskr saluted us, and Leith mimicked him. “Aye aye, captain.”
“But first you have to get us home,” I teased as I nodded at the vehicle.
“Not before the bacon goes down my stomach,” Ratatoskr reminded him.
“Now?” Asher scolded him.
“Right now,” Ratatoskr confirmed. “Then we get packing.”
“I thought we were going to leave in an hour,” I reminded the group.
Ratatoskr grinned and wagged his eyebrows at me. “This won’t take long, love.”
Asher sighed, but gravely nodded. Ratatoskr drove us back home and Asher led our small troupe inside and the three headed toward the kitchen. I, however, paused just inside the door. The box in my hands had remained quiet the whole time. I turned the container over in my hands and a whispered word passed over my lips. “Professor?”
“You needn’t jostle me so,” Cosimos’s voice spoke up from within the box.
I sheepishly smiled at him. “Sorry. I was. . .well, I was just making sure you were still there.”
There was a moment of silence before he sighed. “Yes. I suppose that is understandable, all things considered.”
I furrowed my brow. “Do you. . .do you know what happened? At Molina, I mean.”
Another pause, and I could feel a strange coolness flow from the container. “Yes. Though my soul was split into two parts, they were still as a whole. I. . .I witnessed everything.”
I shut my eyes against a wave of tears. “I didn’t get a chance to say how. . .how sorry I was. I mean, it was kind of our fault it all happened-”
“Nonsense, woman,” Cosimos scolded me. Heat now emanated from the box, but it was a soothing warmth. “I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and I must say my mortal coil left this earth on a most heroic deed.”
I laughed and patted the top of the box. “You did indeed.”
“Now that’s a good slab of bacon!” Ratatoskr announced as my corporeal companions strode from the kitchen.
I blinked at the threesome as they came up to me. “You’re done already?”
Ratatoskr puffed out his chest and patted his stomach. “Yep.”
I arched an eyebrow. “With a whole pound of bacon?”
“I said it wouldn’t take long,” Ratatoskr reminded me.
“It wasn’t cooked,” Asher elaborated.
“Minor taste changing wasn’t necessary for that,” Ratatoskr objected as he looked up at Asher. “Now then, we’ll be right back and ready for that trip.”
“I must send off a letter first,” Asher announced as he turned to the stairs and set his hand on the banister. “I won’t be more than a moment, and then we can be off.”
“A letter now?” Ratatoskr wondered.
“I won’t be more than a moment,” Asher promised as he climbed the stairs and disappeared into our room.
Ratatoskr turned to me, but I could only shrug. The sneak sighed and shook his head. “I’ll never understand that guy.”
- Writer
