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Chapter Eight
Mavyn’s eyes are on me, but I don’t know what to say.
How could any power take a person from one world to another? The question of course sounds silly when considering that people are brought into these plains in such a manner, but that somehow feels different, almost natural, an unexplainable phenomenon like an earthquake or a storm. But for a person to take the power of an object and do the same, well, it sounds as fantastic as commanding the clouds to rain.
“You can use the stone to get us away from here?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she says tersely, replacing my wonder with disappointment.
“You said—”
“It is possible,” she interrupts, “but that doesn’t mean I necessarily have the ability to do so. The world stones carry with them great enchantments that can be harnessed in many ways, but at their core is a blueprint of their connection to the world they came from, like a memory. A map really, one that must be read and interpreted with discernment and skill.”
“And you are in some way lacking,” I infer.
The child, who stands next to me, immediately glowers.
“You haven’t seen what she can do,” he grumbles, “or you wouldn’t be saying—”
“It’s okay, Astor,” she hushes him. “I’m the one saying it.”
I am puzzled by the brief exchange. Astor’s outburst comes across as the sort a child of his age, perhaps 8 or 9, would have, but the thoughtful look on his face that follows makes him seem somewhat more perceptive, more mature.
“Sorry,” he says bashfully, receiving a nod from Mavyn.
“It is still bizarre to me,” she continues, “to for centuries have the same son possessed by the same childish sensitivities. My sisters had children before me. They all wished theirs would be young and adorable forever. I wonder if they would say so now. This must be so strange for you to imagine.”
“Maybe at first,” I reply, “but strangeness is all there is to know down here.”
“Yes, this land is quite a dreadful place, isn’t it? A graveyard where everyone is trying to dig someone else’s burial plot.”
She looks down at her desk, perusing several papers, each seeming to bring her a twitch of pain. I wonder if they aren’t correspondences of some sort. Or notes, maybe of where the surviving rangers are hiding. Wade told me that there are a great number of them, some having taken on much crueler identities, or offering their services in treachery like Severin.
Here in the dark, living a life of solitude with her son, she must think about them with great frequency, about the times when they weren’t being hunted down like wild animals. When some of them hadn’t turned into animals themselves.
“How do you survive?” I ask pointedly.
The question catches her in a stupor of thought, prompting her to stare blankly at me for a second. She then sighs a smile.
“Well, it’s not a luxurious life, but Astor is able to get what we need without much trouble. His cunning is like that of a fox.”
