The Hidden Illusionist Page 18

  By the time Xig gathered enough stone, Dantis was so on edge he could have burst.

  “Thanks, Xig,” he said. “Thanks guys.”

  The fiends stared at him expectantly.

  “Right - you need your spirit dose for today, don’t you? Here you go.”

  He sent spirit their way, all too aware his supply in the forge was diminishing. His supply of fear spirit from the ogres had dropped in part thanks to Dantis breathing it in himself, letting delicious fear rush through him. It was stupid, but he couldn’t help it. If he went a day without it, his head throbbed, and his leaf hands shook.

  Since no ogres had visited for three days now, he kept his supply topped up with weed spirit. It was much weaker than fear, but he discovered he could mix the two together, creating a diluted version of fear. It wasn’t optimal, but maybe he’d have enough to complete his dungeon.

  As Xig and the crew headed toward Yutula-na, Dantis faced the empty barren space where he planned to build his dungeon. Now, where to start?

  An illusion was the first step. His peculiar form of crafting was like building a house. First, you needed a framework. Then, you built around it with whatever materials you chose.

  Dantis’s illusions were the framework. Stone was his material, and his refined spirit would bond them together. This gave him pause. Would building with fear spirit have a different effect on his dungeon than if he were to use, say, happy spirit? There was no way to experiment. The ogres had been terrified at the sight of Wisetree, and so that was the only spirit he got from them.

  Staring at the barrens gave him anxiety. Was this how artists felt when they looked at a blank canvas? Maybe, but this wasn’t art. He wasn’t creating a work of beauty, but a tomb of horrors designed to draw adventurers into its depths.

  He’d only seen one dungeon for real. How long ago was it now? It couldn’t have been more than a month after he and Ethan fled their home, when they were still getting used to life on the run. They were resting in the forests near Rotterwell, when a group of brigands strolled by. At the same time, the sky crackled with thunder, threatening a drenching shower.

  “Over here,” Ethan said. “A cave.”

  He’d led them to a mound of stone surrounded by trees. A darkened hole stared out from it, leading to cramped passageways, where the slightest sound echoed back at them.

  “I don’t think this is a cave,” Dantis said.

  “Sure it is. What else could it be? You’re getting too worked up.”

  Dantis froze. Although Ethan went deeper into the tunnels, Dantis couldn’t move. Fear trembled through him, and his legs turned to water. The cramped tunnels, the darkness…

  …and the memories. Something shook loose in his head, a recollection he’d kept locked. A scream echoed in his mind; it was his mother’s, an agonizing wail chilling him to his marrow.

  Mum? Dad?

  Get out of here, Dantis! For God’s sake, run!

  Ethan came hurtling down the tunnel toward him, with spiders the size of dogs scuttling after him. “This isn’t a cave!” he shouted. “It’s a fucking dungeon!”

  Dantis focused his mana and cast his dungeon illusion in front of him. An outline formed, but it was hazy, and blue mana mists flickered around it. With one gust of wind, it dispersed.

  “You’re not feeling the memory,” said Wisetree. “It’s there, the image in your head, but you’re not in the moment.”

  “How would you know about illusions?”

  “Zaemira might have been the talented mage in our family, but I knew a few parlor tricks. I could cast minor illusions to entertain our guests. Magic doesn’t come from nowhere though. Magic isn’t the mana – that’s just fuel. The heart of magic is dredged from your mind. Do you think when Zaemira casts a fireball, she just imagines a ball of flames? No, she summons a fury inside her, deep and burning, and she lets it engulf her. Only then does she feed mana into it.”

  “And you can’t cast illusions anymore?” said Dantis.

  “Not in this body,” said Wisetree. His branches dropped, and they cast dark shadows around him. Even the glow at the base of his trunk seemed to dim.

  “You miss being human, don’t you?”

  “I try not to. I try like hell, because it took me years to accept what I am. For a century, I wanted nothing more than to die. I even asked Zaemira to end it, but she wouldn’t.”

  “She’s not going to change me back, is she? Even if I do everything she wants.”

  “That’s dangerous talk. Lost hope, and you’ll end up like me.”

  He focused harder. He pictured the stone walls, slick with dew, beetles and spiders crawling along cracks. The wind whistling through the tunnels.

  That had been a scary day, but he would have gone back in an instant because it meant he’d be with Ethan again. Now, he was alone, and the only way to get back to his brother was to conjure the dungeon again; to picture its horribly tight tunnels, and the way the wind ghosted through it.

  “Well done, grub!” said Wisetree, shaking him from his thoughts.

  “Well done? What?”

  And then he saw it. As he’d imagined the dungeon in his mind, his mana got to work, leaking out of his body and transforming in front of him.

  It was a dungeon. A twenty-foot-tall, a tit-shaped mound of stone. Barely large enough for a few tunnels and a loot room, but every potion started with an empty vial, as Dad used to say. He could build this simple structure for now and expand it later.

  With the illusion of the dungeon buzzing in front of him, mana crackling around its edges, he needed to get to work. He could already feel his mana draining.

  The piles of stone. He needed to infuse them with spirit, and imagine them welding with the dungeon illusion, and in that way, it would become real.

  He focused on his forge, thirty meters away in Yutula-na, and breathed in.

  Nothing came.

  He tried again, breathing deeper this time.

  “I told you that you’d use it up,” said Wisetree.

  Dantis slapped his own face with a leafy hand. He’d drained more than he’d thought. He’d wasted all of his fear spirit, devouring it himself to feel the thrill of it, to feed what he had to accept was an addiction.

  What would Ethan think if he saw him now? Not just about his body – knowing Ethan, he’d make jokes about it – but about how Dantis needed to taste fear to feel alive? What was he becoming?

  This was no good. He needed spirit, but the weeds wouldn’t be enough to craft a whole dungeon, and he could hardly wait around for ogres to show.

  He needed to stop using his fear spirit on himself. Using it was just another form of running away; it was escapism, like when he got addicted to mayroot on the streets. It was a prop he used to try and hide from his true feelings. Not anymore.

  “I need creatures,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” said Wisetree.

  “Every dungeon needs creatures to guard it – heroes count them being there. I need to catch monsters to put in my dungeon. When I do, maybe I can drain spirit from them too. I need to go hunting.”

  “Not like that, you don’t,” said Wisetree.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re a plant. The only thing you can hunt is flies, and even they might knock you on your arse. It’s time you made yourself a new body.”

  Dantis smiled at Wisetree. “Thanks for the help. I mean it.”

  Wisetree wafted his branches dismissively. “There’s not much else to do around here,” he said.

  No, there wasn’t. And even if Dantis got wanted he wanted and returned to his real body, Wisetree would still be here. He’d be alone, left with the barrens and the birds and his dark thoughts.

  He’d been thinking selfishly all this time, only concerned with getting himself out of the barrens. He couldn’t do that and leave Wisetree behind. Somehow, he had to find a way to help his friend.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dantis

  He stumbled against t
he dungeon wall. He’d only been in his new body for a few hours, and he’d already shattered two fingers, cracked his right leg, and broken a chunk off his torso. Luckily, dirt was in plentiful supply in the Barrens, and it was easy to meld new dirt to his mud body using spirit.

  It had rained in the Barrens that morning, and the breast-shaped dungeon was slick with dew. Bulging dark clouds brewed other the barrens, and once they opened up, they didn’t stop. Rain filled up cracks in the desert ground, washing over until the Barrens darkened from orange to brown.

  He’d created the dungeon from his memory of the one he and Ethan had seen in the forest. As an illusionist, his memories were the paint he splashed onto the canvas on reality. An illusionist couldn’t conjure images he’d never seen until he reached mastery of the discipline, and Dantis was a long way from that.

  His dungeon looked delightfully foreboding, from the dark walls that seemed to absorb light, to the spiders peeking out from cracks. Looking at it spread a glow in his stomach; he’d created this out of nothing but his mind, some refined spirit, and stone. He’d built something new in this vast expanse of barren land, which was home to nothing but the decrepit city of Yutula-na.

  He felt awed. He wanted to take in the seriousness of the moment, to soak in the splendor of creation. He wanted to…

  “How’s tit dungeon holding up?” said Wisetree.

  “Really immature for a centuries-old tree.”

  He stumbled again. Damn it; you’d think after walking on two legs all his life, he wouldn’t struggle with it.

  “You might have made the legs too heavy,” said Wisetree.

  “I used as much mud as you told me to.”

  He should have been happier. Under Wisetree’s guidance, he’d crafted a bipedal body from dirt, vines, and weed spirit. Then, he closed his eyes and transferred into it, stepping into his new mud form like it was a suit of armor. He didn’t have stunning looks, but at least he could walk. It felt good to travel on feet rather than a root system, even if he couldn’t get used to the weight distribution of the mud.

  Xig and the other five fiends approached from the east, tugging on ropes. Four creatures struggled to get free. They were horn-bugs; dog-sized beetles lined with spikes, whose antennae clicked and clacked as they tried to make sense of their new surroundings.

  Xig and the others tied the horn-bugs to four wooden spikes that Dantis had wedged into the ground.

  “Found in forest,” said Xig. “Happy?”

  Dantis had instructed his shadow fiend workforce to find him the meanest-looking creatures in the Barrens. If this was the best they’d found…maybe the Barrens wasn’t such a hostile place, after-all. Then again, perhaps there were bigger beasts out there, but Xig and his crew had been too scared to tackle them.

  Whatever the reason, he didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “I’m happy. Thank you, Xig. Thanks guys.”

  “Grub happy!” declared one of the shadow fiends.

  It was rare the other fiends spoke; they preferred to let Xig be their mouthpiece. Even so, Dantis had made a point of learning their names – Xig, Coswoz, Gunker, Toe, and Nigal.

  The horn-bugs strained against the ropes holding them in place. They chattered to each other using their antennae, clicking them in alarm.

  Pity stirred inside him. They’re scared of me. They’re terrified to be here.

  He had never considered that dungeon fodder could have feelings like that. It was accepted that heroes explored dungeons and killed the monsters within them, but he’d never considered the fact that the monsters might not want to be killed; that they had families, and though they looked vicious, were just trying to get by.

  Two horn-bugs strained against the ropes holding them in place. Another, one of the adults of the pack, made a low humming sound, and his children seemed soothed.

  “They live in patriarchal packs,” said Wisetree. “When the lead male dies, the female grows…manly parts…and takes over his role. If the female dies, one of the children will go through accelerated growth and become the new pack leader.”

  “You know a lot about them,” said Dantis, impressed.

  “I’ve had nothing to do but watch through my roots. I find them fascinating.”

  “No kill,” said Xig, crouching by one child horn-bug and stroking it.

  Dantis tried not to look at the bug, but he couldn’t help it. They’re so scared. So deliciously scared.

  His mud hand trembled. It seemed that while he was in his new body, his senses treated it as though it was real, and he felt pain and all the other sensations he’d normally feel. Now, his pulse quickened, and a drumbeat sounded in his head, behind his eyes.

  Before he could stop himself, he sucked a plume of spirit from the bugs. Not much; just enough to taste their terror.

  Xig grunted. “Bad Dantis. Bad.”

  “They’re just insects, Xig. They can’t feel anything.”

  Wait. That wasn’t true, was it? When he drained from the bugs, he’d tasted the fear in their spirit. If they could feel fear, they could feel other things, too.

  One shadow fiend stroked the head of a horn-bug and spoke soothingly to it.

  “You think the dungeon will draw heroes here?” Wisetree said.

  “Let’s hope so. I don’t see how else I can do it. Other than Gabreel, nobody else comes here.”

  “Do you really trust him with a message?”

  “What have I got to lose?” said Dantis.

  “When Zaemira is involved, there’s always something to lose, even when you think she can’t possibly take any more from you. Trust me on that.”

  “Where is she?” said Dantis. “You know, don’t you?”

  “She’s close.”

  “Tell me.”

  Wisetree seemed to think on this. “No,” he said. “Some things are best undisturbed. Best for you, me, and her. C’mon, get the bugs in the dungeon.”

  Dantis followed Xig and the fiends to the dungeon entrance, which was a mouth-shaped hole cut into the front of it. Staring at it, Dantis was taken back to the time in the forests years ago, where he and Ethan had tried to hide in a dungeon.

  Xig kneeled beside an infant B. “No be scared,” he said, stroking its head. “Be tough.”

  Shame wrapped around him like a tight-fitting cloak. What am I doing? He had to turn away as Xig and the others led the bugs deep into the dungeon. It was stupid, but Dantis couldn’t even go into a dungeon of his own creation. Even though he knew everything that was in there, the darkness and cramped tunnels were thick with foreboding.

  I’m too scared to go into my own dungeon, and I’m sacrificing helpless bugs for my own benefit. What are the barrens doing to me?

  Xig and the others emerged from the dungeon.

  “You guys can leave now,” Dantis said. “Go rest in the city. I might need you again tomorrow.”

  “Spirit?” said Xig, his eyes wide.

  “Here you go.”

  Dantis sent a waft of spirit to the fiends, coating their shadow forms. They seemed to bask in it, holding up their arms as if they stood under a shower of sunlight. With that done, they trundled back to Yutula-na, humming a song as they went.

  “What now, my little grub?” said Wisetree.

  Dantis shook his thoughts away. “Now we wait for Gabreel to come back this way.”

  ~

  Gabreel emerged from Dantis’s dungeon. Dirt stained his beige tunic, but he was otherwise unmarked.

  As well as delivering a message to the heroes’ guild, Gabreel had offered his services as a dungeon surveyor. This was a vital step in opening any dungeon, he told Dantis, and he wasn’t just a trader; in his youth, he’d been apprenticed to a dungeon master. He’d earned a surveyor license from the Dungeon Commission, and that let him evaluate new lairs and tombs.

  At first, Dantis hadn’t been interested in getting a rating for his new tomb of terrors, but he relented when Gabreel told him one key fact; heroes’ guilds wouldn’t even get out of bed for an un
rated dungeon.

  Dantis clenched his fists. It was all he could do to stop himself pacing around. What rank would Gabreel give his dungeon?

  Gabreel didn’t say a word. He stared at the structure with a hand on his chin, in a thoughtful pose.

  Don’t say anything. Don’t let him know I’m eager…damn it, I can’t hold it in!

  “Well?” said Dantis.

  “It’s small, but well-built for what it is,” said Gabreel. “Your traps need work; a child could break them. No dead-ends and no false walls, which is disappointing. Heroes like secret loot, y’know. They want to feel clever.”