Knowledge Aforethought, page 17
“You can’t take her place,” I said. “I mean, Charlotte may be gone but that doesn’t meant that you have to…”
“Become her?” Mary asked, tilting her head.
“I guess.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, a faint smile breaking through once I realised that I had pockets again. Proper pockets.
“I’m not trying to become her. I’m a journalist. A writer. Charlotte was an adventurer. A fighter. An honourable person. But someone has to take the Eye of Carteria to the Library at Sazhem. And after that? Who knows. Maybe there are other dangerous artefacts out there. People whose stories need to be told.” Mary lifted her chin defiantly, daring me to challenge her.
“Hard to kill someone who won’t be forgotten, isn’t it,” I said. My shoulders hunched and I shook my head, the image of Charlotte being consumed vibrant in my head. I blinked rapidly and pushed my glasses up my nose, hoping that the scratched lenses would hide some of my distress.
“Cal?” Mary asked, taking a tentative step forwards.
“Though, you’re going to have to come up with a different name than The Author,” I said, forcing myself to laugh. Mary hesitated then sat back down, nodding. She picked up a quill and ran her fingers over the feather.
“I suppose. I don’t know about Mary, though,” she said. “It’s too…staid.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” I looked around the little room, hoping to find something to comment on, something to prolong the moment and pretend that I wasn’t about to walk away from Mary and Machiavelli and all of the things that had happened between us. There was nothing.
“Take care of yourself, Cal,” Machiavelli said after the silence had stretched on for too long. Mary blinked and eyed me warily.
“You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question and it wasn’t said in disappointment.
“I have to get back to work,” I said, shrugging. “And, you know, find my soul.”
“Good luck with that,” Mary said, though it was plain she was sceptical about the whole thing. “Not being able to die can make you foolish.”
“Do you know, I think you might be right?” I asked, this time my laughter genuine. After a moment, Mary joined in, shaking her head. Machiavelli clapped me on the arm.
“Come,” he said. “Let us go. The city gates will be unguarded for a few more hours while the authorities try and sort out what has happened these last few days. There have been stories of gods walking the earth, of demons and angels, and people seem to be sporting spectacles more than before. The authorities are quite busy. Too busy to worry about the French, even though our mercenary army has diminished greatly.”
I nodded, only half-listening to the words. I waved to Mary with a smile and followed Machiavelli outside. We walked in silence to the gates. I admired Florence, thinking that it would be nice to come here when the world wasn’t about to fall apart. It really was beautiful. Artistic. Colourful. Every so often, Machiavelli would look at me. Then he would shake his head and look away.
“You know, the Medici—vampires or not—are going to be around for a while. All of this, the magic and the wonder, it’s not going anywhere,” I said just as we reached the gates. I stopped and looked at him, framed there by the stones. “You may as well embrace it.”
“Somehow, it all seems so much more…terrifying now that I know you are walking away,” Machiavelli said. I shook my head and put my hands on his shoulders.
“You’ll be fine. Trust me. Just enjoy what you have and don’t be afraid of the future,” I said. Machiavelli laughed, shaking his head hard enough that he had to hold his cap on with a hand.
“That’s the advice you have for me? You come all this way from the future and that is what you offer?” Machiavelli laughed all the harder.
“Well, let’s just say that history wasn’t my best subject.” I hunched my shoulders apologetically. I left Niccolo Machiavelli standing just outside Florence, laughing furiously. It was a sight I wasn’t bound to forget anytime soon.
—
Time didn’t even wait for me to reach the spot where we had met twice before. He just appeared at my side as I was walking down the road, plain as day for anyone to see. I raised my brows at him.
“Well, did you learn any lessons?” Time asked, smirking. I rolled my eyes.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re mocking me?” I retorted. Time chuckled and slung an arm around my shoulder.
“Because you are not dumb, Cal Thorpe,” Time said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I left someone in the 60s and really must get back there. Besides, I’m sure you have more interesting things to do than stick around and chat with me.”
“Wait, what—“I started, but the damage was done. Time touched my forehead and the world went white. When I came to my senses, I was swaying on my feet and feeling extremely woozy. At least I wasn’t screaming.
The world around me wasn’t the fields and hills outside Florence. There was no birdsong, no spring sunlight. There was, however, a familiar walnut floor and desk, the air filled with the long-missed smell of coffee. This wasn’t a theatre, or a city. I was in my office. I was home.
“Cal?” Yolanda asked, standing from the desk where I had left her. Agravaine was at her side, frowning. “You look funny. I thought you were just going to the theatre.”
I smiled wanly at my assistant. There was an emptiness in my chest that I rubbed absently. I stopped when I realised what I was doing. The emptiness remained. “Do you know, that’s kind of a long story. Why don’t you go make some popcorn?”
Yolanda grinned, flashing those extremely white teeth, then bounded off to the office kitchen. Agravaine sighed and sat on the edge of her desk. “Dr. Graveltoes posted more selfies. It’s looking like we’re going to have to take away his social media privileges entirely. Then there’s a summons from the dwarf kingdom of Aggra… Aggrl… Someplace I couldn’t pronounce unless I swallowed rocks. They want to have you market the ascension ceremony for their new queen. I told them you were booked for months but…”
I smiled and shook my head, both motions feeling simultaneously natural and artificial. It was good to be home. To see Yolanda and Agravaine. But there was still the weight of my now-broken phone in my pocket and the emptiness that was quickly growing in my chest.
I took a deep breath and pulled out the phone, tossing it on my desk. “Tell you what. You figure out where to get me a new phone around here and I’ll let you take on the dwarfs yourself.”
Agravaine’s frown turned into a full-on scowl. “You have got to be kidding me.”
It was good to be home.
No Time Like the Present
Two days later, I walked into Death’s house, pausing just long enough to notice that it was looking the same as ever: grand, beautiful in an old world kind of way, with enough care taken that it was plain someone lived there. It was stunningly expensive and had a sort of contemplative, melancholy air, as if it breathed. There were no servants, as far as I could tell, but the doors to Death’s library swung open for me all the same.
I found Death sitting in a club chair by a roaring fire, a leather-bound book with minuscule text in his hands. He was wearing a tweed suit with patches at the elbows and knees—what amounted to casual clothes for him. Coupled with the slight smile on his lips as he read, Death looked more relaxed than I had ever seen him. Maybe my time in the past had done some good.
Or maybe it hadn’t.
“Ah, Cal,” Death said, closing his book. He examined me with those empty voids that were his eyes, brows rising slightly. “I see. You’ve reached that point in time, haven’t you?”
“You mean the point where your cousin yanked me backwards to apparently go fulfil some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy or the realities of history or something? Yes, I’ve reached that point.” I paused a moment, wondering whether I was being sarcastic or not. I wasn’t quite sure.. “You have a strange family.”
Death sighed and massaged his temple. “You have no idea. But you soon will.”
“Do I even want to know?” I sank into the club chair opposite Death, not waiting for an invitation. Death watched the movement with something akin to surprise in his gaze.
“Interesting,” he said, making a musing hum. “How very interesting indeed.”
“What? That I’m not afraid of you anymore?” Again, I wasn’t sure whether I was being sarcastic, but the part of me not quite affected by the loss of my soul seemed to think I was genuinely curious. The lack of emotion, the inability to tell what I was feeling, it was getting worse.
Much worse.
“Should you ever have been? After all, inevitability is not despair.” Death watched me for a moment. I said nothing, rolling his words around in my head. It made sense, I suppose. But I wasn’t here for philosophy.
Death let out a breath and leaned back into the chair. “I don’t have your soul, Cal,” he said.
“Ah.” I frowned, sure I was meant to be feeling something other than a slight twinge of disappointment. Anger, perhaps. “Do you know where it is?”
“I am afraid not,” Death said. “Like its owner, your soul is rather difficult to pin down. And matters of the soul are not my area of expertise. Nor are they Life’s. I asked.”
“So what do I do now?” I asked. I rubbed the back of my head. “It’s been two days since I got back and I think things are getting worse.”
“They would,” Death said, nodding his head gently. “In the past, you had only been without your soul for a few days. Your emotions were volatile, difficult to control and perhaps not all there. But now, you have been without your soul for many centuries. It may only objectively be a few days, but your soul has travelled through time the long way around. Without a soul, you soon won’t feel anything at all. I do not know what will happen after that.”
I licked my lips, surprised that they were suddenly dry. “Where do I even start looking?”
“I do not know that, either,” Death admitted. Then, he did something that seemed odd, even given my strange flat, emotionless state. He leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees, and grinned. “But I know where you can get a temporary soul.”
“A…temporary soul?” I asked.
“Indeed.” Death chuckled, the sound sending shivers down my spine though I did not know why. “How do you feel about playing poker?”
Acknowledgments
I would love to thank all of you who have stuck with me through this wild journey thus far. You can expect many more adventures with Cal in the future!
Thanks especially to Fay Lane, whose covers always manage to impress and convey the perfect sentiment for this slightly bizarre, but oh so much fun series.
Thank you also to Michael Evan, who helped to edit this mess into the shenanigans you find now.
A special thanks to Alexzander Christion, who is the original creator of Charlotte. Or, well, who gave a name to her at least.
And, as always, thank you to my dad for listening to me drone on and on about Time and Death and Machiavelli, usually with no context whatsoever.
I hope to see you all in the next adventure!
About the Author
E.G. Stone is an independent author who has been writing, creating and causing vast amounts of trouble since the age of six. Since then, E.G. has improved rather a lot in both the trouble-causing and writing and now spends her time writing fantasy and science fiction. When not writing, she is off musing about the workings of languages, both real and created, or drawing and sewing. E.G. reads voraciously, perhaps to the point of slight-insanity. Weird, nerdy, perhaps a little crazy, she is having a grand old time writing, reading, reviewing, interviewing, and, naturally, continuing her endeavours in causing trouble.
Also by E.G. Stone
Speaker of Words
The Crow and the King
The Wing Cycle:
The One Who Could Not Fly
To Never Hear the Song
The Forsaking of the Blind
On Behalf of Death:
The Innocence of Death
Knowledge Aforethought
A Party of Certainties
Pestilence and Plague: An Anthology of Stories about The Virus
E.G. Stone, Knowledge Aforethought
