Copyright © 2012 by Justin R. Cary.

Cover Design by: Justin R. Cary

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-5437-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5438-8 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/03/2012

Contents

CHAPTER 1    THE WOMAN IN THE DESERT

CHAPTER 2    THE QUEEN, ONCE UPON A TIME

CHAPTER 3    IN A MIRROR, DARKLY

CHAPTER 4    SECRET STORIES

CHAPTER 5    FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW

CHAPTER 6    THE COLD, GREY NORTH

CHAPTER 7    AN EMPTY STALL

CHAPTER 8    ECHOES OF THE PAST

CHAPTER 9    MEMORIES IN THE SNOW

CHAPTER 10    THE DARK CARESS OF DREAMS

PART 2

CHAPTER 1    CYRIL

CHAPTER 2    ENCOUNTER IN THE WOODS

CHAPTER 3    CHAMBER OF THE SERAPHIM

CHAPTER 4    IN THE WHITE LOAM

CHAPTER 5    THE TRUTH AT LAST

CHAPTER 6    LILLIAN’S GOODBYE

CHAPTER 7    CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

CHAPTER 8    A GIFT FROM LONG AGO

CHAPTER 9    TREASURE ISLAND

CHAPTER 10    RETURN TO CASTLE BLANCHFIELD

CHAPTER 11    A DARK REUNION

CHAPTER 12    THE BOOK

CHAPTER 13    BACK TO THE BATHROOM

CHAPTER 14    CARRIED AWAY

CHAPTER 15    TWILIGHT CREATURES

CHAPTER 16    IT BEGINS

CHAPTER 17    THE RAZING OF ASIDE

CHAPTER 18    IN COUPLET CANYON ONCE MORE

CHAPTER 19    DUNNY AND QUIXITIX

CHAPTER 20    IN THE TWINNING

CHAPTER 21    CYRIL’S GIFT

CHAPTER 22    ANOTHER COMPASS

CHAPTER 23    VOICES FROM BEYOND

CHAPTER 24    TOGETHER AGAIN

CHAPTER 25    JA’MIRRA

CHAPTER 26    ALLCRAFT’S PLAN

CHAPTER 27    MICHAEL SMITH

CHAPTER 28    MYA’S JOURNEY

CHAPTER 29    THE DEPARTURE

CHAPTER 30    THE SONG OF THE SERAPHIM

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

For my parents.

Always loving

Always giving

Always inspiring

For my partner Erica.

You are love, grace, respect and everything I cherish in this world.

Weave In

Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,

Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,

Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,

Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the wet, the warp, incessant

weave, tire not,

(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end, nor

really aught we know,

But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the

death-envelop’d march of peace as well as war goes on,)

For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,

We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Design

I found a dimpled sider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth—

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth—

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?—

If design govern a thing so small.

-Robert Frost

The Madison Times-Dispatch

Local Retirement Community Abandoned

Susan Berkly, staff writer

Friends, family members and nearly everyone else in York County awoke Sunday morning to a bizarre situation; every resident of the Brandywine Retirement Home missing without a trace.

It’s like they just vanished. Sergeant Steven Ashford spoke with reporters on the scene Sunday morning to a back drop of swirling red and blue sirens, yellow police tape, and concerned family members looking on. At this point we have no leads. If these people were kidnapped, I’m not sure how it could have happened. I mean, we’re talking about TVs left on, water left running, stoves burning . . . it really is like they just disappeared, said Ashford.

Brandywine Retirement Home, established in 1984, has become the most prestigious and expensive retirement community in Wisconsin with people retiring here from all over the state.

Maybe somebody took them for money, said Abigail Winston, 16. Her grandmother, Charlotte Winston, is one of the missing residents. I don’t care what it was, I just want my Nanna back.

Residents of York County and the police force are both baffled. The police claim to have not received any kind of ransom note or other form of communication from a possible kidnapper and the people of York County have been left with nothing but more questions.

Her bed wasn’t made. My mother would never leave her bed unmade, said Gretchen Wily, 47. I grew up with her and spent everyday of my childhood with her. She made that bed every morning, first thing, before she even put her slippers on; made me make mine too. When we went to her room I cried when I saw it . . . her bed wasn’t made . . . what happened to our loved ones here?

The answer to that question remains unanswered although police and local authorities have assured residents their relatives and loved ones will be found soon.

CHAPTER 1

THE WOMAN IN THE DESERT

As the final rays of light, carried to Serafina upon a slowly descending sun, skirted over the horizon and cast one last, longing look upon the dried valley, the woman felt the first chill wind of evening sweep over her body. She had spent seven long days and six nights in this particular valley; eating what she could find, drinking what little water she had brought with her (sometimes Fabricating more), sleeping only when she needed it and only for short intervals. This night would be the seventh and the last. She would have to return tomorrow and if she found nothing tonight then she would return empty handed. She pulled the brown and tattered hood of her long cloak tighter around her dirty blond hair and continued moving.

As she walked she listened to the sandy wind sweep through the valley, scratching over the hardpan and crabgrass. Although her father had told her many stories of the desolate deserts of Sardorchester, she never actually thought she would see them for herself. The wind sounded like music from a flute at times, whistling through the crags and boulders on the horizon, and at other times it sounded like a witch’s cackle; hollow and desperate. To the east, a coyote or craghound howled but the woman paid no attention to the sound. She had seen far, far worse than coyotes on her journey. Her journey . . . it seemed so long ago when she was only a child. How had things become so complicated so fast? Life was much different for her now, but she decided to spend no time with thoughts like those. Thoughts like those will drive a person crazy in the wild. Instead, she focused on her mother.

I will be back in time, she whispered to herself. The wind caught her words and swirled them, tornado like, around her head and she could almost hear them echoing back to her. I will see her again. She continued walking.

Later, the moon at her back and silence blanketing the caked and cracking hardpan below her, the woman came at last to what she was searching for. She stared for several minutes at her destination and let out a heavy and long sigh. The ground was rough and trodden; clearly a company had been here. She could see vague footprints in the moonlight leading to a small cave entrance in the side of the mountain. Like before, Quixitix had led her to the correct destination; his science accurate as always, but not fast enough.

The same as the others . . . too late again, she said to no one.

Pulling the hood from her cloak tighter around her hair, the woman felt the long, tight braid beat upon her back as the wind picked it up. Her hair, long and messy, seemed to struggle against the braid which bound it. She longed for the days when she could afford the luxury of a proper hair cut or a long, relaxing bath . . . perhaps some music. She pushed these thoughts away as well. She had come here to find them . . . her mind doing its best work to push away the thought that she would find nothing yet again.

The structure stretching up toward the inky black sky greeted the woman with a smile full of rusted iron and baricite, copper, alumin and urah. Precious metals, long forgotten, the woman had only read about these in history books, stories of a world long past, a world of engines and steam, of metal and elaborate machinery ; the ancient days of Serafina. She found it hard to believe her world and that one were one in the same. Things were so different now; she wondered what it would have been like to grow up with little metal and iron toys, steam powered coaches and who knows what else. She allowed her mind a few moments to imagine a time before the Twinning; a time before the Order of the Fabricantresses, a time before war and turmoil and strife. Serafina had been much different then, according to myth and legend, before men and women began to draw from the Twinning and leave behind the ways of science and machines. Her own memories brought her away from her imaginings.

The woman thought of her toy horses and soldiers; she longed for those things now, longed for any vestiges of that life, the life she once had, the life she enjoyed before fate thrust all of this upon her . . . she pushed these thoughts away.

She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on the sound of the wind, the sound of the valley closing in and expanding all around her, the sound of the tiny fissures and cracks of the structure before her bending and breaking in thousands of microscopic, harmonious symphonies. Opening her eyes, she pulled a small rod from her pack. It was long and grey, extendable, and, flicking her wrist, the rod grew into a small staff. She whispered a word, very softly, and the end of the staff grew bright, illuminated. The light caused the building to appear even more freakish than before in the pale and haunting moonlight. The woman approached the maw as the coarse desert winds swirled and buffeted around her. Moments later she was inside, safe from the storm and standing in a small opening at the base of the structure. She paused for a moment and caught her breath, listening to the sand skirt across the cold metal of the building around her. Her staff brightened the entry way enough for her to see a few feet ahead. The floor, littered with various pieces of debris and chunks of rock or minerals, greeted her with little compassion. Her eyes caught something skitter across the dark floor but the shadow was gone before she had time to turn her head. The only sound was the low whistle of the sandstorm in the night. Shaking off the powder from her tunic, she unlatched the hood piece and felt it fall down around her shoulders.

The woman’s dirty blond hair surged free as she shook her head in the small expanse of the entry way. Longer now and hard from days of travel, the woman’s hair still emitted a particular sheen and shimmer, like the glow of a distant star. She stretched her back, her muscles pockets of tight and aching pain, and heard a few popping noises as she released the stored calcium in her bones. Her eyes brilliantly contrasted the dark passageway before her and the light from her staff tried to find its way down the velvet tunnel of darkness.

Hello? she called, her voice echoing off the metallic walls and rising above the sound of the wind outside. Is anyone here? she called again.

No response. She waited a few more moments; waiting, perhaps for a response or perhaps for someone to come and tell her she didn’t have to go this time, she didn’t have to find yet another abandoned site, yet another remnant of something long gone, something she felt she would never catch. She sighed in the darkness.

Bright light, she spoke, her voice taking on the resonance and power of The Word. Her staff immediately grew brighter, the tip at the end now a fluorescent torch leading her forward. The hallway remained just as long as before and she could see no end, even with her newly illuminated torch. She moved forward.

Stepping slowly, the woman put one foot ahead of the next, taking extra care to avoid the scattered scraps on the floor. Her boots made loud clanging sounds on the metallic floor panels as she walked and she did her best to silence the noise. As she moved further into the darkness, she almost didn’t notice it but little escaped her perception these days. The shadows around her had shifted, moved; just slightly. A normal observer would have remained oblivious but this particular woman had faced far worse than whatever was about to come at her from the belly of the dark tunnel. She knew one thing for certain; she had only moments to react. When she spoke, she barely vocalized the sounds. She barely even needed to whisper these days.

Shield, she said. As though flowing out of her throat the words oozed down her neck and onto her shoulder, flowing along her arm until they formed a massive wooden shield around her wrist. Red and gold, the oval shield caught the light of the woman’s staff and gleamed in the darkness, ready for anything. She felt something rush past on her right, something extremely fast. She stood motionless, focused on the darkness before her. Again, that rush, just past her head. She raised the shield slightly and as she did, she was knocked back with such force that she was lifted into the air and thrown nearly out of the entrance. Her wrist reverberated and cracked as the shield was hit with the mysterious, fast moving objects. She let out a small scream, mostly because she was startled; she had grown quite accustomed to pain, and landed hard on her back. Scrambling to get to her feet, she barely had time to stand when another object smashed into her shield. She heard the wood fibers crack and splinter with this second blow and she knew her shield would not take too many more.

Enough of this, she said. Speaking a few quick words, the tunnel suddenly filled with light. As the light shot down the length of the tunnel like a wave, a massive wall followed behind it, moving and growing with every inch. The woman could hear the projectiles ricocheting and breaking upon the wall as it raced down the tunnel, blocking anything else with ease. At last the woman heard a massive crash and the wall stopped. She waited, listened, and watched. Nothing. Whatever had attacked her had been crushed by the newly Fabricated wall. Retracting her staff, the woman dropped the red and gold shield. She saw two massive spears sticking into the thick wood, long and black, with huge silver spearheads. As soon as the shield hit the floor it evaporated, leaving only the spears, which hit the ground and clanged against the metallic floor. The tunnel was now fully illuminated and the woman could see how far down it went.

Not so bad, she said to herself. Placing her staff back into her bag, she proceeded. When she reached the extremity of the niche, she saw her wall and noticed a few tendrils of smoke snaking around from behind. Placing her hands on the wall, the structure evaporated as well, revealing the odd machination that had attacked her.

Some kind of security device I suppose, she said. Haven’t seen one like this yet. I guess the architect liked spears. The device was elegant and simple; several long pipes protruded from the wall, each just slightly bigger than the spears that had been shot down the hallway. Now, most of them were flattened or crushed, a few had retracted back into the wall and, from the holes they had previously occupied, issued the smoke the woman had seen. Clever.

Looking around, she noticed a small doorway, not much larger than her own body, to the left. She again muttered a few words and this passage way illuminated as well.

After you, she said to no one. Then, to herself, no, I insist, after you. She entered the doorway and soon found herself in a much larger room. Stone edifices and half-crumbling statues lined the walls, creatures and beings the woman had never seen before; except, of course, in rooms just like this one. Her footsteps made little noise on the hard stone as she made her way through the chamber, breathing in shallow, quick intakes of air. The air itself smelled acrid and filled with decay, but recent and fresh at the same time. Someone had been here. The light flowing from the woman’s staff raced up and down the floor and walls of the chamber like sheets of wax casting an eerie glow upon the objects it touched. A sound, quick and quiet. The woman stood motionless, breath held, listening.

Again, a sound. Something trying to hide. With senses heightened and nerves extending like invisible fingers, the woman scanned the room trying to find the source of the noise. She saw nothing. Then she heard it again, higher this time. She looked up to see a few specs of stone falling from the head of a massive statue; something that looked like a cross between a bird and a woman. The shadows seemed to move and flow around the statue.

Show yourself! she exclaimed. She could hear the distress and near panic in her voice. I won’t ask again! She received no reply from the murky shadows. The air suddenly grew very still and a voice, a voice like a sleepy snake, issued from the darkness around her.

You . . . you . . . must leave . . . thiiisssss place.

I will not, commanded the woman. "Where have they