“So how do we find the others?” Yann asked.

  Eliska turned her head to look up at him. For a split second, he expected her to grin, but she stopped herself and looked away.

  She looked down at a watery magical pool glimmering in her palm. It cleared to form a window showing different parts of the tower’s interior corridors.

  “Who should we start with first?” she asked. “I’ve seen almost all of them in here.”

  “What do you mean by almost all of them? Who’s missing?”

  “Barsali….and Omer. Everyone else is wandering around in here, including Marine.”

  “Marine and Anríq both must have their magic back, too,” Yann pointed out. “They should be able to locate the others and start gathering everyone back together.”

  “I don’t think so. Marine is crazy again. This tower might even be a Dark place—which explains why she’s out in the Dark Layers again.”

  “What about Anríq? Why is he lost?”

  “His magic doesn’t work that way. He’s a healer. He can’t do this.” She pointed to the window in her hand.

  Now it was Yann’s turn to look away. “That’s what he said.”

  “He said what?”

  “I asked him if he could create that Coil image that you use to find out where we are. He said he doesn’t know how—but he used other methods to try to find out where the Watch was when we got separated from them.”

  Eliska shook that off. “Anyway, we can find them. Oh, look! There’s your father.”

  Yann peered through the tiny window at his father wandering down a different corridor. He looked as sane as when Yann saw him at the intersection. Yvan didn’t spin around and jump at unseen Darklings.

  “How did he come back so quickly?” Yann asked.

  “This place does some weird things to people’s minds. It may be blocking his ability to see the Darklings—or for them to affect him—or whatever they’re doing to him. Either way, the spell stops anyone from connecting to anything going inside the tower or outside it.”

  “Then how is Marine communing with the Dark?”

  “I told you. This tower is Dark. The spell is a Dark spell. Dark forces are all over the place here. For all I know, she’s using her connection to the Dark to try to find the others and get us all out of here, too.”

  “So how do we find my father?”

  She opened her other hand and created a three-dimensional projection, but it wasn’t an image of the Coil. It was a diagram of the tower itself.

  Parts of it appeared as crisply distinct as Yann could hope. She rotated the image on her hand and studied the tower’s layout from all sides.

  Other parts of the tower blurred, morphed, and changed into different configurations before they reconnected to the rest of the tower.

  “They don’t reform in shapes that are even physically possible,” Yann exclaimed. “Look at that one. If that was real, it would be sticking out into space.”

  “It’s magic,” she explained with long-suffering patience.

  He made a face at her. “I know it’s magic, thank you very much. You don’t have to treat me like a toddler.”

  She actually did grin then. Her cheeks flushed, but she turned away to hide it and straightened her expression. “Let’s go. The sooner we find everyone, the sooner we can get out of here.”

  She set off through the corridors. She used her diagram of the tower to find her way even when the tower shifted and changed to a completely different layout.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  They wound through a labyrinth of passageways, climbed up a bunch of staircases and climbed down others, and walked through vaulted halls.

  The pair entered a different hall that led into a bedroom that led into another courtyard a dozen stories off the ground.

  The tower’s interior kept adjusting every few minutes. Eliska had to keep her diagram open all the time and continually alter course to make sure she went in the right direction.

  Yvan didn’t make it easy to find him. He kept walking around trying to find his own way out.

  Once, Yann and Eliska passed a different intersection where they spotted Vidal. He called out, “Yann! This way!”

  Yann and Eliska spun around, but Vidal vanished as quickly as he appeared.

  “Let’s keep looking for your father,” Eliska suggested. “We’re already too close and the others will be more likely to join us if he’s with us. We can go back for the others afterward.”

  They turned off into another passageway. The ceiling dropped lower than the others. Moss clung to walls dripping with water.

  “This looks like it’s underground,” Yann remarked.

  “It is. Look.” Eliska showed it to him on her diagram.

  “We were ten floors up a second ago.”

  “None of this makes sense.” Eliska started to turn away from him to face front again.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at something behind him. “What’s wrong?” Yann asked.

  Her hand shook when she pointed a trembling finger past his shoulder. “Look, Yann!”

  He turned around—and he froze when he saw what she was looking at.

  Someone had drawn a bunch of childlike sketches on the tunnel wall. Actually someone must have painted them on with permanent ink. The water would have washed the drawings away long ago if the artist used anything else.

  The very first image Yann laid eyes on showed a man in a long white robe with a golden aura radiating outward from his body.

  Yann’s blood chilled when he saw that characteristic murderous scowl. “The Voyant!”

  “It can’t be him,” Eliska countered. “This man is young. The Voyant is an old man with white hair.”

  “He must have been young once—and these drawings must be old. Maybe whoever drew this did it when he was younger.”

  Her eyes swiveled away. She sidestepped down the tunnel and pointed at the wall farther away. “Look! This one is a woman!”

  Yann followed her. Sure enough, pictures of the same glowing people covered the wall for twenty feet down the tunnel.

  The glowing woman Eliska pointed to had long brown hair hanging loose to her waist. She also wore a beautiful smile that looked nothing like the Voyant.

  “What do you think that is?” Yann stepped forward and pointed to a second light shining from the center of the woman’s chest. The artist had painted it with a faint purple-pink hue.

  “I don’t recognize it.” Eliska passed down the tunnel a few more paces. “Look. Here’s a couple together.”

  Yann stopped at her side. They both looked at a picture of two people, a man and a woman.

  Characteristic golden halos surrounded each of their bodies. Each of them also had the purple-pink glow in the center of their chests. The man and woman held hands through their halos.

  “This one definitely can’t be the Voyant,” Yann remarked. “He looks like one of the Corsairs. His hair is black and his skin is darker—and he has dots tattooed on his face.”

  “We did think other people were doing it,” Eliska replied.

  Yann frowned at her. “What do you mean? Who thought who was doing what?”

  She waved her hand in front of her face and shook her head. “Sorry. I got confused for a second. Marine and I had a conversation when we were alone together—about the Voyant. She said the Guardian Templars’ records indicate the Voyant is responsible for all the instability cycles throughout history—not just this one. I asked if that meant other people were acting as the Voyant through the centuries. It wouldn’t make sense that one guy has been alive all that time and that he’s wreaking havoc on the Coil just for fun. If that was the case, he would also be responsible for the stability cycles, too—which means he isn’t just doing this to gain power for himself.”

  “I still don’t understand. So you’re saying there’s some kind of dynasty getting passed down from one person to another?”

  “Brother Matherus did say the Voyant is trying to stop whoever will take his place. Maybe that’s how it works. Maybe each Voyant has to kill the Voyant before him and take his power in order to rule.”

  “Then who’s responsible for the stability cycles?” Yann asked. “Wesh seemed to think these stability cycles can last for centuries before the next wave of instability. Are you saying the Voyant just goes dormant and leaves everyone alone for hundreds of years? If he really does die, then how does the successor rise to take over?”

  Her eyebrows came together in the center. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

  They both turned back to the drawings. Both people in the couple pictures smiled broadly. They really looked happy together. The solo Voyants scowled.

  Yann and Eliska inched down the tunnel. The mural showed dozens of people all surrounded by that golden aura. Some had the purple-pink glow in the center of their chests. Others didn’t have it.

  Some stood together as couples. Other pairs included two men together, also holding hands, or two women together, also holding hands.

  “I don’t get it,” Eliska murmured. “What’s the connection?”

  “I don’t understand it, either, but these are all definitely different people. They all look different from each other—and look. This is an old woman with a young man. They couldn’t be a couple—not that kind—and these are two old men. I don’t think this has anything to do with them being couples in the romantic sense.”

  “You’re right,” she murmured. “So why are they together? How are they sharing this power together?”

  Right then, Yvan stepped out of a side room up ahead. “Yann!” he called. “Over here!”

  Yann and Eliska both jumped. Yvan dodged into a side room. Yann and Eliska raced after him, but he vanished.

  End of Chapter 21.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Corrupted Coil series on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday PST.

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