Anything To Be Heard

  Three weeks later…

  Skye strolled through the palace, wondering why anyone would need this many gemstones. Colorful crystals carpeted the grand lobby, painted the walls with mesmerizing hues, and framed the guardrails. Even the flowers gleamed in their pots, sculpted from jade floralds, icy-blue cryobies, and crimson pyrpphires.

  This excessive flaunting of fortune lessened Skye’s guilt and encouraged him to follow his plan. Its success wouldn’t starve anyone.

  He sauntered into the master bedroom, glancing at the bed that could fit a family of ten. Velvety carpets covered the ground, which he kicked away. Then he checked the hanging portraits.

  A lady in black servant clothing entered, carrying clean sheets, then froze at his presence. He paid her no heed.

  She rushed to his side. “Excuse me. Who authorized you to be here?

  Skye checked the decorated bedpost, feeling each gemstone in turn. “Do you know where the entrance to the family’s vault is? I heard it’s somewhere around here.” He pushed an array of psychosites on the headpost, and the whole bed creaked aside. “Never mind, I found it.”

  She paled with shock. “Wait! What do you think you’re doing? Do you know whose palace this is?”

  “The Obtundrils’.” He checked the steel gate behind the bed. It was locked. “Merchant barons, filthy rich, crazy powerful.” With a little knife, he picked out the precious gems off the bed, then stacked them on the handle. “And smug idiots too. I expected the entrance to be better hidden.”

  He retreated behind the bed for cover. Holding a photrine, he aimed at the piled gems, then noticed the servant staring with her jaw hanging. He didn’t want her hit by shrapnel.

  “Lady, I’m here to rob the place. Go warn the guards or something.”

  She ran out the room, crying for help. Skye tossed the gem at the door, then ducked, and plugged his ears.

  Boom!

  The explosion rocked the room, throwing burning shards everywhere. The door creaked open. A hole in its side emanated smoke where the lock had been. Calls of alarm erupted everywhere. Footsteps approached in the corridor. Casually, Skye stepped into the tunnel beyond, and rang his bell.

  Ding!

  The commotion died. The door teleported shut in an instant, its lock repaired, smoke vanished.

  Skye took out another photrine. A set of spiraling stairs travelled long underground, leading to a vast cave that split into sixteen tunnels. If his information was correct, each was a maze of death traps and dead ends, except for two: the one that led into the guarded entrance in the Deeps, and the one heading to the vault.

  “Hello! I want to rob this place! Come arrest me!”

  His taunts echoed until footsteps answered. Hiding behind a set of stalagmites, he watched two guards arrive from the seventh tunnel, holding their astra tightly. When he rang his bell they relaxed, then continued into the leftmost tunnel.

  Investigating the noise was no longer their purpose for walking here. The curse must have altered their memories, convincing them they’d come to exit.

  He hurried toward the passage they’d emerged from, keeping his eyes open for traps. After tracing their footsteps, he arrived at a large metallic gate. It was so thick he was sure his photrines wouldn’t dent it. Luckily, a radethyst sconce glowed above the frame.

  Radethysts were brighter, larger, and more expensive than photrines. One crystal might damage this lock, but it wouldn’t break it. Several though…

  He climbed the rough wall next to the door, and retrieved the radethyst with his sleeve. It was scorching hot, and he quickly threw it into the little bag hanging from his shoulder. Then rang his bell.

  Dong!

  The crystal reappeared in its place, as if no one had taken it. Shouting in celebration, he retrieved and deposited it in his bag. Then repeated the process, over and over, a headache growing sharper with every chime.

  Although he’d experimented a ton, he could never tell when his curse would replicate an object he touched, or when it’d have it erased and forgotten. His leading theory was that it related to the importance of the item. Luckily, someone cared about having a radethyst here.

  Shaking his singed hand, he retrieved the tenth crystal which was identical to the others weighing down his bag, He descended, piled them against the door, then retreated behind a massive rock for cover.

  Taking aim with a photrine, he hesitated. He’d never blown up this many radethysts before. The explosion might not be enough to break the lock, or it might turn this whole place to ash.

  With nothing to lose, he shrugged, and hurled the little gem at the radiant pile.

  BOOM!

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  The blast shook the cave, launching a barrage of rocks everywhere. Skye’s ears rang as he fell back, his vision blurred. Shouts rose from deeper within the cave and he knew he had to enter before it was too late. On shaky legs, he crossed the large, scorched crater, burying his nose in his elbow to avoid the smoke, then activated his curse.

  The door returned without a scratch, and the voices died out. No one came to investigate. He rested on the ground until his head stopped spinning, then broke into laughter. Heavens above, he needed a challenge. This was too easy! Too boring!

  The tunnel widened into a cave. To the right, four guards sat under a cloud of smoke, playing cards. A formation of rocks blocked the path on the left.

  Stealthily, he approached the rocks, activating his curse when a guard noticed him. Climbing, he ascended the steep cliff, crossing past the guards. His foothold broke, and he slipped hard onto his knees, scrapping his pants and skin. A stone flew loose, tumbling down, bouncing dangerously toward a guard’s head.

  Dong!

  The stone vanished mid-fall, reappearing in its original position, as if no one had knocked it off. Skye sighed with relief, moving around it. His curse could erase memories and inanimate objects, but it couldn’t remove injuries caused by his actions. If that stone had hurt anyone, the wounds would remain, even if everyone forgot the original culprit.

  At the other side, he jumped down with a thud, activating his curse one final time. Staying low, he continued ahead into a narrow tunnel.

  At the entryway to a wide chamber, dozens of fantastical auras slammed into him, sending his emotions haywire. His bones burned like embers; his blood froze like ice. He felt the need to punch someone, anyone. Then tears welled in his eyes as he longed to see Rierana.

  Stealing his spirit, he pressed on, focusing on his task.

  Magenta ores decorated one wall, warping the space around them. A set of vantablack armor stood in a corner, like a man made of the Void. Various weapons stacked across three racks, each a deadly masterpiece, covered in runes and glyphs Skye had never seen before. He passed by a jade statue of a cat whose lifeless gaze seemed to be following him. And when he approached a rusty crown resting on a white pillow, he heard whispers telling him to put it on.

  Finally, he found his target.

  The solarite crystal rested on a pedestal in the back of the chamber, swaddled in thick brown leather to suppress its glow. Bigger than his head, it was the largest of six solarites discovered in Troqua’s history. He took off his bag, measuring whether it would fit inside.

  Here goes nothing.

  He hefted the heavy stone, and the cave rumbled. The ground shook, stones groaned as they shifted. Outside, the guards shouted in alarm, and metal grinded somewhere beneath his feet. Skye rang his bell and the world calmed.

  The Obtundrils cared about security after all. Too bad their anti-theft system couldn’t catch non-existent thieves.

  Unlike the radethyst outside, no new solarite appeared. The pedestal vanished, replaced by the vantablack armor that suddenly teleported here.

  Skye tilted his head considering why this happened, then beamed. He’d expected something precious like this gem to not get erased. But perhaps, its magic was too powerful for his curse to replicate.

  Meaning the bell’s powers had limits.

  After shoving the solarite into his bag, he slung it on his back. Outside, he eyed the guards from a distance, not wanting to climb with the extra weight.

  Slowly, he crept as close as possible without being seen, then stepped into view.

  A guard’s eyes snapped to him. “How did you—”

  Dong!

  The guard played a card, then looked up again. “What the-“

  Dong!

  He took a sip of his drink. Skye was fifteen feet away.

  “Hey-“

  Dong!

  “Where-“

  Dong!

  “Wh-“

  DingDongDingDongDingDongDingDongDingDongDingDong!

  Skye ran past to the guards, ringing his bell a hundred times in the process. They noticed him, forget about him, then noticed, and forgot once more, over and over until he was out of their sight.

  The process left him exhausted, his brain tearing itself apart with a terrible headache, the bell echoing loudly in his skull long after he’d stopped ringing it. With his sleeve, he wiped the blood dripping from his nose.

  He rested till his headache calmed, then eyed the radethyst above the steel door.

  **********

  Lunaline District was Troqua’s smallest, and its most opulent. Palaces lined it, drowned in gems, competing to be seen. Or unseen due to their glare. As the barons and the duke lived here, entry to its great park was restricted. But ever since Solarite opened to visitors, the park brimmed with peoples.

  Making it a perfect stage for his play.

  In its center, he climbed the shoulders of the glistening statue of Hishtem the First, Troqua’s founding duke. Passersby told him it was dangerous and foolish. Some threatened to summon the constables. A scene formed around the statue as he’d intended. His play needed a large audience after all.

  “People of Troqua!” he called, sitting on the duke shoulders. “Today is a day you’ll never forget!”

  Taking a deep breath, he extracted the solarite stone from his bag and started peeling off the protective leather. Its radiance was blinding, and he had a brief moment of doubt, but there was no going back now. This was his moment of truth.

  As more of the wrapping came off, the gem pulsed brighter. Gasps of awe sounded when the crowd realized what he held.

  “Is that a solarite?” someone asked from below. “Where did you find it?”

  “I’ve never seen one that big!” another marveled.

  “How much do you want for it?” a lady asked. “I’ll pay you a thousand-thousand photrine stones!”

  “I’ll give you my mansion!”

  “It’s not for sale.” Skye squinted against the glow. “Just for show. Watch.”

  The gem’s exterior was dark as night, with misty white light dancing inside like shifting, trapped smoke. It gleamed like a full moon, its magical glow passing through stone and wood and flesh, killing every shadow, and growing brighter still. Skye had to execute his plan now or risk blinding himself forever.

  If his research about solarites was wrong, he might end up blinding everyone in Troqua anyway. If his research was gravely wrong, he might remove the city off the face of Inma.

  One thing was certain: today’s experiment would test the limits of his bell. If this didn’t cause enough disruption to overpower his curse, nothing would.

  He raised the solarite above his head, taking rapid breaths. His vision was all white. Even with his eyes shut, the light seared through his lids. Heat spread through him like warm water soaking into cloth. The crowd below screamed, begging him to rewrap it, shouting threats, or calling for constables.

  Muttering “This better work”, he handed the solarite over to gravity.

  Crash!

  A sun descended unto Troqua erupting in a humongous sphere of hot light, bursting with consecutive thunder strikes like a winter’s share of storms occurring within a second. The fieriness washed Skye out of existence, throwing him into the merciless clutches of the searing Void. He couldn’t see or hear, couldn’t move or breathe. He couldn’t think. Everything was alight. Everything was dead. Everything was nothing.

  As his senses slowly returned, he realized he was still clutching the statue’s head, which meant that his research was correct. Two-hundred-fifty years ago, a fist-sized solarite had accidentally exploded, causing no physical damage, but blinding and deafening everyone in the city for approximately thirty seconds. Everyone made full recoveries eventually, except for the man who’d broken the solarite, who had been executed.

  Five minutes later, Skye’s hearing returned, carrying cries, curses, and calls for help. Blindly, he descended, then crawled, feeling his way through those stumbling about, heading for the bushes to hide. He didn’t wish to be executed of course, but he hoped that an event of this magnitude would be remembered.

  He hoped that this would prove he still existed.

  **********