Chapter 22: The price of failure

The next day, the first thing I did was explaining to my friends the conversation I had with Spare, save my mother’s origins. It was imperative that we were on the same page, which included them reconciling their own memories with the big news. It wasn’t unexpected that their own masters had to think over all the information for a few days, trying to make sense of what I had just revealed.

The Empire and the Drak’ga are the same entity. Of course, the Empire knew of us, but there was no proof confirming it was the same the other way around. Were the Drak’oora aware of what was being brewed on their backs? Maybe they could be just an extension of the lie, or they could be utterly oblivious to the truth.

One way or another, I was convinced the private library would cast some light on the question. I wasn’t expecting to have any definitive evidence; if there was any document explicitly linking both entities, it wouldn’t be lying in a library. However, if there were enough books about the old methods, that would at least show they had been hiding information on purpose.

Yaira helped in clearing one of the questions, namely, why would the Empire keep this town. Although it was nothing more than a hypothesis, it was undeniable that it had weight behind it. For once, the town served as a training center for powerful Inkers, much more so than those studying at the association. Most of the Inkers, as was Spare’s case, ended up working for them, either indirectly in one of the houses or directly as a Royal Inker. It was a means to have us under control, attempting to obliterate the town, and everyone inside it could easily play against them. The Drak’ga, at least those that weren’t consorting with the enemy, could for the first time unite against a common cause.

There was a misconception among uneducated people who thought Inkers were nothing more than drawers, artists who were worthless if separated from their tools. Those people, actually me not long ago, don’t know what formations are capable of. A novice like me had La’er, I had seen Makka invoking light from his palm; one can’t help but wonder what experts who can remember their whole legacy would be able to do.

Yaira also pointed out that those Inkers working for the houses could be used in wars or expeditions. It was not rare to make one accompany a squadron to provide some magical support and serve as a repairman. We were a factory of soldiers, much like Setalar, just that unknowingly so.

Thus, our mission to find the truth had taken a sudden turn; we might have to clash with the Empire to get to the bottom of it. We didn’t have to investigate it; we could have just run to the confines of those lands, hide our head inside some hole, and forget about it all. However, the same natural fascination that attracted me to Ink, the thirst for knowledge and power, pushed for me to uncover the mystery.

Makka stood by his promise, and by the third week, he had some hypothesis regarding the door’s formation.

“Here,” he said, taking the fifth layer. “Those repetitive sets of thinning circles are not part of the main formation.”

He looked at us as if we had to congratulate him or celebrate a victory. Yaira and me, however, were either blinking or squinting our eyes, trying to find some meaning in the drawing he was showing. I could see nothing wrong in them; they seemed to be as much part of the formation as any other line. Makka sighed, visibly let down by our lack of reaction.

“It’s just that we don’t get it; you’ll have to explain it with much, much more details,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Oh!” He straightened his back and smiled, “they are part of the same drawing, but they are not needed for the lock itself.” His finger followed a set of lines converging to the circles. “They are part of a deterring system, probably the one that induced your headache.”

“Then, can I copy it if I omit those parts?” I eagerly asked, almost jumping from my seating position with the intention to do it immediately.

“No, no, no!” His round eyes and shaking hand told a horror tale; they clearly warned me of danger below anything I could have thought. “You can’t just skip them! You would be asking to become a vegetable!”

I tensely smiled, scratching the back of my head. My cheeks reddened as I lowered my head, trying to hide it. “Then…” I said, lower than I would have wanted, “we can’t do anything yet?”

“I have a few theories,” he scrambled through the papers until he found the one he was looking for, insistently touching it with his fingertip. “This one here, I believe the key is done by inverting the drawing. See those symmetric figures? You will have to draw its matching opposites. Then, those lines? Continue them until they touch the outer circle. Those crosses? They should have a matching glyph; based on the surrounding glyphs, I suspect something to do with secret, lock, open, door, enter.” He was immersed in his own world, no longer caring if we were listening or not. “But we still have to disable the protective circuit; I’m sure those circles are not its only component.”

He took a piece of paper, completely forgetting we were there with him, and started drawing precisely what he had explained. Lines began taking form as he hummed and nodded to himself, excitedly shouting yes! from time to time. I was not the same as three years ago when I first saw Spare drawing, yet I felt an excitement closely similar to it. I was spellbound to the point I failed to notice he had finished and was talking to me.

“Tarar!” The shout finally woke me, scaring me in the process. “Are you with us yet?” I nodded, still not entirely focused on his words. “This is only some preliminary work, but it should give you an idea of what we are looking for. Next time you pass by the door, try to feel if it matches.”

“I will!” I said, carefully storing the drawing on my shoulder bag. “Yaira, are you going to the Compendium?” Seeing that she nodded, I couldn’t repress a big smile. “Good! Then I’ll tag along!”

We had decided it was best if I stayed with the same person for a whole week, and this one was Yaira’s turn. I won’t lie and say it hadn’t been strange the first time I had to sleep in the same room as her, but overall it was a positive experience. I had come to know her better, discovering she liked to sing and read and that she wasn’t really open to talking about her past, which I respected. She didn’t particularly enjoy drawing formations, not like me and certainly not like Makka, but she was a well of knowledge and wiseness. It was routinely to find her at the Compendium, a perfect suit for my escorting needs.

I had finished The way of the old Ink, finding nothing valuable in its last two chapters. That didn’t mean I dropped the book; on the contrary, I was using it as a stepping stone. My second pass over the book was much more meaningful; I carefully read every glyph and tried to remember its meaning without checking my reference book. And, of course, I made sure I hadn’t missed any detail when I frenzied through it.

I left her investigating the section about the Empire’s history, seeing if she could find any references to its foundation or links with the Drak’ga. Instead of guiding me towards the recondite section my book was hidden in, my steps brought me in front of the locked door. Curiosity took the best of me, and I greedily decided I had to check Makka’s drawing.

After checking left and right and confirming I was alone in the room, I took the piece of paper, carefully placing it a few millimeters apart from the formation. Nothing would actually happen if they touched, or so I believed; anyway, I wouldn’t risk it with a formation I didn’t completely understand.

I looked through the paper, confirming that everything that Makka had said about opposites, complementing figures, and glyphs were in place. It was a perfect match; absolutely nothing was amiss. I could swear the drawing spoke to me; it told me that it would unlock the door if I drew it on my palm. And I trust it. The only thing that stopped me from recklessly carving it right there and then was the noise of steps coming from my right.

Hurriedly storing the paper away, I straightened myself and turned in the direction of my section, regretfully the same where the steps came from, acting as if I was just walking by out of pure coincidence. I had enough time to put on a facade and to get my walking motion on, which is why I could pretend innocence when my eyes met with the source of the footsteps.

“Drak’oora,” I said while bowing and bringing my index to the shoulder. I would have added her name if I knew it, but she had declined to say anything on my judgment, directly deeming me a nuisance and not worthy of being a Drak’ga. Needless to say, my opinion about her wasn’t precisely a good one.

She stood there, immobile, looking at me from head to toes. Maybe, if we weren’t in a public space, she would have spit at me. Her looks told me that much; she loathed me to that extreme. I was getting uncomfortable, trying not to meet her stare and hoping she would mistake it for respect or fear.

I was starting to get nervous, seconds away from sweating from the pressure. She clicked her tongue, shaking her head in a dismissive sign, and finally continued her walk. A clever Inker would have minded his own business and run the hell away from there. A clever Inker wouldn’t have followed the Drak’oora and peeped what she was doing. I was not a clever Inker.

I hid behind a bookshelf, making sure none of me was visible. Silently pulling a book from a cramped row, I managed to get a clear view of the door and the Drak’oora. I wasn’t expecting to see anything in particular; I already assumed all it would take was to place the hand over the formation, and it would magically open like the hidden entrance to the mountain.

My expectations were partially met; her hand moved towards the door, placing her open palm towards the wood and above the formation. There were absolutely no noises nor lights; nothing seemed to have changed. She was there, and so was the door. I was begging to think that maybe it required some motion on her part, perhaps pushing it inside, but she betrayed all my beliefs. She stepped to the front, acting as if the door wasn’t there. Her foot should have collided, I should have heard the sound of wood being hit, yet all that happened is that half of her foot went missing. Her whole leg followed behind, and her body and head, and her other leg. She was gone, having walked through a physical object.

I was beginning to think she had materialized somewhere else, blinked to another plane, or teleported to another room when I saw the door blurring, almost as if the wood’s veins shook and temporarily merged and spiraled together. That’s when I understood there was no door at all; it was all part of an illusion. The formation acted as the mountain’s entry, removing the obstacle, but it added another layer of protection, leaving behind a false image and blocking the view of the insight.

I was suddenly wet with cold sweat; Makka’s drawing was meant to open a door. If I had tattooed it and tried to open it… Dark thoughts came to my mind, creating too vivid images of what would have happened. Unknowingly, one of the Drak’oora that wanted me dead had actually saved my life. I had to tell him as soon as possible; it will probably change a few things in his formation.

I wasn’t so foolhardy to run behind the Drak’oora and go through the door, so I finally made my way towards The way of the Old Ink.

Spare, I thought, why is it that you didn’t know what it was? I asked, confused it wasn’t public knowledge. It wasn’t as if the door was hidden or anything.

“They never bring visitors to the private library, to the point that I know no one who has seen a Drak’oora entering.” I could feel him shrugging, not finding any other way to explain it.

Couldn’t you just draw the key? I’m sure you know much more than I, and probably Makka. After all, he should have all the legacy in his memory, unlike me, who was just beginning to remember some fragments.

“Even if I could, there’s no way I could draw it. Much like you didn’t understand what Makka said, I wouldn’t be able to express with words how the formation works.” When Makka attempted to explain what I would have to do to draw the formation, I was completely lost. “You’ll have to learn it all by yourself to do it.”

Somewhat disappointed, I went back to the book. I won’t bore you with the details; it was a dull session of studying roots and derivations. I couldn’t decipher anything else from the book, aside from the reaffirmation that whatever it was that voice I heard, it had a connection to the Ink.

When Yaira came to bring me back to her cell, I found it hard to resist explaining to her the encounter with the Drak’oora. After some deserved scolding on behalf of my over-adventurous feats, during which I discovered she was Drak’oora Poiza, we were tempted to go to Makka’s room and make him draw a new version. If it weren’t so late at night, we would have for sure bothered him.

The following day, though, he ran out of luck. The first thing we did on our customary bath, with Yaira as its newest member since a week ago, was to assault him with our demands.

“Makka! Huge news!” I said even before putting a toe in the water.

“The formation isn’t really a door!” Yaira finished the phrase for me.

Contrary to what I was expecting, some slight annoyance, he quickly got out of the water with his eyes shining, splashing water everywhere. “I knew it! What is it!?” He was waving his punch in the air, celebrating a victory only he knew.

“It…” I was a bit lost for words, not expecting he would be so willing to work. Maybe we should have woken him up last night? “It is some kind of visual illusion; I saw Drak’oora Poiza going through, and shortly after, it became blurry and shaky.”

“Ha!” He turned as I said so. “Two hours, north exit!” With whoops of happiness, he dashed to the exit, shouting the answer on its way.

I stared dumbfoundedly at Yaira, only to find her staring back at me. We had our eyes locked for a time that could very well be ten seconds or a minute, both breaking into a loud laugh immediately after.

“Ladies first!” I pointed towards the bath. We had two hours, we better spend it well.

“Oh,” he laughed some more, “what a gentleman we have here.”

We relaxed for an hour, with absolutely nothing better to do, each immersed in his own thoughts and problems. I found myself, more than once and twice, stealing a glance at her. I, for the first time, noticed her feminine features. Smooth, curved cheeks, slightly reddened from the heat, descended towards lush, fuller lips. Her deep sight, originating in a pair of brown eyes, was lost on the horizon, not noticing my furtive looks. I couldn’t help but stare at her glowing skin, exuding evaporating sweat, slightly covered by locks of walnut brown hair. A slim neck brought to a thin and marked collarbone, hinting towards the rest of her bulky body hidden under the mass of water and a thin layer of foam.

Two hours run quick, and sooner than I would have wanted, we were once again with Makka at the north exit, with him going on and on about all the adjustments he had made to the key, accounting for the true nature of the lock.

“-and now this triangle will make the door go-” I was spacing out, incapable of following his complex explanations, “-cause the reflection of-”

“Do you think it is ready to be used?” I said, tired of the endless stream of words that came out of his mouth. I was interested in how it worked, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that the particular details of what a single dot of the formation did was beyond the scope I could understand.

“I…” He paused for a moment, probably weighing the risks of saying that it was. “I told you it would take months to have a complete understanding, but your hint towards its nature made me realize I could get away with a more straightforward formation. I’d say it is…” he paused, visibly agitated, “but I can’t guarantee your safety.”

I briefly squinted my eyes, examining his tone. It said that he was confident in his craft, but he was afraid he might have forgotten something. Taking a deep breath, I turned my palm over, offering it to him. “Do it.”

He hesitated, moving his sight from my face to my palm, not daring to lock eyes with me. I nodded and stretched my arm a bit more, pressuring him to do it. “If it doesn’t work,” I added, “it’s on me.”

It was clear he was still reluctant to carve the tattoo; his hands shakily moved towards his tools and brought out a thin nib and a flask of brownish Ink. For a second, I doubted if I should reveal my blood-red Ink, but ultimately decided that wasn’t the occasion to do so.

The metal touched my skin, producing a tickling sensation wherever it moved to. It was the first time I had let anybody other than myself and Spare draw on my skin; it was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. I could feel the Ink invading my permeating my body, yet it was different from when I did it.

Circles complemented lines and triangles, quickly taking the shape of the formation. That sensation that had started as a tickling evolved into numbness; my hand begged for me to tighten and stretch it as if my fingers were woozy and sore. Yet I couldn’t do it; I would ruin the tattoo, maybe even shatter Makka’s confidence, who wouldn’t have the courage to attempt it again.

I had to endure for another ten minutes, inwardly screaming from pain. My teeth threatened to crack from the pressure they had been submitted. As soon as he separated the pen, I couldn’t help but shake my hand in the air. “Ah!” The scream involuntarily left me.

“What is it!” Makka’s face was as tense as one could be, his eyes round and dilated, examining my hand.

I shook my hand, trying to downplay the situation. I was in much more pain than I wanted to openly admit. “It’s just a bit numb, don’t worry about it!”

“Numb…” He slowly repeated, thoroughly devoid of energy. “I must immediately remove it. Come, follow me.”

He was already moving, but I stood there, not budging an inch. “Why?” was all I could ask.

“Why!?” More than a shout, he was begging for me to come to my senses. “You could lose your arm if we let the numbness expand!” It was like a slap to the face; he left me in complete shock. “Have you ever seen an Inker with just one arm!?” He was not his usual relaxed self; that much was evident by his urgent tone.

Yet, my mind was thinking of other things. “Will it work?” I asked.

“Will it…” he calmly said, astonished I could think of that in the gravity of the moment. “I think so, yes, but we mu-”

“How long will it take…” I interrupted him, briefly gathering the courage to say the next bit, “for me to lose the arm?”

“I… I don’t know!” He shouted back. “Anything from a day to a few hours! Come on, Tarar, don’t be stupid and fo-”

“Then I must hurry. I’ll meet you in your cell, have anything you need prepared.” I turned my face to them, one idea clearly fixated in my mind. I would enter the private library, take whatever I could, and then run faster than lightning to Makka’s place. I won’t lose my arm, but neither will I lose this opportunity.