“Yes, sir. I understand,” Elise promised.
The last thing he needed was a half-dozen panicked young people demanding his attention.
“Of course. Bryn…”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. But it’s good I went with her, isn't it? If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have known what happened to her. She just would have disappeared forever, and never, ever come back.”
“That’s still a possibility,” Bryn growled. “Go deal with the others.”
“If anyone can save her, you can,” she said, batting her lashes at him in a hopeful sort of way. Usually men found that charming and went all gooey and suggestive. Not Bryn, though. Bryn did not do gooey and suggestive. He did scowling and pointing, as he was doing at that exact moment.
“Out. Now.”
Elise did as she was told, because that was easier than not doing what she was told. She shut the door behind herself very quietly, as if being super obedient in that respect might somehow erase all the wild disobedience, chaos, and indeed, tragedy which had arisen from her earlier actions.
When he was certain that he was alone, Bryn bolted the door and went to look for something he did not want to find. There were items in his living space which were beyond cursed. They were imbued with memories and past actions, cursed with weight far beyond their physical mass. The item he was now looking for was one he had most certainly hoped he would never use again.
He knew precisely where it was, because the weight of simply owning it was a constant burden. He felt its presence at all times because it was a conduit to a place no sane person would ever want to go.
The knife sat inside a case at the bottom of a chest locked away inside a wardrobe. The closer he came to retrieving it, the more he wished he did not have to. It would be easier not to. He could leave it where it was and not take the journey which he now felt compelled to take.
It did not look like much. The bronze and obsidian construction could almost be mistaken for a muddy, rusted appearance. But this was not a blade which had ever seen flesh, let alone filth.
There were old inscriptions on the blade. The sort of inscriptions which would have made it sell for a lot more than a similar plain blade, but which actually only physically weakened it.
This blade was not made for physical cutting. It would not carve a chicken, or slit a man’s throat. What it cut was something most pretended not to be able to perceive at all, the boundary between world and shadow.
There was no need to ride down to Old Rahvin to attempt to follow the creature into the void. Where Hail had been taken, no man could follow on foot or hoof. But he could enter the realm with the help of his key-knife.
Bryn painted his face carefully along old lines, the soot black making rough charcoal patterns across his beard. It was important that they were thick and also that they did not cover more than half of his face. One side would remain oriented toward the light. That side would guide him back. The other would have him accepted into the realm of the Dark.
Bryn’s preparations were particular, but they were also swift. There could be no time wasted. Every moment inside the Dark’s realm would be like an eternity for one such as Hail. She was not prepared for the creature. She would not be killed, but she would be rendered in such a state that dying might be preferable.
With his face painted, and his etched knife well in hand, Bryn lit a black candle and placed it in a holder he had never expected to have to use again. It hung from the northern corner of his room, an unobtrusive little contraption on hook and chain, barely remarked upon or noticed by others. It was the key to realms of pure nightmare, hidden in plain sight as shadows always are.
The candle’s flickering light lit that part of his chamber with a warm and merry glow. To the casual observer, there was no fundamental difference between it and any other candle. The other corner of the room, the one most distant, that became a place for the gathering shadows. It was there he took the knife and made an incision into the darkest shadow.
Bryn’s blade began to pulse, not with power, but with recognition. This was the place it had come from, and it was the place it craved to return. It cut the dark and spread it in twain.
Before he made the journey, he paused. He saved.
He stepped through into a realm entirely devoid of color. There was no true light here, only varying levels of darkness. A thousand shades of black wrapped themselves around him. He had the unsettling feeling of being prey in a realm where he had very little to defend himself. Light spells would not work here. Any magic of any kind would attract the most hideous and heinous of beasts.