Eva allowed herself a deep frown, as it was too dark for the Liberator to see the disagreement on her face. “He is… really gone?”
Don Samón tipped his head. “Unfortunately, those who pray to Rahmagut pray to deaf ears. Ches sealed him ages ago with the last of his power. He did it for the good of this world, for Rahmagut was prepared to rend this land apart with his ambition. Can you imagine that degree of selfishness?”
Eva remembered the yearning in her heart anytime she dabbled with iridio. It was true. It could consume her if she let it. And part of her very much wanted that surrender.
“But the claw…” Eva muttered, “The legend is real.” Even Reina’s new golden blade, manifesting only for her. It was more proof.
“It is. And there are people who want a piece of that sealed power.” He gestured at the smearing comet with his bearded chin. “People who would use this opportunity to invoke him when the seal is at its weakest and Rahmagut’s influence is at its strongest. Thankfully, soon the opportunity will be gone.”
“You must know a great deal about it,” she said, more to humor him and because of the comfort he exuded. Hearing him talk was an entertainment itself.
“We are the guardians, to stop that from happening,” Ludivina said with enthusiasm.
He chuckled. “It is not that simple, but yes.”
“Why is it so important that you guard the tomb? What is so bad about invoking Rahmagut?” This time, she said the name with confidence. The lick of apprehension she had grown up with, for uttering a name forbidden in the Serrano hacienda, had dulled. It satisfied her to see she was a step freer from her grandmother. Making her own path was what she had strived for in leaving Galeno. “What’s so bad about iridio?”
“Papi, why don’t we show her?”
Eva perked up, making it quite clear she did want to be shown.
He conceded with a smile blurred by the night and led the way through one of the balcony paths. Eva and Ludivina followed, giggling about receiving special treatment unbeknownst to the other partygoers. The music faded behind them as the sounds of night embraced them, joined by the ever-present faraway sound of waves. Finally the cobbled walkway met a beautifully engraved wooden door lighted by sconces. The air was sweet from the overabundance of jasmines clinging to the columns at either side of the door. He opened it without a need for keys and welcomed them into a large workshop.
He shot a quick spell of gold iridio to the indoor sconces, and the room came alight in a sparkly flurry. Books and trophies inhabited the bookshelves lining three of the six hexagonal walls. Several rectangular tables were arranged on one side of the room, populated by instruments like the ones Javier used to mix geomancia reagents, along with tools and half-constructed novelties. Minerals and glistening geodes. At the center of the workshop stood a wide table, carved with a map of the continent. It was a resting spot for a curious globe-like artifact of wrought-gold legs with an illusioned projection of many stars resembling the night sky. The painting of a great bloody battle hung sentinel behind a lion-legged desk. And next to it was a large stone slab carved in the shape of agonized people, bent limbs and gaping mouths pointing up at the ceiling as if they were caught in a half scream while being sucked into the depths of the earth.
“This is my workspace,” Don Samón said, trailing his fingers over the brocade backrest of a plush love seat. “It’s where I spend most of my time nowadays. Not outside with swords and drills as in my youth, but here, with books, because I am looking for a way to stop the power Rahmagut has bestowed upon this land, through iridio.”
Eva blinked. She had heard him clearly, but her mind refused to comprehend the meaning.
From the drawer on the lion-legged desk, he produced a scroll that unfurled to reveal a star map. He also withdrew a stack of correspondence, the opened seals in all colors of wax. He pointed at the star illustration clearly resembling the cyan tail of Rahmagut’s Claw.
“Forty-two years ago, Rahmagut was invoked successfully.”
“What happened then?” Eva asked, watching Ludivina idly spin the globe, causing the stars’ position to change. The illusioned sky changed from the movement, days turning to nights turning to days again.
“I suppose the person got exactly what they wanted. They communed with Rahmagut and irreparably weakened the seal, once again, because there have surely been other invocations in generations past. Coincidently enough, you can scour all the old and contemporary literature on the matter of geomancia and find no mentions of iridio ever being used prior to Rahmagut’s Claw’s appearance forty-two years ago.” He rifled through the stack of correspondence, inviting Eva to look for herself. “Ches sealed iridio when he sealed Rahmagut. But I believe that last invocation gave Rahmagut enough power to put iridio back into this world.”
Eva opened and closed her mouth, for no appropriate reply came to her. Do?a Rosa had called it a new school of geomancia. An undiscovered frontier. Eva had just never imagined it would be so thoroughly connected to the god of el Vacío.
“His influence—his capability to shape this world—it’s not a fable. It’s real, but it is weak. Just like the seal Ches placed on him is, and I’m afraid it will finally break if Rahmagut is invoked one more time while that comet is still visible.”
Eva turned to the carving of the agonized people, noting how it looked so out of place in an otherwise warm room. She pretended to be enthralled by it so they couldn’t see her knowledge of Javier’s plans in her eyes. Beside it was a board covered in pinned journal entries and ripped-out book pages. Her cursory look told her they were on the subject of tinieblas.
“Would that be so bad, if he is unsealed?” she said, glancing back.
Fear electrified her spine when his carmine eyes met hers. A reaction based on instinct, taking her back to the horrible moment when Javier had hit her. Because she’d never expected it, and it had been unsettling to see his indomitable ferocity come out of nowhere. But Eva felt foolish, for she could tell there was no universe or world where this man would ever raise his hand to her.
“I received a prophecy soon after Segol withdrew from these lands,” Don Samón said, tossing the stack of letters over his desk in anger, “from a man I mistook for a charlatan, claiming all my work for independence would be undone. In my rash youth, I did horrible things to him, but I could never silence his belief that if Rahmagut were to be unsealed, the resulting chaos would weaken our nations, allowing for a second rule of the Segolean Empire. The loss of our independence.” He pointed at the slab of the anguished people behind him. “We extracted that carving from the tomb years ago when I constructed this residence. It is only a small piece of the horror filled in that tomb. And it’s both a warning and a guarantee of what will happen if the ires of Ches and Rahmagut are stirred. Is it really such a stretch to want to prevent the death of innocents?”
The silence was uncomfortable but brief, for Ludivina said, “It won’t happen, Papi. This is the last week. You’re here.” She beckoned Eva to play with the globe, to spin it and admire the stars orbiting the tiny sphere suspended at its very center.