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The day after Ilo met the witches, he skulked into work, doing his best to keep a low profile. He watched for Braden, the leader of the wizards the night of the confrontation. It seemed quieter than usual, and Ilo was thankful for it. Still, he began to plan his exit from the company. That confrontation was a suspicious failure, and his failure to present a witch after what seemed like a capture was even more suspicious.
But when Ilo had to explain why there was no witch, he said, “They found me. I don’t know how, but they tracked me down and took her back. I was lucky they didn’t kill me.”
“Why didn’t they?” Braden asked.
Ilo thought fast. “Maybe they just wanted her back and that’s it. I dunno.”
Braden thought a moment, then pulled out his phone and thumbed through a notification. “Lucky you.” And he left to file a debrief with the boss.
Aldon James. Ilo had only met him a few times, when his team was first set up, and when Locke disappeared. He was fairly hands off, but he did expect results. And in the weeks after the confrontation, his team wasn’t getting results. Braden was getting nervous, and that made Ilo nervous.
Ilo sent a few emails out, and thought about the future. He thought about the companies in the area, those who might also need wizards. Bubble? Do they need anyone? But he also didn’t want to leave this thread unraveled. Lemuria was dangerous, and though he knew he shouldn’t, he carried the weight of stopping them on his shoulders.
Ilo’s ears twitched in thought. He had an itch, and he needed to get to the archives to scratch it. And to get there, he’d need to run the Labyrinth.
In many ways, the Labyrinth felt like a video game. It wasn’t physical, but there was a path to get to it. He remembered it well, having spent an ever increasing amount of time in the archives since he gained access. His team nominated him, though honestly it felt like they were happy to get rid of him. Joke was on them, he had thought we he first started. Ilo loved the archives, loved the microfiche of old newspapers, and old maps of the city, and of course all of the spell books and tomes of magic he could ever want. He spent hours in the archives, listening to podcasts and studying Seattle history.
Ilo took the stairs down two floors. This was app development. They hardly ever noticed him anymore. He made his way through the cube farm to the elevators. Up to floor 12. A lap around the floor, stairs up to 13, international sales. They always had good coffee up there, and he always grabbed a cup. Coffee in hand, elevator down to floor 9, the server team. He made a simple loop around the elevator column, then down three floors, entering floor 6. And if he had done it right, rather than be in Supply Chain he’d be facing a simple stone wall with a wooden door. It was all for show, of course, the door could have been anything. But the Dungeons and Dragons nerds that made the Labyrinth insisted.
A guard waited by the door, dressed in a uniform like any other security guard, but had a gnarled staff leaning against the wall. He looked up at Ilo, and closed the book he was reading.
“Hey, Ilo,” he said, standing from his seat. “Hitting the mines again, huh?”
“Yeah, I have some things I need to verify.” Ilo stopped in front of him and held out his arms. The security guard waved his staff over Ilo, revealing the magical bits he had on him. His ID card and pen stood out. The security guard pointed to his shoulder bag.
“There’s a book in there,” the guard said.
“It’s my tome,” Ilo said.
“You know we make tablets,” the guard said, laughing. “You could join the Twenty First century with the rest of us. I bet they’d just give you one.”
“I’m a Millennial, I like analog stuff,” Ilo said. “Plus it has cool doodles on it.”
The security guard waved him on. “Can’t beat that. Don’t work too hard in there.”
Ilo waved and moved through the door into the archive. He was alone again, and it was nice. He lived for these days. He unpacked his bag, getting his headphones out, and his tome.
He’d been testing the guard for weeks. He knew that the guard would see the tome. He wanted the guard to see the tome. Every time he went through that check, in and out, he’d have to check that it was actually his tome in the bag. Ilo made sure to drag out the check, until the guard had finally given up. He’d brought the guard coffee, good snacks when they showed up on his floor, pizza and sandwiches and sodas, and the occasional beer, when that happened. The guard always pointed out the book in his bag, but he never checked anymore.
Ilo opened his tome. It was bigger than most of the tomes on the shelves, and Ilo had made every effort to justify its use. There were years of notes in it, about the barriers and the Chamber, but also magical fluctuations on a near day by day basis, on interesting spells from the archives, on weather, because why not. Which is why it almost killed him to cut all of those pages out.
Ilo opened his tome and pulled out the smaller book, a guide to all of the Sasquatches on the Olympic Peninsula. He took it out last week. The guard didn’t notice. Ilo replaced the book on the shelf where it had been. He searched for a new book, on that had started his itch, one he had just remembered. It was light, just bigger than a paperback novel, but still leather-bound, still older than the combined age of his team. There was script on the cover, which notes on the inside claimed was called “Demon Script.” The book was titled simply New Gehenna Almanac 1895, written by “Correct Resoluteness.”
Ilo found the book and opened it. It was full of translations, and Ilo was starting to get good at reading the script, or at least recognizing a few words. It was just notes about a section of Seattle that, as far as he could tell, was washed away during the Denny Regrade. Lists of shops and residents, notes of new arrivals, and happenings in the community. It was so ordinary, so matter of fact that it glossed over that everyone mentioned, with the exception of Doc Maynard, were demons.
He thought of seeing Elliot in the tunnels, seeing the demon with her. He knew Elliot had mentioned her before but he couldn’t remember the name. When had they come here? Were they in New Gehenna when this was written?
He flipped to the back, which had photographs pasted into the book. He could look at these for hours, look at the group shots of demon store owners, and the demon baseball team, which he had been calling ‘The Brimstones,’ and shots of the streets of New Gehenna. All of these things had existed, and were lost to time.
There was another picture too. Several demons stood together, like in the photos of the shopkeeper, but this one was labeled ‘The New Gehenna Benevolent Society.’ A group working, he imagined, for the betterment of their people. It was the background he found compelling, a shot looking out over what was now downtown Seattle, and Puget Sound. There were a few buildings and a lot of hills, all of them having been labeled. But one label had stuck out to him, one that he thought about constantly. It was a label on a hill, bathed in shadows, simply called ‘The Resident.’ He didn’t understand, but he also figured this was a mistranslation. Maybe it’s where a lot of them lived.
Ilo closed the book He thought about the week ahead. He’d have at least one overnight down in the tunnels, mending the barriers. No one in the group wanted to do it, but they didn’t have a choice.
Right Determination. That was the name Elliot said. He turned that over in his head for a moment. It kept poking at him. Translate ideas and not words. And when the words fell into place, Ilo jumped up out of his chair. The book, the little almanac of New Gehenna, had been written not by Correct Resoluteness, but Right Determination.
Why did Lemuria have this book? And did Elliot’s demon give it up willingly? He paced around the room. What did the demon know?
Ilo needed to plan his escape from Lemuria faster. Because, he knew without hesitation, for the good of Seattle, he had to steal that book.
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