In Plain Sight

“In the captain’s cabin,” he said, his expression sad. “I was excited at first. In the middle of the floor, I found the rune. The finding rune.”

“The one from the Monograph,” Alex said. “The one that’s supposed to lead to it.”

“Yes.” Iggy leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I wish I’d never found it, or that I’d destroyed it, but I was young and ambitious. And foolish. I copied it down for the Admiralty. They were all very excited; my commission was assured. It was only after they left that I saw the shadows.”

“Shadows?”

Iggy trembled as if a cold wind had blown across him.

“There were ten crew aboard when the Mary Celeste left New York, including the Captain and his wife and daughter. They were all there, in the cabin, or rather what remained of them was. I didn’t see them until I was done with the rune. I looked up and there they all were. Ten shadows on the wall, each contorted as if they had been blinded by a bright light. It was all that remained of them when the rune exploded.”

Alex had seen runes explode before; they tended to do significant damage to the surfaces they were inscribed on. “How could you have found the rune’s residue if it exploded?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it have left a hole in the deck?”

“It wasn’t a physical explosion,” Iggy said. “It was pure magic. It had no effect on the wood of the ship, but it disintegrated the fragile bodies gathered around it. All that was left were their terrified shadows on the wall.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No one would listen. You see, the captain of the Mary Celeste left a Lore book behind that detailed his search for the Monograph. Once the admiralty understood what it was, they wanted the Monograph for England. Unfortunately, many in the admiralty couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Stories began to circulate about the Monograph and the rune that would lead the worthy to it. The government hushed it up, of course, but enough people knew that it began to be fashionable for runewrights to search for the book.”

“Is that what happened to your friend?”

“I should have destroyed my notes,” Iggy said, sadness in his voice. “Eventually I broke the finding rune down into a more basic version.”

“That’s why I knew what it was,” Alex said. “The finding rune you taught me is made from the one in the Monograph.”

“Yes. I made the mistake of showing my finding rune to Felix. We had developed many of our runes together and he knew the limit of my abilities. From the moment he saw it, Felix knew I hadn’t come up with it on my own. He pestered me until I told him the whole story. From that day on, he was a changed man. He abandoned his commission and chased any mention of the Monograph all over Europe. We lost track of each other, but I heard rumors that Felix found other runes from the Monograph, but never the book itself.”

“Is he the one who gave the runes to the British?”

“Probably,” Iggy said. “Then one day he called me. Out of the blue. He said he’d figured it out, the finding rune, and that soon the Monograph would be his. He wanted me to come to his house. He wanted to share the book with me.”

“Sounds like a good friend.”

Iggy nodded and puffed his cigar.

“The best,” he agreed.

“Did you go?” Alex asked, afraid he already knew the answer.

“When I got there, Felix was gone.” A tear trickled down Iggy’s face and into his prodigious mustache. “I wanted to run, to just leave his flat and never return. But I … I had to know. I lit the ghostlight and there, on the wall, was Felix’s shadow, arms held over its head as though trying to block out the sun.”

Alex stood and poured more cognac into Iggy’s empty snifter.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

“It isn’t just Felix,” Iggy said. “In the years since the rune leaked out, hundreds of runewrights have disappeared, their invisible shadows burned into the walls of their flats and workshops.”

Alex remembered what the Sorceress told him.

“Sorsha said the government stopped researching the Monograph because twelve of their brightest minds went missing,” he said. “I take it their shadows ended up on walls somewhere too?”

After a long pause Iggy nodded.

“You see why I must insist, Alex,” Iggy said, grabbing his wrist. “You must forget about the Archimedean Monograph. Everyone who pursues it thinks they’ve broken the code and they all end up dead. Promise me.” He gripped Alex’s arm with more force than Alex would have given him credit for having. “Promise me that you will tear up whatever copies you’ve made of these runes. Promise me you’ll leave it alone.”

There was pain in the old man’s voice, but more than pain, there was panic. The idea that Alex would pursue the Monograph and its killer finding rune literally terrified Iggy. Alex knelt down by the old man’s chair and looked him square in the eyes.

“I promise you, Iggy,” he said. “I have no interest in becoming a shadow on the wall. I won’t go chasing after this book. Not now, or ever.”