to crash against one another, each one more dramatic and unbelievable than the last. And yet, the more difficult it became to counter these wild ideas, the easier it became to entertain the idea that he had slipped between worlds and the whole event had been staged, carefully planned. Aphra thought she was outsmarting Reynard, but now Gabe firmly believed she was the one outwitted. And he - Gabe - was the stooge, the mule, the courier! Why? Cyricus had just voiced a similar concern. Now Gabe also wanted to know what it was about him that had allowed his body to move between these two planes without creating a disturbance.
There had to be a reason that Reynard had found him, that Aphra had used him. There had to be an explanation for why he had dreamed of a cathedral he'd not seen or known of, but which almost certainly stood proudly in this different world.
He had plenty to learn before he could begin to fathom how to thwart Cyricus and rid himself of his presence. As for Aphra, he hoped they would find a 'suitable host' very soon; he could no longer stand the sound of her voice reverberating through him. She sickened him. Gabe had always thought he didn't possess any capacity for violence and that his calm reasoning would always get him through a situation. Now, his rage was such that he would kill Aphra with his bare hands ... if either of them were made of something substantial.
However, he must remain calm and invisible to them. He would sit dormant within his own body, pulling tight any clues to his existence, and he would listen and pay attention. Perhaps he could find a way to get help from the outside. He'd already tried to leave clues. Even in his terrified, mind-scattered state, when he'd been forced into killing Flek, he'd pressed the quill against the man, hoping it would be found and cause questions to be asked.
The demons had missed it because they were so distracted by the transference of Cyricus and their reunion . However, he had sneaked a look when Cyricus had cast a glance through Gabe's eyes at Flek's body. Gabe had seen that a burn mark had been left behind on the man's chest and it seemed to him that the burn resembled the marking he knew existed on the quill. He'd never known what that tiny image represented, but knew that every anomaly and every small connection might help if people were questioning the events surrounding Flek's death.
The other curious moment during the shocking exchange of Cyricus into his body was to use his last remaining gasp of breath to cast the word 'Help' into the dying man's consciousness. If pressing the quill against Flek's chest was a long shot, then pushing the word 'Help' into Flek's dying mouth was just about as far-fetched as things could get. About as fanciful as clinging to the belief that he might have a chance at conquering these interlopers.
Nevertheless, he had given it all of his remaining strength.
In truth, he didn't know why he'd done it, but rationality was not a feature of his landscape at present. It was a desperate moment and he'd regressed to using a game from childhood, except now that he came to consider it, he didn't remember playing any game along those lines while growing up in England. And yet, in that moment of terror, had come the searing clarity of playing a game called 'dead men's whispers' with his brother in a village square, a village square that he saw in that same moment of bleak terror. What brother? Which village? He'd been raised in a city. Even so, the impulse had come to him in less than a beat of his heart and he'd acted, breathing that word as he let go of the shirt of Rural Dean Flek, whose warm lifeblood was spraying his naked body.
It had been desperate, for sure. Who would hear that cry for help from a man who was little more than a spirit himself, via the lips of a dead man? He was truly crazy. But there had been a time in his life when he'd believed in magic, hadn't there? Here it was again, that dim reaching toward a life he couldn't properly recall and yet somehow had flashes of memory, or glimpses into. Was the cathedral at Pearlis one of those glimpses? Aphra seemed