Bailey Baz's Arc

Chapter 5 of 44

Bailey walked away from the deep water with the whole totem still on its cord. He needed another way to free Cora and learn his own truth. Only one creature might know it. The ferret that had barred his path knew why Malachar wanted him whole. But the ferret had darted into the reeds and vanished. So Bailey followed its trail. He found small tracks pressed in the mud. Golden hairs clung to a broken reed. The tracks led him to a sagging dock of gray timber. Ropes hung rotted from the posts. Half the planks had cracked and fallen into the black water. The ferret crouched at the far end. Its bushy black tail curled tight around its feet. When Bailey stepped onto the dock, a plank snapped under him. The creature bared its teeth but did not run. "You warned me," Bailey said. He knelt on the wet wood. "You knew what he wanted. Tell me why." The ferret's golden eyes fixed on him. Then it opened its mouth, and an old voice came out, dry and cracked. Not the animal's voice. Malachar's voice, thrown across the swamp into the creature's throat. "You chase the wrong answer, warden," the voice said. "This beast is mine. It carried my words before you were made." Bailey's stomach turned cold. The ferret shook its head hard, as if to throw the voice out. Its white ear tufts trembled. Then it spoke again, and this time the words were its own, thin and afraid. "He wants you whole," the ferret said, "because a broken warden cannot carry the totem near. Whole, you are his hands. He needs living hands to hold it." Bailey leaned closer. "And my aging? Why did I stop?" The ferret's eyes darted to the water. "The swamp poured a hundred years of debt into you. That is what holds your body still. Break the debt fully, and the years come back all at once." The voice of Malachar surged back into the creature. "Enough," it snarled through the ferret's mouth. The animal seized, jerked, and bit its own leg to stop the words. Bailey grabbed it and held it. "Fight him," he said. The ferret shuddered in his hands. Then it went limp, free of the voice, breathing fast. "I cannot stay near you long," it whispered. "He hears through me. But there is a tower. Old carvings there name a second binding rite. One that seals a prisoner deeper, not frees him. Go before he silences me for good." The ferret twisted loose and dropped between the broken planks into the reeds. It was gone. Bailey stood on the ruined dock. Now he knew the shape of the trap and the price of his own truth. The years would return if he broke free. And somewhere waited a tower with a rite to bury Malachar deeper. He turned toward it.