Knight Watch

by Tim Akers

  Chapter NINE

  DOWN THE HOLE

  The thrumming machinery at the center of the room got quieter the closer we got to it. Esther led us down the stairs, stopping to chat with several techs along the way, never bothering to introduce us. Chesa looked really out of place in her charred elvish princess costume, but none of the collected technicians seemed to mind at all. Honestly, they were probably used to much stranger dress, if the way Tembo and company comported themselves was any indication.

  “I don’t like that thing,” Chesa said. She had to raise her voice to be heard, but it was like she was muffled, or far away. I leaned in to hear her better. “It doesn’t belong here.”

  “None of this belongs here,” I said. “I think that’s the point.”

  Chesa blanched and hesitated. Esther took her by the hand.

  “This is important to see,” she said, leading us forward. “Just try to remain calm.”

  At first, I could feel the engine’s vibration in my chest. It reminded me of a ship’s engine room, the kind of place where everyone wore ear protection and talked in barely heard shouts, but as we descended toward the floor of the arena-like room, the sound faded away. I thought I was going deaf, but I could still hear Esther’s questions about pressure levels and anomalies, the techs’ responses, even though the numbers meant nothing to me. About halfway down, an eerie silence fell. I stared at the engine.

  “What is that thing?” I asked, but even I could barely hear my voice. Esther drew the three of us together. When she answered, I could see that she was yelling, but her words were the barest whisper in my ears.

  “Anomaly Actuator,” Esther said. “Leftover from the last big war. There’s a lot of history in this thing. Gods help us if it ever breaks down. The last engineer from the original team died ten years ago. There are schematics, but not in a math anyone living understands.”

  We were close enough now that I could see words stenciled on to the side of the engine, big block white letters and arrows and warning symbols. There was a star in a circle near the top, the same one used by U.S. forces in WWII. I had painted enough Sherman tanks to be familiar with it.

  “I thought you said this wasn’t some kind of military agency,” I yelled, pointing to the star. “That sure looks government issue to me.”

  “Knight Watch is one hundred percent private, from nuts to guts,” Esther said. “You won’t find Washington anywhere in this business. Half of Mundane Actual’s job is keeping the government off our back. We’ve got more accountants and lawyers than guards. Here, you’re going to need this.”

  She handed both us a brass diving helmet, taken from a rack of similar devices, then settled another one on her head. I watched Chesa maneuver the rigid dome over her delicate crown of leaves, then I followed suit. The helmet’s heavy mantle pressed into my shoulders. The air in the helmet smelled like oil, and a steady chugging sound came through a pipe in the top. My view through the glass and iron grate at the front was severely limited. I felt like a toy in an aquarium. Esther tapped my elbow, then pointed toward the engine.

  We walked past the three techs in the deep-water diving suits who were monitoring the machine and approached one of the portholes. The glass was thick and bulbous, distorting the view inside, but as I leaned my helmet against it, I could see something moving inside the engine. Green fields and bright sun, windswept grass, and trees blowing in the breeze. Reminded me of summer. If I squinted, I could see a circle of rough stones in the center of the field, each one a knee-high pillar with mushrooms growing at their base. Chesa tapped me on the shoulder. I gave way, letting her get a look. Even through the foggy glass of the diving helmet, I could see her eyes go wide.

  “This was a field in Amherst, New Jersey, circa 1925. Appeared in the middle of a busy street, swallowed maybe twenty people before the National Guard was able to establish a perimeter. Every once in a while, the poor bastards show up in the display. There’s a horse in there that, to all appearances, is slowly changing into a unicorn king. The rest seem to be having a worse time of it.” Esther’s voice was coming through my breathing tube and sounded terrible. But there was no other sound, not even my own heartbeat. It was freaky. “An early version of Knight Watch was able to contain and transport it. When the war started, the military commandeered the entire operation, just long enough to screw it up royally. We reclaimed it in the 70s, moved it here, started our own missions and recruiting.”

  “I don’t understand. What does this do?” I asked, hoping she could hear me. There was a long silence, but eventually Esther answered.

  “It’s systematically weird,” she said. “In a predictable manner. So any variation in that pattern indicates unreal activity in the mundane world. We’ve learned to navigate by those variations.”

  “You put a grass field into a giant tank and moved it here, wherever the hell here is, so you could track weird shit happening in the world?” Chesa asked.

  “You should have seen the German operation,” she said. “We kind of assume the Russians got that, after...well, anyway. It was a great deal more horrific.”

  We worked our way back up the stairs, stripping off the helmets and ascending the stairs. Sounds steadily returned, the clatter of keys strangely loud in my ears after such crushing silence. When we got back to the top, one of the techs tapped Esther’s shoulder.

  “Sword is awake, ma’am. He wants to talk to you.”

  “Already? I didn’t think he’d be ready for another couple weeks.”

  “Someone told him about our guests,” the tech said, her eyes sliding to me and Chesa. “He’s very interested.”

  “I’m sure he is. Well, I guess you get to meet Clarence now.”

  “We’ve met,” I said. “He’s kind of an asshole.”

  “He’s also going to be in charge of your training,” Esther answered. “So maybe keep that opinion to yourself.”

  Mundane Actual’s hospital existed in a strange borderland between the clean zone maintained for the elites, and the drab hallways of the real world. There was an airlock going into both areas, leading into a long room that was sectioned off with curtains. Machines beeped in several of the curtained cubicles, and the air smelled like antiseptic. It could have been cut and pasted from any modern hospital in the world, except for the massive cartoonish dragon moping in the center of the room.

  “This is nicer than where I was. You couldn’t have brought me...oh,” I said as I noticed the dragon. “Hi.”

  “Matthew’s pretty lights don’t work in this place,” Esther said, ignoring my reaction to the dragon. “Or at least, it’s easier where we had you. That hallway was modeled after a monastery from eighth-century France. Peak miracle space. This room is all about the medicine.” She turned around and noticed I was staring at the dragon. Chesa was frozen in place, just inside the door. “Guys, this is the least strange thing you’re going to see today.”

  “Sufficiently strange, thanks,” Chesa said tightly.

  “Sure it is. Kyle, this is John Rast and Chesa Lazaro. John, Chesa, this is Kyle.” Esther walked past the dragon and into one of the cubicles, leaving us alone with the creature. Chesa started to whimper under her breath.

  First off, this guy was nothing like Kracek. His tiny wings could never have gotten him off the ground, and the purple scales that covered its body somehow looked soft, almost plush. His thick neck brushed the ceiling before bending low, leaving his barrel-wide head nearly scraping the floor. Kyle looked at us both with wet, dinner-plate eyes, and a curl of smoke puffed out of his wide nostrils. He was the definition of cute, to the point of being pathetic.

  “You’re the sonuvabitch who killed Kracek, aren’t you?” he asked, zeroing in on me. I nodded, and Kyle grimaced, a look of forlorn dismissal that didn’t really fit on his bubble-smooth face. “I never really liked that guy. Still, it would have been better to let Clarence handle it.” He laid a massive clawed hand on the curtain wall, bending the iron supports and snagging his talons
on the fabric. He sighed, and the room got about twenty degrees warmer. “Clarence would have done it better.”

  “Clarence was lying on his back, bleeding from a bunch of new holes. I think maybe the only thing he would have done better at that point was bleed to death.”

  “Yeah,” Kyle answered. “And now we’ll never know how he would have overcome that challenge and won the day. A pity.”

  “Sure,” I said. “A damned shame.”

  “John? Is this okay? Is he okay?” Chesa asked.

  “Near as I can tell, he’s the picture of safe. But don’t worry, I won’t let him—”

  Chesa flew across the room and threw her arms around Kyle’s neck. The sound I had mistaken for whimpering was actually barely contained giggles. Chesa squeezed and squeezed, until Kyle looked like he was going to pop.

  “My lady!” he squeaked. “This is hardly appropriate for a dragon of my stature!”

  Esther stuck her head out of the curtain and shot us all a schoolmarm’s look. “You woke him up. I hope you’re happy.”

  Kyle’s horns perked up, and a grin crawled across his toothy maw. He shook free of Chesa’s embrace and leaned forward. “Awake, you say? He’s awake!” The dragon shoved his bulbous nose into the cubicle. “Clarence! Clarence, are you awake?”

  “Good morning, Kyle.” Clarence’s voice was softer than I remembered, though there was steel in it. He sounded very tired. “They brought you here, I see. Marvelous.”

  “Marvelous!” Kyle agreed. “Do you think we can go home now?”

  The small but still quite impressive dragon pushed forward into the cubicle, upsetting the curtain wall and lifting its supports off the ground. The whole line of attached curtains staggered, folding to the ground like playing cards, their steel wheels clattering against the linoleum. Very anxious nurses, all dressed in white versions of the same tactical gear everyone around here seemed to wear, appeared from the shadows and started rearranging the furniture. A few distressed patients huddled under the collapsed curtains.

  “Kyle! Kyle, behave! You’re making it very difficult...” Esther’s exasperated voice trailed off as Kyle arched his back and shook like a wet dog. Hollow steel rods and displaced curtains flew everywhere. I ducked behind an IV stand. When the shaking stopped, Clarence and his bed sat exposed at the epicenter of this draconic catastrophe. Kyle loomed over him, massive head inches away from the knight’s face.

  My meeting with Clarence had been brief and in the middle of dangerous things, but I would never have recognized him in his current state, even if he had been my father. The tall, handsome man I had seen face Kracek was wasted and thin. Deep lines etched his face, and his eyes burned with fever. The bed seemed to swallow him. He lifted a hand to the dragon, and I was shocked to see it as gnarled as a root branch and spotted. Clarence brushed Kyle’s nose affectionately.

  “Leave him alone, Esther. This is difficult for him to understand,” Clarence said. A puff of smoke from Kyle’s mouth swathed the frail knight, “It’s alright, friend. We’ll be home soon enough.” The old knight’s eyes trailed across the room, lighting first on Chesa, then on me. He smiled. “Are these the two I’ve heard about?”

  “I’d like to know who’s been talking to you,” Esther said. “We need you to get your rest.”

  “What you need is to fill the team,” Clarence said weakly. With a wince, he pulled himself into a sitting position and peered at the two of us. “Well. Come closer. This old man’s eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  I nervously shuffled closer. Clarence looked us both up and down. I had trouble settling this old man with the hero I had seen face Kracek. He looked fifty years older, if a day, and his hands shook as he rubbed his chin.

  “Yes, they’ll have to do. You’re sure they’re the right type?”

  “The boy has a gift for the sword, and the girl...well, you can see she was born for it.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Clarence said. “It’s just the damned world, with its autowagons, and speaking tubes, and diesel conveyance jets. No one even speaks proper Latin anymore.”

  “How long has he been in here?” I whispered to Esther.

  “The damned modern world!” Clarence said over my question. “That steals the mythical world from us. Get ’em young, I say, before they end up in a factory, sewing chapeaus for some French bastard!” Chesa and I exchanged glances, but Clarence bulled on. “Yes, with Marcus gone, and Ophelia on walkabout, you’re going to need new recruits!”

  “I’m going to assume Ophelia and Marcus are dead, and he’s just forgotten?” I asked Esther.

  “They are most assuredly not dead,” Clarence said. “I would know. I would know.”

  “It’s okay, Clarence. They’ve already signed the paperwork,” Esther said.

  “Grand! Then what are we waiting for?” he asked.

  “For you to be well enough to go down the hole without dragging corruption along with you. And that isn’t going to happen—”

  “That isn’t going to happen at all. We’ll have to take the risk. Kyle?” The dragon arched its back, looming over us. Clarence beamed up at him. “It’s time to go home.”

  It was only a few moments before we were on our way. They loaded Clarence into a wheelchair, one of the tactical nurses pushing him into the hallway. Chesa and I followed, with Esther between us. Kyle bumbled through the hallway behind us, regularly knocking tiles out of the ceiling and bumping into the walls. The sound of his passage was terrifying, and every time I looked behind me, I expected to see a furious death engine charging close on my heels. Instead, Kyle looked like a puppy dressed in scale mail, dipping his head into each room we passed, sometimes drawing screams of terror, sometimes greeting the occupants in his cheerful, childish voice. I was beginning to think he was just a dog from the real world, somehow transformed into a fearsome beast.

  “I still don’t like this,” Esther snapped. “If we put you in too early, you could corrupt your whole domain. Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “I’ve done this enough to know. Besides, what’s the worst that happens?” Clarence waved a thin hand dismissively. “It’s not like that one time with the spiders.”

  “Worst case? The three of you disappear into a nightmarish hellhole, and I’m down to three elites and no backup,” Esther said.

  “Wait, what?” Chesa asked. “What’s this about spiders?”

  “The domains have to be shielded from the real world. Elites can’t just go straight in,” Esther said. “Remember what I said about how the elites have to work their way into their domains slowly? Well, Clarence has a lot of the mundane world clinging to him right now. We got him stabilized with modern medicine, but he’s supposed to spend some time in medieval medical care before he enters his domain. And he’s badly enough hurt that we were hoping to let him recuperate here for a while before we turned him over to the barbers.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me that your leeches can fix, Esther!”

  “They’re not leeches. They’re antibiotics, and if you just let them work—”

  “Right, right, little bugs in my bloodstream,” Clarence said. He leaned back in his chair and fixed me with an amused look, then rolled his eyes. “Not leeches. As you say.”

  “The point is that we’re taking a risk letting him go straight back in. It could corrupt the domain, and then pretty much anything can happen.”

  “You worry too much,” Clarence said.

  “Worried about what? Should I be worried, buddy?” Kyle asked, poking his head between us, his horns nearly knocking us to the ground.

  “Not at all,” Clarence said. Satisfied, Kyle went back to terrorizing the hallway.

  Esther mumbled to herself, but then the nurse pulled up short and turned Clarence’s chair to face a broad wooden door. Clarence clapped his hands together.

  “This will be fun,” he said. “Come on, Kyle!”

  Kyle bowled past us, knocking the door open and disappearing through the other side. I cou
ldn’t see anything in the room beyond. Like, literally nothing. The floor disappeared.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “Most of the portals are deeper in MA, but we keep a spare near the hospital for cases like this,” Esther said. “It’s not ideal. But it’s the best we can do.”

  “Come on, you’re going to love it,” Clarence said cheerfully. “Not like Tembo’s miserable place.”

  “It’s not the domain that’s dangerous, it’s the transition. John, Chesa, are you listening? Just keep your feet moving and try to not think of anything scary.”

  “Like trolls,” Clarence prompted. “Or dragons. Especially not dragons, given your history. Oh, and zombies! Gods, what would happen if you thought about zombies. I shudder to imagine!”

  “Do you guys not understand how thinking works?” Chesa snapped. “Just...I can’t...now my brain is all zombies, all the way down now!”

  “Then we’ll get in some early practice,” Clarence said gleefully. “Tally ho, old boy! Let’s get to it.”

  “It’s not as bad as he says,” Esther insisted. “And neither of you have a domain yet, so it’s not like you’ll get lost on the way there. Just...keep moving.” She pulled a face, squinting at Chesa out of one eye. “And...maybe try to not think about zombies?”

  “Damn it, people!” I swore. Clarence laughed heartily, then started rolling himself toward the door.

  “Don’t let him get away from you!” Esther said, pushing me toward Clarence’s chair. I wrapped my hands around the grips. The inertia pushed us forward. We crossed the threshold into nothingness. I felt Chesa’s hand on my shoulder, and then nothing.

  All I could hear was Clarence’s laughter, echoing distantly in my brain, getting creepier and creepier with each iteration. And all I could think about was zombies. And dragons. And zombie dragons.

  But there was nothing but darkness, and the cold steel of the wheelchair under my hands.

  Chapter TEN

  PRACTICE DYING