by Tim Akers
“And how is Mike?” I asked.
“Mike is dead to me,” Jerry snapped, quickly withdrawing his writhing grasp. “An unacceptable breach of friendship! There will be warrants!”
Without explanation, Jerry collected the remainder of our luggage, including Owen’s considerable burden of weapons and ammunition, and retreated through the door. We stepped through a second later, but Jerry was already gone.
“What was that about?”
“Janitor drama, happens all the time. Hard to avoid when they’re basically the same guy in two different bodies. He’ll scour the unreal world off that stuff and put it back into the armory. Every time we’re exposed to the mythological nonsense, there’s a risk of contamination. Can really screw with the equipment.”
“Is that what happened to our phones?” Chesa asked. Gabrielle looked at us questioningly, so I related the story of the tarot cards, both when I first arrived at my parents’ house and later, at the base of the tree. She shrugged.
“Probably, though I can’t imagine Esther sending you out with corrupted artifacts. I’ll put it in the report. Anything else?”
“You mean besides the giant storm tree that grew up where my friend’s house used to be? No, nothing of interest.”
“Don’t be bitter. No one likes a sourpuss.”
Owen took me by the shoulder and guided me down the hallway. His grip was several foot-pounds tighter than it needed to be, and soon I was wincing at the pressure. The giant leaned down and hissed into my ear.
“It’s time to stop whining. You have a great opportunity, a chance most of us would kill for. Gabby in particular. So I won’t hear your negativity anymore, will I?”
Before I could answer, we reached another door, with a keypad and combination lock. It was very similar to the one that led to the interview room, oh so long ago. Owen pulled me upright and started punching numbers into the keypad. When he was done, Gabrielle stepped up and fiddled with the combination. The door opened with a hiss.
“This is as far as we go, for the sake of the elites. Contamination goes both ways,” Gabrielle said. “Once you establish your own domains, you won’t be coming in here via mundane means. Good luck in there.”
Owen shoved me through. Chesa followed a second later, looking positively inconvenienced by the whole thing. The door slammed shut. We were in a clean room, similar to the interview room but without the furniture or microphone. Esther entered a second later, hands tucked into her pockets.
“So,” she said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“Right,” I said. “So I mentioned my friend Eric, who went to the faire with us? I tried to call him, and then—”
“Why the hell do I care about this Eric guy?” Esther snapped. “I need to know what you geniuses did to Clarence.”
Chesa and I exchanged glances, then looked back at Esther.
“He’s missing, you idiots. Gone. And his domain has sealed itself. So you start talking, or I’m going to throw you into the actuator and see what sort of horrors come out.”
Chapter SIXTEEN
REGISTERING YOUR DOMAIN
Being questioned by Esther MacRae basically involves being yelled at for ten minutes and then trying to ask a question, which immediately prompted more yelling. But it was informative yelling. Here’s what I learned.
Clarence was gone, along with his domain. That much was obvious but also, apparently, impossible. Elites can’t die inside their own domains, and a domain exists as long as its owner is still alive. If Clarence were alive, the domain would be accessible, though it would take some doing to get in without his permission. Since the domain was apparently gone, that must mean Clarence is dead, except he can’t be dead because he’s still inside the domain. Repeat that loop infinitely.
We learned all of this at a very high volume of sound. And Esther didn’t honestly believe that we’d killed him. But she sure as hell thought his absence was somehow our fault.
Which finally got us back to Eric. Because once we got it through the wall of yelling that Eric had been with us at the faire, that he was the kind of guy Knight Watch would probably want to recruit, and that his house was now a weird tree-thing, Esther grew quiet. Somehow that was worse. She stood in the middle of the room staring at nothing for long, uncomfortable minutes.
“Do we call someone?” Chesa asked after a while. Esther’s lips were moving, but she wasn’t making any sound. “I think we might have broken her.”
“I don’t know. Old people snap sometimes. Maybe she’s having a seizure.”
“She’s not having a seizure,” Chesa said. “Probably. But she might have been possessed by a spirit or something.”
“I like that you rule out seizure but go straight to demonic possession.” I looked around the room. “Can I point out that there aren’t any doorknobs in this room? Or light switches, or really anything of any use?”
“That’s because sometimes folks get possessed by spirits, and we have to restrain them,” Esther said quite suddenly. We jumped. “Not me. But some folks.”
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“You idiots really are to blame for all this. I knew there was something weird about your car, but now your friend Eric, and Clarence...” she resumed mumbling.
“If you do get possessed, is there something we can do?” I asked.
“Duck. The agents will come in hot.” She smiled wickedly. “Okay, it’s happened once. Just once. We had to up security after that. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to find your friend Eric. It’s pretty clear that the three of you are somehow involved in all of this.”
“Involved in all of what? What’d we do?” I asked.
“You personally? Nothing. Wrong place at the wrong time, and now you’ve been sucked into a world of dragons and other strange shit. But something’s hunting my team. If it can get to Clarence in his domain, it can get to any of us. It might even be able to find a way into the anomaly actuator. We can’t let that happen.”
“Sounds like your problem, not mine,” Chesa said. “I was promised elf heaven, and instead I’m watching this idiot play with his sword while my friends disappear and their houses get turned into trees and wreckage.”
“Well, that’s precisely the point. Wherever Aaron—”
“Eric,” I said.
“Wherever Eric has gone, it had something to do with the attack on John’s house. You said it was a big tree with a storm around the top.”
“Really big tree,” I said.
“Right. And what lives in trees? Mythical trees, especially?”
“Apple people?” I ventured.
“Birds. And harpies. Storm harpies, especially. They look like women, but with some feathers, and clawed feet, and their wings make the wind blow. Sound familiar?”
“Ah,” I said. “Ah, yes. So it’s connected?”
“Has to be. I’m just not sure how,” Esther answered.
“I have an idea,” Chesa said. “How about we stop speculating and start doing something? If Eric’s in trouble, and it has to do with the old knight and his castle, shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, calling the cavalry? Riding out to war? Something?”
“Can’t yet,” Esther said. “The rest of the team is still recuperating in their domains. If the two of you and me and Gabrielle try to take on whatever the hell this is, it’ll brush us aside like gnats. No, we need to get you closer to your mythic selves. And that means domains.”
“Domains? As in Aelfhome? Valinor? The High Halls of Rivendell?” Chesa asked, perking up.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Esther said.
“Then what the hell are we waiting for? Why have we waited this long at all?”
“Because there’s a very good chance that you could die in the process,” Esther answered. She looked from Chesa to me and then back again, then tried to smile. It wasn’t convincing. “Or not! You never know! It’ll be an adventure!”
Esther led us through a series
of increasingly medieval doors, each one locked more and more arcanely, until we reached a gate that looked straight out of Tales from the Crypt. Mist swirled around the base of a rusty portcullis, obscuring the floor. An iron hound’s head snarled in the center of the gate, black teeth marred by disturbing stains. Esther stood in front of the gate and held her hands in front of her face. She started chanting.
“This is the part where we find out we should have been going to church the whole time,” Chesa whispered. “There’s a priest somewhere waking up from a nightmare about D&D. His bed is crawling with flies, and just as he reaches for his Bible...”
“Shut up,” I hissed. “You’re not making this easy.”
Esther finished chanting, then drew a knife from her belt and slashed it across the palm of her left hand. Blood streaming from the wound, she thrust her hand into the gaping mouth of the iron hound. The creature’s eyes flashed, and the gate creaked open.
“Okay, I have to admit. That was pretty much a very special episode of Scooby-doo,” I whispered. “We would know if we were on the wrong side of this fight, right?”
“I’ll let you know when I find the elves,” Chesa answered.
“Stop chatting and go through,” Esther said. Sweat glistened across her forehead, and her skin was growing pale. “I can’t hold this open forever.”
We hurried past the gate. Esther followed, snatching her hand from the hound’s jaws. She pressed a bandage over the cut. I took her elbow and was shocked at how cold her skin was.
“Bastard gets hungrier by the year,” she muttered. “I’ll be fine. Matthew will take care of it.”
I didn’t ask any questions. The passage we were in was narrow and dark, and there didn’t seem to be any torches. I stumbled forward, Esther by my side, each step threatening to be a dead end. Eventually, dim light appeared in the distance. I could barely make out Chesa’s slim form ahead of us. She was much further along than us.
“Chesa, wait up!” I called. My voice echoed off stone. She paused and looked back. Her eyes burned purple. I had to suppress a shudder.
“What’s taking you guys so long?” she yelled. “There’s a room up ahead. I think I hear voices.”
“It’s the meeting room,” Esther said quietly. “But no one should be there yet.”
My ears perked up, because now I could hear voices too. I could just make out an archway at the end of the hall, and flickering light beyond. Chesa was nearly there.
“Ches, wait for us!” I shouted. I guess whatever surprise we could have offered the voices in the room was already ruined. Chesa ignored me and disappeared through the archway, then returned a heartbeat later.
“It’s empty,” she said. By then I was nearly there. We went through the archway again, together this time.
We entered a barrel-roofed room, long and tall with a dozen archways flanking the sides, each one supporting wide wooden doors. Six of the archways were hung with banners, suspended from fancy coats-of-arms. The doors in those archways sported iron figures, like the room numbers at a hotel, only pictures. A long table ran down the center of the room, and at the far end blazed the largest hearth I’ve ever seen, flanked by two more doors of thick wood and banded with iron. There was no sign of anyone else.
Esther pulled free of my arm and went to the table, supporting herself with the chair backs as she hobbled to the head of the table, by the fire. She sat down heavily and wiped her face.
“Are you going to be alright?” Chesa asked.
“Fine, fine, I’m fine,” she said impatiently. “Nothing a little blood magic won’t heal. For now, we need to get the two of you started on your domains.”
“What are all these doors?” I asked.
“Portals. The rest of the team lives offsite, but each of their domains opens here, as well. Only use them in emergencies, or if we can’t risk the trip through the mundane to get home. Only the domain’s owner can open these, and then only with great effort.” She pointed to the nearest door. It had a sword on the door, and the banners overhead were a familiar yellow and blue. “That’s Clarence’s door. That’s how I knew something was wrong.”
The door was warped and broken. Ash lined the wooden planks, and a thin scree of debris fanned out from the base of the portal. The lock was shattered. A blossom of sickly vines was growing out of the keyhole at its center.
“I take it you didn’t do that?” I asked.
“No. Found it this way. Or rather Matthew did, when he came down for his nap. Probably happened about the same time you were fighting off that storm harpy.” Esther coughed into her hand, wincing as her shoulders shook. “We’re going to have to skip the rest of the lesson. Time’s catching up. You need to go through one of these doors and establish your domains.”
Chesa and I looked around. I went to one of the marked doors and looked it over. Twin daggers, crossed, and a winged boot. I pointed at it.
“Bethany?” I asked.
“And Tembo, Matthew, Tabbie...you haven’t met her,” Esther gestured in frustration at the rest of the doors. “Claimed portals. Use one of the unmarked doors.”
“Should we each use a different door, if we’re going to different domains?” Chesa asked.
“Despite Mr. Rast’s tendency to break reality, and your...eye situation, I doubt either of you is strong enough to open a portal by yourselves. Go in together. As you work toward your mythic selves, the path will split. I’m sure it’ll be obvious.”
“But...what does this even mean? Establishing a domain? Finding our mythic selves?” I asked. I was used to very straightforward instructions. Block the sword like this. Strike like this. Move and countermove. “Shouldn’t you go with us?”
“Can’t. No soul. Long story,” Esther said, gasping for breath. “Just go through. You’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, fine,” Chesa said sullenly. “Together. How does this work?”
Esther struggled to her feet and took my arm, then led me to one of the empty doors, opposite Tabbie’s bow and arrow, and next to Matthew and his cast-iron sun. The door was made of rough, fresh wood. There were brackets for a hanging, but no icon. She motioned Chesa over.
“What do I do here?” I asked. “Clear my mind? I took some meditation classes in college, but I kept worrying I was going to fart, and that stressed me out, and stress makes me gassy, so—”
“Yeah, I get it. Can we just focus on the task at hand?” Esther asked. “It’s no use trying to clear your mind. The domain needs your essential self, not the premeditated image you have. Just...walk through the door. Both of you. Together.” She turned the wrought-iron handle and pulled the door open. The space beyond was solidly dark, like a wall the color of night. There was no sign of anything beyond. “The domain will take care of the rest.”
“Is this dangerous?” Chesa asked.
“Incredibly,” she said. “Which is why we usually delay until later in the process. But we don’t really have a choice, do we?”
“I mean, I have a choice,” I said, pulling away from the slow pressure of her hand. “I could not do it. That’s a choice I could make.”
“No, you can’t,” she said, twisting her iron-hard hands into my jerkin and pushing me forward. She shoved me through the open door.
The last thing I saw was Chesa jumping in after me.
My first step felt a lot like falling. I kind of stumbled on the floor just before Esther propelled me into the darkness, so my legs were already curled under me as I entered the void. There was no light, and apparently no air. Even though I remembered a similar sensation when I entered Clarence’s domain, my lizard brain only registered that I was suffocating and started filling my bloodstream with panic molecules. My heart started to beat a tattoo in my chest, and a cold sweat broke out across my entire body.
I fell for a long time, without really moving, and with no sensation of air whistling past my face. My body could tell I was falling, though. My stomach kept trying to squeeze its way into my mouth, and my guts tigh
tened, then loosened, then tightened again. I might have been screaming but, again, no air. Just silence and the endless drop.
The first glimmer of light appeared beneath me. I immediately recognized moonlight reflecting off the tops of trees and the soft movement of branches in the wind.
The tops of trees, I mourned silently. Seen from a great height. This is going to hurt.
They came rapidly closer. The darkness slowly peeled away from my body, allowing the wind, and the sound of animals howling at the moon, and the shimmering light of an enormous moon hanging low against the horizon. I felt like I could almost reach out and touch the pitted face of the moon as I raced past.
Oh, and I was definitely screaming.
There was a moment of peace as I fell. Terror-addled and filled with the ragged sounds of my own howling voice, but peace nonetheless. I was able to look around and survey the land that would hold my pulverized body for all eternity. It seemed like a nice place, if a bit primeval. Forest stretched in all directions. Rolling hills to my right led to jagged mountains, reminiscent of the sharp peaks of the Tetons, their slopes dressed in snow and wretched-looking clouds. To my left, a delta of thin rivers carved their way through the trees, the silver light of the moon reflecting off their waters like quicksilver among the shadows. Between them, league after league of unbroken wilderness, the trees so closely packed that I could see no sign of the forest floor. There were no buildings, no roads, no castles silhouetted against the moonlight, or ancient towers breaking through the canopy. No sign of human habitation at all.
Do I have to build my bloody castle? I mused. Somehow, I doubted that Clarence had constructed those expansive walls on his own, brick by brick, crenelle by bloody crenelle. Not that it really mattered. I was about to die of a very abrupt stop. Still. It would have been nice to see my unrealized fantasy home before I went splat.
I reached the tallest treetops. Branches tore past my head, leaves the size of tower shields slapping my feet as I went. Any second I would crash into a branch, and that would be that. But I didn’t. The moon disappeared behind the canopy, though its silver light continued to follow my descent. I screamed past a bough as thick as a country lane, draped with vines and bristling with elephant ear fungi the color of warm bread. A pair of eyes followed me down, and I realized part of the branch was actually some kind of creature. It looked like a cross between a snake and a centipede, its hundred clawed legs twitching against the bark. Its yellow eyes blinked in shock as I whistled by. I was so surprised that I stopped screaming.