Knight Watch

by Tim Akers

  We found our first body around the corner. Like everything else in this place, it was stripped of any humanity. Bones and clothes, the skull grinning up at the ceiling, bony hands gripping three shopping bags and a set of car keys.

  “There’s one,” I said. “But none of those cars have been here long enough for a body to erode this much. I think.” Truthfully, I didn’t know anything about rates of decay of human flesh. It just didn’t seem natural for a skeleton to be here. Nothing about this felt natural. Which was kind of the point, I suppose. “Do you think they’re all like this?”

  “The dead usually are,” Tembo said.

  “I mean, do you think they’re all dead. All those people whose cars are waiting outside.”

  “That’s a question that’s going to answer itself,” Bethany said. “But not if we keep standing around.”

  Swallowing hard, I stepped over the body and continued down the corridor. We were getting toward the middle of the mall. Some part of me expected to find the source of this strangeness at the heart, like a spider in its web. But the confluence of hallways was empty, other than the flying stairs that led to the upper concourse, along with elevators, a dry fountain, and a vendor’s cart selling jigsaw puzzles. There was a body on the stairs, spread out and disjointed, as if the victim had fallen apart while fleeing upwards. I stared at it for a long time.

  “We need to pick a corridor and clear it,” Bethany said. There were three ways to go, each twisting out of view within a few stores. “That means splitting up.”

  “That never works out,” Matthew said. “We should stick together. Let’s try this one.”

  “You can if you want. But Rast is too slow for me. I do better on my own, anyway.” She turned and marched toward one of the other paths. “I’m going to scout this way. I’ll scream if I need you.”

  “Bethany, wait—” Tembo said, but the girl flickered and disappeared. I saw a sketchy image of her leaping up to the walkway, her body stretched thin as it arced through the air. She was gone in a heartbeat.

  “Impatient child,” Tembo spat. “We’ll have to follow her, now.”

  “No, she’s right,” Matthew said calmly. “We’ll only slow her down. Come on.” He started toward the chosen corridor, and I followed, but Tembo hung back. The big mage stared in the direction Bethany had gone. “She’s a big girl, Tem,” Matthew said. “She can manage. And if she can’t, well, I’m full of light.”

  Tembo grimaced, then shook his head and strode across the empty fountain. Matthew and I hurried to catch up.

  I immediately assumed we had made the right choice, or perhaps the very, very wrong one. The sterile linoleum floors and fluorescent lights quickly devolved. The ground was covered in a loose scree of dry leaves that swirled in lazy eddies under our feet. The air took on a fetid quality. Even the light turned sickly. I stopped in front of an open storefront.

  “Aeric’s Alchemystery,” I read. “That feels like we’re going in the right direction.”

  The sign was painted wood, with a shingle that depicted a boiling green beaker. Inside, all manner of stills, cauldrons, flasks, and potions bubbled and hissed, emitting a noxious stink that hung in a low cloud over the floor. Strange music pinged and tinkled from the back of the shop. I saw movement. “There’s someone inside!”

  “For their sake, I hope they wake up in one piece, hopefully in a Sephora,” Matthew said. “We have to press on.”

  “Should we go back for Bethany?” I asked.

  “She will catch up to us. Or she won’t. Come on.” Tembo seemed anxious. He clutched his staff in both hands, holding it in front of him like a prow. I caught a look of fear in his eyes.

  “Have you seen this kind of thing before?” I asked. “Do you know what’s ahead?”

  “I have seen everything before,” he answered. “Mostly in dreams. And sometimes nightmares. But no, I am not sure of what lies ahead. Sir John, you must take the lead. If we are attacked, neither Matthew nor I can fight hand to hand. You will have to keep them off of us.”

  “Keep who off of you?” I asked, but he had no answer. Thoroughly unsettled, I started forward.

  It wasn’t long before we left the mall behind completely. The walls were now stone, covered in twisting vines, lit only by guttering torches and the dim light of the sun, peeking through a fractured roof. The ground underfoot was spongy, and thick fog lurked close to the earth on all sides. We squeezed through a wall of narrow pillars, turning sideways to get past. Beyond them, the air was thick and sour. Blood was hammering through my head, and each breath I took tasted more and more like bile. I was pretty sure I was going to throw up before we found anything interesting.

  “There is something ahead of us,” Matthew said quite suddenly. I jumped, but Tembo’s heavy hand came down on my shoulder to steady me. Swallowing a little bit of my lunch, I looked around, my eyes darting around the corrupted mall. Even with my hair-trigger imagination, I couldn’t see anything.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, happy that my voice only cracked a single octave.

  “Yes. The light is being expelled from this place,” Matthew said. He raised one hand and removed his glove. His hand looked like it was carved from glowing marble, except the light was streaming off his fingers like a candle in a stiff breeze. Motes of bright light trailed down the corridor in the direction we had come. “There is great darkness waiting for us. It knows we are coming.”

  “Now’s when we get Bethany, right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Tembo said. He turned to look back. His voice boomed louder than any human voice possibly could. “Assassin! Your blade is required!”

  No sooner had Tembo spoken than the passage behind us groaned and shook. An avalanche of loose stone tore free from the surrounding walls and started to fill the hallway. I took a step in that direction. Tembo grabbed my arm.

  “It is too late,” he said gravely.

  “But she’ll be cut off!”

  “Concern yourself with the teeth, rather than the throat,” he snapped.

  “What? What the hell is that—”

  The hallway shook, and I had to grab the mage to stay on my feet. When I looked back, I understood.

  The hallway wasn’t collapsing. It was closing. What I mistook for pillars were actually teeth. They splintered apart, revealing their true nature, each one as long and thick as a human body, glistening with saliva and sharp as knives. For a brief second, they yawned open, and I thought about dashing past them.

  The next heartbeat, they slammed shut with a thunderous crash, with enough force to break stone. The mouth closed around us, and with it, the light was gone. Only the dim illumination from Matthew’s exposed hand remained. And then that, too, disappeared.

  Everything was darkness.

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  MALL ADJUSTED

  The darkness broke on the fury of Tembo’s flame. The mage drew a swirling cloud of fire out of nothingness, wrapped it around his fist, and shot a spear of light into the air. The cavern was painted in harsh shadows and burning red flame. The heat of the eruption washed over me, forcing me to turn aside.

  “Rast, to the front!” Tembo shouted. “You have to keep them off of us!”

  “Keep who...” my voice trailed off as I whirled around. The sudden light of the flame had blinded me to the darkness. All I could see were shadows upon shadows, and the bright coruscating fire spearing out of the mage’s hand. St. Matthew was nowhere to be seen. “Who am I supposed to be fighting?”

  My answer came in the form of a whipping tendril. It lashed against my shield, wrapping around the edge and nearly ripping it from my grip. I stumbled forward, left arm nearly to the ground as I fought the shield free from my unseen attacker. Before I could regain my balance, another tendril lashed at my right foot. I screamed in frustration.

  A blossom of flame washed over my shoulder. I had a brief glimpse at the creature I was fighting. I was briefly reminded of tree-friend from my domain, but whereas he was a solid trunk
of wood, this creature looked like a wall of roots, barely humanoid in shape, with stumpy legs and a broad chest and no head. Its two eyes were vacant holes near its shoulders, and its arms consisted of writhing tendrils of root and vine that branched into dozens of individual whips, prehensile as snakes and twice as fast. Both the lashers attacking me came from the same wrist. Its other arm was drawn back to strike.

  Tembo’s bolt of fire struck the creature in its drawn-back arm. Flames crawled through the gnarly mass, erupting in clouds of cinder that started new fires elsewhere on its body. It howled, the sound coming from a gaping mouth in its belly, a void that seemed to have no bottom. The shriek chilled my blood. As flames rushed up its arm, the monster released me, and started thrashing its burning limb against the stone floor, raising geysers of blackened roots and ash, limned in burning embers that flew through the air.

  “Rast!” Tembo screamed. I tore my eyes away from the burning monster and saw that the creature wasn’t alone. Another of its brethren loomed out of the darkness, knocking Tembo to the ground with a branch-like arm. I ran toward him but tripped over the uneven floor and went down.

  “Can we get some light in here?” I shouted. My sword had bounced into the darkness, and as I was feeling around for it, I could hear more creatures advancing on us. Their movements sounded like the creaking wood of a forest caught in a windstorm. My fingers closed on the hilt of my sword. I rolled to my feet and lifted the magical shield. I felt safer behind it, much safer than I actually was.

  “Let there be!” Matthew said, and there was light. He was standing on top of a pile of rocks, which looked like it had once been one of the mall’s planters, now broken granite and moss. The saint had removed his mask. His face was brilliant, shining with the kind of light you might see reflected from the heart of a diamond. It was difficult to look directly into his eyes. Fortunately, I had lots of other things to look at.

  The room we were in was narrow and long. There was no sign of the mouth that had closed the way behind us, only a wall of broken rubble and tumbling scree. The only remnants of the mall were neoclassical pillars of crumbling marble in the walls, and the faintest sketch of storefronts between them. Trees grew out of the walls. I once saw the aftermath of an avalanche out west, where a plain of ice had ravaged a forest. Trees poked haphazardly through the broken snow, as though they were trying to reach through a cloud. That’s what this looked like. Some of the trees were moving. As I watched, one of them stepped out of the wall, its trunk splitting open into eyes and a mouth, its branches curling down into massive arms, roots boiling underneath until it rose up on two thick legs hardly a foot high. The creature looked at me and roared.

  It was not alone. Other than the one attacking Tembo and the flame-wreathed husk of my assailant, at least three of the creatures lurked in the hallway. They advanced on us with the slow patience of the forest.

  “Drue-kin,” Matthew said. “Guardians of ancient forests in Ireland, and sometimes Wales, though there they are known as...” Matthew pronounced a word devoid of vowels, then paused while one of the creatures tore a stone from the ground and hurled it in his direction, forcing Matthew to duck. “They aren’t usually this angry.”

  “They aren’t usually this real,” I snapped. “So let’s start with that.” I hacked at the swarm of tendrils holding Tembo in place. They were as hard as iron, and it took several strong blows to sever them. Tembo fell backwards, and I stepped quickly forward to protect him. “How do we beat them?”

  “Fire and steel,” Tembo said. “And I’m low on both.”

  The closest drue lunged forward. They were surprisingly quick over short distances, though the rest of them were lumbering closer as fast as changing seasons. If I could keep them separated, I might stand a chance. I still wasn’t clear how I was supposed to kill them, though. Do trees have vital organs?

  A swinging branch glanced off my shield, then a tangle of roots slammed into my shoulder, tearing at my armor and scratching my helm. I pulled on the straps in the shield and flipped the shield wide on that side, batting the tendrils away. I slapped my visor shut, which had been open to improve visibility, but immediately regretted it. The drue-kin disappeared, replaced by heavy shadow and a narrow band of vision. I swung wildly, blade landing on tough vines, then dancing off stone. The jolt of the impact ran up my arm. I felt vines close around my chest and start to squeeze. The steel shell of my breastplate groaned. I hammered at the restricting vines with my shield.

  “Where’s that flame, Tem?” I yelled. His answer was muffled by the thick steel of my helm, but a blast of heat and light was response enough. The pressure on my chest didn’t let up, though, and now I could feel it in my ribs. I slashed down, hacking like a maniac until I could draw a comfortable breath.

  I stumbled away from the drue-kin, twisting my helm off as I fell. Charred streamers of vine and twisted wood hung from my pauldrons, and the steel was hot to the touch. The seared stump of the creature’s arm waved at me ineffectually, but even as I watched, fresh green shoots sprung up from the ashes. It was regrowing its limb.

  “Flame’s not enough,” I said. Tembo didn’t answer. I looked back and saw that he was on one knee, his bald head beaded with sweat. The mage’s hands were shaking. “Tembo, man, you doing okay?”

  “No,” he said, and that was it.

  “None of us had enough time in our domains,” Matthew said. “But we can’t let up. I’m sorry, my friend.”

  The saint spread his hands. An orb of pure light blinked into existence, rolling across the broken floor to surround Tembo. He screamed, quickly biting it off, though his clenched fists and wide eyes spoke of his pain. The orb of light poured into him, shrinking in size as it filled Tembo’s flesh with its brilliance. His eyes and teeth glowed, along with his skeleton, bones flashing through flesh like an x-ray. When the light was gone, Tembo stood up. He was sweating blood.

  “Finish this, Rast,” he said. “Before Matthew kills us all.”

  I turned back to the drue-kin. A shrub of fresh flowers and bright green leaves sprouted from the creature’s gnarled limb. I set about hacking it to pieces. A cloud of chopped greenery flew into the air, the soft branches of the new growth offering little resistance to my hell-forged blade. My blade bounced when I reached the old limb. The drue swung at me with its other arm, but it seemed sluggish, either from the energy needed to grow or because the flames had taken some essential power from it. I danced aside, wincing as the limb tore gouges in the floor, spraying me with shards of stone. I hacked at it while it was on the ground, chopping several ropey strands off its arm. They fell off, writhing like snakes against my boots. The drue pulled the arm back, but I kept at it, hacking and cutting, the bound edge of the limb fraying like cheap rope with each blow. Tendrils tried to weave themselves back together, forming a dozen smaller limbs. I cut these off in a series of quick blows, leaving only the hard core of the limb behind.

  “Sword’s not made for this!” I shouted. “Does anyone have an axe? Even a hatchet would be better than—”

  The drue’s other fist punched into my chest. I flew back, sliding past Tembo and into the collapsed ruin at the end of the corridor. The creature lumbered after me. Tembo stepped between us. He pressed his palms into the forest spirit’s chest, just below the gaping darkness of its eyes.

  “I am sorry, brother. But this is not where you belong,” Tembo said. “Return to ash and be reborn.”

  Flames outlined his hands, and then a tremendous roar filled the air. Fire jetted into the drue-kin, cutting through wood and vine and soul in colors of red and redder. Soon the core of the drue was immolated. The flames looked like a sunset seen through the trunks of a forest, angry fire glimpsed through black trunks. Its eyes and mouth flickered with deep coals, and ember clouds spilled out of its bark as the creature started to collapse. Like a paper doll thrown into the fire, the tendrils of its limbs curled inward, and the trunk turned black as coal. The screaming stopped. The drue-kin settled to the gro
und, its heart still glowing with bright embers, as hollow as a shadow, and just as dead.

  Tembo stepped back. His hands were blistered, and the frenetic energy of his eyes looked now like madness and disease. His chest was heaving.

  “I am done. You must handle the rest, Sir John.”

  “I...I can’t possibly...” There were four, though one was already charred by Tembo’s earlier attack. They stood in a circle around their hollow brother, then turned to us and shuffled forward with renewed rage. I twisted the sword in my hand. “Matthew, you need to do something! This is too much!”

  “I have my limits,” Matthew said. “But such as I have is yours.”

  I felt the saint’s light more than I saw it. The brilliance was harsh, like the coldest winter air. It cut into my skin and filled my head with a stark hum. Up until that moment I had assumed the source of Matthew’s power was fundamentally good, but now that it was upon me, I began to wonder. There were limits to good, after all, and this light felt too pure for a human body to bear. But it was too late for me. The brilliance was in my bones.

  Everything stopped. I blinked in wonder. The drue-kin lunging at me stood frozen in place, the wild crown of its vines as still as a leaf frozen in clear water. Tembo stood with his back to me, but his clenched fists and the bunched muscles of his jaw might have been carved from wood. Briefly, I wondered if I was also frozen in place, but then I turned around and saw Matthew. It felt strange to move, as though something resisted me, though I could see nothing. Matthew’s hand was stretched out toward me, and his face was calm. No, more than calm. The look on his face was that of a man slowly dying, who has made peace with his end, a man who has already seen the worst of life and now looks toward death, and whatever lay beyond. The brilliance of his skin flickered with faceted light, sparkling like distant stars.