by Aleks Canard
‘I can sense, Beatrix, that you’ve been blessed by dragons. Insufferably noble creatures that they are. But some, oh yes, they can be crueller than you’d believe. Anyway, since you have been blessed, I assume you know that dragons are fond of riddles. As it happens, so am I.
‘I will ask you a riddle, one teensy little riddle, and should you answer it correctly, then I will abide by the terms of your challenge.’
‘That’s it? A riddle?’
‘Don’t ask your doubtful questions just yet, little machina bitch. I play my riddles differently to others. I like mine to be lively and exciting.’
Gauthier clapped his hands. The platform they were standing on peeled in a helix fashion. A ramp rose from the edges until the platform was only just big enough to accommodate Gauthier and Trix. A rectangle of light was at the ramp’s top. A door.
‘So, here’s how it’s gonna go, Julio. I will ask my riddle. You may stay here for as long as you like. Think it over. Masturbate. Whatever. And, if I do say so myself, that sounds like a bloody good deal. A real thumping great time. Woo!
‘When you’ve had enough thinking time, then I encourage you to ascend the ramp and enter the Riddling Arena. Only when you’re in there will you be able to find the answer you’re looking for.’
Everything about Gauthier’s terms sounded wrong to Trix. But she didn’t have much choice.
‘Fine. Speak your riddle.’
‘Splendid, sensational, sexy! You know, I will miss this part of the job. So many special memories. Ah, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. Then again, I’m sure devouring your soul will be worth it. I’ve never been able to ask people what it feels like. Skeletons, as it happens, aren’t a talkative bunch. Ahem. What follows is my riddle. Pay attention, machina. I’ll only say it once. Try to keep your mind from wandering. Your very life truly depends on your focus. Heehee.
‘I’m spoken of at night, rarely during the day.
In the deepest darkest shadows is where I have my say.
A little of me is thought to be fine,
But speak me too much and I’ll ruin your mind.
I’m protected like kings, yet scorned once exposed.
Beautiful when believed but ugly if you know.
I can crumble armies and break up a marriage,
But you can knock me down with nothing but language.
What am I?’
Trix’s mind raced. It wasn’t a riddle she’d ever heard before. And it was more cryptic than anything Mireleth had asked her. Shit. She had a few possible answers. “Illusion” kept coming to her mind, screaming to be picked as an answer. But it didn’t work for the first couple of sentences.
Was the line about language referencing a magic spell, or just plain old words?
Still she came back to “illusion.” After all, Gauthier was the imperator of them.
‘I can see you’re thinking hard, Beatrix.’
Trix went to open her mouth. Gauthier put a finger to her lips. It was made from stained-glass. It was cold. She watched as it turned into a black serpent.
‘Hush, dear whore. Don’t say a word. Gauthier’s about to rock your world. Save your speaking for the Riddling Arena. Don’t make me hit you with a subpoena. Come, I’ll even let you walk all over me.’
Gauthier melted into the ground. Glowing stained-glass tiles spread across the platform and up the helix stairs. Trix was left alone, though she knew Gauthier surrounded her. This might’ve even been happening inside his mind. A sprawling inscape which went on forever, populated by his demented whimsy.
Trix stayed in place a moment longer. She thought she had an answer. Specifically, the correct one. The machina took a tentative step onto the helix ramp. It held. Maybe Gauthier hadn’t been kidding after all. She could stay as long as she wanted.
Eyes started appearing in the void. Trix didn’t know if they were real or not. They resembled the illusion that the Arnums had used on her during the dryads’ final trial. What mattered was that she believed the illusion, no matter how much she didn’t want to.
Not letting Gauthier see her fear, Trix ascended the ramp. Her weapons were holstered, though her fingers itched to draw them. She doubted the Riddling Arena would be meadows underneath a springtime sun.
Soon, there was the door. A solid rectangle of white light cut out of the darkness as if it were a black cube. What awaited inside?
Trix ran through the riddle once more in her head.
She walked through the portal with the answer held in her mind.
The Riddling Arena waited.
It was hungry.
4
A switch had been flicked.
The Riddling Arena was an abandoned amusement park that’d been left to ruin. The lonesome caretaker who refused to leave his post turned all the spluttering machinery on again upon Trix’s entry.
Trix stood at a gate. The ramp she’d ascended was behind her. She peered down. The platform was still there too. Only now it was made from cobblestones, not stained-glass.
Looking past the gate, amid the broken attractions which wheezed into some semblance of life, was woodland that stretched to the horizon. Odd landmarks peppered it here and there. Trix saw a castle which resembled Blor’daeyn’s palace.
A moon hung in the sky. It was Dark’s Hide. Trix couldn’t tell the time of day. There was no sun, yet there was light. The sky was grey. Fog rolled over the distant landscape. All the lights were red. Their luminance seeped through the fog like blood on a silk shirt.
None of the woodland was green. Its trees were dead or dying. The cobbled road spread in eighteen different directions. It was broken. To the left — or what Trix dubbed the west — there was a bridge which led to a mountain ridge. It looked like the Fynoed Mountain range.
The Valkyrie heard monsters growling too close for her liking. Banshees wailed in the fog. Gryphons circled mountaintops. There was a swamp in the east. Bizarre, broken laughter came from within its marshes.
‘What is this place?’
‘Ugh, I see you’ll never not ask boring questions,’ Gauthier said, his voice high with delight. ‘This is my Riddling Arena, my friend. Now that you’re here and you can see it for yourself, allow me to explain the rules.
‘The riddle which I asked you before has an answer. And it is definitive. There’ll be no pleading your case and justifying your creativity here. I have no time for such petty endeavours.
‘You can’t just blurt the answer to this riddle. That would be too easy. Somewhere in this arena you will find what you seek. But be careful, it’s dangerous to go alone, so take this.’
An hourglass full of blood appeared before Trix. It hovered in the air next to her. It hadn’t been turned over yet.
‘This is called an hourglass. It’s what people used before they had AIs and clocks and so forth. Useful for timing. And I find their aesthetic much nicer, though I am murderously maudlin at heart.
‘The hourglass will turn over, and your time will begin running out when you take your first step. Should it run out before you find the answer, then I will claim your soul, and Faedra de Morland’s. These are the stakes that you agreed upon when you challenged me.’
‘How do I know the answer is really here?’
‘The challenge must be fair. And seeing how talented you are, I say that this Riddling Arena is appropriate, for it has to be fair for me as well. You may find interesting things here, machina. Distractions if you will. Do not let them tempt you from the path. Time is precious here more than anywhere else.’
Gauthier’s voice faded. The hourglass remained. Trix stood still. Surveyed the landscape ahead of her. North lay the woods. West were the mountains. East was the swamp.
Her gut told her that they all led to the same place. They all terminated in the answer. The only question was whether or not she could reach it.
The hourglass was small. No bigger than her hand. She hoped the blood was viscous.
‘Sif, are you there?’ Tri
x said.
Gauthier: ‘Stop stalling, machina. You challenged me, and you alone. They say the first step is the hardest, and indeed, here in my Riddling Arena, they may well be right, whoever they are. The little scamps, always spouting wisdom. Those were the days. You could get away with saying nought but clichés before they were clichéd and everyone thought you were wonderful.
‘Alas, I’ve always thought that it is, in reality, the last step which is the most arduous. When you’re cut limb from limb, your head’s bashed in, and you can’t win! When your innards are out, and there’s no doubt you’re dying, you still try to take a step? I laugh at thee for trying.’
Gauthier’s voice disappeared again. Trix couldn’t stand another one of his interludes. She weighed up her options. Entering the woods meant passing through the amusement park. There were too many alleys she couldn’t see. Taking one of the paths to the swamp was less questionable, though swamps typically held the galaxy’s worst monsters.
It looked like the mountains were her best bet.
Trix inhaled. Then she ran. Felt something pierce her heart. The hourglass by her side flipped. Blood oozed into the lower chamber. It dripped slowly, though its nonchalance didn’t soothe Trix.
The blood in the hourglass is mine, Trix thought.
That took the challenge to a whole other level. She’d be operating with severe injuries when the time was closer to running out. Shit. Her heart spiked. She noticed that, for a second, the blood dripped faster. Alright, so she also had to keep her heartrate down.
Running for the bridge, Trix looked at the other side. Felix’s cabin was there. But it couldn’t have been his. Felix’s hut was in ruins, on Zilvia.
Trix’s feet hit the stone bridge. She risked a look over the edge. Nothing but fog. She kept her heart steady. The stones shuddered so violently that the mountainside shook when she was halfway across. Trix didn’t stop.
NO
a demonic voice said. It sounded like the one Gauthier used when he called himself Maldrodyn. The bridge quadrupled in length.
How the fuck is this fair? Trix thought, keeping one eye on the hourglass and another on the mountains.
The bridge rumbled again. This time it broke apart right behind Trix. A tentacle as thick as a thornwood tree shot through the cracks, fissuring the rest of the bridge. More tentacles broke through. The bridge’s broken sections didn’t fall. They floated at odd angles instead.
That was when the tentacles came down. Trix didn’t know to what monster they belonged. If she had to guess, she would’ve said a kraken, or a kayran. There were minor differences between the two. Right now, she didn’t care about differentiating. She also didn’t fight.
Trix bounded off the floating platforms, evading the lumbering tentacles as they crashed around her. Whump. Boom. Crack. The platforms were being demolished.
Two tentacles came for her. Trix jumped between them. One brushed her side, slamming her over the railing. She drew her utility cannon. Aimed it for the mountainside. It made contact. She reeled herself in at the maximum setting. Trix transitioned to her wingsuit as the utility disc re-entered the cannon’s barrel. Cleared the tentacles. Rolled. Landed on her side when she hit the ground. The blow fractured one of her ribs.
She looked at the monster. A roar came from within the fog. The tentacles slithered back from whence they’d come. Trix could only just see the amusement park gate from her location.
Her hourglass continued dripping. Dizziness struck Trix like a punch to the head.
‘SAFE!’ Gauthier said, his voice ringing out across the world, yet holding a whisper’s intimacy. ‘Beatrix Bitchwood makes the jump. I really thought she was going to die on that bridge. And I make no secret of hoping for that outcome. Let’s see what she does next. Will she take a peek into a cabin full of repressed memories or will she continue onwards?’
Trix didn’t respond to Gauthier this time. She stood. Almost started running. Her right hand shot out to grab the hourglass. It appeared on her left side. Just out of reach. She wouldn’t be able to alter its time. Furious at Gauthier, she started running again, ignoring her fractured rib with gritted teeth.
Felix’s replica cabin was on her left. It called to her. Bade her come inside. Take a load off. The ridge continued to the north. Rising into the grey sky, tapering as it went.
The thing was, it really did look like Felix’s cabin. Everything from the smell to the shape, even the noises within. They were as she remembered and even better. Trix looked at her timer. She’d be fine as long as she kept her heartrate low.
Trix ran for the cabin’s front door. Felix was breathing on the inside, exactly like he used to before he awoke in the early mornings. And Susan, she was inside too. Her perfume wafted through the air.
The machina burst into the hallway, making straight for the bedroom. She reached it. Slammed the door open. Her parents. Stirring on the mattress. Beneath the sheets.
Her heart beat faster. She couldn’t help it. Trix moved to the bedside. Next to Felix. Put her hands on his shoulders. That was when his chest split open, spraying her with blood. Trix recoiled. Felix’s body shrivelled. His skin became prune-like. Discoloured. The machina ran to her mother’s side. The enchantress’ skin turned green. Like a dryad’s. She started convulsing. Venom everywhere. Oozing from her pores. Yellow. Black. Pus. Maggots. Trix heard her heart explode in her chest. Dead.
‘What a dreadful waste of time,’ Gauthier said. ‘I warned you there would be temptations did I not? Yet you just had to see what was inside. Tick-tock, machina. I must be getting soft in my old age. I’m helping you. Eugh, the thought of it makes my cock shrink with displeasure.’
‘What are you, really?’ Trix said. The cabin turned into a ruin as she blinked. Her parents’ bodies were only skeletons.
‘Oh, I don’t think you want to know. It would positively turn your stomach inside out. And that wouldn’t help you with the rest of the challenge. Not at all. Urgh, there I go again, giving a helping hand. Fuck off and die, little bitch. Fuck off and die.’
Trix exited the ruins. Ran along the mountainside. She saw nothing else which tempted her. Dark’s Hide appeared to be coming closer in the sky. Her djurelian ring remained normal temperature. Either this was no illusion, or the damn thing was broken.
FUCK YOU
said Gauthier in his demon voice. Lightning rained from the sky like missiles. It hit the mountaintops. Rockslides ensued. Trix tried outrunning the debris. Couldn’t. There was nowhere else to go but down. She leapt from the ridge. Hurtled into the fog below. Drew her sword. If any more krakens, kayrans or otherwise, were coming for her, then she’d be ready.
Trix’s boots hit the mountainside. Loose scree carried her forward as boulders searing with ungodly heat jockeyed for pole position, coming up on Trix. First place meant killing the machina. And the trophy would be her splattered corpse.
Then part of the fog started clearing. Gnarled trees appeared. They’d lost their leaves. Cobwebs decorated the branches in the place of foliage.
Trix jumped for the nearest tree branch with the thunderous rumbling of a thousand stones at her back. She hit it, then bounded off moments before the trunk was swallowed whole by the mountain’s wrath.
Brushing spider webs from her armour, Trix took in her new surroundings. It was the forest she had seen from the gate. Amusement park features still littered the landscape. There was a booth with rotating clown heads down the path a ways. And a river crossing.
The only other path at this point led east, unless Gauthier had the power to completely alter the terrain at any moment he saw fit. And Trix didn’t think he could.
Laughing came from the clown booth. It started up faster than an auctioneer at gunpoint. Then slowed. Its pitch dropped way below middle c. It sounded like a comic book villain. Trix walked down the path, careful to give it a wide berth. That was no good. The booth rushed to greet her. There was no attendant. But someone had changed all the clown heads to real ones.
<
br /> Valentine, Serena, Altayr, and Nadira all swung back and forth, their mouths wide open. Necks ragged on wooden stumps crawling with brown insects. Pickled scrotums came out of the dispensary instead of balls.
‘I love that game, one of my favourites besides pin the knife in the hooker. Don’t you just adore my Riddling Arena? It’s good enough to die for. No one’s actually said that, but I have a 100% death rate, so I figure it must be true,’ said Gauthier.
Trix looked at her hourglass. It was just above halfway. Fuck. She still hadn’t seen anything that could qualify as the riddle’s answer yet. She had to press on.
Forcing her feet to move, hoping she wouldn’t bear witness to any more atrocities, Trix ran across the river. The trees were denser on the north bank. Everything was shades of brown, grey, and black. Trix noticed she was swaying when she stopped to decide which fork in the path to take.
Blood loss, she thought.
Trix was confident that the answer to the riddle was “Lies.” That had to be it. Surely the Riddling Arena itself was a lie. She didn’t see any way that it could be real. From what she knew of illusions, this would take an army of skilled mages to create, and even more to maintain so effortlessly.
But that would be too easy. No, the Riddling Arena was now her reality, albeit a surreal one. She had to find a lie within it.
Air movement to her right. Forward 14 paces. Trix drew her sword. Winced at her ribs. Upward flowers. Something was in the trees with her. Whatever light shone through the branches became weaker than non-alcoholic beer.
Now the movement was to her right.
She couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Only damp earth. Far off gases. Coming from the swamp. Muddy water from the river.
Wait. There were others underneath that repulsive cocktail of smells. Aged leather. Fur. Dried blood. Ammonia. The whooshing sound was closer. Barely audible.
Damn it.
Vampire.
Trix evaded as a grotesque form came from the trees. Webs clung to its wings. In stories of old, vampires looked like humans and could turn into bats. While that was true of higher vampires, lower strains remained in a constant, anthropomorphic bat form that reached over nine feet tall. Their backs were hunched so they were closer to their prey. They couldn’t hunt during the day. And they could turn invisible like spectres during full moons.