The Last Garden

by J C Gilbert

  Before my eyes, the guard began to change. It was like I was watching a Polaroid photo develop. One moment, the guard was deformed and monstrous and menacing, and the next, the guard was Elaine, dressed all in black.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I was so relieved that I could feel myself tearing up, washing my dry eyes. Elaine pulled open the cell and came to my side.

  “Alex, what have they done to you?”

  “Need water, urgently,” I croaked.

  I looked over to Lilly and Darcy. Lilly was staring at Elaine’s entrance, but Darcy was still unconscious.

  “I have something for you,” said Elaine. She handed me my book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  I looked at her, eyes wide. “Thank you.”

  “We don’t have much time,” said Elaine.

  She helped me over toward where Lilly and Darcy lay. I sat cross-legged with my book open in front of me and took a hand each from both Darcy and Lilly. Elaine put a hand on my shoulder, and I began to read.

  Soon we were plummeting through darkness. It was all too much, too confusing. I thought I saw Darcy flying about inside that space like a doll. My head ached and throbbed. We crashed through into The Library, sprawled about.

  “Quickly,” said Elaine, “give me the book. I still need to get it out of that place.”

  I nodded and handed her Alice. “Be safe,” I said.

  Elaine smiled and disappeared into the book. I lay back for a moment, weak, unsure what to do next. Soon the thud, thud, thud of the Librarian’s run bounded towards us.

  “Alex! I’m so glad to see you, everything is a mess. What has happened?”

  “Water, we need water.”

  “I don’t know if we have any water,” said the Librarian. “We have tea, though.”

  I lay back and fell once more into unconsciousness. When I woke, I found that the Librarian had taken us to the reading room. She had sat each of us in a chair and was watching over us anxiously.

  She saw that I was awake almost before I was fully aware of it myself. She handed me a glass of, thankfully, water. I drank from it as quickly as I could. My throat seemed to reject the liquid at first, and I coughed it up.

  “Easy now,” said the Librarian. “What in all the multiverse happened to you?”

  “Captured,” I said. “The others?”

  “Lilly and Darcy are just resting,” she said. “They awoke some time ago and have since fallen back to sleep again. You should try and rest too once you are done with your water.”

  “I don’t think I ever shall be,” I said, smiling. “Has Elaine returned?”

  “Don’t you worry about Elaine,” said the Librarian. There seemed to be an edge to her voice, but I was too weak to inquire further.

  I woke again a few hours later, and this time the others were awake too. They were all looking a little better, but I was sure that our time in that dungeon would stay with us for a while yet.

  “Now, I don’t want to worry you,” said the Librarian, “actually, that’s not quite right. There is a lot you need to worry about. I don’t know what to do. Since Elaine came through into The Library, there has been an exponential increase in chaos all throughout the multiverse. I’m afraid she’s done some dark magic.”

  “No,” said Lilly. “Elaine saved us.”

  “Oh, a likely story. I knew the moment I looked at her when Tabitha brought her here all those years ago that she would be trouble. But you’re not meant to say things like that, are you?”

  “She hasn’t returned then?” asked Darcy.

  “And I hope she never will,” said the Librarian.

  “She has my key,” I said, “she has Alice.”

  “How did she get ahold of that?” asked the Librarian. “Steal it in the night, did she?”

  “No, I gave it to her. She really did rescue us.”

  “So what you are telling me, is that she has managed to get The Library’s key from you, left you incapacitated, disappeared with it, and you’re telling me that everything is going to be fine.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” said the Librarian. “Something has happened, Alex. So many more books have become tainted, and the Seas of Baast-”

  Darcy looked up at the mention of that book.

  “If we don’t do something soon then I’m afraid everything is going to be beyond any help, no matter how much hard work you’ve been putting in.”

  “I think I know what it is,” I said. “When I found Elaine, she was in a place which she called the last garden. I think it’s as far down wind as you can go. She had been there since the time that Vicious separated from her and has experienced time as if it has been thousands upon thousands of years. If I understand correctly, Elaine and Vicious are just as powerful as each other, but Elaine is able to do far less because she has been using her power to hold the forces of chaos at bay, thwarting her other half as best as she could. Since she has come here to help me, she has probably not been able to keep it up. After all, time continues to pass at a rapid pace throughout the multiverse, as it always has, but now it’s doing so without her protection.”

  The Librarian still didn’t seem sure.

  “Elaine didn’t have to come back for us,” said Lilly. “She had the book, and she could have left us in that cell. If it weren’t for her, we would soon have been dead.”

  “I see,” said the Librarian.

  There was a crash outside the reading room. I moved to get up, but the Librarian bid me stay and went to look.

  Before the Librarian made it to the door, Elaine strode in, head high. She came right up to me, bent down, and gave me a kiss on the forehead. Blood rushed to my cheeks.

  “Thank you for lending me your book, Alex,” she said. “Now, let’s go down wind someplace and talk about how to finish this demon once and for all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  None of us were in a fit state to be going anywhere, and the Librarian was making a fuss.

  “My whole world is under threat right now, and if we don’t figure out what to do soon, then it will be too late,” I said.

  “We can come up with a plan without Elaine,” whispered the Librarian in a half-hearted attempt to be subtle. “You have always come through in the past.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “Elaine is not a threat.”

  But no matter what I said, the Librarian couldn’t see past her assessment of Elaine’s character. It was annoying, but not unexpected. Lilly, on the other hand, seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that this Elaine was not the same as the one that had tried to sacrifice her.

  We reconvened inside the Cheathr Ark, atop the tower that Elaine had built from the remnants of Lilly’s house. As soon as we arrived, I rushed to my mother’s side. She was still in the giant form and was still sleeping.

  “No change, huh?” asked Lilly.

  I shook my head.

  “I have some news,” said Elaine.

  “Is it something that can help us?” asked Darcy. He had been quiet ever since we had returned from the prison cell. He still hadn’t been able to meet Lilly’s eye.

  “Yes, I think that it is. I have discovered the demon’s true name.” The tone of Elaine’s voice was joyous, and she smiled at me as she said this.

  “What is it then?” asked Lilly.

  “Can’t say it now, unless you want to bring him here. No, we need to be prepared. We don’t want to summon him until we are ready.”

  “So that’s how it works, is it? Say the name, summon the demon, then what?” asked Lilly.

  “We will need to find a way of binding him,” said Elaine.

  “Good, that’s really good,” I said. “And once he is bound will we be able to turn Mom back?”

  “Yes, I think so. If the spell is strong enough, it will reverse everything that he has ever done. It will be quite an unraveling.”

  “If the spell is stron
g enough?” asked Darcy.

  “I can do it,” said Elaine, a tad defensively. “But we will need a lot of iron.”

  “So he is an elf?” asked Darcy.

  “Not exactly, but he has used several worlds that are dominated by their power.”

  “Am I missing something? Is Daniel anemic?” asked Lilly.

  “Iron binds elves,” said Darcy. “It locks them down like a staple through all of reality. They really hate it.”

  “Mercury has a lot of iron,” said Lilly.

  “Where is Mercury?” asked Elaine.

  “You mean the planet?” asked Darcy.

  “Yeah, it has the densest concentration in all of the solar system. I think it’s because it formed so close to the Sun that most of the less heavy elements were pulled in by the Sun’s gravity well.”

  “Why do you know this?” asked Darcy, forgetting his shyness.

  “She was basically obsessed by the planet Mercury for a year,” I said. “I really didn’t think it would pay off. I’m still waiting for her encyclopedic knowledge of ungulates to come to something.”

  “My passion was quelled when I realized that a colony wouldn’t really be viable.”

  “A colony on Mercury or a colony of ungulates?” asked Darcy.

  “Both, if necessary,” said Lilly.

  “Are you talking about a planet-sized object that is dense in iron?” asked Elaine.

  “Yes,” said Darcy and Lilly in unison.

  “That’s fantastic,” she said. “How do we get there?”

  “I was only joking,” said Lilly. “We can’t actually go there.”

  “I see,” said Elaine. “I thought when you mentioned it that maybe your world had the ability to planet hop.”

  “There may be a way,” I said.

  “You have a spacecraft in your backyard?” asked Lilly. “At this point, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  “No, The Library. In the observatory, the shelves are packed with books that lead to every astronomical body in the universe, and every one in the multiverse as well.”

  “Surely all that couldn’t fit into one room,” said Darcy.

  I shrugged. “Physics in The Library kind of works a little differently.”

  “No kidding,” said Lilly. “But we still can’t go there.”

  “Why not?” asked Elaine.

  “The planet has no breathable atmosphere, for starters. We would get there and basically suffocate, and that’s not to mention the lack of atmospheric pressure, oh, and the extreme temperatures.”

  “You really go all in, don’t you,” said Darcy.

  “We could try and find another planet?” I asked, “I mean, it will take a lot of searching, and that searching will take time, but–”

  “If all we need is an atmosphere, then I can do something about that,” said Elaine.

  “There is also the radiation, and the heat, did I mention the heat?”

  Elaine nodded, apparently doing some sort of calculation in her head. “It may make the binding spell harder, but if the planet has as much iron as you suggest, then it will be well worth it. We will all need to go to this planet so that we can properly cast the spell. I can’t do it on my own.”

  “Of course,” said Darcy. “Just tell us what to do.”

  A glimmer of hope skipped over my heart. “We are actually going to do this,” I said. I looked over to Mom, “you don’t have to stay like that forever.” Once again, I started tearing up.

  ***

  We re-entered The Library, and I led the others towards the observatory. The Librarian was nowhere to be seen, and I suspected that she was deliberately staying out of sight.

  Inside the observatory it was dark, the only light was coming from the billions of distant stars that hung above us. I tapped into my sense of The Library and soon found my hand resting on a large volume labeled Sol.

  “Look at all of these,” said Lilly. She picked up one of the volumes and was leafing through, examining all the systems and planets. “We need to spend some serious time in here,” she said.

  “Be careful where you touch on the page. If you press the wrong space, then you may come out in a vacuum.”

  “Occupational hazard,” said Lilly, continuing to flick through with as much vigor as before.

  I soon found the page I needed. A full-color drawing of Mercury occupied an entire page. I pressed it, and it opened out into a map of the planet.

  “Looks violent,” said Elaine looking over my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I said. “No one has ever been there before, you know?”

  “I will need to go in first,” said Elaine.

  “No way,” said Lilly, closing her book hard. “This needs to be one small step for Lilly. You will find me immovable on that matter.”

  “Be my guest,” said Elaine. “What, with the lack of breathable air, low atmospheric pressure, high temperatures, and stellar radiation, I’m sure you’ll be right at home. Was there anything that I missed?”

  “No, no. You go ahead. One giant leap for Elaine-kind.”

  “Why is she talking about steps and leaps?” asked Elaine.

  “No idea,” I lied.

  Elaine took a deep breath.

  “Are sure about this? You will be OK?” I asked.

  “Yes, I think so. We didn’t really have concepts for things like atmosphere back home. But having contact with the void of creation means I have some idea of what Lilly was talking about. I just need to be quick, that’s all.”

  “And I’ll need to follow after,” I said.

  Elaine looked at me with a worried expression. “Right,” she said. “You will need to follow after.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Darcy who had apparently caught our worried looks.

  “Once Elaine has gone through, I’ll need to go through after her to check that she has been able to set up some way for us to survive. How long do you think that’ll take?” I asked Elaine.

  “No more than a few minutes,” she said. “Give it ten to be safe.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Darcy, standing up and stepping forward.

  “Sit down, hero,” said Lilly. “It works like the maps, right? Only Alex can travel back through to come get us.”

  “I’ll be OK,” I said.

  “All right,” said Elaine. She took another deep breath, “it’s now or never.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  Elaine nodded. She pressed a finger to the map of Mercury and fell into the book.

  It was an anxious ten minutes as we waited for it to be my turn to follow. The closer we got, the more distressed was Hank. By the time the ten minutes were up, I was fairly sure I didn’t have any insides left.

  Lilly and Darcy did their best to talk optimistically, but I could tell that they were worried. I was worried. If something had happened to Elaine, then there would be no way that we could tell. For all I knew, I could be stepping right into a death trap.

  “It’s time,” I said when the minutes were up.

  “Good luck,” said Lilly, coming forward to hug me.

  “I’ll be OK,” I said, giving her the reassurance that I needed myself.

  “You’ve got this,” said Darcy.

  “I’ll see you in a minute,” I said. “Don’t touch anything,” I added with a smile.

  My heart was racing now. My breath felt heavy. I lifted up one finger and touched it to the spot where Elaine had pressed.

  I began to fall.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I floated gently to the solid surface of Mercury. I immediately gasped for air and felt my lungs fill as they always had. Rain poured down from above, seemingly in slow motion. The clouds all around had a yellowish quality to them. I felt strange and groggy. The ground beneath me was black, crumbling, and wet from this strange downpour. When I stood up, I almost fell over as dizziness engulfed my experience.

  “Are you
OK?” asked Elaine. She was soaked through and appeared to be keeping part of her attention on the surrounding landscape.

  “I think so?”

  “The atmosphere is the same as your world and mine now. I’m sorry about the rain, but the planet's surface was just too hot.”

  “The gravity is different.”

  “Yeah, it will take some getting used to.”

  “I’ll go get the others,” I said.

  “Good, do that. We can get started as soon as they are here.”

  I took up the map that was now in my hand and pressed a forefinger to The Library’s observatory. Traveling from planet to planet was not the same as falling into a book. There was less of the smell of old pages and significantly more happening in my stomach. I felt like I was on some sort of roller-coaster ride. Having just come from a planet with very low gravity, I was having even more trouble falling back to the more familiar dimensions of The Library.

  When I landed, I seemed to land with a harder thud than usual.

  “I guess this means you’re not dead. You’re wet, though. Why are you wet?” asked Lilly.

  “The terraforming,” I said. “You guys ready?”

  “Well, seeing as our canary has come back alive-” said Darcy without much humor.

  “Come on then. Let’s bind Daniel to a planet and then get back home.”

  “The weirdest things happen to us,” said Lilly.

  “So you keep saying.”

  Soon my stomach was being twisted and turned again as I plummeted towards the planet. Once more, I landed in slow motion, dizziness almost overcoming me.

  “This is amazing,” said Lilly. She got quickly to her feet, crouched down, and then propelled herself upward.

  “Careful, the atmosphere does not go very high up. You don’t want to go through,” said Elaine.

  Lilly landed again in a crouch. “This is cool. This is really cool. Hey, when all this is done, will we be able to keep Mercury like this?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Elaine. “It’s taking a great deal of my concentration to hold everything in place. We just need to hope that I don’t get knocked out or anything.”