by J M Guillen
“I’m not,” she muttered darkly.
“I’m pleased we’ve been entertaining.” Garrett had his monster of a handgun aimed straight at the creature. “If you step out here, perhaps we can be better introduced.”
Why doesn’t he just shoot? I bit my lip, letting my mind fall backward into the susurrus of the Wind. Kill it. End this now.
“I think not,” the Gaunt Man teased from behind us.
I blinked and realized the shadows I thought I’d seen hadn’t actually been Mister Lorne at all.
“I hope you won’t consider me rude. I’ve simply chosen to savor this situation.”
Garret and the other Asset had turned to our left, I saw. Had they heard the voice from that direction? I glanced back at Baxter and Alicia and noted their wide eyes, though not turned in any one direction. Rehl paced behind them, keeping a keen watch on the darkness.
“I won’t consider you rude, if you’d just step forward.” Garret slowly turned, as if he tracked something in the darkness. “I’d appreciate the opportunity to talk.”
I suddenly understood why the Assets weren’t firing. They’d been dealing with Lorne’s trickery for days. I imagined that more than one of the shots we’d heard the darkness had been them firing at some projection of him.
“Perhaps soon.” The voice sharpened, became cold. “Perhaps I shall allow you Templars to tire a bit yet. Then, in witnessing your agonies, my sweet Ms. Shepherd shall receive her education regarding what happens to those who displease me.”
“Or,” Alicia’s soft voice came from behind me, “we could do another thing.”
I turned to stare at her and noted that she had taken a step away from Baxter.
Her brow furrowed with determination. Not a trace of hazel remained in her eyes; they positively radiated silver-white.
“’Licia?” I took a step closer.
“Yehi ’Or!” When she spoke, her words felt like poetry in my heart. They eased the tension from my brow. With two syllables, she wiped away the darkness.
My mind burst, like a ripe piece of fruit. I felt peeled back, separated from every fear, every scrap of worry. In that moment, I scattered across infinite worlds. Alicia’s voice echoed, those two words reflecting and refracting against the darkness around us. Each echo came back differently, and yet each one meant the same thing.
“Genēthētō Phōs.”
“Fiat Lux.”
“Let There Be Light.”
Beautiful. That was the only thought that made any sense. I reveled in the brilliant wonder of that beatific shine.
Eternity cascaded down upon us, torrents of infinite light shining from Alicia’s brow.
It was light and it was fire. It was the light that sunlight dreams of being. Everything it touched, every piece of shadow it came to rest upon, burst into brilliance.
It sang. It shone on into forever.
No dark corners lay within Lorne’s labyrinth, not while Abriel stood.
I wanted to fall before it, wanted to weep for every small and petty thing I’d ever done.
Somewhere, in a place so far away from me that I couldn’t even conceive its existence, something screamed. A cry of furious agony, a wailing of such pain, such wrathful fury, that I knew the sound alone might break my mind.
Yet it could not. Not while that light shone.
In one instant, I looked upon Alicia. A Seal burned upon her brow, and I saw everything she had ever been. I saw her seeking for truths, saw how desperately she had wanted, her entire life, to have something real—
—Rehl spun, and I saw him written in every angle, every line of his face. I saw the fear he held, the softness he hid, the walls he built. I saw how happy he had been, just in the past few—
—looked weak, but Baxter still burned, still shone. His gaze met mine, and in that instant, I understood how he felt, how he’d always felt—
—aimed at where Lorne had stood and fired. Garret’s bravery shone in his eyes, and I knew then that he’d throw himself in front of us, in front of all of us, to keep that thing—
—kindness. A savage friendliness and a fierce protectiveness of those he cared for. He had a rebel’s smile, the large man did, and I felt certain that someday he’d smile as the world around him fell into hell—
I blinked, drunk on the wondrous brilliance of the light.
My hand rose to the earring, cupping it as I wrapped myself in the wonder of the Wind.
“Simon,” I half whispered, half thought. “Soon.”
In the light of Abriel’s brilliance, the thick silver strand of the Simon’s magic burned brightly. It stretched into the distance.
“So you think me rude.” The voice clashed with the wondrous peace of Abriel’s truth. “You prefer a proper introduction.” Those words seethed with condescension.
I clenched my knives and turned toward the sound. It sang in disharmony with the radiant purity that shone around us, so much so that the horror hid no more.
I knew exactly where Lorne stood.
“Fair enough,” Garret bit off. Though I thought for a moment he might say more, he chose to speak with the weapon he held. He fired again and again, each shot echoing around us.
WHUF. WHUF.
Crack!
I did not see the large man fire his weapon, nor did I see Rehl shoot. I heard both of these things, but in the instant I did, my mind froze, seized in the horror of what I saw.
Lorne.
In the brilliance of that light, the Gaunt Man frenzied. He became a shadow gone mad with discordant convulsions. Lorne’s features distorted, disfigured and immaterial.
The Gaunt Man stretched high against the ceiling, still corpse like, still cadaverous, yet now his fingers and teeth had grown sharp. His gaze festered, oozed.
When it fell upon me, I felt odious rapacity burning from those eyes, deathless and infected with wretched delirium.
And it laughed. It vomited unnamable, corrupt mirth.
“Fuck. Me,” the large man said and fired. WHUF. WHUF. WHUF. WHUF.
“Liz,” Alicia’s voice came so softly that I almost didn’t hear it at all. She sounded fairy-like, her words a tinkling bell.
“What?” I turned toward her, half expecting to see some grotesque horror looming up behind us.
Instead, I saw her brilliance, her beauty. Above her, swimming through the air, some small predator cavorted and whispered in my mind.
Abriel?
“He’s close.” She nodded toward the strand of magic that hung in the air. “See how wide it is? How thick?”
“Close?” I repeated. “Simon?”
“Get him.” She spoke firmly.
“Leaving you?” I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not. Rule one: Don’t split the party.” I glanced back over my shoulder at Lorne diving down upon the Assets, its claws gleaming.
“Gotta be reasonable, Miss Lawson.” Rehl chuckled. “Consider yourself the scout.”
“Are you going to stay and fight? Do you think your knives are going to do much good?” Baxter coughed. “Against that?”
As if to prove his point, Lorne roared, savage wickedness in the sound.
“No,” I whispered. I shook my head and felt a touch of shame. “We thought we were prepared. We were wrong.”
“So go find Simon.” Rehl stepped close to us and reloaded. “You’re faster than we are, and that’s when we’re not dog tired and wounded. Sooner we have him, sooner we can leave.”
In this light, I could see the truth in Rehl’s eyes: He didn’t think we’d ever leave. He just wanted me out of the fight.
“I doubt your being here truly increases our odds at this point,” Baxter pointed out. “The next part of the module is about rescuing Simon, not killing this asshole.”
“I still have Simon’s lighter.” Alicia added. “I can use that to protect us.”
“We could use some help here!” Garret barked over one shoulder.
“Go,” Alicia urged.
Dammit. I felt
sick at the thought that they were right.
“I hate this.” I frowned as I took the earring off and placed it in her hand. “Can you keep the light going for a while? So I can follow this back?”
“Yes.” Exasperation dripped through the word. “Use it quickly to refresh the strand. Then go.”
“Simon. We’re close.” I half whispered, half thought the words, completely bone-weary.
The Wind came for me. It brushed my lips as it gathered my words, a soft kiss.
The earring pulsed with the color of the sky in winter.
I took one last look at all of them, bathed in the purity of that light. I gazed at everything they were, everything they could be in a world of perfection.
This might be the last time I ever saw them.
“Go!” Rehl stepped up to stand with Garret. “We’ll keep them off of Bax and Alicia.”
I smiled. Then I turned away. I took a deep breath.
I ran. I ran into the awfulness of that labyrinthine place. I ran with the Wind behind me, urging me forward. Occasionally, I directed it before me to clear my path.
I ran as if I’d been born to run.
I ran for Simon’s life.
7
Without my friends at my side, I certainly did move faster through the twisted passages. Mystically exhausted though I might be, I still had some oomph for running, it seemed.
Abriel’s light proved more than bright enough to see by, although only in the beams that shone through the stacked detritus.
“And that can’t last forever,” I realized. The further I went from Abriel’s light, the more garbage would block it.
To make matters worse, the strand of Simon’s magic also only shone in places that were lit by the Watcher’s light. That meant that sometimes I might travel several feet before I saw the strand again, as in places of darkness it faded to nothingness.
“Close.” I smiled to myself, encouraging. “He’s close.”
I wound my way past suits of armor and coats of arms. I ducked beneath a set of shelves that held glassware and wriggled through a set of stacked chairs to another aisle. More than once, I had to kong vault over something just to get to the next aisle.
I grasped the Wind, and as I ran, it coursed along with me.
Occasionally, I heard gunfire or the tell-tale WHUF, WHUF of the Asset’s weaponry.
“Too far away,” I muttered as I trotted beside what looked like an old golf cart. I’d expected to find Simon quicker than this, and now that I ran further from my friends, I had begun to feel—
The strand stopped. It stopped in a mahogany display case, right in front of me.
I stopped also, halted dead in place.
The case held several different vases, all quite old. They gleamed with a many-hued sheen and almost glowed in the reflections of Abriel’s light. The case itself looked stout, and one door hung slightly open.
“Oh.” I trembled as I gazed at it. Part of me hadn’t expected to actually make it this far, I realized.
The gossamer thread ended in an alabaster urn, colored like swirls of cream running through rich, black coffee.
It took both hands to grasp the wide thing, which was almost as round as a basketball.
“Heavy.”
I turned the thing over and peered at it in the whisperings of Abriel’s light. On the bottom of the container, a sharp glyph had been inscribed. It burned darkly there, ice and shadow in turn.
The thing writhed, and I grimaced in disgust as I gazed upon it.
I… I didn’t want to break the urn.
“Stupid,” I muttered to myself.
I had shattered dozens of these, to be sure, as I destroyed hundreds of Lorne’s more mundane things. I’d had it confirmed for me, time and again, that breaking these things shattered the prisons and released the things inside.
But had it? Had any of them died in that process? If so, could he? And could I even afford to release him right now? Simon might not be well, after all.
Suffering but undying.
“I don’t want him to hurt,” I reasoned out loud. “But if he’s limping or weak, I can’t have him slow me, either.”
The more I thought about this, the more certain I became. It made me sick to my stomach to think he might be hurt…
Yet my choices seemed slender. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than coming this far and then accidentally killing him because I didn’t understand the rules of the game.
I recalled the little creature I had released, how in a single moment of thoughtlessness, I’d let an opportunity slip by me.
I nodded to myself. Horrific, but I had no doubt Simon could hold on. I’d never met a man with a stronger will.
“Okay then,” I resolved. I clutched the urn close to my body and began the run back.
8
I heard them before I saw them.
I’d been hampered in finding my friends, just a bit, by the fading of Abriel’s light. It took me a bit to realize it, but as time passed that truth burned a bit less brilliantly, its light dimmed.
Fuck. I couldn’t afford to lose the gossamer strand that would lead me back to the earring.
I picked up my pace.
Crack! Crack! Rehl’s pistol fire brought me up short, it sounded so close. I slowed to a trot and realized my friends and the Assets still fought against the Gaunt Man.
That…
Could that be right? Didn’t that seem a bit… unrealistic?
Lorne, the Gaunt Man, truly frightened me. I hadn’t been afraid before, and Simon had been right. I’d truly been a sheep-headed idiot.
In the past few hours, I’d seen just the rough outline of the creature’s power. The store loomed around me, a labyrinth that might not be infinite but seemed to be the next best thing. I’d seen proof of what my mentor had told me; namely that the Gaunt Man kidnapped and imprisoned all manner of uncanny creatures.
And Lorne had admitted to toying with the Assets, taking his time to draw out their suffering.
Kinda hard not to wonder why you’re still alive, inn’it, Daisy?
I smiled at the imagined quote. Even as the actual man lay in an urn, my memories of Simon couldn’t help but offer me advice.
Why were we still alive?
I trotted past shelving that held stacks of paintings and old oil lamps. The aisle bent around sharply, showing me far more of Abriel’s light.
And my party.
WHUF. The barbarian of an Asset fired into the darkness and fire unfurled, a yellow and orange heat that I could feel from two aisles away.
“I’m back,” I half-whispered, half-thought as I sprinted toward them, the urn tucked beneath my arm like a football.
“Die! Die you lunatic fuck!” the large Asset yelled as he moved closer to Rehl and Garret.
I heard the loud BOOM of Garrett’s weapon, along with several cracks from Rehl’s.
Behind them, I saw the looming, inhuman specter of the Gaunt Man step between shadows with ease.
“I feel like he’s toying with us,” Baxter said as I jogged up. “Like he’s just playing.”
“I do not know—” Alicia stood there, Simon’s lighter aloft in her grasp. She eyed me as I ran up, confusion sprinkled on her face along with her freckles. “Liz? Where’s Simon?”
“Here. We’ll have to break it, but if he’s hurt, it might be harder to get him out of here, get us all out of here.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said, not without affection.
Before I could craft an appropriate retort, Alicia stepped over and took the urn from my hands. She peered at it, as if seeking something.
When she gazed at the bottom, the light from that malicious little glyph shone on her face, danced brilliant blue and left sinister shadows.
Without saying a word, Alicia raised the urn over her head and brought it down on the floor with all her strength.
“Wai—!” I reached for her, but it was far too late. The urn had struck the ground before I even got one hand
up.
Icy brilliance torrented from the cracks and released a gust of midnight cold. It rushed over me, as if someone had left open the door to Antarctica.
Alicia, Baxter, and I stood there, staring blankly at each other.
Behind us, Lorne laughed.
The cold vanished.
“Little Rosicrucian puppets,” the Gaunt Man sneered. “Do you believe your toys are truly dangerous?”
“What did you do?” I stared wildly at Alicia, tears in my eyes. Anger and fear dripped from my words as I gestured wildly. “I didn’t know how—what if that didn’t free him?”
“You told us. You said you freed things by breaking their items,” Alicia responded, taken aback.
“But… what if it didn’t work?” Tears came now, and my voice practically keened. “What if I broke a hundred of those prisons, but only fifteen prisoners survived?”
“Liz.” Baxter spoke, one quiet word.
“What?” I snapped at him, on the edge of breaking.
“Hey there, Peaches.” The voice, roughened with emotion and age, came from behind me.
“Oh.” I turned, crying. I brought my hands to my mouth. “Oh. Oh.”
Simon stood there, half frozen. His teeth chattered beneath his thick mustache, and he wore only a pair of black jeans. Whipcord lean, his skin looked almost blue—except where it had been covered in swirling dark ink.
“Didja bring a shirt?” My mentor gave me a wisp of a grin.
I ran to him and hurled my arms around him, wetworks fully engaged.
He held me, and the cold of his skin made me tremble.
“I didn’t.” I sobbed. “I didn’t bring a shirt.”
“Always letting me down,” he teased softly.
“Yes.” I started crying harder. “I’m the worst apprentice since that mouse with the buckets.”
He laughed and gripped me tighter, the kind of hug you give when you’re truly, desperately, happy to see someone. He lifted me up off my toes and swung me, just a little bit.
As he did, I felt something nudge me, right between my ribs. Something I’d left in my jacket pocket.
Something I’d forgotten.
“Erm.” Simon set me down, looking somewhat bemused.