by Geonn Cannon
Mircea reached out mentally to the ship. A small crew, which was curious for a Committee vessel. They were nervous, anxious, and... hopeful? They were hoping for success. That hardly made sense unless there was a reason they might fail. She cupped one hand over her eyes as a guard hurried over to stand beside her. She ignored the words coming out of his mouth. Everyone was so quick to voice their thoughts, unaware of the editing and obfuscation they did to themselves as soon as they opened their mouths. She instead listened to his thoughts and heard a less biased version of events.
He had been flirting with one of the other guards, a handsome but married man who had hinted at similar proclivities in the past, when the alarm went up. Three of their members had gone missing. They were discussing what to do about the errant members when word came from the other side of the perimeter that an AAC vessel was approaching. They had put down their weapons since even being armed in the presence of a Committee official was grounds to be considered guilty. But now the ship was simply hovering, and none of the men could figure out why.
Mircea dug deeper into the guard’s mind and found a fantasy he harbored about himself and his fellow guard. As she crossed to stand under the ship she found the object of the first guard’s affection and sent the image to him without context. She saw his face grow pale but forgot about him soon after he was out of her sight. She stopped beneath the wide gondola and looked up at the vessel. The insignia was wrong. It was draped like cloth against the side of the ship, or... perhaps it was...
She turned and looked into the woods. There was power out there, and she had a feeling it would account for the missing guards. She closed her eyes behind her glasses and focused on the illusion flying above her head. She imagined it as the end of a fuse, which she lit on fire. The flame traced back along its trail back to the source, and Mircea began walking before it had reached its destination.
#
Beatrice stopped in her tracks and swayed as if drunk. Leola stopped and looked back at her, and Ivy placed an invisible man on Beatrice’s shoulder.
“Trix? Are you okay?”
“I...” Beatrice gasped. Her head flew back, blood gushing from both nostrils in a crimson cascade. Ivy grabbed her, preventing her from falling and making it look as if Beatrice was defying gravity. Leola cried out in anguish, unable to stop herself, momentarily thinking that Beatrice had just suffered the same fate as Adeline. She ran back to her new acquaintance and gestured for Leola to place her on the grass. Beatrice was shuddering and pale, but alive. The lower half of her face was slick with fresh blood, which had dripped down onto her neck and the collar of her shirt.
“What happened?”
Beatrice grabbed the chest of Leola’s shirt. “Run.”
Leola looked toward the palace and saw something utterly bizarre stalking toward them: a bald woman in a leather jacket, her eyes hidden behind glasses, her arms out to either side with her fingers spread wide. Blue light danced around her forearms and collected in spheres over her palms. They could hear the energy crackling even from thirty yards away.
“Run!” Beatrice said again.
This time Ivy and Leola heeded her warning and ran. Beatrice pushed herself up on bloody hands and watched the bald woman approaching.
“Let’s see how good you are when you’re not sucker punching me.”
The bald woman only smiled and kept coming.
Chapter Eighteen
She could hear Orville and Dan whispering behind them, the homely Weeks reassuring the handsome one that they would be back on the surface soon. They had weaved through the maze with no regard for the initial clue. Occasionally they would go downhill for one curve and uphill for three. They took branches to the left, the right, and backward. Dorothy only rarely suffered from claustrophobia, but now even she was beginning to feel anxious about not knowing the way out. They all stuck their arms out to drag a bullet casing or a knife along the stone to mark their passage, and Dorothy used the torch to make sure the walls ahead of them were clear of any past marks.
Their only guide was the Minotaur’s noises that were coming from... just ahead, around this bend, on the other side of this wall, or everywhere at once. Occasionally they could feel the ground trembling. Dorothy wondered just how massive this creature was. The heat was growing more oppressive the longer they walked. She had removed her jacket and unbuttoned her shirt as far as modesty would allow her. She didn’t much care about the Weeks brothers seeing her underwear but there were lines she refused to cross. Trafalgar had removed her coat and had it draped over one shoulder, making her look strangely smaller as they moved through the twists and turns of the world’s oldest and most diabolical maze.
“I’m beginning to see why this was an appropriate trap for the beast,” Trafalgar said.
“So it would seem,” Dorothy agreed as she scraped the bottom of the torch along the wall. She was feeling a bit queasy so she could only imagine how Orville was suffering. She refused to pity him, however; whatever he was suffering was a drop in the bucket against what he deserved.
They had almost reached a new branch when there was a roar so loud all four of them retreated a step. At the time Trafalgar happened to be in the lead and she dropped into a crouch with her shoulder tight against the wall. She craned her neck and looked through the doorway. Dorothy, pressed against the opposite wall, watched Trafalgar’s eyes widen. She swallowed, looked at Dorothy, and nodded slowly.
Dorothy looked at the men. Orville seemed moments away from soiling himself, and even Daniel had a look of uncertainty on his face. No one seemed willing to breathe, let alone speak. Just through the opening they could hear feet sliding along stone, the quiet huff of the creature’s breath. The air seemed disturbed by its presence, and after a moment Dorothy became very aware of a stench drifting through the gap in the wall.
Trafalgar stood up and walked to Daniel. She pushed her hands into his coat pockets and began searching, and he was so terrified of the Minotaur he did nothing to stop her. After a moment she withdrew her emei piercers and slid the ring onto her finger. Dorothy held out her hand. Without hesitation Trafalgar took the knife from Orville’s sheath and handed it to her. Dorothy bent her fingers in a “more” gesture, and Daniel handed over his gun as well.
“Ready?” Dorothy mouthed.
Trafalgar shook her head, then gestured for Dorothy to lead the way. Dorothy stepped through the opening first and Trafalgar followed. The room they found themselves in was egg-shaped, with a narrow point across from the point they had entered. Identical doors marked the circumference of the room, a multitude of ways to escape. Arcane symbols marked the side of each entrance and Dorothy realized even the creature had tried to escape multiple times over its long life. Seven stone plinths formed a circle in the center of the room, and it was in this fenced-off area that the Minotaur stood.
The creature was at least eight feet tall, the muscles of its arms, chest, and thighs looking as if they had been carved from marble. Its skin was black as obsidian to match the fur of its bovine head. The Minotaur had two horns; on the right one twisted and curved so that it formed a widely-sloped S. On the left the horn was half the size and jagged at the end rather than pointed. It rose to its full height when they entered its den, its nostrils flaring in its wet snout. The creature stood naked and monstrous, swaying its weight from one foot to the other as it took the measure of the new offering.
Dorothy discovered her mouth was suddenly dry. She looked at Trafalgar and saw true fear in her eyes, her fist gripped tight against the double blades of her piercers. Dorothy cocked her weapon and looked at the Minotaur again. She didn’t know what the next step would be, how they could proceed. She didn’t want to antagonize the beast, didn’t want to throw the first punch, but how could they hope to communicate? She decided the only option was to try.
“Hello,” Dorothy said.
The Minotaur bellowed, a deafening cacophony in the confined space, and both Dorothy and Trafalgar cringed away from the s
ound instead of reacting logically. The Minotaur took advantage of their distraction and leapt. Trafalgar threw herself back, slid to the floor, and rolled away. Dorothy tried to evade on the side with the long and unbroken horn and discovered her error when the horn smacked her across the abdomen. She was carried with it as the Minotaur turned his head, then fell hard to the ground.
“You and your big mouth!” Trafalgar shouted.
Despite the agony in her stomach, Dorothy had to laugh. She rolled onto her hands and knees and, after checking that the skin hadn’t been broken, got back onto her feet. The Minotaur had turned her back to her in order to focus on Trafalgar, and Dorothy smiled.
“All right, beastie. Let’s dance.”
#
Beatrice had an understanding of her mind that few people shared. To access her magical abilities, she envisioned a great wide room full of water. At the moment, lying on the grass while her adversary stormed toward her, she felt ripples in the surface of that water and knew the bald woman was trying to get inside. Beatrice built a whirlpool in the waters of her mind, swirling them rapidly to draw the invader toward the center. The centripetal force tugged the other woman’s energy toward the center. Once it was trapped, Beatrice sent a bolt of her own energy back along its trail.
To dig into someone’s mind, the attacker’s mind needed to be open as well. Beatrice crashed into Mircea Petric’s mind like a battering ram. Mircea had never needed to put up barricades to protect herself so she was utterly unprepared for the blow. Her advance stopped as if she had hit a brick wall, her lips parting in a surprised O. She brought both her hands up but they hovered at shoulder height as her knees began to give way.
Beatrice ignored the blood dripping from her nose, over her lips, and focused on making her counterattack as strong as possible. Another burst, and Mircea’s head rocked on her shoulders. She hit one knee as Beatrice dug in her claws and refused to budge. She felt wrapped in a movie screen, images flashing all around her too large and obscure to make sense of. She saw blues: shoes in green grass, a face contorted in agony, horrible faces that took up the entire canvas. Beatrice smelled smoke but ignored it. She knew if she gave an inch the bald woman might recover and take her out. She couldn’t risk it.
Mircea tore off her glasses to reveal eyes that glowed green so brightly that the light spread out underneath her skin. She opened her mouth and shouted incoherently, and Beatrice began to feel pushback on her assault. The burning smell intensified, and she felt another gush of blood flowing over her top lip, dripping from her chin.
There was a tremendously loud pop, and suddenly all the resistance disappeared. Beatrice stumbled forward with a gasp and watched Mircea fall forward, the light in her eyes dimming due to the bullet hole that had appeared above her right eye. Leola holstered her revolver and made her way to Beatrice’s side, crouching next to her.
“Are you all right?”
Beatrice responded in Mandarin, English temporarily lost to her. She wiped the blood from her face and cleaned her hand on the grass. “Smoke?” she said when she could form the words. “Something. Burning.”
“I believe it was this,” Ivy said from behind her. “Your shirt...”
Leola looked. “My God. Has that ever happened before?”
Beatrice said, “What?”
“The back of your shirt is... burnt through.” She touched the material. “But it seems as if it was burned by some sort of pattern. This tattoo on your back...”
“The tree.”
“Yes. Apparently it burnt through your clothing.”
Ivy said, “Must have been drawing from something pretty powerful for that to happen.”
Beatrice said, “Yes. I must have...”
#
Milena’s entire body shuddered, her hands twitching like someone who had just woken from a bad dream. She looked to her left and right. She had been alone since Mircea went to the surface, but now the loneliness surrounded her completely. “Mercy?” she whispered, the first word she had spoken aloud in years. “Mercy?” She sent the plea out with everything she had. For the first time since they were children, there was no response. She turned and started up the stairs, her assignment forgotten. She was struck dumb by confusion and fear, crawling up the stairs when she stumbled because standing would take too much effort.
Into the sunshine, not even squinting against its glare as she moved from dark to light in the shattered palace. “Mircea,” she whispered. “Milly needs you. Please. Mercy, please.” She walked into the courtyard and saw Dummies running around underneath a large airship. She reached out to all of their minds, watched them slow down as she sought information about her sister.
Where is my Mercy?
Where is my Mercy?
WHERE IS MY SISTER?
Everyone in the courtyard stopped where they were, stricken by a strange and incapacitating headache. None of them had the answer, however. Milena looked around and then began walking, her legs as uncertain as a newborn colt. She walked through the tall grass near the palace grounds, weaving around trees even as she seemed unaware of their existence. She reached a clearing and saw a body lying in front of her. Its head was destroyed and shattered by bits of blood and brain and bone. Milena stared at the thing that had been her sister and dropped to her knees with a keening cry of loss.
Three Dummies were crouching nearby, the black one, the tan one, and the one without any skin but an unsilent mind. Milena ignored them as she dropped to her knees and lifted her sister’s impossibly light body off the ground. Mircea’s face was intact, but her body was empty. Her mind was silent. Milena held the body against her chest and rocked it back and forth, sobbing silently as she stared at her sister’s slack features. She heard the Dummies at the back of her mind.
Look at her. It would be kind to take her out of her misery.
She’s not a threat. Killing her would simply be cruel.
Milena ignored the Dummies and lifted her sister. She found the strength she had lost a moment earlier, cradling Mircea in her arms before she began to walk away. The Dummies moved out of her way and watched her go. She didn’t know where she was going or what lay ahead. She had no plans. All she knew was that she had to take her sister and leave. Nothing else mattered to her.
#
Trafalgar skirted the wall to the Minotaur’s right, while Dorothy stayed to its left. It pivoted at the waist to track their movements, unable to attack either of them without exposing itself to the other. It made quiet chuffing sounds, revealing plank-like yellow teeth and a thick gray tongue. Everything about its body was human, the hands and trunk of its body, but it had grown in proportion to the bovine head. Occasionally Dorothy spotted Daniel Weeks peering through the door to check their progress, but the cowardly brothers made no attempt to join in the fight themselves.
“Any clever ideas?” Dorothy asked.
“Yes. I shall now begin an ingeniously clever series of actions which lead to victory.”
Dorothy said, “I like the last step. Any chance of clarifying a few points?”
“Unfortunately everything but the final step is a bit hazy at the moment.”
The Minotaur apparently tired of waiting. It chose Trafalgar, lowering its head to charge her. She pulled her coat from her shoulder and hurled it at him. The material ballooned out and draped across the Minotaur’s face, temporarily blinding him as Trafalgar rushed forward. She placed her hands on his head and pushed down, leapfrogging over him and landing on his back. He was knocked to his knees as he tossed the coat aside and twisted to grab her. She ducked his arm as the act of twisting caused him to lose his balance. Trafalgar skipped away from him and smiled.
“Great big head, awkward center of gravity.” She ducked as he spun around. “We have to stay inside the range of his horns. If he can’t gore us--”
“Then he can grab us with his human arms,” Dorothy said as she ducked the point of his unbroken horn. “We can’t hope to overpower him. Even if you stabbed him with thos
e piercers of yours, I doubt it would do much more than slow him down. I’ll distract him while you make a run for the treasure.”
“I...”
“Damn it, Trafalgar, just do it!” She dropped into a crouch and threw herself at his midsection. The Minotaur threw a punch that caught her in the head, then swept her legs out from under her. Dorothy went down but bounced back up quickly. She reached into her pocket and swung up something long and brass. The Minotaur expected a knife so he recoiled just enough that Dorothy could aim the beam of her torch directly into its eye. The Minotaur screeched and backed away blindly.
Trafalgar was most of the way across the room, eyeing the possible exits that would lead to the treasure. The Minotaur swiped at her, and Dorothy stomped the back of his leg so that he fell to his knees. The beast let loose a fearsome bawl and turned its attention fully on her. She tried to retreat but the Minotaur snagged her foot, pulling it out from under her. She yelped as she fell, and the beast gathered her up in its arms.
“Come now, fellow,” Dorothy said with panicked breathlessness. “Don’t take it personally...”
The Minotaur threw her. Dorothy had never been thrown before, had never felt the utter weightless, helpless feeling of being hurled by another living creature, and she had to say she did not approve of the sensation. Even worse was the landing, hitting hard enough that her entire body flashed white before the pain was localized to her arms and hip. The Minotaur had crossed the space between them while she was in the air, and when she rolled onto her back it loomed over her. It raised one leg and brought its foot down as hard at it could on her chest.
Dorothy wailed in pain as she felt the bone fracture. The Minotaur tried to step on her again, but she raised her left hand to block him. His foot slapped against her hand and she pushed sideways. He was thrown off-balance and crashed to the ground hard enough to aggravate Dorothy’s injury. She used her feet to push herself away from the Minotaur and it grabbed her foot, squeezing her ankle through the boot. Tears filled her eyes as she felt the bones shifting in his grip.