Mindripper

by Baron Blackwell

  “Is there somewhere you need to be?” Tizkar asked after a quiet moment. “Do you need a ride home?”

  Enk thumbed the pommel of his sword. Home? He shook his head. “No. There’s nowhere I need to be.”

  The skittering of a wooden chair, groaning as it was freed from its burden. Enk glanced at Tizkar as he halted beside him.

  “Good. Now that we have a moment’s respite,” Tizkar said, “why don’t we spend it reviewing our experiences with this strange ability of ours? More analysis might prove fruitful.”

  Enk’s thoughts ran back, and his breath became knife edge sharp. Dreaded recollections swelled, thick with piercing, feminine shrieks. He held in a shudder until he could no longer, then hid it behind a casual shrug he was sure fooled no one.

  This game is too cruel, Mother. Even its shadows sting.

  ■■■

  After the tremors left him, Enk noticed Tizkar had already fled. He ambled after him, leaned against the wooden railing, studied the building’s hidden innards. Its darken hollow stilled teemed with the ring of the infantile revelry of a laughing child, now joined by the pitter-patter of distant raindrops. Then he walked past the offices, followed Tizkar’s disappearing form, descending the stairs.

  “Cat,” Tizkar called down at the factory floor.

  A giggle transformed into a startled squeak, and the little girl, Cat, came bounding from the dark, brimming with a joy that turned her eyes into luminous pearls. Yelping to the laughing calls of its mistress, the dog gave chase, nipping at her heels.

  Tizkar met her halfway, yanked her into his arms, and spun her in dizzying loops. In fits and starts, Cat’s laughter rose higher.

  Enk stalled on the stairs as his thoughts turned inward.

  The mangy mutt wheeled about the entwined pair, its pink tongue lolling in between barks.

  Enk gripped the railing tighter.

  Tizkar returned Cat to the earth, and she lurched from side to side, drunk with delight, high on the memory of nigh weightlessness. She hiccuped, giggled, hiccuped.

  “Ah . . . Tizkar, my head’s a teacup,” she said, steadying herself on an overturned barrel. “Again. Again.” Her eyes shimmered with manic glee.

  “No more you, little horror.” Tizkar swiped at her playfully.

  “Come on, Tizkar.” She avoided the blow, just as nimble as her namesake. “I won’t upchuck. I promise.”

  “Uh-huh, like last time?” Tizkar glanced back at Enk and sighed with mock exasperation, even as his eyes smoldered with repressed hilarity. “No. No. Now, say hello to my friend, Enk.”

  Cat peeped around Tizkar, studying Enk’s inert form. “I met him last night, remember? But I don’t think he likes me much.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I. . . .” She frowned and lowered her voice. “I waved to him earlier, and he didn’t wave back. He just stared at me—kinda like he is now, all cold-eyed and wooden. Did I do something? Was I being too loud? Tell him I’m sorry. No—wait. Tell him I hate him, too. Even is even.”

  The whispered accusation bristled nigh deaf ears.

  An instant of mad panic. Then gone was the pang of senseless terror of things once forgotten. Gone was the blistering ache of over-reflection. Enk released the railing, struck by the suddenness of the transition.

  He opened his mouth, but Tizkar spoke before he could.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said. “What reason would—”

  “What’s with the hubbub?” a voice crackled the air behind Enk.

  Enk shifted, knowing what he would find even before he looked back. Lulu, the naked woman from his bed, stood above him, fully clothed and framed in baleful light. There was something about the contrast between then and now, between there and here that made her seem ethereal, as though she was not wholly of this world.

  “Some of us are trying to sleep, or we were,” Lulu continued, her lips contorting into a half smirk, despite her biting tone.

  “Sorry, Auntie,” Cat said.

  Lulu huffed and, as pernicious tremors clad in flesh, descended the stairs, her dark dress swirling at her feet. When she reached Enk, she leaned down and pressed warm lips to his cold cheek.

  “Morning, handsome,” she said with a radiant twinkle in her eye. “Did you sleep well?”

  Enk stiffened, breathed. Cinnamon and crushed orange peels teased his nostrils, sweet with no hint of tartness, homely without being completely domestic. He inhaled deeper, like one recently deprived of air, hating himself even as he did so.

  Why? Why must I always be undone like this?

  For once, could his body not betray him? Was it not possible to live up to the ideal? Just for fucking once? What was the point of measurement when one eternally fell short?

  “You know,” Lulu was saying, “it’s still not too late. We can climb back into bed and—”

  “Eww!” Cat wailed, her voice like a bucket of cold water stealing all but the memory of heat from once glowing coals. “Auntie, no! My eyes. My ears. We can see you—God can see you!”

  Lulu’s expression soured. “And what’s your point?” she asked, not looking away from Enk. “Close your scandalized eyes if the sight burns and stuff your dirty, little thumbs into your wretched ears if you’d rather not listen.”

  “It’s sinful!” Cat wagged a finger, full with all the righteous vehemence of one newly converted, then she whirled on Tizkar. “Quick, ready the carriage.”

  His face etched with bemusement, Tizkar cocked an eyebrow at her. “And where exactly are we going?”

  “Ignore her.” Lulu shook her head and pressed closer to Enk. “She—”

  “Where else?” Cat said in a voice thick with irritation, as though only a nincompoop would dare ask a question so obvious. “The nearest church! They need to be wed before Shaitan steals their souls.”

  “You, little twit!” Lulu wheeled about, her countenance one of fiery ire rising from humiliation. “Come here, so I can welt your bottom.”

  “But, Auntie, your soul. Your soul!” Cat danced back from her aunt’s seething aspect, fleeing back into the factory’s dark recesses.

  The dog guarded her retreat, barking, snarling.

  “My soul? My soul?” Lulu paused before the four-legged guardian, her eyes tracking her niece. “Who taught you this babel?

  Enk looked down at his hands, losing himself in its lines and swirls. There was a resonance here, not in his palms. But between what had been said and what should be done. He flinched inwardly, backing away from the realization that tried to well from the black.

  No. This is a bridge too far. I can’t. Not this.

  “Enough, you two.” Tizkar’s bombastic laughter rented the gloom. “While I would rather spend the rest of the day watching you two gallivant about, me and Enk have things to do. Cat, can we borrow Ugly?”

  The dog glanced at Tizkar, its tail wagging at the mention of its name.

  “You want Ugly?” Cat stilled, keeping a wary eye on her aunt. “Why?”

  “Young lady,” Lulu said, her tone graven with reproach, “mind your manners. Tizkar has done more—”

  “It’s all right, Lulu. I have this in hand.” Tizkar waved away her rebuke, eying Cat with a tax collector’s scrutiny. “What’s it going to cost me?”

  “One,” she said without hesitation.

  Tizkar pulled a thumb-sized candy, wrapped in a white wrapper, from his coat pocket, as if he had expected her to say as much. Enk drifted down the remaining stairs, drawn by the familial warmth embedded in their banter as much as anything else. They acted more like brother and sister than benefactor and orphan, as though only a hand span of years separated them.

  “Wait—no!” Cat yelled. “Two. Two pieces, not one.”

  ‘Two?” Tizkar cried, his demeanor one of feigned outrage. “Robbery! I will not surrender my spoils to banditry. Madam, good day.”

  “No! Tizkar!”

  “I said good day.”

  Enk picked his way to Lulu’s side. �
�Are they always like this?”

  “No. Sometimes they’re worse.” Lulu said, rolling her eyes at the still bickering pair. Yet the smile she wore appeared bone deep.

  Cat chased after Tizkar, yanked his arm and pulled his retreating form to a stop. “Listen. Two is only fair. Ugly is the only thing standing between me and a thrashing.”

  Lulu snorted at that.

  “See,” Cat said, gesturing at her aunt. “Two or no deal.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Tizkar relented and paid her. She clasped the sweets like another might golden coins, quickly unwrapping one and popping it into her mouth.

  A sound like a wolf gnawing at ice.

  Aquamarine flakes danced free from the sweet, fleeing Cat’s gnashing teeth and grinning maw.

  “You’re supposed to suck on it, not chew,” Lulu said, shaking her head. “By the Thousand Heavens, this girl will be the death of me.”

  “Greedy. Greedy.” Tizkar hoisted Cat up into his arms, and, for an instant, he looked stricken. His eyes welled with things bleaker than whole worlds filled with nothing but empty cribs.

  Enk stood still and comprehending.

  The older boy spared him a sideway glance before coating each one of Cat’s cheeks with brotherly kisses. Every peck was a wondrous and precarious prayer to the infinite beyond. Keep this one thing safe, they seemed to howl, even if existence itself must burn, keep her safe.

  Cat continued to chomp on her candy, oblivious to the depths of the devotion being paid to her. When Tizkar returned her to the ground, she pointed at the dog and said, “Ugly, go with Tizkar and his friend.”

  A growl rumbled Ugly’s chest.

  Undaunted by such theatrics, Tizkar flipped Ugly onto his back and scratched at his pink belly. Defiance melted into whimpering submission. “See, isn’t that much better? Why must we go through this dance every time? Huh?” He gave Ugly a playful smack, then stared curiously at Enk’s face, at the lips pinched into a thin line. “You don’t like dogs, do you?”

  “I like them fine enough,” Enk said evenly.

  “Are you. . . ?” Tizkar shrugged and let Ugly go. “If you say. Come on. I have things to show you.”

  Enk allowed Tizkar to guide him around broken machinery and deeper into the factory’s shadowy depths. Ugly roamed ahead of them, his nose to the floor, unraveling mysteries only he could detect.

  A squeal rose behind them, sending ever-dwindling remnants bouncing about stone and rotted iron. Roused, Ugly raised his head, glancing back. Tizkar shook his head, and Ugly turned back around, whining in his throat.

  “Got you now, don’t I?” Lulu’s amused echoes reached them.

  “Mercy, Auntie!” High-pitched giggles. “Mercy!”

  “This should be far enough,” Tizkar said. “Now, focus. Tell me if you can sense what I do.”

  Enk took a deep breath. The Esoteric Light within him shimmered behind the Eerie Portal, like something metallic—like an underground pool only half glimpsed in the dark. The young scion nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Tizkar pointed at Ugly. “Sit.”

  Ugly sat, his dark eyes locked on Tizkar.

  Enk scratched at his scalp. Nothing. He had felt nothing.

  “Roll.”

  Ugly reeled across the floor, over and over, adding new splotches of gray to his fur. His tongue lolled.

  Not even a ripple stirred the surface of the otherworldly mystery within Enk. He frowned. It was almost as if nothing intangible had threaded Tizkar’s words at all. His frown deepened. How did he know Tizkar was what he claimed? Had he ever seen him use his power before? What if. . . ?

  “Play dead,” Tizkar said.

  The reeling ended, and Ugly’s limbs slackened and stiffened in the semblance of death’s rigor. Shallow breaths were the only proof to the lie.

  “Did you feel anything?” Tizkar asked Enk.

  Enk squinted his eyes, pretended to search within. But in truth he watched Tizkar, looking for what, he was not sure. Yet he knew that he would know when he saw it. He shook his head.

  “Hmm . . . strange.” Tizkar tugged on his nose. “This close you should have felt something. Maybe. . . . Yes, that makes—” He snapped his fingers and Ugly sprang back to his feet.

  “What makes sense?” Enk asked.

  “Our power isn’t like some Warlock’s lore; it’s not learned.” Tizkar stroked Ugly behind the ear. “Or that has been my experience thus far. All I know came to me like . . . like a forgotten memory.”

  Enk nodded. Yes . . . that felt right somehow. He had come to a similar conclusion, though he had tried not to ponder the implications—implications that now left him troubled.

  What are we exactly?

  “Give it a few more days, and we will try this one again,” Tizkar said, tapping the floor. “But let’s try something different.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Enk crouched beside Tizkar, keeping an eye on the mutt.

  Tizkar swatted the dog as it tried to ensnare Enk’s fingers. “Behave yourself, Ugly.” He sent the young scion an apologetic smile. “I want you to enter Ugly’s mind completely if you can. Don’t think about how, just do it. That’s the key.”

  Enk held his tongue. Though he had already discovered this particular trick, he did not feel like revealing it. Doubt, always the gnawing maw, chewed at him. How? How did he know Tizkar was what he claimed?

  He inhaled and unspooled otherworldly metaphysics from hidden fathomages. Porous to what engulfed, Ugly became suffused, a thing of darkness exposed to blinding luminescence.

  Existence wheeled, and Enk found himself in a field of light and shadow, in a world without color. Above, the sun was and ivory ball in a gray sky. At the edge of the horizon, dark smog broiled, whipped thin by howling winds.

  Something clasped Enk’s shoulder, and he whirled.

  Hands raised in surrender, Tizkar backed away from him, vibrant with a bristling rainbow of hues. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

  Enk studied his own palms. As if he were a diamond, refracted light flickered under his skin. It seemed he too stood in direct opposition to the laws that ruled this place.

  What was this but proof that Tizkar was what he claimed? A Halfgod. In this, and so much else, they were the same.

  “Different rules apply here,” Tizkar mumbled. “Everything is a metaphor of something much deeper, something darker.”

  Barking, like the gentle calls of a puppy.

  Enk lowered his hands. A fragmented replica of Cat chased Ugly around the field, her distorted face shifting like the back of a panicked caterpillar. Ugly jerked to a stop, noticing them.

  Still laughing, Cat took two more steps then transformed into a puff of gray powder. Ugly charged them, growing larger with every step covered, his eyes gleaming a deep crimson.

  Enk backed away, searching for an escape route. The earth trembled like the base of a beaten gong beneath his feet, until the rumble invaded his chest, until breathing itself became near impossible.

  Tizkar clicked his tongue, reached out a hand, grasped at empty air. Space bent and twisted: something large became near, something far became small. And suddenly Ugly sat upon Tizkar’s palm, no bigger than a fat man’s thumb.

  “Much better.” Tizkar winked at Enk.

  Enk blinked. “How?”

  “The mind is our domain. Here we are not half but fully gods”

  A premonition of doom crawled Enk’s back, spider-sized and cool to the touch. He jerked, stumbled to his feet back within the factory, his eyes finding the source of the disturbance. Anad ran toward them, clutching his pipe, huffing and panting, shouting Tizkar’s name.

  “What is it?” Tizkar asked the man.

  “The-the. . . .” Anad said, choking on the lack of air. “Shade. Peacebringers. Uproar!” The last word clanged metallic within Enk’s breast, sent ever-rising echoes along his spine.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Desire Made Manifest

  Kalum stared at the
small vial by lamplight, reviewed its curved contours the way a suitor might the face of his beloved; idolizing what was venerated. Glass shell like distilled light, wooden stopper like a lover’s doorway, hallowed interior suffused with crimson glee. Second after second he watched it—minute after minute, longing for a taste of its unholy delights.

  It sat at the edge of a long, wooden table, next to a map of Dilgan, while he stooped in his chair, trembling, aching. . . . Aching! Few torments struck so deep as this bone chilling anguish. It numbed all other sensations. Numbed the world. So weak! So pathetic!

  Before, the pull had only been a whisper, a murmur at the edge of perception, and he would go months without even the hint of a craving. Yet now . . . now—

  “Soon,” he whispered, clutching at the armrest, trying to still his hand’s tremors. “B-but not yet.”

  Capturing beams of artificial light, its glossy exterior whirled with an unspoken rebuke. Scarlet flakes seemed to turn crimson shoulder to him, peeved by the rejection. The silence rang with harsh reproaches:

  “Am I not the snare that mends?” the imagined voice seemed to ask. “Are we not better intertwined than separated? Why must you denied me so? Has my love not always remained true?”

  Finally, she—it relented the way a wife might and cooed to him, unseen arms opening to embrace his aging flesh. His hand reached out, closed around the glass vessel. It was cool and warm, all at once.

  He uncorked it.

  His eardrums roared with a heartbeat that felt like another’s. A lover’s own, perhaps. A single line would not hurt, just this once, could it? His body quivered and twitched in anticipation of what he knew was to come.

  A pale hand covered the throat of the vial. “Are you sure you want to do that, Lord-Inquisitor?”

  Kalum blinked up at Sister Fana, surprised. She regarded him evenly, her freckle spotted aspect expressionless, and yet there was something there, something in the line of her jaw and tilt of her head. A trace of sympathy perhaps. He bit his cheek. No. It could not be that, not from her.

  “When did you. . . ?” He swallowed and tried again. “How long. . . ?”

  “Long enough.”