Prize of Night

by Bailey Cunningham

  “I’m not really sure where I was. Or where I am now. It all looks the same.” He glanced at his clothes. “I guess the rules no longer apply.”

  Shelby held up the horn. “You’re telling me. I almost impaled myself on this thing. I liked it better when it was a piano key.”

  Andrew noticed the dagger in his pocket for the first time. His blood formed a rust-colored patchwork on the blade. He could no longer see the original spot. His hand pained him, but only slightly. If the rules were coming undone, then anything was possible.

  He hadn’t seen Carl in the tear. He’d seen everything else.

  But some part of him might still be here.

  “I remember everything,” he said. “Not just my own memories, but Aleo’s. Even”—his eyes widened—“Roldan’s. I remember the water, and Babieca’s bloody nose, and the undinae whispering. It’s like two hemispheres coming together.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Shelby said, “and I’m also starting to remember some pretty funky things.” She glanced at Ingrid. “And some swell things too. But we can’t just stand here, enjoying the slide show. We have to do something.”

  “There’s only one way out,” Oliver replied. “Maybe we should just keep walking.”

  It seemed like a reasonable idea. They walked down the unchanging corridor. After a while, they started to pick up the pace. Then they were running. It felt good. It felt like something was possible. They ran until their feet hurt, until they had shin splints, and all they could do was lean against the brick. They were no closer to escape.

  “Should we go back?” Oliver asked.

  “Thanks a lot, Google Maps,” Sam said. “You’re full of bright ideas.”

  “It was better than suntanning in an alley.”

  “Wait.” Ingrid was examining the nearest wall. “If Andrew’s right, and the rules no longer apply, then maybe we need to make our own exit.”

  “That’s very meta,” Sam replied, “but how do you propose we do that?”

  “I think we need to change our perspective. That’s what I do when Neil won’t see reason. I shift his attention. We keep looking at this from one angle, but what if the exit isn’t in front of us? What if the whole place is one big exit?” Ingrid laid her hands on the brick wall. “Help me push.”

  Paul rapped his knuckles on the wall. “It’s solid.”

  “You’ll accept a smoke dragon, but now you choose to believe in physics?”

  “Fine,” he replied. “Everyone push on three.”

  They all braced themselves against the wall.

  “One—two—three—”

  Something yielded.

  Andrew felt dizzy, as if he were just waking up from a deep sleep. The world around him shifted violently on its axis. The brick dissolved. Then he was falling forward.

  They were in an entirely different place. But Andrew knew it well. Lemon scent still clung to the floors. The bookshelves were bare. A girl sat on a stool in the middle of the empty living room. It was her face that he’d seen in the tear.

  “Eumachia,” he breathed.

  She winked. “I knew you’d all figure it out, eventually.”

  “This is Carl’s apartment.” Shelby’s voice was soft. “Why are we here?”

  “I thought you’d appreciate something with less brick,” Eumachia said. “From a design perspective, it’s a bit too industrial.”

  Latona’s daughter was dressed in flared jeans and a Library Voices T-shirt. Gone was the pearl diadem, the embroidered stola. She also wore bright red Crocs, which was somehow the most unsettling thing of all.

  “Are we back in Regina?” Andrew asked.

  Eumachia stood. “You’re kind of everywhere. I know. Matrix jokes are so millennial. But there isn’t really a dimension that corresponds to this one. If all the parks and all the cities under twilight were a ladder, this place would be the stuff that the ladder’s made of.”

  “What does that make you?” Shelby asked.

  Eumachia smiled. “You really haven’t guessed?”

  “Your psycho mom is trying to destroy our world,” Sam said. “The least that you could do is give us a clue about what to do next.”

  “Do we know this little girl?” Paul asked. “Is she . . . part of this?”

  “Technically, I’m a lot older than you,” Eumachia replied. “Though I realize that this outfit isn’t doing me any favors.” She glanced down at her red foam shoes. “I wanted to appear nonthreatening, but I may have gone overboard.”

  Andrew heard a noise from Carl’s bedroom. Two mechanical foxes emerged from the hallway. Sulpicia and Propertius walked over to where Eumachia stood. They moved in a slow circle, as if testing the ground, then curled into balls and fell asleep. The sound of their snoring reminded him of a bubbling percolator.

  “They’re exhausted from all these transitions,” Eumachia said. “I don’t know whether I should take them to a vet or an auto mechanic.” She laughed, and shrugged. “Listen to me and my secondary-world problems.”

  “I know that laugh,” Shelby murmured. “When I rolled to save Pulcheria from the silenus—to make the shot—a voice spoke to me through the fountain. Your voice.”

  “How talented of me,” Eumachia replied, “to have been in two places at once.”

  “That’s the thing, though.” Shelby stepped closer. “You’ve always been there. When I rolled that night above the oecus. And later, when Andrew rolled on the stolen die. You were there when Oliver nearly died, and when—” She stopped herself from saying it. “You’ve always been in the background. The foxes were supposed to be Latona’s pets, but they follow you around like—”

  “—like she was their maker,” Sam finished. “I always knew that she had an artifex vibe. I couldn’t quite explain it. But I felt something.”

  “She told me how the fountains worked,” Shelby continued. “She knew the Arx of Violets better than anyone else. She knew too much.”

  Eumachia rolled her eyes. “So says the grad student.”

  “Who are you really?” Shelby demanded.

  A tremor passed through the floor of the apartment.

  The walls broke down the middle, as if it were a gingerbread house. The ceiling flew away, and stars boiled in the night sky above them. No pollution to obscure their dance. They were surrounded by constellations that burned like fantastic Lite-Brite sculptures. A mosaic brought to life and electrified in the hallowed darkness. The floor was a giant wheel, and each of them stood on a spoke. The wheel was alive. It was made of branches, and thread, and bone polished by immeasurable time. Animals whispered among its cells. Parts of it were water, and parts were flame, and some parts remained in beautiful shadow. It breathed but was oddly still as it hung in the void.

  “I’ve paused it,” the girl said, “so that we can gain some perspective.”

  “I don’t understand,” Andrew said. “You made all of this. If you’re the artifex, then why would you let it fall apart?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m a word in a book, just like you. All of these possibilities were here before me, and they’ll be here when I’m gone. I’m only their steward, for a little while. My mother—” She frowned. “Well, let’s just say that she played her part with too much expertise. The basilissae were supposed to counter each other. To preserve the balance. Like quarks. Up and down spinning in tension, with one queen under the world, who waited.”

  “My mother,” Andrew said. He thought of her waiting beneath the earth. Hadn’t he been the one who was waiting for her, above?

  “It’s hard to be loved by a queen,” the girl offered. “It’s not always what you’d expect. Now we’ve come to the end of this rotation. The wheel will turn back on itself, and everything will start over. Latona doesn’t want that. Like any good story, she refuses to be forgotten. I tried to point her in another direction. S
he loved me the best that she could. But there’s no going back now. She’s broken out of the margins, and into your world. She’ll destroy them both if she has her way.”

  Two stars collided above them. A ring of purple flame exploded across the black sky, and they had to shield their eyes. Andrew felt the wheel tremble.

  “There’s not much time left,” the girl said. “You came here for a reason. You rolled without a die—and without a net. That sort of collective risk deserves an answer. But the wheel can’t remain still for long. Choose your question wisely.”

  “What kind of Last Crusade bullshit is this?” Sam demanded. “We’re just supposed to choose a question? What if we can’t?”

  Ripples of plasma spread across the dark. The stars seemed to be getting brighter, drawing closer together. Maybe stopping the wheel meant stopping the universe. If everything ground to a halt, then—what?

  Anything was possible. But that was far from comforting.

  Oliver stepped forward. “You’re saying that if we ask the right question, then you’ll stop all of this? You’ll save both worlds?”

  The girl smiled. “Is that your question?”

  “No.” He frowned. “This seems like a trick.”

  “It won’t in a few moments,” she replied. “Trust me.”

  “Okay,” Sam said, “it’s like writing an essay. What’s our thesis statement?”

  “Are you kidding?” Shelby glared at her. “I’ve been stuck on my thesis for a year. If I knew how to write an argument, I wouldn’t spend all my time on cat blogs.”

  Oliver turned to Andrew. “This was your idea.”

  He managed to look uncomfortable. “It was just a theory.”

  “Well—make it concrete. What’s your thesis?”

  People had been asking him that for years. What’s your thesis on? And he’d been asking himself the same question. What was the point in studying Anglo-Saxon poetry that had dissolved into fragments over time? What did it matter that Wulf bore a bundle to a storm-tossed grove, that a small, bright voice waited in an earth-cave? What could all of those iron links possibly add up to? What have you done with your life? That was the real question. Why had he chosen this inconvenient path, which would probably end in a shared basement suite rather than a white picket fence? His own private earth-cave, full of books and notations and bills from debt collectors. It was a strange and unlikely thing. It was maybe the wrong thing, and always had been. If he had moved faster, glanced behind, if, only if. Would he have chosen differently? Was any choice possible?

  He knew the question that he wanted to ask. His chest ached with the need to ask it, to know, even if the answer wasn’t what he expected.

  The stars were so close now. The universe awash in startling light. He could see into the hearts of those giants. They reminded him of the salamander’s eyes.

  Andrew didn’t ask the question.

  Instead, he turned to Paul. “You should do it.”

  Paul stared at him. “What? Why?”

  Because you know better than all of us. Because you aren’t weighed down by every bullshit desire that we’ve attached to this world of possibilities. Because I’m not the center of the universe, and my question won’t save us. Even if I ask it for the rest of my life.

  “Because you’ll choose right,” he said. “You love Ingrid. You love all of us. Your frosting is sick. We know you’ll choose right.”

  Ingrid gave Paul a long look. She squeezed his hand.

  The girl waited.

  The light was becoming unbearable. This was what the heart of the story felt like, the place where they all came from. The joy and grief and star-matter that connected them all, holding them together, even across unknowable distance.

  Paul asked: “How can we do better?”

  The wheel shuddered and began to turn. Andrew nearly lost his balance. The constellations danced.

  The girl reached up, grabbing one of the smaller stars. A red dwarf that burned like a carbuncle in her hand.

  “Start with this,” she said.

  Then she tossed the star at him. Paul, who had never been afraid of a flying puck, caught the fiery ball in his hand. It shimmered, and cooled, and became a glass die.

  “Wars have been ended by less,” she said.

  The wheel spun faster and faster, until they were all forced to hold on to each other. The light crept over them. Andrew smelled smoke.

  Then they were on the stage.

  Narses had arrived with spado reinforcements. They were holding back Latona’s silenoi, dancing in green with their slender knives. The furs joined them, stabbing like murderous acrobats. Septimus and Skadi were fighting with the princeps. Skadi bled emerald. That’s my supervisor, Shelby thought with pride. Septimus clawed at his own master, who was also wounded. Sometimes they were raging monsters, but beneath a certain light, they were also delicate. Their shadows embraced on the ashen floor, which was coming away in places.

  Pharsia and Latona were engaged in single combat. Pulcheria was wounded and struggling to collect herself. She grasped for a weapon on the ground. Mardian was there, moving like an asp. He nearly brought his blade down, but Narses leapt between them. Their weapons sang in a voice that rose to the rafters. All of this happened in the moment of transition, when they were still rubbing their eyes. Death moved on swift feet. Lares were tearing each other to bits, while Darke Hall shuddered. The ghosts were surely awake now, and placing bets. Andrew heard the sound of the fire trucks outside. They’d have a devil of a time breaking through all the stone that the gnomoi had erected.

  His mother fought with steady grace. She and Latona were evenly matched. They could dance like this forever, while all the worlds burned.

  Paul held up the glass die. “What do I do with this?”

  The caela saw them. Andrew watched the smoke as it moved toward the stage. Every incarnadine eye was fixed on the thing that Paul held. All its mouths opened, and a scream filled their ears, filled everything.

  “It’s not a weapon,” Andrew said. “I think it’s—”

  “—a key,” Ingrid broke in. “A key to the world.”

  Andrew sat down. “Give me the die. And the horn.”

  “Why are we sitting?” Shelby demanded.

  “Because we have to change the story.”

  They sat in a circle while the smoke coalesced around them. Andrew refused to see that network of hunger. He realized that they’d bound it centuries ago precisely for that reason. It was starving. It wanted to consume everything. They’d tried to lock it up, but, as Eumachia had said, every system needed its flaw. You couldn’t bury entropy. But you could spread it out, over all of the worlds, until it was an ocean rather than a cloud. The flaw that held up the masterpiece, indistinguishable from the beauty that it supported. Another deep, unsoundable place from which they’d all emerged, when the possibilities were still so very young.

  He placed the die next to the horn. He laid the dagger atop them both.

  The question rattled around inside him. It clawed at him, trying to get out. A million times he would ask it. Every dream, every hesitation, would hone that question, until it was pearl, until it was all he had.

  It was the hunger of the caela. Latona’s need. The survival instinct of every story graven in rock or tattooed on flesh.

  But the story had to belong to everyone.

  He let go.

  He thought of the park, instead. Of how it was common space. A hortus conclusus. Anything could happen there. It was borderless and green with possibilities. He had stumbled upon its magic by accident, but it couldn’t be his secret anymore.

  “I give up the park,” he said.

  And it was the magic that he gave up. And it was Carl’s sweet care, the puff of smoke between them, the purple flowers on the ground.

  The die began to glow.

&n
bsp; “I give up the park,” Shelby repeated. And he saw that she was giving up her pain as well, the burn of insecurity, the imposter syndrome, the drive to be more, always more. Letting the moss cover it. Letting others hold on to it for a while.

  “I give up the park,” Ingrid said. And in that moment, she knew the question she would have asked, and knew its answer. She gave up on the voice that said she was a bad parent, that she was doing it all wrong, that her words couldn’t possibly make a difference.

  “I give up the park,” Sam said. And in that moment, she heard the wind in the trees, the forces that could tear you apart, billow laundry on the line, stir your lover’s hair. And she gave up feeling lost, because the map had always been drawn on air.

  “I give up the park,” Oliver said. His voice was thick as he spoke. He was giving up distance, and cold calculation. Giving up the fear that what he’d left behind would no longer want him. What the mask had always concealed. Andrew took his hand. There was a whole tapestry of questions to consider, and he didn’t have to do it alone.

  The caela dove, grasping and crying. But its scream was more desperate now. The eyes were also asking, imploring. Andrew could see its thread for the first time, and it was necessary. The gleam before the loom. The first throw.

  “I—” Paul paused. He’d never had the park to begin with. How could he give it up? But maybe that was wrong. Maybe, through Ingrid and Neil, he’d always held a piece of it. Or it had always held him. “What they said. Take it. None of us is big enough to hold this. Let it belong to everyone!”

  The die was a star again. It hummed, louder and louder, until it was the crashing of the wheel, a storm that was all around them.

  It went nova.

  The caela’s scream became a wild song. They exploded through the broken windows. They swirled ever higher, until they were the living skies.

  The remaining lares sang as well. Gnomo, salamander, and undina, raising their indescribable voices to the air. They harmonized amid the wreckage.

  Latona dropped her sword. Mardian turned from Narses to watch. The silenoi stopped and drew a collective breath. The princeps helped Skadi to stand.