by John Goode
Ugh.
We stopped in the middle of nowhere, no joke. Well, we were somewhere, but nowhere I would want to be. It was an empty field with nothing that looked like a secret door, and yes, I know a secret door shouldn’t look like anything, or it wouldn’t be secret, but there was nothing here! Not a rock, a tree… a helpful sign that said “Secret door here” and an arrow pointing down.
“Here,” Ater said, pointing at nothing but a lot of weeds and dirt surrounded by other weeds and dirt.
“Where?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.
“Here,” Ater repeated, grabbing a little tree about a foot tall and pulling it up as if the ground was a door with the hinge at the top. I looked at Hawk and back to a tunnel that descended into darkness. Roots, literal roots, had grown through the door, which hung together when it should have fallen apart.
“Magic,” Hawk said as I stared.
Duh.
“You should go first,” Ater said to Hawk. “If magical wards were placed without my knowledge, they would be configured to let you pass.”
“What kind of wards?” I asked, looking into the dark hole. I didn’t even think about where it might take us.
Ater gave me a grim look. “The kind that ensure if something is following you, they wouldn’t be doing that for long.”
“Oh, those kind.” I swallowed hard.
“Follow me,” Hawk said, taking a step into the darkness. I would have normally warned him, loudly, that he was about to drop into nothing. However, I could feel the certainty in his thoughts, so all I did was bite my bottom lip in fear that he might be wrong. “Ater will be behind you; there should be no danger.”
“Should” being the only word I heard.
“I could turn on—”
“No. You promised.”
I had.
Nodding, I thought, “Okay, no powers.”
“Ater, lock that behind us.”
He nodded as Hawk began to climb down the ladder that appeared under his foot.
Stupid magic ladders.
“We’ll be all right,” Ater said as I got on the ladder myself.
I tried not to imagine how far the drop would be if I fell. Ater squeezed my left shoulder and waited patiently for me to make up my mind whether or not to follow Hawk down. Two seconds later I started my descent into the darkness.
“SO IF I was a secret door that led to the command pod, where would I hide?” Molly asked herself as she and Ferra walked onto the fabrication floor.
The charred glob of metal that used to be Diablo still sat in the middle of it. No matter how efficient the workshop’s cleaning crew was, they apparently couldn’t do anything with several million tons of slag.
“It’s not beneath that, is it?” Ferra asked, gesturing toward the melted metal.
“They wouldn’t put it in a place where it could be compromised,” Molly said, still looking around the room. “They also wouldn’t hide it behind something that might be salvaged by the Wheelers, which means it can’t be behind anything mechanical.”
“That leaves out a lot of this place,” Ferra said, looking around.
“I think that was the point.”
They walked around the immense room for thirty minutes, looking for anything that might be a hidden door, but nothing looked right.
“We’re going about this all wrong,” Ferra said, pausing in the middle of the room.
“How so?” Molly asked.
“Maybe this is the door,” she said, gesturing around the room. “Maybe we just need to knock.”
Molly cocked her head in confusion. “How is a room a door?”
Instead of answering, Ferra cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled, “We’re here, and we need access to the lower level. Ask your questions.”
“Who are you yelling to?”
“The workshop, you said it was alive. So why not just ask it?”
Molly paused. “I never thought of that.”
“We’re here!” Ferra yelled again. “Ask your damn questions!”
The fabrication floor was silent.
Molly said, “It was worth a try.”
Suddenly there was a rumble from all around them.
“What’s that?” Ferra asked, forming an ice spear in her hand.
Before Molly could answer, a piece of metal went flying across the room, barely missing them.
“Get behind me,” Ferra called out as she formed ice around them.
Another piece went sailing and then another. Within seconds the air was filled with metal parts rushing back and forth. There was no indication if they were moving in a certain direction or not. Surrounded by a virtual storm of mechanical parts careening through the air in all directions, neither Ferra nor Molly could determine which way to run.
“Are we under attack?” Ferra asked over the din of metal smashing against metal.
“I don’t know,” Molly called out.
The swarm began to coalesce across from them. Pieces began to spin tighter and tighter until an eight-foot-tall tornado of metal stood there. A squeal of sound came screeching from the mass, and Ferra covered her ears from the intensity.
Molly just listened.
“Yes,” Molly answered, “but she cannot understand you.”
Before Ferra could ask whom the clockwork was talking to, the sound stopped and the tornado began to compress again. The column changed shape until Ferra could see a body forming from the metal. Piece after piece of metal fused, each one clicking into place next to the other. The form became female, and the female became clothed. A long, flowing dress comprised of different-sized cogs formed a tight bodice and a petticoat made out of pressed copper. Her face was completely smooth with no eyes or mouth, just a polished silver surface that faced them silently. Her hair was a beehive of soldering wire and copper that appeared to have an electric current moving up and down it.
“I hear you,” the metal woman proclaimed in a voice made up of dozens of other voices. It was as if a choir was speaking to them in a single voice.
“What is that?” Ferra asked Molly.
“I am the one you called,” the woman answered instead. “I am here.”
Ferra looked at Molly. “That’s the workshop?”
“I speak for the workshop,” the woman answered again.
“It won’t respond to me,” Molly said quietly. “It is only going to talk to you.”
“I will speak to you, Molly protocol unit E3,” the avatar said. “You are known to me. You are not.” She gestured at Ferra. “You are not of the workshop.”
“She is my companion,” Molly said. “She is Ferra of the Friguses. What may we call you?”
“You may refer to me as Aino,” she answered after a second.
“Thank you, Aino. You honor us by talking to us.” Molly’s voice was as melodic as Ferra had ever heard it. She realized she had never seen the companion actually use her persuasion skills.
“You are very kind,” Aino said, moving forward. There was nothing that indicated legs under the dress; instead the bottom cogs rolled like wheels as she moved around the pair, seemingly floating across the fabrication floor. “You have been gone for a very long time. What is the status of your mission?”
“I made contact with the Crystal Court,” Molly answered, her voice halting for a half second. “I have observed them for several thousand years.”
Aino paused and looked at Molly, waiting for her to continue.
“Did you want a debrief of their ruling structure?”
“What is the status of their ruler?’
“Adamas is well,” Molly answered carefully. “His rule is unchallenged.”
“So he lives?”
Molly sounded completely confused. “Why wouldn’t he?”
Instead of answering, Aino asked, “You called for me, Ferra of the Friguses. What is your will?”
Ferra looked at Molly, who nodded once at her.
“We wish access to the command pod,” Ferra proclaimed.
“There are three questions you must answer.”
“We know.”
“And you know the price of answering incorrectly?”
“I think so,” Ferra answered slowly. “Why don’t you tell me what the price is?”
“Death,” Aino said without pause. “Painful death with a repurposing of the remains.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound pleasant,” Molly remarked.
THE LADDER led down and then went down and then farther down some more.
Yeah, it was that long.
It took every single particle of my will not to turn my power on and change my eyes to see in the dark. I hate dark places, I hate heights, and I hate falling even more. So, basically this ladder was a smorgasbord of “things that terrify Kane.”
Seriously, all it needed was a killer clown waiting for me at the bottom, and my heart would have exploded.
“How much farther?” I asked out loud since I couldn’t very well look at either of them in the dark.
“Not much farther,” Ater said from above me.
Yeah, I’ve heard that before.
I heard and felt Hawk drop off the ladder and onto solid ground.
“Let go, I’ll catch you,” he thought at me.
I just kept climbing down the ladder, thank you very much.
When my foot felt nothing beneath it, I slowly let myself drop to the ground.
Slowly. Really, really slowly.
Something grabbed my foot and I screamed and began to kick at it.
“Oh for the love of….” Hawk’s voice was muffled, and he backed away from me before I could do anything more stupid. “It’s just me, you big baby!”
I hit the ground, and it felt like I was falling miles in that half second. Balancing was difficult without a visual cue, and I stumbled sideways and fell down. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.
Hawk’s nose was hurt because mine was a little sore as well.
“I’m dropping down,” Ater said from above me.
Scrambling away, I heard him land. “The coast looks clear.”
“You can see?” I asked, outraged.
“I spent most of my adult life in an underground city. My eyes are used to darkness.”
Lucky dark elf.
I heard metal sliding against metal a second before Truheart began to glow. I could see Hawk’s face as he held the sword out like a torch. “Come on, get up,” he ordered, gently, holding his other hand out to me.
I’d leaned up to grab it when I saw something above him, clinging to the ceiling of the tunnel.
I swear to Gaga, it looked like a fucking clown.
“Run!” I screamed as it let go and fell like a boulder straight down on top of Hawk.
Luckily, Hawk could see what I could see and jumped to the side away from the killer clown. Ater didn’t even hesitate. Two blades flashed into his hands, and he thrust them both into the clown’s body. The points came out the other side of its torso.
Truheart’s light bobbed randomly everywhere, following Hawk’s motions as well as it could.
I closed my eyes and willed the seed to appear.
Its glow lit up the entire tunnel, revealing what looked like some seventeenth century sewer minus the actual sewage. Thank God. I could now more clearly see the thing struggling with Ater. Its clothes were ragged, and it looked like it had some nasty-ass hair sticking out from under its hat. Ater did not seem to be his normal chill self, because he was stabbing its body like a champ. His blows had no effect….
“Brains!” the thing cried and bit down on Ater’s forehead.
I am assuming what Ater said next was a pretty bad word in dark elf, because Ater said it when the thing broke skin and took a chunk off his forehead. He tried to swing the creature away from him, but it clung to his arm as if it weighed nothing and maybe had octopus suckers for feet….
Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. Would you be that surprised if it did have tentacles? Then shut up.
Hawk came up from behind and stabbed the thing in its back. Normally I wouldn’t be okay with sneak attacks from behind, but I was underground in a weird tunnel watching a killer clown attack my friends. And yes, I do know I could have stopped this with one word, but I promised Hawk, so instead of wiggling my nose, I waited for an opening.
Hawk’s sword went through the thing as well, nicking Ater in the ribs. If the creature was taking any damage, it sure wasn’t showing it.
And yet another Elvish curse word; if we survive this, I am going to have the dirtiest mouth in all of Evermore.
The thing orientated on Hawk and jumped from Ater toward him.
Truheart swung at the thing, but again the sword’s edge didn’t do anything to it. Hawk cried out the second my neck exploded in pain, and I realized the creature had just taken a bite out of him. I could sense Hawk’s panic and knew he needed more time to recover. Time the mad clown wasn’t about to let him have.
I clenched my hand and Truheart flashed into it. One of the cooler things about sharing a soul with Hawk is that I can call his Soul Blade if I want. Not that I’m an expert in swordsmanship, but I did have Hawk’s memories of training to call on, so I wasn’t a total dweeb. Body shots weren’t doing anything to it, so I decided to stab the damn thing through the back of its head.
Again Truheart’s blade passed through harmlessly.
Killer Clown dropped Hawk when I moved. I had no illusions I could beat the thing, but my boys needed a second to pull themselves together, and I was going to give it to them. It turned toward me, and I could see it was wearing a faded burlap tunic with sticks poking out of it. I took another step back, giving myself more than enough room to fight; it stayed just at the edge of the light.
“Brains,” it hissed at me.
“Yeah, yeah, brains. We have a special today, all the brains you can eat, but you have to serve yourself. So come over here and try to take mine.”
It took a step into the light, and I realized I had been wrong, so, so wrong about this thing. It wasn’t a clown. If it had been a clown I might have been okay. I mean, clowns were just terrifying as a concept, but this, this thing wasn’t just one of my fears come to life.
This was a personal nightmare come to life.
What I had mistaken for clown makeup was instead a crudely drawn face on a burlap bag, and what I had thought was nasty hair was actually straw sticking out from under its hat. I wasn’t looking at a clown.
This was a scarecrow. No, this was the Scarecrow.
I know what you’re thinking. How can you be scared of the Scarecrow, Kane? He sang and danced, and Dorothy missed him most of all and all that shit. What could be menacing about that? When I was a kid, the Scarecrow had freaked me out. He moved like he had no bones and he was smiling, always smiling. I would hide my eyes whenever he was singing his damn song, and he just became a thing to me. Until the night when he invaded my childish dreams. The Scarecrow was going to kill me. I knew it in that dream, and I couldn’t wake up. Couldn’t scream. He had walked toward me, coming closer no matter how quickly I backed away.
Until I did manage a scream and then another. The dream had ended when Dad turned on the light in my bedroom, but the Scarecrow waited in the dark for me to watch that movie again the next year. Dream, scream, and repeat.
And now it was coming right at me.
It was hideous; his clothes were worn out and dark stains smeared the front of his tunic. The stains wouldn’t have been scary except for the fact that I could see the same stains around his mouth and they were dark red from Ater and Hawk’s blood. The Scarecrow shambled toward me, and I was six years old again, staring at the TV, screaming for my dad to turn it off.
I might have also, though I cannot be sure, soiled myself at this point.
Nothing would move. I was in a complete panic, and only stark terror made me grip the sword instead of dropping it to the ground in shock. Hawk was screaming at me, vocally and in my head, but nothing registered. All I saw was the blo
odstained mouth coming at me, and I just felt my mind snap.
And the world went bye-bye.
At least for a little while.
THE ENTIRE courtyard shook as Adamas’s troops made their way into the main castle grounds.
“What was that?” the diamond asked. No one near him answered.
“Power,” Olim said uneasily to Demain. “Enormous power.”
“Looks like the hidden passage isn’t so hidden,” Demain said, her voice devoid of its usual sarcasm.
The courtyard shook again. “Then the time for subtlety is done,” Adamas roared, glowing. “Get ready to take the Gnome King’s men down, boys!”
No one spoke. Everyone looked at each other, utterly confused.
“Attack!” he ordered.
That they understood.
The first squad of ambers flew into the castle, moving so quickly that the air screamed out of the way. They blasted the thick inner door with bolts of magical force. Then as silent as they had been loud, they waited for retaliation. Nothing happened. Not a thing moved in the silence surrounding them. The hallway leading into the castle remained as dark as a tomb.
“What are you waiting for?” Adamas bellowed. “We are afraid of nothing.”
He took off like a bolt, straight into the castle proper.
“Did he say Gnome King?” Demain asked her sister.
“I am afraid so.”
Adamas dove into the darkness, followed by the startled ambers, who were not sure what they were supposed to do in a case like this. They were the shock troops, used to protecting other people. They had no idea how to handle the king hurling himself into battle.
One of these ambers, a second lieutenant who had never been off-world before, saw it first. Out of the shadows, something flashed, like light on polished metal, and it was heading straight toward the king. Summoning a burst of speed, he hit Adamas, pushing the king out of the way.
The piece of metal struck the amber dead center, cracking him in half.