by Joni Sensel
"Good idea." Ariel started to ask how they'd come, but she changed her words when Neela leapt away from a troubling curl of mist. "We shouldn't stand here long, anyway. I thought I heard... something bad." She glanced at Scarl, who was still showing her his back. She took a step toward him. "Scarl? We need to go."
He exhaled at length before turning, though without meeting her eyes. "Yes."
"Begging your pardon," growled a voice behind them. "I think not."
Chapter 29
Ariel spun to search the fog. Something skittered and scratched, and her friends edged together.
Through the trailing mists came a dark figure with almost as much form as they had, though no flesh. A tangle of wire, it rose in the shape of a man with broad shoulders. The wire was rusty and barbed, and Ariel could guess it had originally come from the gate. Strands writhed and scraped as the thing scrabbled toward them. It did not walk, exactly. Clumps and lengths reached from the base to pull the rest along, moving as an octopus might. But the thing's head was worse. Where eyes might have been were two holes filled with mist, barbs stabbing out from their centers. Below, the wire knot parted in thin, prickly lips. It needed no teeth.
While they all stood aghast, the mouth spoke once more. "Hello, princess. Remember an old friend?" The head tilted slightly to Scarl. "An old friend, betrayed?"
Swooning, Ariel clutched both Zeke and Neela to keep herself erect.
"Who... who is it?" Neela whispered.
The wire man could never look like anyone or anything but a menace, but Ariel's heart knew, as it had with Mirayna, who owned the voice.
"Elbert Finder," Scarl breathed with more awe than fear in his voice. "Foul luck."
Neela squeaked.
"Oh, no luck, my friend," said the Elbert of wire. "Preparation. I have dreamed of another chance with you, dreamed and prepared. And the more I did, the more you dreamed of me. I could feel it. Your attention increased my strength. But the princess..." Elbert laughed. "She's more frightened of me--and the small ways my hatred could stretch past the bridge. So helpful of her to cling to my knife. And return it. That gift lit a fire in my heart." A loop of wire spooled out from his innards. Elbert's knife dangled from it. "I could use it to finish the job it once started. But I don't need a blade anymore, do I?" He flung it toward the bridge. It flew past them, glanced off one of the guard stones with a clank, and tumbled into the void underneath.
Ariel watched the knife vanish--quickly, without fuss. After so many long days of carrying its weight and pondering what it stood for, like that, it was gone. As it should've been from the moment she and Scarl had found it. A terrible truth sliced into her heart, along with the responsibility for all that might come. If she'd only found the will to walk away from that blade, to put it behind her, none of them would be here!
"You had to arrive sometime, separately or together," Elbert added brightly as if hearing her thoughts. "I didn't expect you'd still be living. That's a feat. But it will make what comes next even more fun than I'd hoped."
"Keep hoping," Ariel spat, mostly to hide her terror. "You're dead. You can't harm us."
"Ah, but you're wrong, princess." Wires scraped and grated. "I'm not like some of these fools, who don't even know which side of the bridge they're stuck on. But I've not wasted time trying to get back across. I've been finding instead. A few friends. A few secrets."
"A few scraps of wire?" Scarl's lips twitched.
His taunt impressed Ariel more than Elbert, who replied, "Laugh while you can, Finder. Because now I will put what I've found to use."
The wire must not have been as tangled as it looked. Loose ends plunged into the ground like eels into a seabed. Loops unfurled to follow behind. With a horrific scratching, Elbert shrank in place and then vanished.
An uneasy glance flashed between Ariel and Scarl. They ran for the bridge, Zeke and Neela behind. Nobody spoke. They were too busy listening for a scrape or a twang.
Their boots struck cobblestones. The guard stones loomed just ahead.
"Watch out for-- ow!" Zeke's warning was lost. Four strands of wire--two from the left and two from the right--whipped toward them from under the bridge. The strands curled around their shins and yanked tight. Yelping, Neela fell. Ariel's ankles cracked together. Barbs bit into her flesh, and then she, too, hit the bridge with the others. Her heart in her throat, she kicked against the pain. Blood trickled into her socks, but Elbert's hold only tightened.
Elbert dragged them in pairs toward the sides of the bridge. They clutched vainly at the cobblestones and each other while Scarl sawed at the wire with his knife. It was too thick to be cut without a crimp and a hammer. Ariel clawed at the noose on her legs to unwind it and almost got free before it yanked tight again. Zeke shouted nonsense, no doubt a plea to the stones for their help. A deep, stony grinding seemed to reply, but the pull of the wire never stopped. Relentless, it drew them to the sides of the bridge.
As she went over the brink, Ariel clamped her arms on it. She couldn't hold the smooth surface of stone.
Her stomach clenched as she swooped through space. A choked scream escaped her. She and her friends fell into bottomless fog.
Chapter 30
Falling, Ariel hoped the flames below would close her eyes swiftly, without much more pain, so she'd never again have to hear Elbert's voice. Not with her ears, anyhow. Perhaps once she and her friends were only shadows themselves, he'd be less able to hurt them.
The wire jerked her to a halt. She writhed in midair, hung upside down from her agonized shins over a seething orange tumult of fire.
Pain and mist whirled together as Elbert reeled her in.
The first surface she hit was gritty and soft. The sand gave way to stone as she was dragged up a slope--the underside of the bridge abutment, thick with shadow and mist. Her companions all arrived as she had, struggling and bleeding. Elbert squatted at the top of the slope, which slanted to meet the end of the bridge overhead. Drawing his victims in, he piled them together and vaulted over, trapping them in the tight angle between the slope and the underbelly of the bridge.
The pain in Ariel's shins eased as the barbs pulled from her flesh and the wire slid away. She took a shuddering breath, righted herself, and peered through the gloom at her friends. They were gasping, and strain contorted their faces, but they were alive. She ran her hands over each, reassured by the contact. Neela nearly crawled into Ariel's lap. Zeke crowded in on the opposite side. Scarl turned to face Elbert, positioning himself near Ariel's feet. He reached a hand back and rested it on one of her boots. Though she could barely feel his touch through the rage of pain in her lower legs, the gesture brought a lump of gratitude to her throat.
Seeing his knife still in his other hand, she whispered, "Maybe you should cut our throats and get it over with faster."
Zeke groaned softly. "We're not in the world, Ariel. We may not be able to leave it from here. No matter how badly we're hurt."
Ariel blanched at that gruesome thought. Scarl ignored them both.
Elbert didn't. "She may be smarter than you," he told Scarl. "But she's not very sporting." A strand of wire flipped out to snatch the blade. Scarl resisted, but without success. Elbert flung the knife to their right, and it clattered out of sight across the cobbled slope.
Ariel scanned for a way to escape. The stone ramp where they sat met the underside of the bridge right behind them, near enough to bang their heads. Elbert hunkered before them, all of his strands knotting together again. Not far beyond, the ramp dropped into space. Mist boiled over the lip, lit in orange from beneath. Firelight flickered against the bridge's belly and reflected across her friends' faces.
Ariel shot a glance to each side of the abutment. Perhaps if they split up and ran both directions, at least some of them might escape.
A shadow moved in the mist to her right. Cobbles clunked like footsteps. Ariel thought she'd heard those stony feet before.
"Forgive my bare hospitality." Wire grated under Elbert
's voice. "But we'll have privacy here. I don't want to share you."
The footsteps to their right drew closer. A wave of cold sweat broke from Ariel's skin when she saw the sailcloth Neela had lost to the cobblestone ghoul. It flapped and jerked in midair above the two stones like a child playing spooks with a blanket. Scarl's knife slashed the air before it, pointed at them. A long strand of barbed wire flailed around it as well, zinging like a whip. Zeke kept an exclamation trapped in his throat.
"Don't mind him," Elbert said. "It seems a few of the dead can't get comfortable without body parts--lucky for me, since spare wire and loose rocks are among the things I can trade here. I've made friends that way. I'm glad this one wanted to see what he could get for my knife, because otherwise, I might've missed your visit."
Ariel rubbed her bleeding ankles and cursed herself again for ever touching that knife.
Elbert noticed her movement. "What's wrong, princess? Don't you like my prickly new clothes?"
"They suit you," Ariel snapped. "Listen, Elbert. You can...." Her voice failed. She'd planned to say he could do anything he wanted to her, if he'd let her friends go. But a fresh look into that wire mask stole the words.
"I can take them off, if you'd rather." With a twang, the knot of wire collapsed to the ground. A jagged shadow oozed out, both darker and more torn than others she'd seen. Moving like liquid, it bled past Scarl to her. But Elbert did not leave the wire completely. It dragged after him, clinging and scratching, like the wet sand had weighted Neela's papa. Elbert's wire seemed to be a burden as well as a tool.
Ariel lost hold of that thought as the shadow wrapped around her. Neela clung tightly to Ariel's right side, but she couldn't stop it from slipping between them. Despite a clear struggle not to, Neela recoiled. Ariel didn't blame her. Elbert's touch froze her, his contempt dripping indecently over her skin. She understood better now how helpless Neela had been in the grip of her papa. Gritting her teeth, Ariel fought to stifle her goosebumps because she knew they'd please Elbert. She failed.
"Elbert." Although Scarl said it amiably, Ariel could tell by the tension in his body that the ease in his voice was false. He hadn't turned, but merely glanced over his shoulder, perhaps daring Elbert to attack his blind side. "I'm the one who knifed you. In the back. A coward's murder by any account. Aren't I the one you really want?"
"Oh, I'll get to you," Elbert hissed from somewhere near the back of Ariel's head. "But there's no need for haste. We've got eternity here."
He slid away. Ariel blinked back tears of relief as Elbert's wire once more rattled and rose around him.
"Uncle Elbert?" Neela gulped to stiffen her warbling voice. "You don't remember me, do you?"
The motion of Elbert's wire stopped.
"Surprise, Elbert," Zeke said. "That's Dain. Or, uh, Neela. Your own kin."
"You weren't bad to me when I was little," Neela said. "You oughtn't be so mean now. And you don't have to be stuck in the fog forever. You could follow the shadows. There's a fountain of light. You'd like it. It's nice."
For a long moment, Elbert stared at Neela. Then his laughter echoed. "Thanks for the advice, pet, but you'll be going without me. Should we start with you first? I bet that'd please the princess." A prong of wire ruffled Neela's hair. She winced at the gouging barbs. "Any friend of hers is no kin of mine."
The wire looped around the back of Neela's neck. She grabbed at it but couldn't resist as it pulled her from the others.
Scarl caught the wire, between barbs, where it passed him. "Before you start on them... As I recall, Elbert, you enjoy a good wager. I'd like to propose one."
Elbert chuckled. "What can you offer me, Scarl? I'd like to know. Any fool can see you're at my mercy."
Scarl coolly met Elbert's gaze--if empty sockets could be said to have one.
"You're bluffing," Elbert added. "You've got nothing. Admit it."
"I see overconfidence is still your greatest weakness."
Elbert stood silent and motionless except for the tips of a few wire strands, which twitched like the tails of irritated cats. Ariel held her breath, feeling a grim satisfaction, yet terrified of any wager Scarl might suggest.
Something tickled her right palm--probably a dribble of blood from trying to free her legs from the wire. When it persisted, she turned her palm up and glanced.
The symbols she'd picked up from the stone on the bridge all clustered there. They overlapped, shifted, jockeyed for position. Then they stilled, her pulse throbbing beneath them.
Thoughtfully, she turned her palm back out of sight just as Scarl asked Elbert, "Do you want to hear it or not?"
"All right," Elbert growled. "Amuse me with your pitiful hope, then."
"If I win, you let all three of them go, unharmed."
A protest rose into Ariel's throat. As she opened her mouth, a hand clamped on her leg to silence her--Zeke's. He kept his eyes on Elbert, but she decided to trust his advice.
"You'd best lay down the wager before babbling about stakes," Elbert told Scarl.
Scarl turned to look at Ariel, his eyes cool and distant. She knew she was supposed to take some message from them, but she wasn't sure what. He said, "I have a timepiece. If it works here." He drew it out of his pocket to check it. "Hmm. Still backward, but... yes." He raised it toward Elbert. "See how the longest arm swings around the circle? I'll bet I can withstand your... embrace, without a whimper, for a full round of that arm."
"No!" Ariel hissed. "You'll be cut to shreds!"
Elbert snorted and told Scarl, "You couldn't withstand my handshake, let alone my embrace. I'll strip your flesh to the bone in a heartbeat."
"Try me."
Ariel wanted to kick Scarl to shut him up. All she could think was that he hoped to occupy Elbert long enough for the rest of them to escape. But she wasn't leaving without him, and certainly not as Elbert whittled him to bloody rags.
"Nope," Elbert said, to Ariel's relief. "That's not a bet I will take, friend. Not because I think you can possibly win. But you might die too fast and miss the rest of the fun. If that happened, I'd feel like you'd won either way." His empty gaze shifted to Ariel. "But I will make the same bet with her. For a nice, leisurely handshake, that is. No embrace."
"No." Scarl pocketed his timepiece.
"Come now!" Elbert exclaimed. "A wager was all your idea! And a good one, perhaps. Let's keep it."
Scarl shook his head.
Ariel's lips pinched together, but an idea formed through her horror, so she loosened them again. "I'll take your bet," she told Elbert. "If you'll let Zeke and Neela go now, before we begin. No matter who wins."
Scarl whirled to grab her ankle. "Over my corpse, you might. Not a moment before."
"Hmm," Elbert said, sounding pleased by Scarl's reaction. "A hard bargain." He scraped a few wires together in what must have been consideration. They screeched like the wings of an unhappy cricket.
Ariel leaned forward to breathe words at Scarl that Elbert might not hear. "It'll happen anyway! At least let me win freedom for them!"
He groaned.
"And in return, princess?" said Elbert. "Because I don't believe you can shake this hand in silence." He raised a tangle of barbs. She tried not to see it. "I don't believe anyone could, least of all a smart-mouthed, stripling girl. So what do I get that I can't simply take?"
"Well..." Ariel fumbled for an answer until Scarl's face gave it to her. She had to look away from him to say it. "Scarl abides it, instead of trying to fight."
"Ah," Elbert said. "Abides and watches. No turning away. Not even to track that timepiece. My friend with the heavy feet can do that."
Flapping, the ghoul to the right clomped closer.
His eyes already closed, Scarl murmured, "You're killing me, Ariel. Stop."
"Yeah, don't," Zeke added. "Not for us. It's all right."
She had to let them know, somehow, that she had an idea. Ariel made a show of turning clumsily to her hands and knees before rising, giving her the chance
to think and to dart meaningful looks at both Zeke and Scarl. "I've been here long enough," she muttered. "Long enough." Would they guess what she meant?
"You can't stop me," she added, louder and mostly for Elbert. She rose to glare at him. "So do we have a bet?"
"Done," Elbert said. "Your apprentice friends mean little to me anyway." Wires reached to prick Zeke and Neela. They flinched. "Go on. Get."
At first Zeke refused, but Neela whispered in his ear and towed him away, giving Elbert wide berth. Seeing them go wrenched Ariel's heart, but once they'd passed out of sight, it felt lighter.
"We can tell which of us has more honor, eh, Scarl?" Elbert said.
"If what you have is honor, I'm not ashamed to have none."
"You will honor this wager, however," Elbert replied. "Or she'll pay the price."
Afraid he'd push Scarl to action before she was ready, Ariel said, "One last request, Elbert."
"The bet's already laid, princess. Too late."
She pretended she hadn't heard him and pointed. "If your... sailing friend is going to watch the timepiece, let me hold Scarl's knife in my other hand while you do this. It's like... a touchstone between us, that's all."
Elbert snorted, a grating sound. "It's also a fast way for you to escape by plunging it into your own heart. Forget it. In fact, let's remove the temptation." A wire spooled out toward the cobblestone ghoul. The sail drew back in a crumple, but it gave up Scarl's knife when Elbert's wire fist touched it. The wire flicked toward the end of the slope, and a second blade flew into the chasm below.
Scarl did not suppress a small groan.
Ariel thought fast. "His walking stick, then."
"What stick would that be?"
Ariel turned. Elbert was right. Scarl did not have his staff.
"Left in the tunnels," he said, his voice dead.
Ariel deflated. "Oh."
Elbert laughed. "You should learn to get along without these physical forms! You'll lose your own soon enough... though not too soon, I hope. Ready to hold hands with me, princess?"