by Joshua Cook
Here in the map room, outside the map itself, the mix was pretty even: threads and shining dots, hundreds of colors, shining bright. But the map - the map was a wonder. Large solid bands of threads mixed with large solid clumps of shining stars. Touching, and somehow working together, but not fully integrated. Heather raised one hand, clutching her focus – no fetish, he reminded himself. Whatever it was called, she used it like a focus, centering her power in the middle of it this time.
Threads spun toward the circle, forming a web projecting out of it, a long series of the shining dots of the human world’s magic flew down the center of this web, but oddly for once, they were all the same color; blue. Only blue. Cendan wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. He’d have to find a way to ask Heather without getting a sarcastic response. This mix, the web and the line of blue sparks, flowed over the map, the sparks searching the map like some sort of starry probe – or at least that was the only way he could seem to picture it. The web held the map in place as if it was going to try to get away.
There! Near the bottom, there was a small motion in a mass of solid threads! Cendan watched as the probing sparks flew toward that spot. The surface of the map in that area writhed in sudden motion, and he could hear Jasmine, startled by it, take a step back. Hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he took several steps back as-well. What exactly was going on, he wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be good.
With a crack, the wood in that area split and out came something from an entomologist’s nightmare. Cendan, horrified a bit, felt himself shudder. He hated bugs. He knew it was irrational, but the feeling had only gotten worse since the day he went through the portal. Those Klacker things had creeped him out, and this thing was just as bad, if on a smaller scale. Grub-like with wings, a round snapping mouth, and tentacles instead of legs, the thing flew into the air, its two sets of wings making a whine in the air that set Cendan’s teeth on edge.
“What the hell is that?” Cendan felt himself shudder. He could see the web though the one that Heather had created was keeping it back, as the thing lunged forward in the air, sliding back from the barrier. Jasmine had grabbed a small can of pepper spray from her key chain and kept her eye on the thing as it flew in fast short bursts.
Heather didn’t say anything at first, but her shoulders tensed up. Her voice came then, tight and clipped.
“We have to kill it. Now. Fast.”
Cendan looked around, unsure of what to use, there wasn’t much here other than the map. Thankfully Jasmine stepped forward and, holding the spray ready, glanced at Cendan.
“If she can hold it, I’ll spray it with this stuff. Dunno if it will kill it, but it hopefully won’t like it.” It was hard to hear her over the whine the thing was making, but Cendan got the gist.
Cendan looked around, still trying to find something to whack the thing with, when he had an idea. The lights! They looked like torches, maybe they could be taken down, hit the thing with one? He’d never actually tried to remove one of the lights, but it was worth a shot, he told himself.
“EVA? Any help?”
But oddly, EVA was silent still. Her presence was there, but still muffled; quiet. Rushing over to a light, he was relived to find that, yes, it did come out pretty easily. The one in his hand had six glowing balls that blinked, like eyes.
Sort of like spider eyes, the thought came, which was creepy enough based on the situation at hand.
“Ok, spray it!” Cendan yelled.
Jasmine let loose as Heather clamped the net down on the flying grub, and two things happened at once. As soon as the pepper spray hit the thing, a screech tore through the air, reverberating through the room. The thing also, however, fell to the ground allowing Cendan to, with an overhand two handed smash, crush the thing.
Chapter 5
Silence fell. Heather, Jasmine, and Cendan all exchanged glances at each other, and the nearly foot-long flying thing lying on the floor.
“Marcus had to have heard that.” Jasmine was the first to break the silence. “I’ll get Heather outside. Make something up to tell him until we can figure this out.” Grabbing Heather by the arm, despite the start of protests, Jasmine quickly ran out of the room towards the exit.
“What was that!?” Marcus came barreling into the room, focus held up. Cendan could only wonder at what he thought of the scene in front of him. A dead flying grub of large size; the smell of pepper spray in the air; and Cendan holding a wall-light like a two handed club with bits of… whatever the thing was still sticking to the glass on the light.
Eyes narrowed, Marcus lowered his hand slowly. “Ok, talk.”
Cendan sighed. Jasmine should have stayed and talked to Marcus, not him. Got to think fast, he told himself.
“Well… Jasmine and I were talking about the map, about how we hadn’t seen any Bridges since that day, right? I was talking to EVA and realized her and the map were linked somehow. We came in here, and while we were seeing if EVA could find anything wrong with the map, that thing,” Cendan paused and pointed at the remains of the creature on the floor. “That thing came out of the map. You can see the crack it made. Jasmine had the forethought to spray the thing with pepper spray, and I whacked it.” Cendan held up the wall torch.
“Marcus, I think the map is broken. I think that it’s been broken since that day.” Cendan wasn’t looking at Marcus. His eyes were glued to the map in front of him. “I don’t know how to fix this yet…”
The blow came fast, hard. Cendan went down involuntarily, grabbing the side of his head as pain exploded.
“You broke the map! It was fine,” Marcus yelled, standing over Cendan, rage written across his face. Cendan was stunned. Through the pain, he fumbled to think to something; anything to say. Instead, Marcus continued.
“You and that damn machine broke it!” Marcus slammed his fist into the map, his focus, the ring digging into the wood. “I used to dream about that thing coming back online. I used to wish for it, and now, like everything with you, you’ve ruined it.”
Cendan slowly came to his feet. He could feel a small drip of liquid on the side of his face - blood? Maybe from the ring.
“Marcus, calm the hell down. That thing broke the damn map. Not me, not EVA - that!” Cendan pointed to the remains on the floor. “It probably got there the day the Slyph attacked and Sal died! Think for a damn second, Marcus!” Cendan watched Marcus carefully. He wasn’t sure what had triggered this rage, this level of anger, but he wasn’t about to get sucker punched in the head again. Marcus he knew would be angry about the witch, but violence?
Marcus’s face, tightened, his lips a thin line on an already drawn and sharp face.
“Don’t you talk about the Bridgefinder that you got killed. For the last two weeks I’ve sat and thought, each day realizing more and more that you, Cendan, you are the cause of all of this ... this falling apart of the Bridgefinders.”
“Sal’s death, the map, the breaking of traditions, the tainting of Jasmine, all of it. It’s your fault. We should have let Grellnot damn well have you. I wish I could go back in time and take that focus of yours that day when you dropped it, the first night we all met. Take it and send you away. That would have been better than this!” Marcus held up his fist, white knuckled and pale. “I have been a Bridgefinder all my life. My parents were, and their parents before them. I honor this with my very life!”
“You, Cendan Key, you mock it. And now, your stupidity and carelessness have broken the very tool we need to keep this world safe.” Marcus spat on the floor. “That thing I’m sure was something you brought back from your little trip to the Slyph’s world.”
Cendan reached out to EVA mentally, but once again found her hard to reach. Prioritize! he told himself. Cendan opened his mouth to respond to Marcus, but closed it again.
Jasmine saved the day as she walked into the map room and stopped short.
“What is going on?” Jasmine rushed to Cendan, checking the mark on his face. “What happened?”
&n
bsp; Not taking his eyes off Marcus, Cendan let out a slow breath. “Marcus here blames me for the map, sucker punched me in the head. Apparently I’m the worst thing that ever happened to this place.”
Jasmine turned to Marcus, eyes wide. “Marcus?”
Marcus pointed at Cendan. “I want him gone, Jasmine. Don’t you get it? Everything we’ve done, everything we’ve worked for, our parents worked for, everything the Bridgefinders is under threat because of him!” Marcus turned to walk away, but instead stopped and stared Jasmine down. “Where were you just now Jasmine? I know you were here..”
Jasmine grabbed Cendan’s arm. “Marcus, you're being ridiculous. Cendan is—”
Marcus cut her off. “Gone Jasmine. I don’t care about anything. You’re staying, he’s going. Forever.”
Jasmine stood up straight. “Hell no. What is in your head? Cendan is a Maker, remember? You want to send away the only Maker we’ve had in over a thousand years?”
Marcus barked a short laugh. “Maker? He’s only making a mockery of us. Of all of us. Don’t you see it, Jasmine? In the short time he’s been here; this talk of magic; breaking things; getting Sal killed. He’s the cause of all the pain we’ve had.”
Jasmine and Cendan exchanged glances. Marcus didn’t know about Heather at least. Whatever was going on with him that knowledge would probably push him even farther down this dark path he was on.
“Cendan isn’t going anywhere, Marcus.” Jasmine answered quietly. “I don’t know where you are coming from, you're one of my oldest friends, and I’ve been proud to call you such, but this… this is insanity.”
Marcus grimaced in response. “Jasmine, I know you and he once dated, but get away from him. Just... stay here, and he leaves.”
Jasmine looked at Marcus and blanched. She turned to Cendan and whispered. “I think Marcus is... jealous.”
Cendan however was being pulled in a thousand different directions. Anger; that buried deep emotion threatened to come out and escalate quickly with Marcus. Confusion over what was going on and why; worry over what had happened to Marcus in the last two weeks as he had sat in the barrier room stewing over the changes that had happened.
Slowly, Jasmine’s whisper made its way through the crowd of thoughts in his head. “Jealous? What?” was all he could mumble in return. His head hurt.
“Jealous as in… of you.” Jasmine whispered again.
“Look, let me walk you out of this room. He won’t do anything with me here, at least I damn well hope not.” Jasmine locked eyes with Cendan, making sure he understood. Glancing at Marcus, who was still standing with his arms crossed, watching them whisper to each other.
Without saying anything else, Jasmine led Cendan out of the map room and down the hall, out of earshot of Marcus. “How are you?” Jasmine asked as she took another look at the wound.
“Damn it hurts. The cut hurts, my skull hurts. What do you mean jealous?” he said, wincing as he gently touched the sore spot from the blow.
“It’s no excuse, I find this all really hard to believe honestly, but Marcus is jealous of you. You’re the Maker; you saved us; you went to the Echo World; and you found Oakheart. All of it.” Jasmine sighed. “And you dated me.”
Cendan lowered his hand from his head. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Marcus and I are Bridgefinder kids. Our parents were Bridgefinders, and on and on. Marcus has long had a level of interest in me that I don’t share. He knows I don’t. And in the abstract, he was ok with it. He didn’t like it, but it was ok. But now, you, the person who did all these things that he the leader of what’s left of the Bridgefinders couldn’t even come close to doing, that person also used to date me? Bitter pill for him.” Jasmine sighed. “I never thought he would do this, however. I thought we were giving him space to get through things with Sal’s death. We should have not let him sit there and fester.”
Cendan gingerly nodded. “You think his jealousy and anger have pushed him to, well what, hating me?”
Jasmine slumped back against the wall. “I don’t know, maybe. But I’m at a loss what to do about it.”
Cendan was dumbfounded. He knew Marcus was unhappy, that much had been made clear before, but this attack, the sheer bitterness of it all. It baffled him. And now Marcus wanted him out of the Bridgefinders. Cendan wasn’t sure he could even do that. He hadn’t really paid much attention to what Marcus being the head of the group really meant.
“Maybe… maybe I should take a few days, let Marcus calm down some.” Cendan said trying to find the right path, the right set of Branches.
“This is crazy, Cendan. The map is broken; EVA can’t find the Bridges to keep them under control without it. Only a Maker can fix the map, and you’re the only one we have. And now Marcus wants you gone? Right now? When you’re the only thing that can fix it? He doesn’t even know about the Grellnot-Slyph fight yet!” Jasmine slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “I wish Sal was here. He seemed to be able to always find the right tone to get Marcus to listen, without setting him off.”
Neither of them said anything for a while, each lost in their thoughts. Jasmine, trying to figure out how everything had gone so badly, and Cendan wondering what to do and where to go. On top of it all, the issues with communication with EVA were odd as well. He still didn’t know enough about EVA to venture a guess as to what was going on with her. Jasmine gave out a long sigh, breaking the silence.
“Ok, we have to do something. So here’s my thoughts. You go get a few things together, do what you need to do, and head out for a few days. Go back to your house, take your focus with you, just in case. Give me a few days to try to get Marcus to change his mind. Or at least to figure out where all this came from. Not sure I feel particularly safe here either now, truthfully.”
EVA. Why couldn’t he talk to her? Was it something with that witch woman, Heather? Some part of the map issue? Marcus, who only a few short weeks ago had celebrated the return of EVA, now blamed her for the map breaking. For a second he wondered if Marcus had anything to do with the sabotage, the silence from EVA, but discarded the idea. Even as angry as he was with the man, Marcus wouldn’t do anything like that; at least he believed he wouldn’t.
Cendan nodded. “Maybe come with me? Leave him here to think things through, then come back to talk to him? I don’t want him attacking you or anything.”
Jasmine snorted. “Marcus wouldn’t do that.”
One finger extended to the drying cut on his face, he said, “I never thought he’d do this either, but it’s there isn’t it? Whatever story he’s invented in his head, it’s not one that says anything good about me, and possibly you.”
Jasmine started to answer, but held back for a few before finally talking. “That’s true, but I think I can do better here. If things look bad, or I can’t make any headway, I’ll come to your place as quickly as I can.”
Cendan didn’t like it, at all. He couldn’t force Jasmine to come with him, and their options were highly limited in terms of who could talk to Marcus. It didn’t seem to him that Marcus had any friends, really; the Bridgefinders were his life. That was it. Cendan realized, however, that he wasn’t much better. He hadn’t talked to, nor even thought about, the people he knew before all this started what, a month ago? Month and a half?
He was a very different person now, in some ways, but not in others. He still found people difficult to understand. Marcus’s newly found rage, however, shook him a bit. Not because it was aimed at him, though that wasn’t a pleasant thing. It was because that branch was one he could have gone down in the right circumstances, and he damn well didn’t like that. Maybe Jasmine was right though, go back to his old house, get a few days separation, and hopefully all this Marcus stuff gets fixed, then they could fix the real problem. The Map and the war on the Echo World. All of the actual ‘threaten the world’ stuff.
“Ok, Jasmine. I don’t like it, but I can’t think of a better path.”
Jasmine flashed him a smile.
“Don’t you mean branch?” She had always found his decision making process somewhat amusing.
“Har har. At least you can laugh about it.” Cendan shot back.
Cendan wanted to get a few things from his room here, grab a journal or two from the Maker wing, and touch base with EVA, if possible. He wasn’t sure how communication would go with EVA; he could still feel her in his head, but still muffled. Maybe being in the actual room would clear it up.
Jasmine nodded. “I’ll be careful, Cendan. I’ll give him some time to cool down and then talk to him. We can get this behind us and move on.”
The smile she flashed didn’t show much promise of that, however.
Chapter 6
Grellnot wiped its face again on its dirty sleeve and arm. Goblins, especially fat ones were rather greasy eating, and it didn’t want to get its shiny treasures too dirty with goblin blood and fat. It had followed the tribe it had ambushed before and gobbled down a particularly fat one for a meal. Grellnot, however, had some thinking he needed to do.
The Slyph was going to come for it. Grellnot knew this. It may not be the smartest creature the Slyph had ever created, but it was cunning, and it knew strategy. Right now she was powerful, but only had the power of this world, her world. Now that Oakheart had been taken away from her that was. More dangerous to Grellnot was her army of creatures. Those creatures, or at least most of them, thought of the Slyph as a living god. A god that gave them life.
Picking its teeth with a cracked goblin finger bone, Grellnot smiled. If the Slyph was the god who gave them life, Grellnot was the god who brought them death. Pausing, Grellnot stood up a bit straighter. Maybe... maybe Grellnot could use that. The Slyph’s army of creatures were just too many for Grellnot to stop on its own. But if Grellnot had its own creatures, maybe Grellnot could stop enough for Grellnot to get to the Slyph?
“Grellnot can’t make creatures, not like her. But maybe Grellnot can make creatures follow Grellnot. They not love Grellnot, no one loves Grellnot.”