“You aren’t defenseless, you know.”
Brendan started at the small, quiet voice inches from his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw long, dark hair and ragged clothes.
Alicia had returned to him.
The Tin Can Man couldn’t see her. Otherwise he would have reacted. No one was too focused to notice a little girl appearing next to the man he was trying to choke to death.
Without turning, Brendan made out the hazy shimmer that meant Alicia had only projected her presence here—apparently something she could do while only revealing herself to certain people.
“Your friend’s mind is blocked, but you can still command the Black God,” said Alicia.
Brendan grunted, partially in response to her and partially as a reaction to the Tin Can Man’s redoubled efforts to draw within killing distance. He wanted to tell her she was an idiot, that she was wasting both their time. Even if the drugs hadn’t blocked Brendan’s powers, the Tin Can Man had made sure there wasn’t an ounce of unsealed tar in his hideout.
As if hearing his thoughts, Alicia said. “The Black God is never far. Its home is just on the other side of the shadows. You can call it here.” Alicia’s projection floated closer still. “Just like you will one day call Those Beyond and reunite them with us.”
Brendan almost reached to shove her away, but her words lodged in his mind. They rearranged the framework of his imagination, and the world around him gained new clarity. In a flash, he understood what his world was—and, more importantly, where it was.
He also knew where Tir Anhrefnus was. He knew how to reach out, how to touch it.
And so he did.
He reached through the barrier between worlds and took hold of what waited on the other side. When he withdrew his arm, he held a writhing, inky tentacle. He wound it around his hand, pulling it into the cell with the Tin Can Man.
The smile remained frozen on his attacker’s face, but the body language changed. He stiffened. The pressure he’d been putting on Brendan’s body lessened, and he backed away.
“How...how...” his voice stuttered through the grinning mask.
The Tin Can Man let him go, scrambling backward in a frantic crab-walk. The metal monster was afraid, and though Brendan was bleeding and weak, he held all the power because of the black infection clutched in his left hand.
Brendan tottered to his feet. He followed the Tin Can Man as he backed away, holding his left hand by his head, the tar trailing behind him like a balloon in the wind.
The Tin Can Man’s armor had no openings, but Brendan needed no openings. As fresh knowledge of the power coursed through Brendan’s mind, he understood he didn’t need an opening. If he had the power to create a portal between this world and Tir Anhrefnus, it would be simple to create a portal between the air outside the Tin Can Man’s suit and the vulnerable flesh beneath it.
Brendan pulled the rest of the black tentacle through and allowed the portal between worlds to close. He released the tentacle and watched it float through the air, undulating in a serpentine motion toward the cowering Tin Can Man.
The black serpent hovered six inches over that mad grinning skull and circled, waiting for Brendan to direct it, waiting for him to open a portal to its next meal.
“Brendan!” said a voice. His concentration halted. The tar paused in its circles.
Brendan turned to see Krystal. She’d risen to her knees, and now looked up at him, white-faced.
“Don’t do it,” she said. “You’re better than this.”
But that was the thing. Brendan wasn’t sure that was true. His mind ran over everything he’d done since discovering his power. He remembered Tiger Stripe in the basement, the group of guys in the bar, Marcus at the Hotel Shalom. And now the Tin Can Man. This power showed him who he really was. Without a need for survival forcing his hand, his true colors shone bright.
But did he want these to be his true colors? Was this who he wanted to be? Someone so obsessed with wielding power that he would send the tar after anyone who got in his way? If every decision he made ceased being purely survival-based, couldn’t he try to be better?
The Tin Can Man lay in a corner of the cell, raising one hand in a pitiful show of defense. The tar circled overhead, pinning him in place. If anyone deserved infection, it was the Tin Can Man. He’d done so much evil, and for what? A little more power?
Here in this dank cell lay the logical end to Brendan’s path: Someone who hunted innocent people and hurt them just to upgrade his batteries. The Tin Can Man spent every day searching the highways for more people to infect and place inside one of his horrible cubes.
Brendan couldn’t become the Tin Can Man, but he knew if he infected the man cowering on the floor, that was exactly what would happen.
So he opened the portal to Tir Anhrefnus once again and sent the black tentacle through it. Inch by inch, the sick blackness disappeared. Brendan felt its displeasure the entire time, but he kept pushing. Brendan closed the portal behind it and let out a shaky breath.
“Come on,” Krystal said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Brendan took one last look at the Tin Can Man, a crumpled mess in the corner of the cell, and then Krystal appeared at his side, nudging him toward the door. Samson stood at his other side and caught his eye.
“You did the right thing,” muttered the old wizard.
The cell door remained cracked open from when the Tin Can Man had entered and took only a nudge from Samson’s foot to open. Together, the three walked into freedom.
But before they got far, a mechanical roar exploded behind them. Brendan turned in time to see the Tin Can Man lunge forward, wrap a metal arm around Krystal’s waist, and drag her back to his old corner of the cell. Krystal struggled, but his modded strength was too much.
“I’m not coming out of this empty-handed!” said the Tin Can Man. “Leave and take your power with you, but I need something. I need more power cells.”
Brendan lifted a threatening hand, but the Tin Can Man hugged Krystal closer to his gleaming torso.
“You don’t want to bring the filth back in here, do you? Do you really trust yourself to send it into me and only me?”
Brendan paused. What choice did he have? Samson was not back to full strength, or he would’ve stepped in by now. The power of his mod wasn’t an option, either. It needed repairs badly.
But as Brendan stood there deliberating, Krystal leaped into action. In all his years of knowing her, Brendan hadn’t thought she could move like that.
In one deft movement, she slipped free of the Tin Can Man’s grasp and dove for the floor. She rolled over a cuff, scooping it up as she went. The Tin Can Man came after her, and she backed away, but as she did, her modded hand worked. The flesh fingers flipped back, and a multitude of tiny tools pressed into panels along the side of the cuff.
As suddenly as she’d dived away, she lunged at the Tin Can Man.
She dove, avoiding his grasping arms. With the cuff held open in her outstretched hands, she extended her arms and snapped the cuff around the metal creature’s leg.
The Tin Can Man paused, for a moment wondering along with Brendan and Samson what Krystal had done, and tried to run away when he realized what was happening.
But he was too slow.
Krystal took hold of the tube feeding into the cuff and gave it a yank. It pulled free, dribbling translucent fluid.
The Tin Can Man stiffened and fell to the ground. He said nothing. He didn’t even groan. The pain must have been too great.
Krystal wiped her hands on her hips and looked down at the Tin Can Man. “Not so fun when people turn your toys around on you, is it?” she said to the metal skeleton. “It’s okay. I have it on good authority there isn’t enough electricity in that shock to kill someone.”
The green-eyed grinning skull only stared back at her with a frozen expression of manic glee or terror.
And with that, she walked out of the cell, passing between Brendan and Samson without so much as a glance. She was halfway into the next hallway when she turned back to them.
“So are we getting out of here or what?”
From the Book of Memory
There is no killing Merovech. He has the same abilities Samson and I acquired all those years ago, but the power he draws from Tir Anhrefnus has grown immensely. We stood no chance when we confronted him. Even if we were to catch him unawares, I do not believe we have the strength to tear the life from his body.
We cannot confront him directly. We must take a different tack.
If we cannot kill him, perhaps we can trap him. Perhaps we can send him to that dark world he loves so much and then destroy his portal. If he could only travel to Tir Anhrefnus by building a portal, he must be unable to travel between worlds using his power alone.
It can be done. Just as I learned to conjure tryfnium and craft weapons from the white substance, so can I learn to trap Merovech’s powers—and thus, Merovech himself. The same pathways that opened in my mind and led me to tryfnium could easily lead me to a prison great enough to contain Merovech.
I fear Samson will be of little help. If I alone can create tryfnium, will I alone be able to conjure this prison for Merovech? And if the creation of a single tryfnium dagger rendered me unconscious and destroyed my memory of the entire day, what would be the cost that comes from this attack on Merovech?
Whatever the price may be, it could not be too high. No price is too high for what we hope to achieve.
And yet, it is one I do not wish to pay.
x x x
It is as I feared. Samson has been of little help.
He tries. He sits at the workbench with me; we explore the depths of our power together, racing along psychic planes only we can understand, but there is a distance to him. I see details he does not know to look for, and even when I show them to him, he remains blind to them.
In spite of this, I am making progress. As I had hoped, there is a way to trap Merovech in Tir Anhrefnus, and there is a way to block him from using his power. I have tested the theory with calculations and small-scale demonstrations, and by all accounts, it seems feasible. But it will take power. More power than I have used in my life.
I remind myself, once again, that no price is too high.
And I respond, once again, that I do not wish to pay.
To trap Merovech is as simple as dismantling his portal the instant he enters Tir Anhrefnus. This strategy, of course, requires us to allow Merovech to finish construction on his appalling invention. Perhaps it will not be so bad. Once the portal is completed, Merovech will be unable to resist traveling in body to the land he has only visited in spirit. I would not be surprised if he completed the portal one moment and passed through the next. If Samson and I are on hand when this happens, we could dismantle the portal as soon as Merovech passes through. Maybe, if we work quickly, no other creatures will cross that terrible barrier.
Samson does not understand this part of my plan.
“Why let him go to Tir Anhrefnus if we are also going to prevent him from exercising his power over the blight?” he asks me. “Why not strip him of his power here and kill him then?”
I only shake my head. He knows the answer but will not accept it.
The answer, blunt though it may sound, is that I simply do not know how effective it will be to block Merovech from using his powers. It may not work. Our labyrinth may only be a temporary prison from which he can escape within a year, two years, or one hundred years. No matter how long, we are safer with Merovech in Tir Anhrefnus. He may open small portals and send the blight through if he regains his powers, but we can fight the blight. We’ve proved that.
The one we cannot fight is Merovech, and if he is in Tir Anhrefnus, we will not have to fight him.
How could I explain this to Samson? Samson, always more warrior than researcher. Samson, approaching every destination in the straightest of lines, no matter the obstacles. I cannot tell him that sending Merovech to Tir Anhrefnus is an extra layer of security, in case I am unable to strip him of his power over the blight.
Perhaps I only tell myself I cannot tell him. Perhaps I simply do not wish to have that argument. I am so very tired. Every fiber of my being is devoted to this plan. No energy remains for a squabble with Samson. No time remains to ask if this is truly the best path.
The second part, that which requires me to prevent Merovech from using his power over the blight, will take such power that I do not know how much of myself will remain afterward. This is why I still write in this foolish book. Perhaps, after Merovech is no longer a threat and I am a blubbering shell of a man, I will read these pages and remember I have saved the world. Perhaps I will even believe it.
There is no word for what I want to do except curse—a crude term, one which superstitious townsfolk use when speaking of what we do. It reduces the complex reordering of reality into simple hand-waving and cheap tricks.
And yet, it fits. I will place a curse on Merovech.
He will be able to walk freely, to speak and to think without impediment. But he will be unable to access the part of his mind which allows him to command the blight, the part which enabled him to build this portal in the first place. I will reach inside, find the pathways which lead him to his power, and I will rearrange them. I will close doors. I will throw up dead ends. I will shift and spin the passageways which lead to power until his mind is a labyrinth he cannot recognize.
And still the small voice in my head, the one which sounds disturbingly like Samson, asks what might happen should Merovech escape the labyrinth?
I cannot worry about that now. Time is running out.
x x x
To cast this curse—a word I still cringe to use—requires two steps: first to create it, and then to place it on Merovech as he enters Tir Anhrefnus. I have begun work on the first step, weaving lines of power from the aether together, imbuing the mass of energy with instructions. Once absorbed, this ball of power will reorder the passageways of Merovech’s mind. It will hide his own power from him, turning him into a mere mortal.
These first steps require little of me, but the trial is coming. Soon I will push myself to the edge. I cannot stop imagining what the effort might do to me. I think of nothing else these days.
Samson does not try to help anymore. He knows this role is mine alone. He is unhappy (And why wouldn’t he be?) but he has accepted his place. While I work, he broods in chambers where he will not see me. He goes on long walks through the woods. And yet he is still with me, even when he is furthest from our cabin. His voice echoes in my mind, every moment of every day with its incessant questions:
What if it does not work?
What if Merovech escapes the labyrinth?
x x x
The hard work has begun and my mind is stretched thin like a drum. My eyes grow heavy but I must write.
I must document the folding and folding of power and energy. I must do as Merlin did because he is no more. Merlin created this book of memory because of what is happening to me now. The labyrinth of my mind is decaying the walls are growing soft and I wonder what if Merovech escapes? I must write because I am paying the price that could not be too high the price I do not wish to pay.
Samson isn’t helping. Watches me sometimes and has the look that says he wants to help but cannot. I tried to tell him today that I still need him that he will help soon but he is not placated and what if Merovech escapes.
Is his voice in my head or on his lips?
I cannot tell if he is asking the question or if I am imagining it so I do not answer. Just as well. I do not know the answer. I only know the price is not too high I do not wish to pay and what if Merovech escapes.
/> These phrases are like snares I cannot escape. They dance in my mind chase after one another shout so loud I sometimes have to stop my work until they pass they leave me alone.
The price is not too high.
x x x
I am making progress getting closer nearing the end.
I can scarcely explain what I do to myself much less Samson. He comes into the room whispers in my mind looks over my shoulder. Asks what I am doing how much longer what if Merovech escapes. I tell him I do not know. I say I do not wish to pay this price perhaps the curse will be completed soon.
maybe I only think it
Maybe Samson has not been in this room for days has run away shirked his duty is dead on the living room floor. How could I know with my mind in such a state?
––––––––
the price
is not
too high.
Maybe I am only wasting my time creating something useless doing nothing what if Merovech escapes.
The price is not too high.
I do not wish to pay the price is not too high.
Folding and folding and plucking aether and imbuing the curse with instructions to melt the walls of the labyrinth trap Merovech in Tir Anhrefnus in his mind the price is not too high.
––––––––
I do not know when the end will come but I hope it is soon.
x X x
The curse is complete.
This ball of aether this glowing orb sits on the workbench before me. What if it does not work what if Merovech escapes
How much of me is left?
Is Samson here?
Is that him speaking at my side or
whisper ing
in
my mind?
We will take it the curse to Merovech’s workshop to our old arcanum to the gates of hell. We will place a curse on our friend on our enemy on Merovech.
The price is not too high I do not wish to pay to pay too high what if Merovech escapes what if Merovech escapes what if the price is too high wish to pay if Merovech escapes the cost the cost the cost I wish to pay Merovech escapes what if I do not wish to pay the cost is MY MINDLEAKING INTO THIS BALL OF AETHER imbuing folding and folding and folding and labyrinth if Merovech escapes the cost is not too high
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