Tar

by Taylor Hohulin

His head spun, reorienting to his new position. He’d done more than stumble onto an unexpected staircase. This was something else entirely.

  Brendan was upside-down.

  Somehow, he was standing on the underside of Lou’s Fuel and Fix, a reversed gravity holding him in place. Lou’s Fuel and Fix became a cavern beneath him. From this inverted perspective, all of Black Falls was a subterranean cave with stalactites in the form of crumbling buildings. The infected became its denizens, crawling along the ceiling.

  Brendan staggered, placing one hand over his eyes as he regained his bearings. A calloused hand gripped his shoulder.

  “You’ll adjust soon enough,” said Samson. “Have a seat if it will help.”

  Brendan nodded weakly and collapsed. He tried to wrap his mind around this strange space, but the only way he could do it was by envisioning this world and the one beneath him (above him?) as two separate ones. These worlds did not grow in opposite directions from alternate sides of the same plane. Here, the ground beneath his feet was beneath his feet, not above, and there...well, there was no there. Only here.

  The more Brendan put Lou’s Fuel and Fix out of his mind, the better he adjusted to his new surroundings. It was bright here, though he couldn’t find the source of the glow. The light bleached away even his shadow. The earth beneath him was smooth, hard, and pure white, which only enhanced the blinding glow.

  Soon, Krystal stumbled onto the plane with Brendan and Samson. It was a strange sight, the way her body whipped around like a spoke on a wheel. She wobbled on her feet, likely overcome with the same disorientation Brendan had experienced. Samson made the same comments to her he had to Brendan, and she joined him on the ground.

  “Do not linger,” Samson said. “We are nearly there.”

  The dizziness returned as Krystal came over the ledge, but Brendan pushed it away. As the world settled beneath him, he looked up to Samson. The old wizard was staring at some point farther along the white plane.

  Up ahead, a massive hole opened in the smooth white surface. A perfectly rounded edge formed a circle that must have been hundreds of feet in diameter. In the middle of that empty circle was a castle.

  A floating castle.

  Aside from the fact that it floated upside-down in a hollowed-out space beneath the earth, this was no ordinary castle. It gleamed in the blinding light, polished and in pristine condition. Every square inch seemed in motion. Towers spun as if on well-oiled sockets. Decorative globes hovered over display trays, bobbing and turning in the golden light. The components making up the castle’s exterior—which Brendan could only think of as blocks, though the term seemed too crude in his mind—rearranged constantly, sliding and melting over one another and forming intricate, shifting designs. The longer Brendan stared, the more details he noticed. The castle blossomed with intricacy, new features coming to life every second, morphing and increasing in complexity and splitting into newer structures. If he watched the castle all day, he would notice fresh wonders with each passing moment.

  Samson’s voice broke through Brendan’s reverie: “Come on. No sense waiting any longer.”

  Still dazed, Brendan got to his feet and helped Krystal to hers. Together, the three of them approached the floating castle.

  6

  When they reached the edge of the hole over which the castle floated, Samson raised a hand, motioning for them to stop.

  “Come on, Ansel,” he shouted, his voice reverberating over the glowing landscape. “You have allowed us this far. Let us in.”

  In response, the blocks formed a new pattern. Rather than blossoming outward into newer, more complex designs, the shapes coalesced. Smaller blocks joined larger ones, and soon the design on the castle’s exterior was a series of rectangles as long as the castle’s entry. The pattern remained static only momentarily; as smoothly as the shapes had fused together, newly created blocks melted out of the walls. White rectangles bulged, then extended and detached themselves from the facade behind them. They made no sound, and they left no hole, as if another block came forward just in time to fill the newly emptied space.

  Silently, serenely, the blocks floated over the chasm between Samson and the castle. They moved in perfect synchronization and settled in the air, forming one long staircase leading from the hole’s edge to the castle’s doorstep.

  Samson didn’t watch Brendan and Krystal to see how they would respond. He stepped out and climbed the staircase which had been embedded in the castle’s walls only moments ago. Brendan shared a look with Krystal, took a deep, steadying breath, and followed the old wizard.

  Even though each floating block was a good ten feet across, Brendan still climbed the new staircase hesitantly. He couldn’t shake the feeling that one false move was all it would take to knock a stair free and send him plummeting to his doom.

  But still he followed Samson. He’d come this far. He had no other choice.

  7

  The inside of Ansel’s castle was somehow brighter than its exterior. Brendan squinted against the light, but even so, it was impossible to miss the place’s dizzying intricacy. More blossoming patterns danced along the inner walls and floor, infinitely increasing in complexity and beauty. There were statues around every turn, each in constant motion. One figure reached out as if to touch Brendan’s shoulder. Another seemed to follow Krystal with large, staring eyes. Brendan couldn’t pay much attention to any of it, though. All this motion gave him a headache as it was. To truly look at it all, to attempt to take it in, might drive him mad.

  “This is incredible,” Krystal said. “Is Ansel doing all of it?”

  Samson grunted something resembling agreement. He led them through an open courtyard and more winding hallways.

  “He must use so much power to keep it all going.” She reached out to touch a statue stationed at one corner. Its fingers curled to meet hers. “Wouldn’t all of this wipe his mind clean? That’s how your powers work, right? What if it’s too much for him, and he forgets everything?”

  Samson glanced back at her. “There are days when I believe that is precisely why he built this castle.”

  That was enough to quiet Krystal down. Samson led the way in silence, and they continued down hallways of shifting, kaleidoscopic designs. So far, they’d seen no people. The only sound was the echoing of their own footsteps. Now and then, Brendan would notice someone waiting on the edge of his vision, but when he turned it would only be a pattern on the wall. Either that, or it would be a statue, moving ever so subtly.

  The twisting hallways led them to a dining hall. Here there was no ceiling—only a vast emptiness, impossibly black over the castle’s blinding light. Torches lined the walls, and a table filled the room’s center, large enough to accommodate a small army. Rows of empty plates and glasses waited at each seat.

  At the far end of the table sat a man who appeared to be about Samson’s age.

  “Ansel,” Samson said.

  Ansel looked up through wisps of gray hair.

  “Few know where this place is,” he said. “Fewer still know my name. Who are you?”

  Samson crossed the room. Each step he took echoed loudly, reverberating off the walls and rising into the void overhead. He pulled out a chair next to Ansel and sat.

  “My name is Samson. You know me. We fought Merovech together.”

  Ansel kept his eyes fixed on a spot midway across the table. “Merovech,” he said under his breath. “I know that name.”

  Samson put a hand on Ansel’s wrist. Ansel shrank away, and Samson didn’t pursue him.

  “He used to be our friend,” Samson pressed. “We studied together under Merlin.”

  Ansel grunted in response, but it was noncommittal. He wasn’t evading. He had no idea what Samson was talking about. All the power it took to keep this upside-down castle in place had wiped his mind clean.

  “You and I placed a curse on Merovech,” Samson said. “But now he’
s escaped its power.”

  Something lit in Ansel’s face. He clutched Samson’s hand in both of his and locked eyes with the old wizard.

  “Escape.” Ansel said. “Escape. What if he escapes.”

  Samson’s face remained impassive. “He has been creating openings between our world and Tir Anhrefnus. The blight is seeping through once again. He must be stopped.”

  Ansel stared at Samson, eyes blazing. His lips trembled, and Samson’s fingers turned red in Ansel’s ever-strengthening grip.

  Finally, Ansel said, “The cost. The cost is not too high. I do not wish to pay. The cost. The cost. The cost.”

  The old man continued babbling, his words devolving into greater and greater confusion. Those same phrases from the last few pages of the Book of Memory mingled and morphed in his speech.

  An expression flickered across Samson’s face—sadness, maybe?—and then it vanished. The gray-haired wizard pulled his hands free.

  “Ansel, I know there is still some of you in there. A part of you remembers what must be done. I do not even ask that you come with us. I only ask that you show us where the portal is.”

  But Ansel was too far gone. He babbled nonstop, pausing only occasionally to gasp for breath. His gaze drifted from Samson’s face back to the table.

  Samson smacked Ansel across the jaw. The sound of skin on skin echoed in the wide-open dining hall. Ansel stopped talking, and then Samson’s roaring voice filled the room.

  “Ansel! Stop this madness!” Samson took the frail man by the shoulders and shook him. “I don’t care if you stay up here and let your mind rot, but you will show us to the portal!”

  In a sudden, surprising show of strength, Ansel ripped Samson’s hands from his shoulder and backed away from the table. He leveled a finger at Samson.

  “Watch your tongue, stranger!” Clarity fell over Ansel. If not for everything else he’d seen and heard, Brendan would have believed the old man remembered everything, that he’d only been playing the part of a madman. “You are here only by my permission! Your feet remain on the ground only by my command! Without my power, you will die here. I say it again: Watch. Your. Tongue.”

  And suddenly, Brendan tumbled into the sky.

  He was once again aware that he’d been walking on the underside of the earth, that he wasn’t falling up, but down. Gravity had reversed once again, sucking Brendan away from the kaleidoscopic floor of Ansel’s castle. It pulled him into the emptiness which had always been beneath Brendan, not above him.

  He plummeted headfirst, along with Samson and Krystal. He was too afraid to scream.

  Brendan was about to reach out with his mod, hoping to catch a chair, a torch, anything still held in place by Ansel’s power, but then he stopped falling. Now he floated hundreds of feet above (below?) the dining hall. Ansel was a speck from this distance, but when he spoke, his voice was right next to Brendan’s ear.

  “You are guests here. Do not forget that. You demand nothing of me. I will help as best I can, but I will not tolerate this behavior.”

  And then the strange, reversed gravity returned, reeling them back to the dining hall. They floated gracefully through the air, held by Ansel’s power.

  “Since you are guests, I will not cast you out for one impertinent comment,” Ansel said. “We will share a meal, and I will listen to your requests. I will give you beds for the night, and in the morning we will decide what to do about this portal you seek.”

  They came the rest of the way, settling into the seats nearest Ansel. Brendan gripped the table, trying to convince his mind that the space above his head was up, and the space below his feet was down. With some effort, he forgot the upside-down world above his feet.

  When the disorientation passed, Brendan realized the dishes around the table were filled with food. He was certain they’d been empty when the three of them arrived, but now they were piled high with glistening cuts of meat, plump fruits, and flaky bread. The smell wafting from the dishes was so intoxicating that Brendan didn’t care where the meal came from. After Samson’s bland road rations, anything would be a delectable feast.

  With a wave of Ansel’s hand, the food rose from the dishes and distributed itself among the four settings at the table. Once it settled into place, Ansel took his silverware and cut into his meat.

  “So,” he said. “Tell me again why you are here.”

  Samson didn’t touch his food. He only looked at Ansel intently. “Many years ago, we fought a great evil. It was the blight, called into this world from Tir Anhrefnus by Merovech.”

  “Merovech,” Ansel echoed. His eyes grew distant.

  “We could not kill Merovech, but we trapped him in Tir Anhrefnus and placed a curse on him to prevent him from using his power over the blight,” Samson continued. “For a long time, that was enough. There was no sign of the blight in two thousand years. But now it has returned, and it spreads worse than it ever did in our day.”

  “Two thousand years later?” Ansel said.

  Samson nodded.

  “This blight went dormant for two thousand years, and when it returned...I was still alive?”

  Another nod.

  “Impossible. There is no way anyone could live that long.”

  “Impossible?” Samson said, and for the first time, Brendan thought he saw a quirk of a smile play at the old wizard’s lip. “What is this castle, then? Hanging upside-down from beneath the earth’s surface, with living stones in its walls?”

  Ansel folded his arms, eying Samson suspiciously.

  “You and I have been granted incredible power, Ansel,” said Samson. “The same power that keeps us in our chairs has kept you and I alive these past two millennia. Our former companion Merovech was granted another, darker, power. I believe he is using it even now to send the blight into our world. We must finish what we started two thousand years ago. We must reopen the portal to Tir Anhrefnus and send this man—” Samson gestured at Brendan. “—to do what we could not. He has the same power as Merovech. If anyone can kill Merovech, it is he.”

  Ansel watched Samson over his steaming plate. He folded bony fingers in front of his face and heaved a long sigh.

  “You tell quite the story,” Ansel said. “I have not yet decided how I should respond. Allow me to spend the night in thought.”

  Samson flushed, but quelled whatever rage bubbled in him. Reluctantly, he nodded and rose from the table.

  “Thank you for your time. If I may, I’d like a bed now. We have traveled long hours.”

  “Very well,” Ansel replied. Then, with a wave of his hand, “It is ready. I trust you will find it satisfactory.”

  Samson hesitated for only a moment before exiting the dining hall and leaving Brendan and Krystal alone with the mad wizard they’d traveled so far to meet.

  8

  The dinner concluded in silence. Ansel asked no more questions, and Brendan and Krystal offered no more arguments.

  When they’d finished eating, Ansel told them where they would find their bedrooms. The blocks in the walls served as guides, moving and converging and splitting in one continuous direction, so that as Brendan and Krystal followed the motion, they found their way with ease. Ansel had prepared three separate rooms, one for each of them.

  Brendan’s room was nothing fancy, but the bed was soft and there was a sink with running water. Much to his relief, the blinding white light stayed out of the room, and though the bedroom walls had the same constantly shifting patterns as the rest of the castle, these were of a more subdued, calming nature.

  But Brendan had no plans to sleep.

  He lay in bed without closing his eyes. This was his last chance to avoid traveling to Tir Anhrefnus and taking on Merovech alone. At least, he hoped he still had a chance to escape. There was that gulf between the castle and the edge of the white surface, and then the strange transition between the reversed gravity of this upside-down world and
the cellar below Lou’s Fuel and Fix.

  His choices were to try his luck escaping tonight, or to dive headfirst into Tir Anhrefnus and hope he’d survive a fight with Merovech. He wasn’t wild about either, but the former had a higher chance of success.

  So he lay there, staring at the ceiling’s shifting patterns, counting the moments and thinking through all the things that might go wrong.

  After two hours, Brendan slid out of bed. He padded across the room, his steps perfectly silent. There were no ancient, groaning floorboards in Ansel’s castle.

  He twisted the latch and pushed. The door didn’t squeal on its hinges, thanks again to whatever pristine substance Ansel used to build the place. A beam of white light cut into Brendan’s room. He squinted at the sudden brightness and shielded his eyes.

  He hurried along the hallways, taking care not to let his feet scuff against the floor, and a strange sensation came over him as he walked. His body felt lighter. He lifted off the ground a few inches, floating upward with every step.

  The hallway wound in confusing directions. At one point, Brendan was certain if he drew a map of the place, it would show the passage doubling back on itself and crisscrossing its own hallways, though there was never anything but this path. Brendan tried to remember the route they’d taken, all the way from the castle’s entrance to his sleeping quarters, but it was possible even that wouldn’t help. Maybe the floor plan shifted constantly, another feature to require Ansel’s power and consume his mind.

  The shapes on the walls differed from what Brendan had seen before. They weren’t mimicking the soothing, gentle motions he’d observed in his sleeping quarters, or even the dizzying patterns he’d seen when they first arrived. The blocks now jittered in place, skipped from one end of the wall to the other, collided with other blocks, and flickered between a dozen ugly shades. The chaos created a weight in the pit of Brendan’s stomach.

  He kept walking, trusting the hallways to take him where he needed to go.

  The courtyards sported new statues. What had once been men and women in proud athletic poses were twisted now, their limbs shriveled and their expressions contorted in agony. Brendan had never seen creatures like these, with blank faces or extra appendages bent at impossible angles. Some lacked any discernible form, as if they’d escaped a furnace moments after they began melting.