by Isaac Hooke
"Hoodwink?" The green-cloaked man brightened. "Did you say Hoodwink?"
"This isn't Hoodwink you fool," piped up the gray-cloaked man beside him. Rasping and harsh, his voice sounded nearly as ancient as he looked. "It's a gol!"
"But Tanner's a gol," Green-cloak said. "And so is Ari!"
Gray-cloak regarded Hoodwink uncertainly. "How can we be sure you is who you say you is?"
Hoodwink gave him his trademark shit-eating grin. "Everyone knows that Hoodwink is seven feet tall, spits lightning bolts from his eyes, breathes fire from his lips and shits black death from his arse, so of course I must be him."
Green-cloak chortled.
"I am Hoodwink. Through and through. Now if you two bumbling jackanapes don't let me pass to see my wife, I'll knock both your numb skulls together and take a burning piss on your unconscious backsides."
"Uh," Green-cloak said.
"Uh," Gray-cloak said.
"That's what I thought." Hoodwink nodded in sour satisfaction, and shoved his way past the confused pair before they could oppose him.
He shut the door behind him.
"Was wondering when you'd come." Cora sat in a ladderback chair, a mandolin resting in her lap, its pluck on the table beside her.
Hoodwink was taken aback by the changes in Cora. Gone was the beautiful woman he'd named his wife, the woman with the twinkling eyes and the easy smile, replaced by a hunched imitation, her face lined by strain and worry, her dark eyes red and swollen as if she cried often, her hair more white than brown. An angry sea of ridges wrinkled her forehead and her nose was a bumpy knot.
Hoodwink's heart went out to her, it really did, and he felt the fresh weight of guilt pressing down on him. If he kept looking at her he thought he might weep, so he distracted himself by studying the room instead.
A candle lit the room from the table beside her. There was a visitor's chair off to one side, plain though well-polished. A small rug covered the center of the floor, woven into simple bars of red and yellow. A bookshelf sat against the far wall, filled with only three tomes. A bed and chamber pot used up the remaining space.
Overall, the room was little more than a windowless closet. He felt a bit insulted that Cora would be forced to stay here.
"Damn bastards could've given you a better room," Hoodwink said.
"Had a better room at first." Cora's voice was unusually quiet, and Hoodwink had to strain to hear her. "Bright. Shiny. Lots of furniture. But I asked to be moved here. Suits my mood. Reminds me of me home in Dhenn."
"Oh."
Her old accent was gone, and she sounded oddly like him. Which made sense if she'd lived in Dhenn. Luckdown District, where he grew up, was also known as Little Dhenn because of all the transplants from said city.
Hoodwink tentatively crossed the chamber, and lowered himself into the visitor's chair. He noticed for the first time that the tips of Cora's fingers were bloody. He wanted to touch her hands, cradle them, but that would be far too familiar.
"Cora, your poor hands," he said instead.
Eyes sad, Cora sighed. "Got nothing else to do here, I don't. Nothing to do whatsoever except play my fingers to the bone. And sing myself hoarse."
"Bastards," Hoodwink said. "They could at least allow you more freedom."
"Ari did this," Cora said.
Hoodwink stared down at his own hands. "She only wants to protect you."
"Oh, I'm sure she does. But you don't understand. Whatever she wants to do with me, she can. I fought her, you know, at first. Kicked and screamed all the way here. Well, most of the way. But I know now that I was wrong to fight. I should've followed her obediently, for what I done to her. For what you and I both done. We're forever in her debt. You know that, Hoodwink, don't you? Forever in her debt."
"We are." Hoodwink set his elbow in his lap, and palmed his chin. How was he going to tell her?
Cora strummed the mandolin weakly a few times. "I play happy songs, usually. The kind I used to play when you'd come home from work, and Yolinda from school. Yolinda. Do you remember when Ari was still called that? The songs make me think of her, of the better times. Do you remember Ode to White Park?"
Hoodwink smiled. That was a song she had invented in celebration of White Park, where he and Cora used to bring their little daughter everyday. They often kissed behind the trees while Yolinda cavorted with her friends. "I do. It's one of my favorites."
"Would you like to hear the tune?"
Hoodwink nodded. "I would."
Cora grinned for the first time, though it seemed somehow wrong on her face, those sad eyes betraying the smile for the lie it was. But instead of resting her fingertips over the strings in the proper manner, she wrapped her bloodied fingers around the strings, and yanked. The cords dug into her fingers, but she didn't stop pulling, the tendons standing out in her wrists.
"Cora," Hoodwink said. "Why the melodrama? Cora, just stop—"
All at once the strings snapped. So she'd done it. She'd broken her mandolin. Perhaps the last source of happiness she had left in this world. She'd broken it right in front of him.
That false smile didn't waver the whole time.
Hoodwink felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise. He had to be very careful. In the past Cora could be like a caged viper—one wrong move and that viper would leap out at him, biting. Was she still that way? And if so, just how the hell was he going to break the news about Ari without uncaging that viper?
"Maybe I should come back later," he said, standing.
"No, please stay," Cora said. "Stay. Today's a day of revelations and forgiveness." She dropped the mandolin to the floor, slid her body to the edge of the chair, and patted the cushion beside her, leaving prints of blood. "Sit with me."
"Cora, I—"
"Sit." Still smiling.
Hoodwink approached hesitantly. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was a bad idea. That she was up to something. "Look, Cora, I have to tell you something. And you're probably not going to like it."
"Since when have I ever liked anything you have to say?" Still smiling.
Hoodwink neared the chair. She patted the cushion again, smiling sweetly, eyes all sadness.
The viper... the caged viper...
Hoodwink started to sit—
He paused halfway down, waiting for the furtive knife, or the strike in the back.
Nothing came.
She was still smiling.
He sat.
His leg touched hers.
Electricity flowed into him.
And then he knew.
"You're a User," he said.
83
Hoodwink regarded her cautiously. She could incinerate him at any time if she knew what she was doing.
"Yes," Cora said, the sorrow obvious in her voice, the smile finally leaving her face. "I am a User. I've become the very thing I've always hated and feared. I was in the depths of depression six months ago, decrying my lot in life, when I realized I hadn't punished myself enough. No, there was one final punishment left. I had to become like her.
"So I asked around, found a smith who'd be willing to try to break the collar. Nearly took my head off, but he did it, and fashioned a new, fake collar for me to wear. I went home, and kept waiting for the gols to come for me. I kept wishing that they would. But they never did. The smith never talked. No one ever found out.
"It's a strange, funny thing, because even though I have the power, I can't use it. Even when I first touched vitra all those years ago, before they done the collaring, I couldn't shape it. It just flows across the surface of my skin. When Ari came to my house a few days back, I almost told her, wanted to brag how I'd punished myself for her, but I couldn't. She's suffered so much more than me, and my suffering is just a shred of what she's been through. No, I thought it better I suffer in silence."
"But you want me to know."
She nodded sadly. "I do. Not out of spite, mind. It just seems right somehow that you know, is all. That you're not the on
ly one who's suffered because of what we done."
Hoodwink fidgeted with his own collar. He wanted to tell her that his was fake too. That he might be able to teach her how to use the vitra within her, despite that he couldn't wield it in this body. He even considered going so far as to tell her that he was a gol, since she hadn't seemed to notice. But there were some things best left unsaid, for now.
He had more important things to tell her in any case. He steeled himself—
Cora got up abruptly, and reclined on the bed instead. She lowered her face to the pillow and looked at him. "I swore that if I ever saw you again, I'd do something nasty. Try to hurt you somehow. Breaking the mandolin seemed the best way. Further punishing myself. But that's silly. It really is. I've punished myself enough. And I don't want to hurt you. I really don't. That's not who I am. I told myself that you were the source of all the trouble and anguish in my life. But it's not you. It's me. It's always been me."
Hoodwink sighed. He was going to tell her about Ari. He was. In a bit. "Ten years. Even after ten years, you're still grieving. Still blaming yourself. You've just let it build up over the years, haven't you?"
Cora smiled fleetingly. "We shouldn't have sold her, Hoodwink. What were we thinking? What right did we have? Revising our daughter. Changing her because we didn't like what we thought she was becoming. What if it was just a phase? What if she would have met a nice young man and married a few months after? What if...?" She fingered her fake collar.
He wanted to tell her that they did what they thought was right for Ari, that they did their best for her, but he knew that wasn't true. It was the money that convinced them in the end. One hundred thousand drachmae. Hoodwink wouldn't have to work ever again. Nor Cora. Funny thing was, when they got the money, they never spent a coin of it. Stowed it away in the closet. It felt too much like blood money. Consumed by guilt, they tried to buy Ari back a month later. Jeremy wanted ten times the price. Cora went running to her brother, Briar, but even he couldn't afford such an outrageous sum.
"We thought we did the right thing," was all Hoodwink could manage.
Cora smiled so sardonically that it felt like she'd slapped him in the face. "The right thing? Selling our daughter to a madman was the right thing?"
"We didn't know he was a madman at the time. He was the mayor of the city. It felt like we'd won the lottery. We'd get money, influence..."
"She was too beautiful, Hoodwink. We always knew that. Beauty attracts the worst kind of men. I should've known. I've experienced more than my share of them." She gave him a significant look.
Hoodwink let the insult pass. In fact, he was rather glad she'd said it, because it reminded him of the old, spirited Cora.
But the time for distractions was past. He had to tell her. But it would destroy her. It had almost destroyed him. Well, looking at her, there wasn't much left to destroy, was there?
"Ari's dead," Hoodwink said.
Cora laughed. She actually laughed. With her hoarse voice, it sounded more like sandpaper rasping against a tree trunk. "Get out of here, Hoodwink. You can't hurt me anymore. No one can."
"I'm serious." Hoodwink met her eye. She had to see it in his face. She had to see the sorrow. "You know I wouldn't lie about something like this."
"That's impossible. I just saw her a few days ago." The blood drained from Cora's face. "I just saw her I just saw her!" Cora's eyes squeezed shut, and her fingers tightened around the pillow until the knuckles went white. Blood from her fingertips smeared the fabric.
He couldn't take it anymore. He had to touch her. Had to hold her.
Hoodwink hurried to the bedside and lifted her in his arms. She was like a dead weight, all rigid and tense. She kept the pillow pressed firmly to her face. The tears flowed from her eyes.
"I'm so sorry," Hoodwink said.
Cora looked at him, eyes red, accusing. "I don't believe you. I don't I don't."
"She fell," Hoodwink said. "She was climbing the Forever Gate, and she fell."
"She fell," Cora echoed. "Climbing the Forever Gate." Her head started to sink, and then she looked up abruptly. "You put her up to it, didn't you?"
"No Cora," he said gently. "It wasn't me, not this time. It was all Ari. A choice she made. To protect someone else."
Cora nodded. "Just like her, to give her life for someone else. Just like my Yolinda."
"Cora, I'm going to save her, I am."
She stiffened. "What game are you playing? You just said she was dead."
"No game." Hoodwink regarded her as tenderly as he could, and combed the tear-matted hair from her face. "She is dead. I've seen her body. But I have a way to save her. You know I wouldn't tell you if I didn't."
Her features scrunched up in confusion. "You would bring her back from the dead?"
"I would."
"But how can that be possible?"
"You have to trust me, Cora. You know I wouldn't say it if it weren't true." Hoodwink continued to stroke her hair. "What's impossible, is possible. Ari told me those words."
"You're mad." Cora wiggled from his grasp.
Hoodwink sighed. "No."
"Then tell me how you would do it."
He let his tender smile deepen. "I'm not sure how I can explain it so you'll understand, but I'll try." He paused to collect his thoughts. "Something of her essence was taken away before she died. I'm going to take that essence back. And once I have it, there's a chance I can save her."
"So there's only a chance," Cora said, slumping again. "You made it sound like a certainty."
"I swear I'll do my best to bring her back," Hoodwink said. "That's all I can offer. That's all I can promise. A chance. And that I'll do my best."
"I believe you." She nodded to herself. "I actually believe you." Cora gripped his collar then, and he felt the electricity flowing into him. She spoke urgently, though her voice was little more than a whisper. "You bring her back, Hoodwink, you hear? I don't care if you have to break apart this world or the next, the nine hells or the afterlife. Destroy it all. But you bring— her— back."
It might just come to the destruction of this world, though Hoodwink sincerely hoped not. "I will." His voice was a whisper too now. "I will, Cora."
He looked into her eyes. There was something he hadn't seen there for a long time.
Forgiveness.
The door to the room slammed open and Hoodwink started.
It was Tanner. "Hood, come quick!"
Hoodwink sprung up in alarm. "What is it?"
"There's an emissary from Jeremy at the gate to the Den. He's demanding the Dwarf."
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As Hoodwink hurried along the snowpack streets of the Black Den, Tanner explained that the children had returned his message. "They're in Omega Station."
"Good good," Hoodwink said distractedly. His mind was on Cora. She had forgiven him at long last. Maybe after this was over...
"So when we return Outside," Tanner continued. "I say we go to Omega Station, and meet with them right away."
"Great great. I agree."
"They've been busy, by the way. Sent me the source for some gifts."
That piqued Hoodwink's interest. "Gifts?"
"Lightning rings."
"Lightning rings," Hoodwink deadpanned.
"Each one has a charge similar to vitra. With the rings, anyone can use lightning—collared or uncollared, human or gol. But the rings follow the same rules as ordinary vitra, and need time to recharge."
"The children can make unlimited fire swords but they can't make unlimited lightning rings?"
Tanner shrugged. "I'll see if I can change that sometime. Oh, and I couldn't find Brute. So I can't give you confirmation on the disk."
Hoodwink nodded curtly. "Doesn't matter. Jeremy has it I'm sure. And we all know where he is." Though it probably wasn't the greatest idea for Hoodwink to seek out Jeremy so soon. In Hoodwink's current state, he had no idea what he'd do to the man.
Hoodwink and Tanner turned onto the street tha
t led to the main gates. Here, the wives and children of the ruffians who lived in the Den were peering from the doorways of their shack-homes, wondering at the commotion by the entrance.
Around the gate itself, a hubbub of Denizens had gathered, mostly the meanest rough-and-toughs. Hoodwink shoved his way forward—he never heard so many insults directed his way in all his life. After getting through that mess, he and Tanner joined Jacob at the front, just behind Cap and Al.
Jacob gave him a sidelong glance, and the old man said, underbreath, "Jeremy's Emissary wants to parley for the Dwarf."
Beyond the gate stood a curious specimen, a gol of a type Hoodwink had never seen before. Tanner had told him of the new gols, the 'Direwalkers' as he called them, but this gol didn't match his descriptions. It wore a long black coat and gauntlets of black metal. When the gol opened its mouth, all its front teeth were long and pointy, not just the canines. The gol seemed to enjoy flashing those sharp teeth, and it took every opportunity to do just that. There was a strange symbol on its coat—a sun with rays of all different sizes. The symbol seemed vaguely familiar, but Hoodwink couldn't place it.
"The Den shall suffer badly," the Emissary was saying. "Very badly."
Cap glanced behind. He smiled broadly when he saw Hoodwink, and he wrapped his arm around Hoodwink's shoulder as if they were the best of friends. "So what do you think? You're a gol. Is it telling the truth?"
Hoodwink regarded Cap warily. "Hell if I know, I just got here. What's it saying?"
"Oh, not too much. Just that Jeremy will unleash his full wrath on this place if we don't give up the Dwarf. That he'll burn the Den down, cut out all our hearts, and hang our heads from the parapets of our own wall. Yada yada yada."
Hoodwink pursed his lips. "Well, I have a wee bit of experience dealing with gols. Do you mind?" Hoodwink beckoned at the gate.
"By all means," Cap said. "In fact, I insist."
"Good." Hoodwink slid out from under the man's arm. "You wouldn't happen to have a sword?"
Cap glanced at Al, who drew his blade and handed the weapon hilt-first to Hoodwink.