Saving Fable

by Scott Reintgen

  “So we go there first,” Maxi said. “I wish I felt more prepared for a fight. I haven’t had a white mocha all day. I can’t solve crimes without caffeine, but with the Talespin closed, the closest coffee shop is, like, all the way on the other side of town. It’s totally inconvenient.”

  Indira nodded absently. Then she grabbed hold of both of Maxi’s shoulders. Realization thundered to life. “The Talespin,” she said. “The mirror at the Talespin shows the Real World.”

  Maxi was nodding. “So which one is it? The Sepulcher or the Talespin?”

  Indira thought about that. The lives of their friends were on the line. She felt great about the Talespin. After all, why would a place in Fable be closed for renovations? Fable renovated everything itself. The shop being closed had to be connected to Ketty somehow. And the link to the Real World would make it a perfect location to attempt the spell. She didn’t say any of this out loud, though, because she couldn’t afford to be wrong. If both Maxi and Indira went to the same location and chose the wrong one, Brainstorm Ketty would win. She looked back at Maxi. Knowing her friend, she made a calculated guess.

  “I think the Sepulcher is more likely,” Indira said. “That’s how Ketty’s story ended.”

  “That’s where I’m going, then,” Maxi said, standing. “I’ve trained for these encounters my whole life. I’ll go to the Sepulcher. You go to the Talespin.”

  Indira started toward the entrance before Maxi snagged her by the arm. “If she’s there, be careful. Every character has a part to play. And this is our part. We get to be the heroes today.”

  She pulled Indira into a huge hug.

  “I’m going to spread the word first. No one can start a rumor like me.”

  Indira gave her a firm nod and took off. Characters scattered out of her way. She saw the professors staring as she ran through the doorway. Alice had a sly smile on her face.

  Outside, the storm had arrived. Lightning flashed in the distance.

  As rain began to fall, the Marks disappeared again. The sky swirled in an unnatural vortex that threatened to fling power down from the sky and devour whatever was below. Adrenaline pumped through Indira as she wound through the familiar streets. She didn’t have the map—and she hadn’t visited the Talespin since Maxi took her that first time—but she still remembered the section of town where it was located. She’d never forget seeing an Author—maybe her Author—and hearing the frightful voice echo, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

  If she couldn’t stop Brainstorm Ketty, her friends would be in serious danger. And the city of Fable might not even exist by the time Ketty was finished. Indira had to stop her.

  Rain came down and wind gusted and Indira was drenched by the time she reached the Talespin. In its Western attire, the coffee shop looked like an old-time saloon. A pair of swinging doors had a taped sign over them that was slowly turning gray and flimsy in the rain. A rope bound the doors together, but Indira kept running and rolled under them without even stopping. She came up with her hammer in hand, eyes scanning the faint light of the main room.

  It was empty.

  Stools had been overturned in one corner, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that there had been a struggle. A staircase led to the upper floor, but Indira knew that Ketty wasn’t up there. She would be by the mirror. After all, that was the gateway into the other world.

  Indira could feel something too. A pulsing magic that twisted her gut uncomfortably. She moved closer to a set of double doors that were a new addition to the coffee shop. Beneath the wooden panels she saw a slit of purple light. It even smelled dark and dank within.

  She had come to the right place.

  The spell’s ready, Indira thought. All she needs to do now is capture me.

  She gripped her hammer tightly and reached for the door’s handle. With a deep breath, she pulled it open and took two steps into the room.

  The scene was somehow more horrible than Indira had expected. The tables and chairs had been cleared away from the hardwood floors. Indira’s classmates had been laid out on their backs in a neat circle. She saw Margaret—and to her great surprise, the twins—and even her teacher Mr. Threepwood among the victims. Thankfully, she also saw their chests rising ever so slightly. They were alive, but clearly unconscious. She realized that all their hopes had been dashed, just like the spell said.

  In the odd purple light of the room, they looked somewhere between dead and dying.

  She had no idea what would happen if Ketty’s spell succeeded. Would they regenerate in the Ninth Hearth? Would her magic consume and use them as the ingredients to power her way to the next world? Indira didn’t want to find out. At the center of the room, a huge iron cauldron bubbled in medieval gloom. Liquid crackled out of it, and steam hung in the air like fog.

  Creepiest of all, a disembodied voice spoke in monotone. It sounded as if it was coming from the cauldron. After a few lines, she recognized the dark tones of Dr. Montague, the voice that Brainstorm Ketty had stolen.

  “…unsubstantial death…that the lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour…”

  Indira searched for Brainstorm Ketty, but she wasn’t in the room. Indira did spy Phoenix crumpled in one corner. His bright red hair had faded to brown. He looked shrunken, his magic forcefully taken. The thing that made him Phoenix had been stolen and used to fuel Ketty’s destructive spell. Indira guessed that she must have already released the essence of fire, because the room was hot and growing hotter.

  “…and never from this palace of dim night depart again…”

  Indira gripped her hammer and took two more steps into the room. She watched the shadows, waiting for Brainstorm Ketty to come storming out at her. But nothing happened. Indira waited impatiently at the edge of the circle, mind whirling, searching for some semblance of a plan. Her hammer could break or fix or fly, but it couldn’t stop magical spells. In the corner, a familiar gilded mirror loomed. Its surface was the pitch black of a cave.

  “…and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh…”

  Indira took another step forward, crouching low. Her eyes darted to the corners of the room before she leaned over Margaret and began working to untie the bindings around her thin wrists. In answer a voice boomed over Dr. Montague’s depressing whispers, powerful and looming, both there and not.

  “Come to be a part of the fun?” Laughter was in the voice. Deep and dark. “Indira Story on my trail. Indira Story, the final ingredient in the Raven King’s spell. I half hoped Detective Malaprop would come stumbling along, but this is far more appropriate.”

  At first Indira couldn’t find the source of the voice, but then the surface of the mirror boiled and bubbled like the cauldron. An image appeared in the smoke black. Brainstorm Ketty wore her familiar dragon-scale jacket over a charcoal dress and a pair of extravagant heels. Ketty was smiling down on Indira, and the mirror made her look bigger, more real, more frightening. She stood inside a massive stone tower with an onyx balcony in the background.

  Indira struggled to find her voice as Dr. Montague continued to mutter darkly from the cauldron. “Why are you doing this?” It felt like the cliché question a protagonist would ask, but Indira couldn’t figure it out. “Just because you were unfinished? Is that why?”

  Ketty’s eyes sparkled dangerously. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. You have no idea what it’s like to be unfinished. And after all this time, he had the nerve to actually try it again! He had the nerve to leave me behind again.”

  Indira’s mind was spinning. “Your story didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. I read it down in the Sepulcher, you know? Just because it didn’t go the way you wanted doesn’t give you the right to steal our chances at being in a story. Every character has a story. You told me that.”

  Ketty laughed. “Every character does have a story. And this
one will be mine. I deserved to be finished. I deserved to be loved by readers. And now I’m going to be reunited with him. I’m going to carve my mark on a story that’s all my own. Thanks to you and thanks to them. There’s no one who can stop me now, not even you.”

  The brainstorm flicked her wrist, and the doors in the room all slammed shut. Black ivy wound over the knobs and slashed over the windows. Fire flashed up from the cauldron.

  Sweat covered Indira’s face. She was searching for something, anything she could do to stop this. With a sweaty hand on the grip of her hammer, she strode forward. She marched up to the mirror and took an arching swing at it. The glass shattered, falling to the floor in jagged pieces. The upper half clung to its frame, though, and Ketty’s reflection laughed at her.

  “You’re too late, girl. You can’t stop me that way.” The laughter rang louder and darker, and strange purple light gathered above the cauldron. “The Raven King’s spells are thorough and strong. I’ve been an admirer of his for a long time.”

  Indira flipped her hammer and hit the mirror again. The little pieces sucked back into place, and Ketty glanced down at her feet with a look of surprise.

  “Now, there’s a clever trick,” the brainstorm said. “I was right about you. All those improvements you were making. You were fast-tracking your way to protagonist. Figuring out my riddles, figuring out my stationery trick, all that hard work. I knew from the beginning you were my biggest threat. But too late now, girl—I’m the hero of this story. He’s not going to forget me this time.”

  Indira leaned over Margaret and patted her cheek. The girl’s mouth lolled open. She was breathing, but she wouldn’t wake up. “Why are you doing this?” Indira shouted again.

  She was angry now. Feeling helpless made her angrier than anything. Every cage has a key. Those were her Words, but she didn’t know what the key to getting out of this was. She would die ironically, it seemed, failing her own story and her own Words.

  “Because he left me. Not this time. He won’t leave me behind again.”

  Indira’s mind spun. That was the third time Ketty had referenced someone who wasn’t there. It took Indira a few seconds to trace back through all the clues. Her mind landed on the one name that had never been mentioned by anyone else, the one name she’d only ever been able to connect back to Brainstorm Ketty.

  “DM. Darby Martin.”

  Ketty gave her a nasty smile. “Clever girl. Figured it out, did you?”

  The name had been on Ketty’s board, more than once. Indira had assumed it was just another one of Ketty’s students. Now she remembered the strange phrase—absence makes the heart grow FONDER—that was scribbled on Ketty’s blackboard.

  “Darby Martin,” Indira repeated. “He’s an Author.”

  “He’s my Author.” Brainstorm Ketty held up a delicate string of dirty pearls. “He left me unfinished all those years ago and…and…he came back. He had a new story to tell. Can you imagine? The Author who abandoned me coming back to toy around with new characters. People like you. You were going to steal what was mine! Mine! Mine!”

  All the pieces finally clicked into place. The way she screamed the word mine—the voice echoed from Indira’s first visit to the Talespin. All the other characters Ketty had been so eager to sabotage. It all made so much sense.

  “We were potential fits,” Indira said. “For Darby Martin’s story.”

  Ketty shot her another nasty smile. “Now she’s catching on. As soon as I saw his name back on the radar, I tracked all his potential characters. It was easy, you know, to knock each of his potential protagonists down a few pegs. Just look at you, Indira. You actually believed me when I said your grades were tanking. You don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve to be a hero. You’re not like me. I would never have taken no for an answer.”

  She’d been making room for herself. Not to mention gathering dashed hopes along the way. If there weren’t any other protagonists who would be a good fit for the story, that would leave room for Ketty to force her way in. It was such a horrible thing to do.

  Indira felt the bright anger fade. It was replaced with steel-cold determination. She was going to stop this from happening. She looked fruitlessly around the room again before her eyes settled once more on the mirror. Her hammer. It had always been able to take her from here to there.

  That was how its magic worked.

  Ketty’s spell pushed its way free of the cauldron. Purple shadows thrashed like some great beast. Indira didn’t know what would happen, or if it would work, but it was the last chance she had. She squinted one eye and threw her hammer at the top of the mirror. Brainstorm Ketty smirked as the silver turned end over end. It hit the mirror like a stone splashing into water. Ripples fled down the length of the mirror, and the hammer hung in midair. Indira felt her body being dragged forward by something immensely powerful.

  She blinked to life behind Brainstorm Ketty, a silver swirl hurtling at her head. She went down on one knee and snatched the shaft of her weapon out of the air. Ketty staggered back in shock. Indira took a ragged breath. The air was thick, and wherever they were, Indira felt heavier and more substantial. The scent of the ocean flooded all around her. Indira wasn’t sure if she was the Real World, but she was certain she had left Fable behind.

  As Brainstorm Ketty stumbled away, Indira remembered the first rule of Bartitsu that Odysseus had taught her: Disturb the equilibrium of your assailant. She lowered her shoulder, using Ketty’s momentum against her. The other woman was much bigger, but already half stumbling. Her foot caught on the cobblestones, and she collapsed backward.

  “No!” Brainstorm Ketty shouted. On her back now, the brainstorm thrust a hand out to a nearby mirror. It was a match for the one from the Talespin, and Indira could see the coffee-shop room filled with the arcane coloring of the brainstorm’s spell.

  Rule number two: Subject the joints to strains that they are anatomically unable to resist. Indira leaped forward and brought her hammer down on the exposed hand. The hand, she realized, that was maintaining the magic of the Raven King’s spell. Brainstorm Ketty howled as iron smashed her knuckles against the stones. The woman rolled over in pain, and Indira’s eyes darted to the mirror. Some of the magic had stopped, even retreating back toward the cauldron.

  If Indira could just keep Ketty distracted, the spell wouldn’t advance. Indira squared her feet. Ketty held her injured hand out as she crawled away on the support of the other arm. Her face twisted in pain and rage. “You can’t stop me,” she hissed.

  Indira advanced. The woman lashed out unexpectedly, but Indira ducked the blow and swung her hammer in an arc. The blow landed on Ketty’s shoulder and was turned only slightly by the dragon-scale jacket. Ketty cried out in pain, but Indira’s next blow was met with an armored forearm.

  Before Indira could recover, Ketty pushed off her knees, and a heavy shoulder punched the air from Indira’s stomach. She went flying backward and only narrowly avoided falling over. It was enough, though, to allow Brainstorm Ketty to climb back to her feet.

  “You fool. I have worked too hard to get back in a story. I won’t let you ruin this.”

  Dark magic sprang to life between Brainstorm Ketty’s palms. She had a wicked grin on her face as the dragon-scale jacket shivered with movement. It looked like a living, breathing thing as it expanded. Up and out, the scales formed a shroud over the woman, a great swathing shadow that obscured her from view.

  A sound like snapping bone echoed in the tower. Indira watched in terror as Brainstorm Ketty stepped forward, armed head to toe in smoke-black plated armor. The woman’s different-colored eyes stared out from a jagged gladiator helmet. She didn’t have a weapon, but Indira saw no weakness, either, no place for her hammer to strike. Brainstorm Ketty was laughing now. A gauntleted hand stretched out toward the mirror.

  “Now do you see? Do you see the injustice of why my
story went unfinished? How could Darby Martin ever give up on this?” Ketty cried. “All this power. All this magic. I could have been a god! And this time I will be!”

  Magic snapped back to life in the Talespin. Purple tendrils lashed themselves to the dashed hopes. Indira knew that if she didn’t do something, the spell would finish. She charged forward again, aiming her swing at the outstretched gauntlet. Ketty leaned forward, though, and caught the blow along her plated shoulder.

  An answering backhand knocked Indira to the floor. She scrambled up and ducked the next blow, this time aiming for the brainstorm’s knees. Three slashing blows caused Ketty to stumble but didn’t bring her down. Indira slid in a circle and forced Ketty to dip and adjust. The spell stalled a little, and Ketty growled her frustration.

  Indira finally landed a blow on the back of Ketty’s knee that caused her to fall.

  Staggering, the brainstorm roared before turning on Indira. Indira had succeeded in stopping the magic, but now Ketty gave Indira her full attention. The brainstorm rose and advanced, using the jagged armor along her forearms to block and strike, block and strike. Indira’s footwork was better, but she found herself being pushed toward the ledge of the onyx balcony with each swing. Indira glanced back at it, slid out of range, and steadied herself.

  She launched her own attack, but the plate armor was impenetrable. She struck forehand and backhand, catching Ketty’s shoulder and hip and wrist, but nothing could stop the answering blows. A kick from Ketty sent Indira flying against the rail of the balcony. Indira gasped. Pain shot down her back and through her hips.

  Ketty planted herself in the entrance to the stone hall.

  “The spell is nearly done,” Ketty said. She shifted her weight, one hand reaching back to continue the summoning. She kept her mismatched eyes fixed on Indira, daring her to move. Indira glanced over the ledge. They’d been fighting inside a tower, and the fall from the balcony was gut-twistingly far.