by JM Guillen
“Baxter! Rehl!” I called into the store, disliking how small my voice sounded. The immense size of this place stunned me, the way the aisles seemed to bend back upon themselves and move of their own accord.
Now my friends might be lost in it as well. It should have been a simple thing to follow the trail of carnage I had left through the store, but I didn’t think Mister Lorne had lied. I thought he’d told the exact truth when he said my friends would wander his store, fascinated.
Damn it.
Movement skittered quickly out of the corner of my right eye. I spun, knives ready.
I had to be ready for anything in here. Anything.
Something small moved through the scattered detritus to my right. Rubble shifted aside as whatever it was moved slowly in an attempt to remain hidden.
I crept forward, both blades out in front of me and kicked at the trash.
“I see you there!” My voice definitely did not sound as if I was close to pissing myself. “Reveal yourself!”
For a moment the pile lay still. Then it moved again as something wriggled up out of it.
I stepped back, Empyrean Seals already formed in my mind.
“Did you…” A small figure poked its head up out of the remnants of the shelf. The thing appeared to be a cross between a lizard and a little man, only fourteen inches tall. It shook its head, and continued, “Did you break the bindings?”
“I…” I glanced around the remnants of my chaos. “I think I broke a lot of things.”
“You did.” The little scaled man peered at its wrists, as if ecstatic to see them. “You broke the shackles of power that bound me.” The lizard stared about, its eyes wide and excited.
“You were one of his creatures.” I glanced around and sifted through the garbage with my eyes. “He bound you into one of these things?”
“A small hand mirror.” He gave me a winsome smile. “The Gaunt Man kept me and would force me to tell him things he did not know, things that were to come.”
“That must be very helpful indeed.” I glanced around us, half expecting some kenku or mutant cockroach or something to lurch out of the shadows.
“You have my thanks.” He bowed toward me. “I must escape, before he catches me again.”
“Wait!” I took an unconscious step forward. “I’m searching for a friend of mine. He’s trapped here, much as you were.”
“You need help to find him.” The small man nodded. “You have done me one service, therefore it is fair if I do you one in turn. You may ask me one and only one question.”
Great. I practically sobbed with relief.
“I’m looking for my mentor, a man by the name of Simon Girard.” I crouched so I could stare the little fellow clearly in the face. “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.” The man beamed with pleased pride. “I wish you good luck.”
He scurried off into the shadows.
I crouched there, unable to move, my mouth wide open. It must have been almost a minute before I could make a noise.
“Why.” I set one of my knives down to pound my fist against my forehead. “Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Of all the boneheaded mistakes. We gamers like to watch movies or television and fancy that we would have seen our way past the traps or problems the characters found themselves in. After all, as gamers we practiced thinking around corners.
Which made this all the more galling. At least the gang hadn’t been here to see me screw this up.
Baxter would never let me hear the end of it.
As I crouched there, my head a full two and a half feet lower than it normally would have been, I heard gentle sobs. It took a long moment before I could determine the direction it came from.
Right along the path of chaos I had blazed into Fallen Leaves.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Let’s try not to do something else stupid tonight.”
I walked through the trail of my rampage (and it definitely qualified as a rampage by now), and appreciated all the things I had destroyed. I’d marked up old paintings, two small terrariums had been knocked over, as well as a jewelry box, a collection of signs from the 1920s, an old movie projector…
And a small child, crouched behind an easel.
“Oh.” I crouched next to her. “Hello.”
The blonde girl glanced up at me. Her face seemed wan and perhaps a bit thin. Her red eyes showed she had been crying for little while at least, and she snuffled and gulped at the same time, as children often do when they have cried too hard.
However, she said nothing.
“Are you okay?” I glanced up and around to see if anyone or anything closed in on us. When I’d made certain it was safe, I met her gaze again.
“Phae’lintri.” The word rolled off her tongue, fluid and elegant. It reminded me of Tolkien’s elvish, which if I remembered correctly, had been based off Welsh. “Maedd gov’annen?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” I shrugged. “Are you in danger? Do you need help?”
“Eld Calyptia,” she said insistently.
“I wish that meant something.” I shook my head. The poor girl had likely suffered beneath the Gaunt Man’s bindings. “If you want to come with me, you can.” I stood up and beckoned to her.
The child shook her head fiercely and tried to crouch and smaller as tears welled up again.
An explosion rumbled off to my left.
I stood and spun quickly in that direction. Yet all I saw were aisles. Crooked, labyrinthine aisles of odd collectible items, antiques, and junk from ten thousand garage sales.
“Nothing.” I bit my lip, frustrated. Three of my friends ran around this place, along with several Facility Assets. The idea that I didn’t hear four different colors of chaos exploding all over the store unnerved me.
“I have to go.” I extended a hand toward the child. It might make it more difficult to get out of here, but I couldn’t possibly leave her. Not if she might be someone who had been trapped by Mister Lorne. I turned to her.
Yet, the child had vanished.
“Hey!” I called, not too loud but enough to be heard all around. “Come back! You can leave with me!”
I did not see the child; she had obviously skittered away when my attention had been taken. I also did not hear her cries.
“Dammit.” I peered around for any sign of the little girl.
But no.
“Okay, I suppose I have enough people to find.” I frowned. It seemed truly despicable to leave a helpless child alone in the Gaunt Man’s labyrinth. I stepped back in the direction I had come from, closer to the Valkyrie. Perhaps I could find her again, maybe crouched beneath a ruined table or a half broken barrel.
Nowhere to be seen.
“Fine then.” I cleared my throat, and spoke louder. “The quickest way out is to follow the trail I just created. If you want to follow me, you can, but I’m headed deeper in.” I paused. “I’ll get out of here just as soon as possible once I’ve found what I came for.”
“Are you?” a voice croaked, a harsh, sharp sound.
I whirled to my left, and my shoulders collapsed when I realized what had spoken.
“Seriously?” I held my knives out in front of me, an instinctual reaction to the kenku in patchwork leather. “Didn’t I already throw you into the next week?”
“You missunderstand,” the avian hissed at me. “Thingss are different now.”
“Because there’s only one of you trying to murder me?” I noted the glyph no longer burned on its forehead.
“You sshattered the cassque.” The corbie held up a piece of pottery. “It wass thiss that bound my clan.”
“You aren’t his anymore.” My heart leapt in my chest. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“This Aerinix iss itss own and its clanss,” the bird-man agreed. “I came to thank the Elissabeth Sshepherd. Even now, my clutchfolke esscape into the night.”
“Mine are still here,” I told it in desperation. “My mentor has
been bound by the Gaunt Man.”
“Your masster iss likely losst.” The Aerinix shook its head woefully. “It is only by disstant fortune that you freed this Aerinix and itss people.”
“Mentor,” I corrected him. “And some of my friends are still free.” I gestured around the store. “We got separated.”
“Thiss plasse is an infinite piesse of an infinite realm,” the Aerinix informed me.
“I came in right there!” I pointed at the path of destruction I had blazed through the store. “I can see the alleyway; that’s not infinite.”
“Thiss iss how I found Elissabeth Sshepherd.” The creature tilted its head. “I wass outside and I tracked her within, knowing her by the chaoss sshe caussed.”
“The guys would’ve done the same thing,” I mused. “They should have run in right behind me, wanting to meet up.”
“They were detained.” The not-kenku cocked its head. “As you ssaved me and mine, I came to esscort you out.”
“I can’t leave.” I sighed. “Without my mentor, my problems only get worse.” I paused as one of the things it said clicked in my mind. “Detained?”
“The sservitors of iron-lore followed you into this plasse. Your companionss fell back to allow them to passs.”
“So they’re still outside.” I nodded as I turned down the trail of turmult I had left. “That makes things easier. We can just meet up.”
“I would not sserve you if I did not urge you to leave this plasse.” The figure followed behind me. “And you would be a fool if you did not lissten.”
As if to accentuate the idea, I heard another explosion, just like what I’d heard before. The lights flickered, and this time they stayed dark.
Fallen Leaves lay shrouded in shadows.
“I’m a fool.” I turned and stared at the bird-man’s silhouette as we walked. “Yet I thank you. The sentiment of your advice is not lost on me.”
The Aerinix nodded, little more than a moving shadow. Together we walked back along the catastrophe I had created to meet with my friends.
The store loomed, eerily silent.
4
After it escorted me to the edge of the store, the almost-kenku left. I wished the avian had chosen to stay, as it certainly had indicated it felt it owed me a debt.
Apparently, that debt did not include an adventure the Aerinix considered suicide.
“Liz!”
I glanced up just as Alicia hit me with a bear hug.
After a moment of celebration, and not nearly enough planning, my friends and I crept inside the store.
“The entire place is like a zoo,” I whispered to Baxter as we crept through the shadows. “When I charged in here all hell and fury on my motorcycle, I shattered a lot of the Gaunt Man’s things.”
“That’s apparent.” Rehl gestured at the mess around us.
“Yet some of these things were prisons.” I put one hand on Alicia’s shoulder and helped her step past several broken dishes. “When they shattered, the creatures they held were freed.”
We had only crept through the darkness of Fallen Leaves for a few moments, but already I missed the illumination. While the Valkyrie’s path of impact loomed large within the store, the mazelike passages around us had been draped in shadow.
At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before we moved in complete darkness.
“I can call Abriel’s shine.” Alicia’s soft voice sounded troubled. “But it’s as good as holding up a sign telling everyone we’re here.”
“Well, there’s also the ‘truth’ aspect of that light,” Rehl commented. “Do we truly want to know the secrets of this place?”
“I don’t feel as if we have a choice.” I shook my head, although no one could see. “Alicia?”
Without a single word, an ember of furious, magnesium white light burst into existence above her head. That stark shine cast strange and darkling shadows all around us, and lurked in the bent aisles of the store.
“That’s better.” Baxter didn’t sound completely certain. “Some.”
“Simon named this place ‘the Menagerie,’” Alicia informed us as she continued the ‘zoo’ conversation. “Although I do not know if that was his name, or another’s.”
“Good as any.” Rehl turned to her. “Oh, Alicia?” It seemed as if he had just remembered something. “Do you have the … thing?”
“The thing.” She shook her head. “The clarity of your verbiage astounds me.”
“Earring, ya doof!” Baxter glanced from Alicia to me. “You brought the earring?”
“Oh.” Alicia smiled. “Yes. I did.” She reached into her pocket.
“What?” None of them made any sense.
Alicia pulled out a familiar earring, one I had worn for years. Gold fashioned into a wide hoop—a style I typically avoided. However, in this case, it had been necessary. Simon had made use of the space to stencil dozens and dozens of tiny Empyrean sigils upon the thing.
It had been the easiest way for me to get a hold of my mentor for many years.
Alicia handed it to me.
“It’s dead.” I shook my head at the sight of it. “I mean, good idea, but Simon told me I’d used up the thing’s ‘juice.’ He thought triggering it while we were in the Gaunt Man’s craziness—with him still in the real world—drained it dry.”
“This little talisman is something Simon made for his apprentice,” Alicia lectured as she cocked her head. “Abriel knows how the thing was made. Some of the Seals are bound to Simon’s tattooed sigils. Others were made to contain mystical force.”
“Okay.” I didn’t see how this mattered.
“So when Alicia and I looked over what equipment we wanted to bring,” Baxter interrupted, “we found this. According to Abriel, it no longer holds any stored power.”
“I just said that.”
“Yet the Seals still function,” Alicia said slowly. “The earring had been intended to be used by Simon’s apprentice, who held much less power. Now that apprentice has come into her own strength. Think about the way the Seals you use burn blue as you channel the Wind through them. That power isn’t within the Seals. It’s within you.”
“Okay.” I nodded this time, and felt more certain. “So I might be able to use it, send Simon a message.” That certainly seemed reasonable. I had performed a similar effect without that earring a couple of times today. The effect had always been one way, however. I didn’t see how this could help us do anything other than possibly comfort my grumpy mentor.
“True enough,” Alicia agreed. “But as Baxter and I discussed the possible use of such a thing, he came up with another idea.”
“Do it, Liz. We’re gonna power game this thing.” Bax grinned, the same kind of smile he used when he had a secret plan. “It might not work, but if it does, we’ll be a lot better off.”
“Good enough.” I raised one eyebrow at him, uncertain what he was going for.
But I closed my eyes.
I let the capering, chaotic song of the Wind seduce me, dance with me, whirl my mind wildly to the end of all things. My hair whipped around my face, and I heard paper stir.
I opened my eyes and gazed down at the symbols on the earring.
“Simon,” I half-whispered, half-thought. It echoed about me, eerily. I felt the Wind cavort around me, with all the joy of a child. It tousled my hair. Small pieces of trash and detritus blew away from me.
Suddenly, the Empyrean Seals and sigils on the earring burst into blue, turquoise, and cobalt brilliance that far outshone any light that had ever burned there before.
The wind captured one word, ‘Simon’ and whipped it away.
In all the times I’d used this particular tool, I had typically been alone. Simon had expected I might get into an occasional scrape, and intended I use the thing to call for help. Never had I used it in the presence of my friends, save once in the anime room. And never had I used the thing in such a dark and haunted place, guided only by the light of one of the heavenly Watchers.
Keeper of truth.
Simon’s name spiraled into the Wind, caught and carried by it. The Empyrean sigils on the earring pulsed once more, and in Abriel’s light I saw the silken connection Simon had wrought into the item.
The same light had revealed the illusion in the attic. It had showed us the red house that Lorne glamoured in front of his lair.
Now, it showed us the truth of magic Simon had crafted.
A silvery strand of gossamer nothingness, representative of the power bound into the tattoos on my mentor’s body, stretched off into the darkness.
“Ha!” Baxter pumped a fist. “That’s what you get for thinking like a munchkin!”
“This will go right to him.” I stared at Alicia, dumbstruck. “It’s better than a damn street sign!”
“I expect it will fade.” Even so, she nodded with satisfaction. “You may have to repeat this several more times before we find him.”
“This place is fucking huge.” I couldn’t stop a grin. “I don’t know that it’s infinite, but it might as well be. I had absolutely no idea how we were going to find whatever trinket Simon had been bound to. But now…”
“It means we'll get out of here easier.” Rehl grinned at me.
“Hell yeah, it does.” I tousled Bax’s hair.
“I never would have considered such a use of the seventh lantern.” Alicia’s soft voice brimmed with pride.
“You ready to get this done, or what?” Rehl asked.
“I am.” I turned to Baxter and gave him a wide grin. “You aren’t completely useless.”
“Oh, I know,” he said as we began to walk into the shadows. “I mean, I’m the one who solves the riddles, I’m the one who power-games Empyrean magic...”
“At least he has an understanding of how valuable he is.” I could hear Rehl roll his eyes.
Together, we followed the silver thread into the labyrinth.
5
The sheer vastness of the creepy store boggled my mind.