by JM Guillen
“Oh.” I trembled as I gazed at it. Part of me hadn’t expected to actually make it this far, I realized.
The gossamer thread ended in an alabaster urn, colored like swirls of cream running through rich, black coffee. It took both hands to grasp the wide thing, which was almost as round as a basketball.
“Heavy.” I turned the thing over and peered at it in the whisperings of Abriel’s light that shone this far.
On the bottom of the container, a sharp glyph had been inscribed. It burned darkly there, ice and shadow in turn. The thing writhed; I did not like to gaze upon it.
I… I didn’t want to break the urn.
“Stupid,” I muttered to myself. I had shattered dozens of these, to be sure, as I destroyed hundreds of Lorne’s more mundane things. I’d had it confirmed for me, time and again, that breaking these things shattered the prisons, and released the things inside.
But had it? Had any of them died in that process? If so, could he? And could I even afford to release him right now? Simon might not be well, after all.
Suffering, but undying.
“I don’t want him to hurt,” I reasoned out loud. “But if he’s limping, or weak, I can’t have him slow me, either.”
The more I thought about this, the more certain I became. It made me sick to my stomach to think he might be hurt…
Yet my choices seemed slender. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than coming this far and then accidentally killing him because I didn’t understand the rules of the game.
I recalled the little creature I had released, and how in a single moment of thoughtlessness, I’d let an opportunity slip by me.
I nodded to myself. Horrific, but I had no doubt Simon could hold on. I’d never met a man with a stronger will.
“Okay then,” I resolved. I grasped the urn close to myself, so I wouldn’t drop it and began the run back.
8
I heard them before I saw them.
Finding my friends had been hampered, just a bit, by the fading of Abriel’s light. It took me a bit to realize it, but as time passed that truth burned a bit less brilliantly, and its light dimmed.
Fuck. I couldn’t afford to lose the gossamer strand that would lead me back to the earring.
I picked up my pace.
Crack! Crack! Rehl’s pistol fire brought me up short, it sounded so close. I slowed to a trot and realized my friends and the Assets still fought against the Gaunt Man.
That…
Could that be right? Didn’t that seem a bit… unrealistic?
Lorne, the Gaunt Man, truly frightened me. I hadn’t been afraid before, and Simon had been right. I’d truly been a sheep-headed idiot.
In the past few hours, I’d seen just the outline of what the creature’s power was. The store loomed around me, a labyrinth that might not be infinite, but seemed to be the next best thing. I’d seen proof of what my mentor had told me; namely that the Gaunt Man kidnapped and imprisoned all manner of uncanny creatures.
Then, in Abriel’s light, I’d seen some of the truths of him. Part of me doubted that I had seen everything there was to see of his incoherent perversion—not because I doubted the Watcher, but because I wondered at my mind’s capability to grasp what I saw.
Lorne had admitted to toying with the Assets, taking his time to draw out their suffering.
Kinda hard not to wonder why you’re still alive, inn’it, Daisy? I smiled at the imagined quote. Even while the actual man lay in an urn, my memories of Simon couldn’t help but offer me advice.
But yes. Why were we still alive?
I trotted past shelving that held stacks of paintings and old oil lamps. The aisle bent around sharply, showing me far more of Abriel’s light.
And my party.
WHUF! The barbarian of an Asset (had he given a name?), fired into the darkness, in a direction I could not quite see. From that area, fire unfurled, a yellow and orange heat that I could feel from two aisles away.
“Back. I‘m back,” I half-whispered, half-thought as I sprinted toward them, the urn tucked beneath my arm like a football. I heard the loud BOOM of Garrett’s weapon, along with several cracks from Rehl’s.
“Die! Die you lunatic fuck!” the large Asset yelled as he moved closer to Rehl and Garret. Behind them, I saw the looming, inhuman specter of the Gaunt Man step between shadows with ease.
“I feel like he’s toying with us,” Baxter said as I jogged up. “Like he’s just playing.”
“I do not know—” Alicia stood there, Simon’s lighter aloft in her grasp. She eyed me as I ran up, confusion sprinkled on her face along with her freckles. “Liz? Where’s Simon?”
“Here,” I panted. “We’ll have to break it, but I had some concerns. Also, I thought he might slow me down. If he’s hurt, it might be harder to get him out of here, get us all out of here.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said, not without affection. Then, before I could craft an appropriate retort, Alicia stepped over to me and took the urn from my hands. She peered at it, as if seeking something.
When she looked at the bottom, the light from that malicious little glyph shone on her face, danced brilliant blue and left sinister shadows.
Without saying a word, Alicia raised the urn over her head and brought it down on the floor with all her strength.
“Wai—!” I reached for her, but it was far too late. The urn had struck the ground before I even got one hand up.
Icy brilliance torrented from the breakage and released a gust of midnight cold. It rushed over me, as if someone had left open the door to Antarctica.
The cold vanished.
Alicia, Baxter, and I stood there, staring blankly at each other.
Behind us, Lorne’s laughter chilled.
“Little Rosicrucian puppets,” the Gaunt Man sneered. “Do you believe your toys are truly dangerous?”
“What did you do?” I gestured wildly at Alicia, tears in my eyes. Anger and fear dripped from my words as I gestured wildly. “I didn’t know—what if that didn’t free him?”
“You told us. You said you freed things by breaking their items,” Alicia responded, taken aback.
“But… what if it didn’t work?” Those tears came now, and my voice practically keened. “We don’t know! What if I broke a hundred of those prisons, but only fifteen prisoners survived?”
“Liz.” Baxter spoke, one quiet word.
“What?” I snapped at him, on the edge of breaking.
“H–hey there, Peaches.” The voice, roughened with emotion and age, came from behind me.
“Oh.” I turned, crying. I brought my hands to my mouth. “Oh. Oh.”
Simon stood there, half frozen. His teeth chattered beneath his thick mustache and he wore only a pair of black jeans. Whipcord lean, his skin looked almost blue—except where it had been covered in swirling dark ink.
“Didja bring a shirt?” My mentor gave me a wisp of a grin.
I ran to him and hurled my arms around him, wetworks fully engaged.
He held me, and the cold of his skin made me tremble.
“I did not.” I sobbed. “I did not bring a shirt.”
“Always letting me down,” he teased softly.
“Yes.” I started crying harder. “I’m the worst apprentice since that mouse with the buckets.”
He laughed and gripped me tighter, the kind of hug you give when you’re truly, desperately, happy to see someone. He lifted me up off my toes and swung me, just a little bit.
As he did, I felt something nudge me, right between my ribs. Something I’d left in my jacket pocket.
Something I’d forgotten.
“Erm,” Simon set me down, looking somewhat bemused. “Unless I’m mistaken, my dear friend Abriel has chosen to hitchhike along on this excursion?” He raised one eyebrow at Alicia.
“Oh.” She gave him a sunny smile. “Hi, Simon.”
“Hello there, O Abriel.” He shook his head and a touch of confusion played at the corners of his eyes.
“I’m quite familiar with the token.” He turned to Alicia and then back to me. “I’m a little more concerned with how your friend became the caretaker for secrets intended for you?”
“It’s been a strange few days,” I winced.
“Abriel has watched me build the Scions of Babel from nothing!” Simon ran one hand through his mussed hair, overwhelmed. “Did you give her the token? Just hand her everything I created?”
“We’ll have to talk about th—”
“Liz, I trusted you—!”
To my left, an excruciating, gangrenous laugh sliced through the darkness. That awful sound mutilated space itself, poisoned the world around us. Lorne’s mirth was no mere laughter; it was like a dirge of cancerous, eldritch horror.
We each started and spun in that direction even as we heard the crack of Rehl’s pistol. I saw him sprint along a wall of the garage sale detritus and fire into a creature that stood almost three times his height and bore huge bull’s horns.
He is not fighting a minotaur, some part of my mind yammered. Not in a labyrinth.
“That’s …” Simon's voice trailed off and his eyes grew hard. “Oh, Elizabeth.”
“I’ve officially decided that bargaining with the Gaunt Man might have been a mistake,” I chirped at him brightly.
“Yeah.” He skewed up one side of his mouth the way he did when he focused on something.
I peered toward Rehl, trying to figure out what my mentor looked at.
Other creatures lumbered in the shadows, creatures that the Gaunt Man had certainly summoned. Even though the Assets and Rehl fought side-by-side, it seemed as if they were about to be overwhelmed.
Behind them all, I saw the distorted, monolithic outline of the Gaunt Man himself. The inhuman menace moved between shadows and stepped between them as easily as I might step across a threshold. Even from so far away, I felt the barbarous atrocity of the light that burned in those eyes, the way they regarded me, almost as if a viperous caress.
“Gumdrop,” Simon’s tone felt casual, yet I could feel that it held a hidden knife. “Who are those two… Gentlemen out there with your friend Rehl?”
Alicia caught my gaze, her eyes wide. She gave a tiny, frantic shake of her head.
“That’s a long story too,” I said.
“No, it’s not.” Simon’s eyes grew hard. “It’s a short one. They’re monsters. They’ll fuck you. The end.”
“Simon!” Alicia’s eyes were wide.
“I know how you feel, and you’re not wrong,” I said, pleadingly. “There’s a lot to explain here, and I promise I will.”
In the shadows, the Gaunt Man laughed as Rehl brought the bull-headed horror down to the ground by shooting out its knees.
That laughter haunted me, mocked me. I couldn’t help but feel that this, all of this death and pain, amounted to little more than the Gaunt Man making a point to me.
“So,” I shook my head. “What I really need right now is for you to be able to trust me. We’re not with those guys, not really. But because they think we are, they fought the monsters long enough for me to find you.”
“You telling me you’re using the Gentlemen?” he scoffed, just a bit.
“I will if it will hurry this along.” I gave him a strained smile. “I’d rather not die here.”
Simon looked at me for a moment, then gave me a rueful grin. He chuckled, a sound that seemed out of place against the shadows of Lorne’s shop.
“All right, Turnip.” He shook his head. “I’ll play the good little damsel. You gotta way to get us out of here?”
Maybe. I crossed every finger I had as I turned to Baxter. “Bax, you and Rehl were keeping track of misplaced walls a while back?”
“Yeah?” Baxter’s skin tone looked positively unhealthy. “What about it?”
“Are we close to any now? Any of the walls?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “Smart play, putting our back to a wall. Give them a negative surprise bonus.”
“Yeah,” I smiled at him. “How far?”
“To a wall?” He seemed a touch dazed. “Um, that way, about three minutes maybe.” He jerked his chin to his left.
I glanced out to the Assets and Rehl as they frantically fought against Lorne and his bound monstrosities. They had moved approximately fifty yards down the long and wending aisle, and had left a trail of silvery hemispheres along the floor, as well as scorched furniture and the corpses of bizarre, animalistic beasts.
I relaxed into the Wind and let go of fear and worry and everything small that harried my heart. I took a deep breath, and the Wind coursed through me, around me. It teased my hair, capered and played. It had the spirit of a child, and wanted little more than for me to stop and play as well.
I opened my eyes, and saw Simon gaze squarely at me. A wistful glance, followed by a nod. I felt his pride in me.
“Oh, Sassafras.” His smile grew wider.
I turned back toward the battle, and the darkness of Lorne. I half whispered, half thought, “Come back.” I intended this for all three of my allies, and knew, in my heart, each of them would hear. “We may have our way out. Fall back.”
Baxter, right next to me, heard what I said as well. Struggling, he reached over his back and eased a hand into the pack he had strapped there. He pulled out a single flare.
“Help you with that.” Simon stepped over to him, and lit it.
“Not that it’s going to be dark anytime soon,” Baxter teased Alicia. “But if the party is on the move, then I should get started now. I’m not interested in being outrun by people who have the unfair advantage of, oh say, blood left inside them.”
“You’re right, that wouldn’t be fair.” I gave Baxter a smile. “You and Alicia should go ahead and get started for that wall. We’ll be able to follow the light easily enough.”
“Then I guess this is for you.” He dropped the lit flare on the ground, and started to get his things together.
“Wait.” Simon stopped in place and stared at Baxter with stunned recognition and shock. Then, he shook his head, amusement in his eyes. “Baxter.” Simon cocked his head, extending a hand as he pointed at the young man.
“Yeah?” He looked up at Simon, a bit dazed.
“Would you mind giving me my cane back?”
9
“I actually brought my staff,” Simon grumbled as we stood together and waited in the darkness. “Few other doodads too. I bet I won’t be seeing them again.”
“You’ve got to tell me how he caught you,” I whispered. “I never would’ve thought he could.”
“You know how the Gaunt Man is far more than you thought he was?”
“Yeah.” I bit my lip. “Way more.”
“Well, as it turns out, the Gaunt Man is far more than I thought he was.” Simon gave me a rueful smile.
We chuckled together for a moment and watched as Rehl and the two Assets finally began to organize their retreat.
After another moment, Simon spoke again. “Hey just out of curiosity,” he raised one eyebrow at me, “you gotta way out ’a here, right?”
“I’m hoping.” I held up my jacket, reached inside, and showed him what I’d found.
“Oh boy.” He shook his head. “I have no idea if that’ll work.”
“That’s what we got.” I considered for a moment. “Why wouldn’t it work now?”
“Empyrean “magic,”—” he made the little quotation marks with his fingers, “—is like a lot ’a magic in this world. It only works in the context of the story you’re telling.” He made a show of looking around us. “I get the feeling that the Gaunt Man is the one who sets the rules here.”
“You never make any sense,” I muttered. I would have said more, except that I was rudely interrupted.
“Fleeing?” The Gaunt Man’s voice echoed through epochs and burbled with endless corruption. “Are you not pleased with my hospitality?”
Neither Rehl nor the
Assets responded, simply focused on creating a clear path to us. Garret shot two creatures that leapt out of the darkness, each of them appeared as gigantic jaguars crafted from exposed muscle and sanguine ichor.
“Asshole!” the large man swore as he whirled upon a goat-like beast that slipped up to his side. The loathsome thing had no eyes upon its face, but had stalks on its head with eyes like some kind of mutant beholder.
It hissed. A dirty-yellow glyph on its forehead burned with putrid light.
“Not today, Billy.” The big man typed manically on that keyboard, and with a WHUF, shot the hircine beholder, center mass.
It then fell upward, bleating wildly and flailing arm-tentacles.
“They’re going to bring him right here,” Simon grunted. “Him and whatever else he calls up.”
“Turnabout’s fair play,” I mumbled and thought about how I’d done almost the same trick with the Assets.
“I’m gonna tell you how to handle that little trinket, and what you need to say.” Simon turned to me. “You’ll escort your… friends to the exit zone.”
“Oka.,” I nodded.
“This is the line. They get there, I’ll call upon the Watchers to hold the Gaunt Man back. You get everyone else out. Then, we escape.”
“Can you?” I furrowed my brow at him. “What were you just saying about Empyrean—?”
“Listen, Lil’ Filly.” He shot me a look. “What I really need right now is for you to be able to trust me,” he parroted the words I had said to him earlier.
“Fine.” I shook my head. “Tell me what I need to do.”
He did, with quick, specific instructions.
“Really?” I laughed. “You know, if I’d tried to use it without knowing, I could have made things worse.”
“Only you,” he chuckled, “would be capable of making this worse.”
“It’s my mentor’s influence.” I smiled.
“Ima’ start my beckonings and calls,” he continued. “That way, it’ll be faster when the moment comes.”
With Alecia on the run, Abriel’s light faded even further. The three before us continued their steady pace, hampered by the creatures that sprung from the shadows.