by J. S. Morin
Esper backed away. “This is a trick—a test. Bishop Chavez knows about our antics. The heists. The escapes. This is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect, so it’s the obvious choice for a test of my commitment. No. I’m not going anywhere.”
Carl scowled at her, and the seething frustration was mimicked so well that she had to marvel at Bishop Chavez’s control. He must have used her memories of Carl—who was no doubt locked up in a maximum security detention facility at that very moment—to make him exactly like the Carl she knew.
“Take a leap of faith, child,” a gentle voice boomed from behind her. Esper turned and stared at the crucifix. It was a bronze casting, inanimate. But was that not the province of miracles? No. Another test.
“Sorry,” Carl muttered from just behind her. A hand clamped over her mouth, and Esper was lifted from her feet. No amount of kicking or squirming loosened the grip on her, and none of Tanny’s martial arts tricks had any effect.
# # #
Carl hurried down the aisle of the cathedral with Esper’s struggling form tucked under one arm. There were times when he thought she’d look better with a little more meat on her, a bit more muscle tone. But for now he was glad that she was a sack of twigs.
“You’ll thank me for this later,” he muttered to her.
Speaking into the comm tucked under the brim of his cap, he called in. “Vaguely Pious to Ladies Man,” he said. “The collection plate has been passed. Repeat… aw, hell. I had to knock her out and—”
“Saw the whole thing,” Ladies Man replied. “Smooth, Pious. This is why we never try to pick up girls in a church. Bar Fighter could have done the same thing, quicker. Couldn’t you have at least come up with a Bible verse that might have swayed her?”
“Hey, Bub,” Carl replied. “There’s a reason we didn’t let you take any of these missions. You’re a fucking train wreck, and we all know it. So judge not, lest ye—”
“You just used that one. Don’t you know any other parts of the Bible?”
“Fuck you, lest ye be fucked,” Carl replied.
“Nice. Just get to the rendezvous, pronto. At this rate, you’ll be the last one back.”
“Roger that,” Carl said. As soon as he heard the comm close on the other end, he added, “Dick.”
When he opened the cathedral doors, there was no sign of the alien landscape that Lloyd had created. There was just a plain white hall, perfectly lit by no discernible source. Carl picked a direction and strode off, confident that knowing his destination was far more important than knowing where he was or how to get there.
# # #
How could an ecosystem thrive with only one species of animal inhabitant? This was the puzzle that scratched at the sides of Mriy’s mind as she tore into yet another of the medium-rare rabbits of this odious forest. Though her hunger was far from sated, she threw the half-eaten carcass to the ground and kicked into the underbrush with a snarl.
Extending her claws, Mriy grabbed the nearest tree, an oak as wide as her shoulders. With an inarticulate scream, she drew both hands down, tearing long gashes in the bark. For a brief moment, it felt like proper prey, something with meat on its bones and blood seeping from its mortal wounds, something with texture and juices. She imagined it as a cow, or an elk, but the wood beneath the bark was dry, spoiling the illusion.
Having worked herself into a huffing frenzy, Mriy collapsed against the tree she had maimed. Stupid world. Oaks and rabbits, but not an Earth-like planet. The day was too long. Through the leaves above, the sun had barely budged during her hunt, which had to have been going on for hours—it felt like days. It merely drifted there, disinterested in moving on; or perhaps all too interested in the antics of its newest inhabitant. But that was vanity. Mriy was just a lone azrin on an unknown world. She didn’t even know its name or whether it was known to civilized space.
Fire. She smelled fire. Lifting her head, Mriy sniffed the air, wondering whether she was imagining the scent. The pyre for her crewmates had long since burned low, and any lingering odor should have long ago dispersed. This was new, fresh, and with a hint of cooking meat—bacon, unless this world had muddled scents as well. Someone upwind from her was cooking.
The gnawing hunger in her belly told her to grab another rabbit before investigating, but Mriy was no slave to her body’s cravings. This was more important. Though there was no sign of smoke rising through the trees, the fire could not have been far. The forest seemed smaller, suddenly, no longer the infinite verdant maze of rabbit warrens and chases. There was only her, the fire, and the distance between them.
Odd that there was no other scent carried on the wind. Certainly there were still the background smells of soil and leaves, bark, rabbit, and the occasional wildflower. But of the source of the fire, she smelled nothing. There had been no sign of a storm, and no heavy, cloying odor of ozone to indicate a lightning strike. She could smell no chemical accelerants, nor could she detect any other creature in the forest—one who might have had the intellect to start a fire intentionally. Fire without an obvious source was said to be a sure sign of magic, but Mriy had generally put little stock in it. Most people didn’t have wizards lying around, starting fires and leaving them unattended. More likely that old folk wisdom came from people who knew too little of science for their own good.
But Mriy did know a wizard, and one more prone than most to conspicuous displays of pyrotechnics. Though she had always been able to track him by scent in the past, she wouldn’t have put it past Mort to disguise himself from her nose. But she had burned his body. Could that have been a trick, some sick joke? Though she should have been furious at the notion, she’d have suffered the fool’s cruel prank to have a living companion. Perhaps all the crews’ deaths were just an illusion. Mriy could only hope.
“Mort,” Mriy called out as she sensed herself drawing near to the source of the fire. While losing her advantage of surprise, Mriy wasn’t sure it was worth the risk to sneak up on the wizard. If he had somehow survived not only the wreck of the Mobius, but also Mriy’s efforts to memorialize the crew, he might be in a delicate state of mind. “Mort, this is Mriy. Can you hear me?”
With soft-padded footsteps—why had she left her boots behind?—Mriy stalked ever closer to her target. Let Mort, or whoever it was, hear her coming, but she still preferred to see them before they saw her.
“You misfired by twenty years,” Carl called out as she spied him through the underbrush. He beckoned to her from his seat on a log.
“Carl! You’re alive!” As Mriy emerged from cover, she noted something even more shocking. “Kubu, how did you get here? I… I saw you both dead.”
“Kubu is not dead,” Kubu said. He was lying beside a moose carcass and looked up from gorging himself as he protested.
“I found him wandering this fucked up little forest, committing bunny genocide,” Carl said. He gestured to the feasting canid beside him without actually looking his way. “Figured I’d get him something a little more filling.”
Mriy sniffed the air, but there was no sign of Carl or the moose, and they were too close for even a stiff wind to keep the scent from her. “What trick is this?”
“Not mine,” Carl replied. “This is Lloyd’s little mental playground. I imagine he’s never been in a real forest—maybe just a preserve somewhere.”
Mriy backed away a step, flexing her claws loose. “You don’t smell.”
“That’s because I’m not real,” Carl said. “I can imagine shit up in here, because I believe this place isn’t real. You’re stuck with what you’ve got because you don’t. As for smells? Damned if I know what I smell like, except maybe when I’m drenched in sweat.”
“The same, but a quieter smell,” Mriy said. She cocked her head. “What’s the word for a quieter smell? I don’t know it in English.”
“Not sure we’ve got one,” Carl said with a shrug. “Anyway, since I’m pretty sure that smug bastard isn’t paying this little grove a bit of attention, I don’t need to
rush too bad to get you out. You see, Lloyd’s a wizard.”
“Since when?” Mriy asked.
“Since damned if I know, but I figured it out too late, too. I got sucked into his head… well, I was going to say same as the rest of you, but I’m not that easy. See, my brain’s a little cross-wired. While you’re seeing me here, I’m breaking Tanny out of an ARGO prison, having a beer with Roddy, and carrying an unwilling Esper out of a church.”
“Your metaphor lost me,” Mriy said. “Explain in plain words.”
Carl reached into the frying pan on the fire, heedless of burning himself, and pulled out a piece of bacon. He chewed it a moment as he paused with a thoughtful frown. “Not sure I can. This business isn’t all that plain. But here goes… Lloyd’s a wizard.”
“That much I grasped, though how he hid that fact with Mort around seems implausible.”
“Well, for whatever reason, he’s got a beef with Mort—sorry, a grievance. He’s not the first wizard to come after Mort, but it’s been a while since the last one. Anyway, each of us looked him in the eye for whatever reason, and he used magic on us. We’re not really here. We just think we are. All of us—including Lloyd—are still on the Mobius. But our minds are trapped inside Lloyd’s.”
Mriy looked all around, suddenly claustrophobic. The fur at the back of her neck stood on end. “You mean… there’s no ship crashed over there? This isn’t a forest? I haven’t been eating rabbit after rabbit for what seems like days? This… isn’t a real body?” Mriy felt along her fur. Was something off? Bile churned in her stomach.
“Bunnies aren’t real,” Kubu said. “This moose isn’t real, too, but it’s yummier than the bunnies.”
“See?” Carl said. “Kubu gets it. Just hold it together, and I’ll get us out of here—well, out of this here, anyway.”
“What do you mean ‘this here’? What other ‘here’ is there?”
Carl leaned back and grabbed at nothing as far as Mriy could see. But he twisted his wrist and pushed, and a door opened in the middle of the air. Outside was a hallway bathed in white light. “Out there is still inside Lloyd’s head, but at least it’s not this fucked up starve-you-with-bunnies forest.”
“Bad bunnies made Kubu more hungry instead of less hungry.”
“Come on, let’s move,” Carl said. He led them into the white hallway and shut the door. It vanished as if it had never been there at all. He spoke into a comm from his pocket. “Outdoorsman to Ladies Man, got a two-fer of lost little lambs. Exiting the enchanted forest. Over.”
“Roger that,” a voice that also sounded like Carl replied. “I’ll recall Carl-Who-Can-Whistle and Sports Fan.”
“Any word from Older Brother?” Carl asked.
“Negative. I’ve dispatched Worrier and Snoop to aid in the search.”
Carl nodded and shut off the comm.
“What was that?” Mriy asked. None of this was making any sense.
“Rhiannon’s still missing,” Carl replied. “I’ve found the rest of the crew, but I’m starting to think she doesn’t want to be found.”
“Not that,” Mriy snapped. “Talking to yourself. Who was that other Carl on the comm?”
Carl held up his hands and offered a sheepish grin. “That’s a long and embarrassing story. So let’s pretend you didn’t ask about that and all get to the rendezvous point, where hopefully someone’s come up with a plan to get us the hell out of this place.”
# # #
The barroom was dusty, clouded in murky light that pushed its way through grease-frosted windows. The décor was red brick and wrought iron, with real Earth-wood furniture—or imaginary real Earth-wood, if there was such a thing. At least in the context of Lloyd’s skull, it was real. Carl made a point to stop thinking about it before he hurt his brain. Tall chairs lined the bar while others rested upside down atop the tables. With a quick glance into the shadowed corners of the room to check for ambushes, he stepped inside and beckoned for Tanny to follow him.
“What is this place?” Tanny asked. She took in the pub with an Alice look in her eyes, as if she were expecting white rabbits and tea parties. “Are we still in that freak’s imagination?”
“Probably a memory,” Carl replied, drifting between the tables and continuing his sweep for unwelcome company. “I doubt Lloyd’s got the imagination to invent all this. All the places he stashed the crew were pretty basic.”
Tanny ran a hand along the bar, checking the labels on the wall of liquor bottles. “He’s got brand logos down perfectly. Look at this: Miller’s & Stanton Gold Label, Highlander’s Lament. There’s even a couple xeno brands here. And carved into the bar, there are someone’s initials. My memories don’t have this kind of detail.”
“You aren’t a mentalist wizard,” Carl said. “Apparently Lloyd is. My guess is this is a college bar—his old stomping grounds, if Lloyd ever stomped in his life. But I can’t even find a light switch, so I’m guessing he doesn’t pay this place much attention.”
“Lucky us,” Tanny said. She pulled out one of the bar chairs and settled in. “What now?”
“We wait for everyone else.”
“How will they know to find us here?”
“I’m bringing them,” Carl said. It looked as if there was no one else with them in the pub. For the first time since arriving in Lloyd’s mind, Carl wished he could believe in his surroundings. He needed a drink.
Tanny gave a curt nod. “I can hold down the fort.”
Carl grimaced. He knew this was going to come up, but it didn’t make the coming conversation any easier. “No, I mean I’m already bringing them. There are a few of me in here.”
“A few of… you? Like more than one Carl? How’d Lloyd pull that off?”
“I did it, actually,” Carl said. With a sigh he pulled out a chair and sat next to Tanny at the bar. “Remember back when I first got out of the navy? Remember how messed up I was?”
Tanny snorted. She reached over the bar for a glass and filled it from the nearest tap. “Yeah, civilian life wasn’t agreeing with you,” Tanny said. “I almost blew you off. I mean, we hadn’t seen each other in months, and you came off like a crackpot. If you hadn’t kept trying, I—”
“I saw Mort in between.”
“What do you mean, you saw Mort? I thought when we invited him to join us on the Mobius—”
“I told him to play dumb. I didn’t want you to know what he’d helped me with.” Carl wished she’d stop interrupting him. It wasn’t a great story to begin with, so he was working from shoddy material. “My mind was scattered, one side arguing with another, while ten others screamed for attention. Mort helped me separate them, control them, make use of them.”
“And this just happened to come up now? Mort prepared you to lead an insurrection against a mind-stealing wizard… what, is he some sort of oracle now? Did he claim to see this coming? I mean, what the hell is wrong with both of you?”
“Me? I’m borderline psychotic,” Carl said with a wink to lessen the blow. “But seriously, I’ve got it under control. Teamwork and all that jazz. One big happy family. And I’ve got Carls out rounding up everyone else and bringing them here.”
Tanny narrowed her gaze at him. She wasn’t buying something. It was easy enough to assume Carl was lying, so he couldn’t blame her. Anyone who spent enough time around him developed that suspicion, if they had half a brain. “What aren’t you mentioning? How come we don’t see you breaking down all the time into different personalities? I… I just can’t see you of all people holding this shit together in your head. No offense.”
“None taken,” Carl said. He eyed Tanny’s pint glass, wondering what it would take to believe the contents into Earth’s Preferred. More than he had in him, knowing all too well where he was. He might get the taste, but never the intoxicating effects. “You see, that’s how I lie so well. I can make up a Carl on the spot, believing anything I need him to believe. It’s magic.”
“Magic,” Tanny said, crossing her arms. “You?
I’ve never seen you pull a card trick without screwing it up.”
“Fine,” Carl said, dismissing her skepticism with a backhanded wave as he stood. “Believe whatever you want. I’ve got bigger things to worry about.” He stalked the taproom, weaving his way through the tables. There were times—rarer by the year, he allowed—when Tanny seemed like the old Tanny. She used to trust him, to feel like she was always on his side of the scams. But nowadays he couldn’t get Tanny to take his word on the color of astral space. He shoved a chair, knocking it from its upside down perch to the floor with a satisfying crash.
“Like what?” Tanny asked. “Like us all being dreams in Lloyd’s head? I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up and none of this will have been real.” She took a long swallow of ale. “Until then… who the hell cares?”
“Quit treating this like a practical joke,” Carl said. “This isn’t the time or the place for—”
But Tanny’s sudden cackling laughter cut him short. “I’m not sure this is a time or a place. Look outside the door. It’s a blank white hallway. No sun, no lights, but it’s bright the whole way. Tell me this is a real place.”
Carl drew in breath enough to launch a tirade. He wanted to rip into Tanny on how to deal with adverse conditions that wouldn’t yield to firepower and couldn’t be escaped through an astral drop. He wanted to tell her that they needed to plan an escape and that trying to get drunk on imaginary ale wasn’t going to help. But he stopped himself. Carl held that breath instead. Tanny was trying to escape, the only way she knew how. Her mind wasn’t coping with the utter weirdness of being displaced into another person’s mind, and shutting down was all she could think to do. He could afford to let her.
“Hero to Ladies Man,” Carl said into his comm. “Any word on Rhi?”
“Negative,” Ladies Man replied. “The Dark Accountant must be taking extra precautions to hide her. Could use another set of eyes, if you can spare them.”
Carl had been thinking the same thing—which wasn’t surprising, frankly. “Roger that.” He turned to Tanny en route to the door. “You hang tight here. More Carls will be here any minute, along with the rest of the crew.”