Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Four
Verse Six: The Cold Wind Blows
"You never did tell us, how you found us."
Harley said.
"You four are pulsing, radiating magic, or story essence if you prefer. Anyone in the game can find you."
Agnes answered.
"Why haven't the men of black and white found us here then?"
"It's a good bet that they have, but don't want to come in here. Linwich County is filled with old stories. The Primal One has walked these lands, so has the Great Serpent and his bastard offspring: Falsenight. The Pale Shepherd has shown up in stories here and some people say that Man of Void and Lady of Fire have been sighted here through the centuries. This is dangerous ground, like a minefield of powerful story elements."
"And you're living in it?"
Harley asked.
"It keeps us safe from the Locust King. The False King isn't so bold as to send his troops in amongst so many old powers."
Agnes nodded as she spoke.
"Wait, I thought Falsenight was on his side?"
"That doesn't mean the Locust King trusts that oily serpent for a second."
"You're avoiding the subject at hand again. When we started talking I asked what you wanted me to do. You've been avoiding it all week. At some point you're going to have to tell me."
"We want you to steal the holy grail, the cup of eternal life."
Harley raised an eyebrow, "As in King Arthur? And also as in the crucifixion? I have to admit that I was not expecting to hear that particular mythology intrude into this little acid trip."
"And you'd be right. It isn't the holy grail, it's what inspired those stories, or was grafted onto those myths to give them power."
"Like adding nitrous to an old car."
"To keep thing's clearly separate, let's call it by the name it has in our story: Falsenight's cup. The cup functions as a focus allowing people to draw upon Falsenight's power for a particular purpose."
"Immortality." Mildred breathed.
"Technically no. Technically it provided eternal life."
"There's a difference?" Harley asked.
"Immortal has a broader meaning that can include memory. Never being forgotten, living on in story, can be immortality. But Eternal Life means what is says, a more narrow meaning gives this cup more direct power. And that's what we're after."
"And this ancient mystic artifact is just sitting in that mining operation?"
"No, of course not. The mining operation is a symbol that Falsenight identifies with, fossil fuels are one of his favoured symbols."
"That doesn't make sense," Harley objected, "Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource. They run out, how can they be a symbol of eternal life?"
Agnes shook her head, "They allow us to expand beyond natural boundaries, what else is eternal life besides a surpassing of natural boundaries?"
"And you want me to sneak in there and magically steal this magic cup or grail or whatever you call it?"
"You have the mystical perception of a tub of yoghurt. You couldn't see a ghost or god unless it fully manifested. No, you're sneaking in, but little mother will be finding the symbolic representation of Falsenight's cup and not you."
"Wait, you mean Maia? I can't believe what I'm hearing. She's a kid and you've repeatedly said that this is too dangerous for you ladies to go in, fully trained witches that you are. So it's too dangerous for a coven of witches but not for a nine year old girl?"
"And right now, she is still the Last Princess. And thus, like you she is one of the most powerful characters in the story. And unlike you she is perceptive to the story. You are all but blind to to the story. He have to trip over it before you notice it."
"Then I'll take one of you, you're perceptive to the story."
"That's not our place in the story, it wouldn't work."
"Convenient. I don't know if I believe you."
"Believe me or not, this is how it has to be. We can't enter, and you can't find the cup on your own."
Maia looked at Harley solemnly, "You can count on me; Mr. Harley."
Harley shook his head, "I don't like the sound of any of this."
"You'll have to live with it if you want us to show you how to stop advertising everywhere you go. Once you leave Linwich County the King's Men aren't going to keep their distance from you any longer and you'll be running again."
"So basically, everything you've taught me so far has been parlour tricks; a distraction and not what I really needed?"
"Oh no. We taught you what you needed to get the cup. Once you've got the cup, we'll teach you what you need to escape detection, and also how to navigate in the Shadowlands so you aren't running blind."
"I don't like what I'm hearing, but I guess I don't have a choice."
It was nearly midnight as Harley drove the cricket back to the mining site and parked on the butte overlooking the ramshackle pile of metal and concrete building and huge looming metal silos. The coven arrived in a convoy of little cars and crowded in around the Cricket like sled dogs huddling together for warmth on a cold night.
Agnes coughed as she stepped up beside Harley. Harley turned to look at her, "So now what? You wish me well and throw me to the wolves?"
"Oh no, we're going to get you inside."
"And how are you going to do that? A magic key?"
"We're going to phase you a little further into shadow. The workers won't see you, you'll be free to work in the realm of the Dreamwalker and the Storyteller, the witch and the eldritch abomination."
"Cute." Harley said.
Agnes pinched Harley's ear sharply, "Oh, I'm not joking. Where things like Falsenight make their nests many other nasties congregate. Falsenight's nasty little spawn will be in there. Falsefangs we call them, nasty little serpent demons, your mace can handle them. It would be easier to deal with the humans, but I suspect you'd be squeamish about that sort of approach. And so, dropping you into darker shadows is the approach you're stuck with using."
Agnes began tracing arcane shapes with her long bony fingers and oily black wisps of smoke began to follow her movements. Then she pushed both hands forward abruptly and bathed Harley and Maia in the oily mist. Harley watched as colour bleed out of the world, desaturating until only the brightest colours were still noticeable.
"Congratulations. Now anyone not in the game won't see you. Hell, they won't feel you. You're functionally a ghost for the next few hours."
"Can I walk through walls?"
"No, just people who aren't awake. Now run along and get us that cup."
"It's wonderful to be your errand boy. So how am I getting through locked doors?"
"Be creative, you're a smart boy."
"And how will I know when I find the cup?"
"The little mother will know."
"You're a vile old woman for sending her in."
"Blame the story not the characters."
"No, I think I'll blame you."
"Suit yourself. The story doesn't care."
Once it was clear that nothing was going to change about the current situation, Harley and Maia slipped down to the building that Agnes had pointed out as the location.
"She said that people couldn't see us. Can they hear us Mrs. Harley?" Maia asked.
"That's a darned good question, Maia. I don't know. And while we're wondering about what the coven didn't tell us, can you sense this cup? Or feel it, I suppose? Or hear or anything else for that matter?"
"No, I don't what I would feel if I did."
"Typical. Let's keep it quiet unless they can hear us from here on. We'll need to sneak through when people open doors, so be ready."
The night shift seemed to consist entirely of security guards, and it wasn't hard to pass through open doors- and the guards themselves- as the guards proceeded on their rounds. Harley noticed as they went that Maia seemed to be increasingly on edge, her eyes darting rapidly to various points across the room. She didn't say anything and neither did he as they followed behind one particularly fat security guard. They wound around corrugate metal walls, and then down a flight of metal stairs- moving painfully slowly as they did. At the bottom they passed through a heavy metal door with a passcode entry and entered a concrete labyrinth of hard corners and walls painted white with yellow stripes that seemed to denote the direction of things only those who understood their secret code might decipher. Finally Maia grew so nervous that she began shivering visibly, and Harley touched her shoulder and gestured for her to wait. After the guard had lumbered out of ear shot Harley asked, "Is everything all right?"
"Mr. Harley, there's things and nasty stuff in here with us and I can kind of see them."
Maia watched as a pale hungry figure stalked through a wall hunting some phantom that Maia couldn't see. Another one chased nothing around the corner, crooked needle teeth barred and matted chalk hair flying in all directions. Maia watched the things charge through walls and up non existent hills until she realized that Harley was talking to her.
"I'm sorry Mr. Harley. What did you say?"
"What do you see Maia? I need to hear it from you. Whatever it is, I can't see it."
"Pale People monsters with big teeth and white hair." Maia said, "I don't think they're here and I mean like here here. It looks like they're a movie projection and stuff and they don't seem to see us and they're moving through wall and in the air and chasing things I can't see. I don't think they're real."
"If I'm hearing you right, then I'm betting that they are real. They just aren't in this world. You're probably seeing some sort of bleed over, the same way Marion and Fitzroy did. So either, we need to watch to keep you in this world, or there's a natural bleed here," Harley paused, "Although what that would be or mean I don't know. Either way, something's affecting you or something's affecting this place that you're seeing. Any of this mystic ability to recognize this cup we're after yet?"
Maia didn't answer immediately, and so Harley gently touched her shoulder again, "Anything else bothering you?" He asked.
"Well, I can feel two other things. I can feel something behind us and its following us and its like a lot of things and its kind of like a pack of wolves or something, 'cause it's really hungry. And over to the left down the hall is something else. And its kind of two things and one isn't alive I don't think and one is alive I think but it's kind of wrong. "
"And to the right?" Harley asked.
"Nothing. Quiet."
"Well, maybe what's behind us is the hound. Maybe it went back for reinforcements. Maybe the men of black and white grew a pair and decided to come and get us in here. And maybe its something else. But either way, I'm going to ignore that for the moment. And if there's nothing to the right, then we take the left hand path. One thing is bothering me though. I haven't seen any of those Falsefang things Agnes mentioned."
“I have,” Maia said and pointed at a black wet smear in the shape of a large boa constrictor imprinted on the concrete wall.
Harley looked where Maia pointed and then looked back at her, “I don't see anything.”
“Something killed it.” Maia said, “I've been seeing them since we got in.”
“Tell me as soon as you see anything weird then. I don't like the idea that something is killing the nasties. It doesn't sound good to me.”
Maia nodded and they proceeded cautiously down the hallway heading towards the source of Maia's feelings. They twisted and turned through concrete hallways. They passed through what was clearly a cafeteria and Maia picked up a paper cup and waved it at Harley.
"I didn't know we could touch things." Harley said.
"They did only say that we couldn't pass through the doors." Maia noted, " But it is hard to hold onto it and it keeps wanting to fall through my hand. Maybe we could tell them this is the cup they're looking for and it looks this way because it's disguised or something."
"If I thought that would work, I'd do it." Harley said.
They continued on. Harley noted the piping overhead and on the upper walls seemed to be converging, more pipes emerging from openings and joining the bundles snaking along the path they were taking. Everything leading towards whatever was down this path. The path ended at a large metal door with a metal wheel to open and close it.
"It's through there." Maia said quietly.
"Well, there's nobody nearby to open it for us, so how do we get through?" Harley asked.
At that moment the wheel began to turn. Slowly and with great screeching wails of resistance the wheel twisted on its axis.
"Why do I get the distinct sense that this is not a good thing?" Harley asked.
The wheel stopped turning and the door began to open outward and an enormous shape emerged from behind the door. The thing was wrapped in a pale yellow robe with a deep hood that hid the face, if it had a face, and a long ragged train that dragged upon the ground as the thing advanced. the robe was trimmed with ornate but worn and threadbare gold threading. The shape beneath the robe seemed less like a human and more like some great colony of many small creatures, as though earthworms had learned to move as one great being, imitating the men who walked upon them for so long. The thing did not seem to take steps so much as wash forward like progressive waves upon the shore. It tilted its head as the blackness of the hood faced towards them, and Harley suddenly knew what an worm on the sidewalk after a rain felt like.
“Mr. Harley,” Maia said, “I see something weird.”
“I see this one Maia. I think we're past weird.”
The things began to roil towards them. As it moved it spoke in a voice the seemed made of many sounds, none of them an actual human voice. It seemed to speak by conducting a horrible symphony from the sounds of thousands of slithering bodies.
“I'm beginning to think that if this is the best you monkeys can manage, that there aren't likely to be any humans in the new world I am creating." The figure said as it approached, "Perhaps squid will do better? Highly intelligent, distributed intelligence as well, very interesting. Perhaps cetaceans? Maybe another primate species. We'll see. But humans? You're embarrassing yourselves. The last ten thousand years have been a definite low point for your species. And this is how you seek to end that time of darkness? Disappointing."
Harley grabbed Maia as the robed thing washed towards them is rhythmic waves. He nodded to her, trying to be reassuring.
"What is it?" She asked, he voice wavered and Harley was reminded that- for all her competence- Maia was still a nine year old girl.
"More storybook nightmares from the sounds I'm hearing under that cape. So I suspect we should be running."
"We do an awful lot of running."
"Yes we do."
They hurtled down the concrete halls of the building retracing their original route, only to arrive at the heavy metal door that required the passcode entry.
"He's still coming Mr. Harley. I think he has the thing they want too."
"Of course he does, and I have the distinct sense that no mace is going to stop whatever he or it is. Okay, fine. I'm supposed to be the Walker right?"
"You are the Walker. The Witch Doctor told me so."
"I've never met this Witch Doctor. But if Marion is the Dreamer and he gets prophetic dreams. Then as the Walker, maybe I can do something related to walking. They've already taught me seven league walking, and its supposed to work even when you can't see where you're going."
"Mr. Harley, you couldn't go through stuff during the whole time they were teaching you."
"I agree with you Maia. But here's the thing. We're about to get caught and I don't know what happens then, but I highly doubt it's pleasant. I don't see any way out except walking through some walls. So we are going to walk out and hope that me supposedly being the Walker somehow makes it work this time."
"I don't like that plan. I want another."
"The other plan's are wait for the monster in the robe or wait for the monster in the robe. Which one sounds best to you?"
"I don't like any of them. They aren't nice."
"No they aren't. I'm willing to listen to any other options."
Maia was silent for a moment and then she whispered, "Keep moving, Keep Walking. Little steps."
Harley nodded and took her hand and together they stepped towards the metal door as though it didn't exist.
* * *
The coven edged forward. Lady Purge waved a hand to open the door before them and they proceeded cautiously to the top of a metal stair way leading in to the depths. As the women assessed the path in front of them Harley and Maia came rushing up the stairs and crashed into the women.
"What are you doing here?" Harley said, "Pack of wolves... No, pack of Jackals!"
"Why are you coming back?" Agnes Bladder demanded and then she looked past Harley down the stairs and gasped, "It is the Pale Shepherd," Agnes Bladder breathed the words out, her body radiating raw terror.
Harley looked back and confirmed that somehow the thing was still behind them and closing the distance. He looked around for options and noticed Maia still holding the paper cup. He grabbed it from her, almost losing it as the cup tried to pass clean through his hand. The thing in the robes reached the stairs. Harley focused, gripped the cup and then shoved it into Agnes' hands. "There's your cup. Now run."
And with that Harley and Maia ran straight at the nearest metal corrugated wall. Harley gripped Maia's hand, probably a little too tight, but he didn't dare risk losing her midway. He focused on his mantra:
"Keep moving, Keep Walking. Little steps." Harley was grateful that Maia wasn't questioning him. He tried not to flinch as they hit the wall. And suddenly were on the other side stumbling with the abrupt change in terrain and loose soil and grass sent both of the crashing to the ground. Harley spat out a mouthful of clover and mud and looked at Maia.
"I knew you were the Walker Mr. Harley and you walked us through a wall that time and before that you walked us all invisible and stuff and it was awesome!"
"So, from what I'm hearing, you're okay?"
"I'm amazing!" Maia grinned.
"Good, now let's run before that thing deals with the witches and comes after us."
"Do you think they'll be okay?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. They sent us in there, and they had to know what was there. or at least the risk. So I don't care what happens to the them."
* * *
Inside the building the Pale Shepherd spoke, "Servants of my sister? Why would you chase the cup? Don't you understand what it is? No of course you don't or you wouldn't chase it, at least not to have it or use it. You have been the resistance so long that you are dependent upon the empire that you resist to give you purpose. No. You will never be free because you are now defined by your opposition. You are incapable of creating a new world. You are useless."
"We have the cup, you cannot stop us with this power." Agnes said, holding out the paper cup."
"It seems the young story teller is better at painting stories than you thought. Look at your prize again, see it for what it is."
Agnes looked down at the cup, and quickly passed a hand over it in three circles and then gasped and dropped the cup.
"You could have changed the world, but no. Your vision was too small. I will admit that you have done an admirable job in your role as the resistance, but of course I have no use for resistance. It is time for a change and I am all about change, and your would have no place in the new world, so wedded are you to your battle and your silly little resistance movement. You have no idea what victory looks like. Perhaps you will be more open to change in your next lives. For the moment though, you will have to settle for merely feeding the future, rather than creating it."
Behind the Pale Shepherd things moved, a crowd emerged from the protection of the shadows, large creatures slick with moisture began to line up behind the robed figure known as the Pale Shepherd. The creatures were larger than a person and vaguely bipedal with huge distended bellies and muscular arms. They seemed to be at once both black as oil and yet they shimmered with an iridescent golden sheen. Their forms were serpentine in origins but dramatically twisted with features that seemed to allude to some chimeric goat-like heritage. But despite all this, the faces or the heads were most shocking, because the creatures had no skull or head in a traditional sense, instead having a mass not unlike tentacles, but flattened and appearing like the peeled skin of an orange flexing and unravelling as the things moved.
The Pale Shepherd gestured back with a vaguely hand-like appendage, and a few bits of the shepherds hands dropped to the ground in long wriggling strands.
"These are my Midwives. I grew them from fragments of Falsenight's power that you attempted to steal." The Pale Shepherd said, his voice formed from the sounds within the robe, like thousands of layers of wet silk rubbing together.
Agnes Bladder shook head, "We aren't interested in Falsenight's powers, we sought only his cup."
"Then you are fools." The Pale Shepherd responded, "In any event. I have taken the power that you sought, in ignorance it seems now. I have made it my own. You have lost. Your power cannot stand against mine of course."
"We are of the story. We are the resistance to the Empire. We oppose the ten thousand years of darkness. We are the wild one of wooded places. With the Wizards, we serve the story and draw power from the Primal One."
"And it seems now that your patron has abandoned you. Perhaps because you erred so badly. How long have you accepted the role of resistance? That is not your place in the story. Perhaps next time you will do better."
"We are not powerless Shepherd. We will not fall like wheat before the scythe."
"And you even use his symbols in your speech, why you're practically domesticated." The Shepherd's words slithered across the coven, and a few of them shivered. Lady Purge, who was standing at the back, took several steps backward as the conversation began to draw out. Her face wore an expression of a small viper confronted by an enormous crocodile.
"We are the wild places! We run free!" Agnes spat back her words
towards the pale robes before her.
"Perhaps not fast enough to avoid the sheepdog, and now it seems not fast enough to avoid the wolf."
Lady Purge turned and ran. The Pale Shepherd did not respond, and the rest of the coven did not notice.
The Pale Shepherd continued to speak in his weird shuffling voice, "You attempted to use a group of queens as pawns and it has cost you dearly. You have spent so much time as captive enemies, nibbling at the empire's toes like a lapdog who resents her dinner than you have allowed your power to atrophy. There is so little left, I don't even know if there is a point in devouring you. But still. It is time for change, and I am change, and am adaptation, I am transformation and regeneration. And if there is to be space on the board for a new world, the old one must be cleared away."
Agnes Bladder began to frantically summon up coils of black oily smoke with her long sinewy fingers, other witches were likewise trying to summon up some manner of defence. Lady Purge ran without looking back.
"You have proven that you are not able to transform yourselves, and so that process falls to me. I doubt this was how you imagined that things would end. But then lack of imagination seems to be a problem for you. And in this game, that is a critical weakness."
The Midwives closed in.
Lady Purge ran frantically through the corridors, ignoring the sounds behind her. Hallways echoed with screams and horrifying banging and crunching sounds. She rammed her wizened body through doorway after doorway, leaving her bruised and sore. She burst out of the building on the south side and turned towards the cars. She could see Harley and Maia climbing into their van. Off to her left another door opened, and the Pale Shepherd exited the building. Lady Purge turned away and abandoned her car to run rather than face the pale Shepherd.
The Pale Shepherd saw he leave and did nothing. instead it watched from a distance as Harley started the Cricket and drove into the distance, leaving behind the coven's armada of cars.
The Pale Shepherd whispered with the voice of worms, "The story has an answer, and the story will go on. There is no death if you know the secret. Death is merely a change of clothes that one puts on as fashion changes. Death is change, and change kills death. And everything is new once more."
No comments:
Post a Comment