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."
