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Garden of Memories VI
🕑 Added 2025-02-10 04:48:10 +0000 UTCMy attempt to barrel on without thinking about what I just went through is, surprising no one, a huge failure. The sullen silence just gives my brain more chances to barrage me with memory and emotion until I begrudgingly turn my thoughts to what happened.
Using the necklace was a gamble that paid off, but it wasn’t without cost. With my Hastur-granted senses I can map out other timelines where I activated the artifact under different circumstances, and each time the act is momentous, disastrous, and necessary.
In one world, I use it as a weapon against myself; I am split in two, divided by Abyssal fiat, and my selves go to war. When my darker side tries to devour her other half, the activation of the heart locket annihilates them both and forces reunification.
Had I been a demon on the verge of ascension, as in that instance, the sudden onset of rejuvenated humanity would have destroyed all the power I’d gathered, my existence as a demon incompatible with my original, unsculpted self. I’m fortunate that Hastur has no such limitations, already comfortable reconciling Alices in opposition.
The cost in this timeline, then, is relatively minor in comparison. It mostly just makes me feel like shit.
My memories of Sanctuary keep butting up against my attention. I find that funny, since they weren’t the set of memories devoured and regurgitated, but my time before entering the Labyrinth just doesn’t feel real. It wasn’t real, after all.
So I remember running through the woods and bargaining with a fae and then a devil, thinking myself so clever for trying to cheat the laws of narrative. I remember meeting Cheshire for the first time and looking into my horrible, broken soul with her. I remember all my petty arguments with her, with Bashe, and with everyone else.
I remember pain. I was bruised, battered, stabbed, and shot, but the sharpest pain was all self-inflicted. I made a mantra out of pain, forged my suffering into a sword and kept whetting the edge. I tore my soul apart, over and over again, made it my first and only solution to every single problem.
I remember loneliness. Everything kept trying to kill me, and I approached every creature that wasn’t trying to kill me like that could change at any time. I took Bashe’s hand, Cheshire’s, Dante, Esha, but I never trusted any of them, or if I did it was only as a gamble. I schemed manipulation and betrayal, and in other timelines I went through with it.
I wonder how much of that was my own fault, and how much was the Demiurge. It feels like I’ve made so many mistakes and bad decisions, but are they really my mistakes? Should I feel guilt for what she made me do? Or is it a kind of weakness to blame my maker, even if her hand wrote the script?
Is there really so much of a distinction between Alice and Melpomene? I’m a piece of her, one among hundreds or even thousands, but we’re not all the same. Veseryn, Kiana, Mordred, all these have happened before, but there’s only ever been one Alice. Reska remembered nothing of Melpomene’s life on Earth, the life I knew as Morgan, and Homura had some of those memories but she seemed somehow younger than me, a version of Morgan with less experience to temper the burning anger.
I can’t stop thinking about Melpomene. Mother, sister, twin, creator. Source of all my gifts, the hand behind my torment. She made us, all of us, and perhaps I should be grateful. But she keeps hurting us, breaking us, burning us, and for that I can’t forgive her. But does that mean I can’t forgive myself? Is that an accident, or the intent?
I remember what she said to Veseryn, and to Katoptris, and what she must have said a hundred times while Thalia watched:
Because I still haven’t found the answer that I’m looking for, so I need to keep hurting you. All of this must happen again, and again, until I finally have it.
What is Melpomene doing with this endless cycle? She keeps shaping worlds and carving off pieces of herself to run around those worlds, her countless shards enduring toil and hardship and suffering. Something always goes wrong, or doesn’t go in the way she wants it to, and she gives up on us. She sets us up for failure and mocks us when we stumble, but then that failure makes her depressed and withdrawn. She tortures us relentlessly, but then she burns us whether we break or endure.
She burns us for failing her, but what are we failing to do? What outcome does she find desirable? What goal is driving her actions? What question is she asking? What answer is she looking for? What does she expect from us that we can never manage to deliver?
I can’t even say for certain if hurting is a means or an end. Maybe she thinks that the only way to find her answer is to torture her own copies. Maybe she believes the cruelty is a necessary evil. Maybe that’s even true.
Maybe everything I’ve done has been necessary, for all the pain it’s brought me. My survival has been paid for in suffering, and this is the only path I could have walked. Or rather, any other path I could have walked would have been paved in the same sins and tragedies.
Or maybe we’ve both been lying to ourselves all this time. Maybe it’s all just one big excuse for the two of us to keep bleeding.
My brooding is finally interrupted by a soft touch on my shoulder. I flinch and tense, but Thalia removes her hand quickly and I force myself to relax. “Almost to the tower,” she says. “I can sense Prevara’s hosts just ahead of us, probably waiting to make their stand by the entrance. Two visible, with the last three waiting in the wings.”
I blink. “Wait, last? It has a limit? How do you know—stupid question, of course you know everything.”
“Splitting itself is one of Prevara’s oldest tricks, but Pom-Pom always hardcodes a cap to keep it manageable. This version of Prevara can divide itself into nine pieces, since that’s something of an arc number for this loop. Homura and I killed three of its shards before we were separated. Pom-Pom blew up the one harassing you right before she made her Intercessor offer. I doubt any more have died since then.”
Mordred falls in beside us and frowns. “I remember that, the ones we killed. The brother, the blademaster, and the princess of another kingdom.”
I glance over at Kiana in time to see her shiver. Oh. Hey, that seems like something we should address before going into combat. I step away from the others and ask her softly, “Did you know?”
The former princess hesitates. “Reska didn’t. I think it might have come up in the last battle, but my memories of that are hazier than the rest. I learned about it from whatever was happening with you and Thalia.”
Now it’s my turn to hesitate. “So… how do you feel about it?”
She stares off into the distance, gaze unfocused. “Luka must have been taken when he entered the doors. That’s… that’s why he was so different, after that night. Because it wasn’t him.” Kiana laughs, a bitter and broken sound. “Prevara stole my brother. I wonder if Luka was still inside, screaming as he was forced to turn on me, crying as I came to hate him for words he never meant. Or maybe Prevara just killed him. I think it killed my mother. It took everything from me, all to drive me into its arms.”
“Prevara will pay,” I say coldly. “For everything it’s done. And when we snuff out its last shard, your brother can rest.”
“And what then?” she asks quietly. “We climb the tower and raid the heavens?”
I look back at Thalia and Mordred, the two having their own discussion as we approach the site of our next battle. “That’s the plan. Fight a god and take her place, or something like that. But, before that, there’s one thing I’d like your help with.” I meet Kiana’s gaze and put as much conviction in my words as I can. “Help me save Reska. Help me pull her out of Contrition.”
Kiana shivers again. “I—I don’t know if I can do that, Alice. I wouldn’t know where to begin, and the idea of facing her terrifies me.”
“You’re the only one who can,” I insist. “You or Mordred, I guess, but do you really trust her to save Reska?”
Kiana flinches. “I… no, I don’t. I’m scared, Alice. But I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.”
When we reach the base of the tower, one of the figures there is the woman I expected: Irma, Reska’s mother, looking as she had in the final vision. Blood drips down her flowing dress, and golden eyes are stained with black rings. She waits patiently for us, hands folded and smile beatific, standing on the stone steps.
The other is Reska’s father, Kresimir Vincek Dawnbringer, who once sat the Sunlit Throne and now stands beside his dead wife. His green and gold robes have become tattered and filthy, the flesh underneath withered and decrepit. Where Irma is preserved perfectly aside from the wound Homura gave her, Kresimir is given no such luxury. The Sunlit Scepter, the grand artifact of his lineage, is clutched tightly in skeletal hands.
Must have scooped up the corpse and kept it safe. Well, that’s an unpleasant addition.
Before either of them can start taunting their daughter, Thalia waves at them and calls out, “Prevara! Buddy! I feel like it’s been ages since we last chatted. Y’know, when you delayed your inevitable demise by a few thousand years and consigned yourself to whatever torture the old girl’s been putting you through.” Thalia’s smile is bloodthirsty.
Prevara ignores Thalia. The dead king glares at his daughter with ringed eyes. “So, an echo of that worthless girl has come to climb the tower. Do you think you are worthy, child? To stand where she could not?”
“Or have you come seeking absolution?” asks the shard of Prevara inside the frail queen. “To return to your mother’s embrace and beg forgiveness for your sins? It is not too late for you, my daughter.”
For a moment, I worry that Kiana will be tempted. Reska fell for Prevara’s manipulations despite all the warning signs that should have kept her away. My worry is foolish; Kiana is furious. The shadows gather around her in a growing storm of wrathful night. Her fists are bunched tight, her teeth bared.
“You… you bastard! You horrible, wretched thing!” Kiana cries. “You took everyone from me, from her, and now you think you can play to my sympathies? To my insecurities? Never from you, Prevara. You’ll never again have a foothold in my heart. This only ends when every last piece of you is gone.”
“Well said,” Thalia praises. “Now, let’s get to that, shall we?”
Two more bodies step out of the tower, passing through the glass archway like ghosts and coming to stand beside the others. Luka, the golden prince, and Ruzica, the duchess of swords. Both corpses, both in worse condition than Irma but better than Kresimir. Both with those same ringed eyes.
Luka says calmly, “You are being deceived. I understand you have enmity towards us, but we are not your enemy. The Demiurge and the Adversary are the real threats.”
Ruzica folds her arms and adds, “There’s only one way any of us get out of this prison, and it’s not by listening to Nyarlathotep’s hatchetman.”
Mordred laughs and points her sword at the gathering of hosts. “That’s a good joke. Oh, you’re right that the Demiurge is a much, much bigger threat than your sorry ass, but the rest? What a pathetic attempt at manipulation. You’re just a puppet clawing at your own strings, too stupid to realize you’ll die when they get cut. Become the dirt I walk on, worm.”
Luka raises an eyebrow at her. “And why should Reska take your word? You lied to her from the moment you met, betrayed her trust, and even tried to murder her. Of course you would defend your accomplice, but Reska doesn’t—”
Thalia rolls her eyes at me a split second before rushing Luka. She cleaves a beam of sunlight, parries Ruzica’s sword, and collides with the fallen prince.
Before any of the rest of us can join the fight, panes of black glass pop into existence between us. The glass walls surround me in an instant, and then I’m standing somewhere I’ve stood once before, in a dream of another life. A place where the air is fever-warm.
The realm of the Leviathans is a pale reflection of the graveyard of worlds. This mass grave holds the bodies of mere mortals, things of charnel and bone piled atop the old gods of the Dream that long ago decomposed. It is an endless plain of decomposition, ringed by the writhing corpses of carrion worms that think themselves bigger than they are. They think that leeching souls from the universe above makes them the thirsty roots of it all.
Some of them know more. Some of them have been shown the truth. There is a graveyard far grander than this and far more ancient, where realities go to die. An ashen void that only one has ever called home. They are afraid of her, and so am I.
The Emissary is waiting for me, the high priest of worms. It wears the shape I saw in the void: a thing of wasting flesh and gossamer robes, of black mist and gray skin. It isn’t smiling this time, and the tendrils that form its upper head are twitching with a new, erratic frenzy. There is a scent in the air that I only now realize I have missed: fear.
“Lady Alice,” it greets. “Intercessor. Red Queen. I hear you are much and more, these days. Perhaps it is time we parlayed as equals.”
Equals, it says. What an insult. You aren’t even an Alice. I smile with teeth. “Prevara. Emissary. I hear you are less and less, these days. What do you think you can offer me?”
“Words of warning, if nothing else.” It doesn’t seem bothered by my retort, but then it must be among the best of all liars I’ve met. “You have fallen into the orbit of a very old and very dangerous monster, my lady. You cannot trust the Adversary.”
“Lol,” I say dryly. “Lmao, even.”
The Emissary tilts its half of a head. “You are a very strange creature. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Everyone’s a goddamn critic,” I complain. “I have to entertain myself somehow with all you freaks constantly trying to kill me or lie to me or both. Care to tell me which of those you’ve got cooking? ‘Cause, and this should be obvious, but I don’t trust a word you say right now. On account of you lying to me and trying to kill me. Multiple times. As recently as ten minutes ago.”
“I understand there is enmity between us,” the Emissary repeats itself from earlier with just a touch more diplomacy. “I will be frank, as it seems you appreciate that: I do not like you, Maven Alice. In fact, I despise you. But that ancient monster you’ve allied with is an order of magnitude more dangerous to not just yourself but all life on all worlds. To every participant in the cycle.”
I fold my arms and lean back against empty air turned solid by a twist of Intercessor magic. “Well, that’s an interesting detail. When Homura tried to kill you that first time, you didn’t have a clue about the real game. Yet now you’re talking like you know what the Adversary really is, and where she comes from.”
The Emissary inclines its head. “I have learned, at great cost and great pain. As it seems you have, though your interactions with the entity. Shall we speak plainly?”
“Let’s.”
“I understand the Adversary as another shard of the Demiurge like yourself, Reska, and others. The key distinction is that the Adversary originates from a previous world in the eternal cycle of death and rebirth we are all trapped in. It is my belief that the war between Adversary and Demiurge is the motivating force behind that cycle.”
I chew my lip. “She tells it different. There’s the new war, which looks a bit like what you described, and then there’s the old war. For some hundred loops or more, the Demiurge made worlds and burned them all on her own, the Adversary her Intercessor. My predecessor turned traitor when she realized the cycle would go on forever if she didn’t do something. What she’s offering me is an end to the cycle. You think she’s lying?”
“About that? No. She will end the cycle if you help her, of that I am certain.” Prevara gestures to the dead and empty wasteland around us, the miles and miles of rot and death. “The end, I imagine, will look a lot like the Abyss, which was born of her influence on the new universe. She will murder this universe and strangle the next in the cradle. She has no interest in creating something new to replace what she destroys, as that has ever been the role of her counterpart and opponent.”
Well, that last part seems true. The question is whether she’ll let me forge a new world. “I’m aware of her proclivities. She doesn’t scare me.” Lie. “Neither do you, but I get the feeling that’s not mutual anymore, is it?” I grin wide, confident in that fact. “In fact, I kinda think you’re pissing yourself right now, my dear Emissary. You tried to kill me or enslave me, and you failed. You tried to treat me like a pawn, and you failed. Now I have every reason to kill you, and you’re terrified I’ll actually do it before the Adversary even gets a chance. You called me a pest the first time we met. A piece to sweep off the board before your grand duel with your only real rival. How does it feel, knowing you were so wrong about me? I bet you’re seething with hate.”
I’ll give Prevara credit, it can hold its cool. Its muscles barely tighten at my taunts, and the only real sign of its frustration is the long pause before it answers me. “I pray you cease your juvenile taunts, my dear Intercessor. You underestimate how many cards I still hold in this game. My influence and resources are—”
“Shut up,” I snap. “Stop talking right now or I rip your guts out through your mouth and throw you at the Adversary. If you want to survive the next five fucking minutes, you will shut up and listen to me. Understand? Don’t speak, just nod.”
Prevara’s tight control finally frays. Its teeth clench and the shadows around it start bubbling and shifting like when Reska’s in distress, but it doesn’t speak. After a long moment of seeming to struggle with itself, the Emissary tightly nods. I can feel the rage boiling beneath the surface, that immense well of hate for the simple fact that I’m in control.
I smile. “Good. Much better. Now, I understand you’re afraid of the Adversary. She’s one of the only things in the universe that can actually take a bite out of you, and she’s already done that, hasn’t she? Yeah. You’re weaker than you were in your prime, thanks to her. Now she’s coming for you, coming for everything standing in the way of that tower and the heavens above. And you’re going to lose. All your little plans went up in smoke when I popped back into the story with a brand new soul. If you can’t get me on your side here, we tear through your remaining splinters and either kill you outright or leave you too weak to take on Contrition and Malice once they burst onto the stage. So tell me you need me.”
That hate and rage flares brighter, almost cracking the mask of control again, but the Emissary forces itself to speak, each word scraping against its throat. “I need you.”
The satisfaction that runs through me is practically orgasmic. How much further can I take this? How much petty revenge can I extract from bullying an entity I would have called a god just one day prior? I tilt my head. “You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more degradation. Fair play for all you’ve tried to do to me, right? So, if you want me to save you from the Adversary, then I really think you should beg me for it. Maybe I’ll take pity on you and make you my pet. C’mon. Beg. Bark for me. Be a good little bitch and your new owner will keep you safe from the big bad Adversary.”
The rage finally overflows. A wall of thorny darkness erupts from the corpse-covered ground and surges at me—
—only to be cut in half by the casual swing of a bloody knife.
“Hey again, Emmy!” Thalia chirps. “Trying to start the party without me? Naughty of you.”
The Adversary’s wedding dress has acquired some new stains, a tapestry of red and black seeping into the altar white. There’s a hole in the world where she cut her way into this realm, a static tear in the fabric of reality.
Prevara flinches at Thalia’s arrival and actually backs away from her. Its face is hard to read without eyes, but the tentacles that make up most of its head curl in tight. “You! How can you do this? What power did that wretch give you? I am an archon of Pandaemonium!”
Thalia laughs. “Sorry, is that supposed to mean anything to me? You’re a bit part, doll.”
Spikes of shadow launch at Thalia from all directions and this time she doesn’t even bother cutting them. Each thorn of darkness splashes against her skin or dress and evaporates on contact. She yawns. I shiver.
The Emissary snaps its fingers and flickers out of existence, but then the Adversary snaps her fingers and Prevara comes right back. “None of that,” she chides. “You’ve stepped into the story now, you don’t get to leave it until I give you permission. Which I won’t. We’ve got to resolve this little side plot in a timely manner.”
Prevara practically hisses at the Adversary. “I am the Emissary, the high priest of the dead gods of the Abyss. I am the second archon, beneath only Katoptris and Nyarlathotep in authority over the realms of Pandaemonium. For ten thousand years I have pulled the strings of every piece on the game board, and I have brought about the fall of six of your sisters. I am not some bit part, not some lesser player! You do not dictate realities to me!”
“Actually,” Thalia muses, “I really do. You know, there’s this concept I’ve been meaning to explain to our fresh little godling over there, so I may as well take the opportunity to use you as an example. You don’t mind, right?”
Prevara snaps its arm to the side and clenches its fist. Two Leviathan corpses rise jittering from the rotten mulch and fling themselves with open mouths directly at the Adversary. The worm-gods are wounds and death and hunger, great beasts of gaping maw and poison tooth, and they split like fruit before the Adversary’s knife. Their divided flesh melts into smoke and mist, and that smoke and mist flows into their killer’s body, absorbed completely.
Thalia sighs. “It’ll be awfully annoying to try and explain this while dealing with your little tantrums, Emmy. Oh, idea! I’ll just make your own masters keep you in place.”
The Adversary whistles and a dozen fleshy tendrils of rotting muscle and sinew rise from the mulch to bind Prevara’s limbs. The Emissary struggles, but its efforts are futile. Another tendril of meat wraps around its head and covers its mouth, silencing further protests.
“Now, let me tell you about Wonderland. I’ve been rather enamored of the concept recently, on meeting our dear little Alice and learning her story. I think it’s a perfect metaphor for something that Melpomene and I have discussed plenty of times. See, my sweet Prevara, the reason you can’t beat me here is because this is Wonderland and you are not an Alice. That girl over there, now that’s an Alice. Reska, Homura, the others, now those are Alices. But you? You’re just a bit of fluff in the dream.”
My attention sharpens. My sixth sense as Hastur tells me that this monologue is important in some way. Thalia seems to be relishing the chance to share this idea, like she’s been practicing it in her head. I need to learn more about the Adversary, so I’ll listen. I don’t know if we’re destined to try and kill each other, but if we are… understanding her powers is the first step to overcoming those powers.
Thalia reaches into nowhere and pulls out a copy of the book in question, one that looks just like my copy back on Earth. She thumbs through the pages absentmindedly. “We’re all familiar with the story, yes? An unusual girl and a fantastic world full of absolute meaningless nonsense. When little Alice falls into Wonderland, she finds a story that’s been crafted just for her. Every character she runs into was created just for that interaction, every location shaped for the scene. Something to vex her, something to make her laugh, something to confuse her sensibilities. None of the talking animals or mad strangers have lives outside the page. They don’t have inner worlds, they don’t even think like Alice does. They exist for the moment, for the scene, for the effect it will have on Alice for them to take the actions they do.
“You can pretend that they’re alive, of course. You’re always welcome to do that, in any story you read. But it is, in the end, only a pretense. Eventually, Alice will leave Wonderland, and when she does every character she met will suddenly cease to be. They are specks, fleeting and senseless. Their purpose served, they depart the stage.”
Prevara keeps struggling, and in the distance more worms stir, but they are held tight and encircled by their peers and siblings. Prevara may be their Emissary, but the Adversary is the apotheosis of the only thing they respect: strength. I watch in silence, unwilling to interrupt.
Thalia keeps going, now thoroughly enjoying herself. She tosses the book aside and smiles wider. Her voice echoes with power and truth and menace.
“In a room outside the universe there is an orrery of brass and wood and paint. That orrery is real and it is physical, and it is the source of your world. Everything in this universe is a projection, an imaginary object anchored to that physical object. None of the planets are real, none of the magic is real, and none of the people are real, not even the ones that think they can think. All just dreams, in the end.”
The philosophy of figments writ large. Is that true? Esha, Dante, Bashe, were they all just constructs of imagination? Dreams of people, tricked into thinking they were alive? It’s an uncomfortable thought, but it’s also one I’ve been primed to think about through my interactions with Lena and the other figments of Sanctuary.
Thalia slips behind Prevara and taps her knife along its body, careful not to draw blood. “Have you ever stopped to think about what the schools of magic actually represent? Order is easy, since it tells you outright that it’s all about material laws, a form of reality as self-evident as gravity. Spirit is the collective, a set of ideas shared through culture and holding weight from history and popularity. Shadow is how you personally perceive the world, your own unique set of knowledge and beliefs. Three lenses by which to view the world: that which is common fact, that which is inherited from one’s surroundings, and that which is personal perspective. These are the components of suspension of disbelief. The mechanisms of a narrative world.”
Thalia gestures and the tendril around Prevara’s mouth loosens just enough for the Emissary to spit out a response: “You deranged madwoman, you have no idea what you’re talking about! You—”
She silences it again with a snort. “Yeah, yeah. You’re big and important and definitely real, right? Wrong. You’re imaginary, Prevara. You are a puff of dream logic held together only by the inertia of what the Demiurge set in motion. Those girls you’ve been killing, though, they’re something different. They’re a little more real than you are, though not by much. Like the universe itself, they’re a projection of something physical, dreams of little scraps of meat in a cold and endless laboratory. They push the world and the world pushes back, both projections anchored in something real.”
A projection of something real. I’m sure I’d take that notion worse if I hadn’t gone through, well, everything since landing in Fata Morgana. I can’t deny the truth of what I’ve seen. Maven Alice is a screaming gobbet of godly flesh, and the body I feel right now is just my representation in the Demiurge’s dreamscape. But the Adversary—
“But me?” Thalia winks. “Oh, I’m the real deal. My heart is Melpomene’s heart, the heart of our divine creator, and this body is no mere projection. Everywhere I go, I go with my full self, and that makes me the most real thing in the universe. I’m so real that imaginary things like you can’t even fucking touch me. So you’ll die when I cut you and you’ll fail to even scratch me, because that’s how much more real than you I really am.”
It clicks into place. Reska, Homura, Urna, Alice, we’re all tiny scraps of the Demiurge. Skin and muscle and fat, but all of that is just excess meat. It hurts her to carve us off, but she’s not really sacrificing anything important. Thalia, though? Her core is Melpomene’s heart. That has to mean something.
Gaining insight through Hastur has given me more ability to manipulate the false reality of the dream, but the weight behind my influence is always going to be lesser than what Thalia can bring to bear. The gap between us is even greater than the gap between me and the girls who haven’t found that insight, the shards of Melpomene who haven’t seen what I’ve seen and can’t peek behind the curtain.
…Hmm. That might actually show us a path to evening the playing field. We could devour a billion souls and not get an inch closer to Thalia’s level, but eating other Alices… when we ate Urna, that felt incredibly different from all our previous meals.
That’s a dangerous train of thought. The only shards left now are Reska and Homura. I don’t feel particularly bad about the idea of killing and eating Homura, but Reska? That’s the girl we’re supposed to save.
If she can be saved.
Thalia glances back at me, now holding the knife to Prevara’s throat. “Get any fun ideas from that rant, sis?” Her smile is cocky and knowing, like she can tell I’m plotting countermeasures against her. Can she read my thoughts? I have to just hope she can’t.
“A few,” I say lightly. “It’s a nightmarishly solipsistic view of reality, but I can’t deny the material evidence for your position. And I don’t really have the luxury of getting into arguments about moral philosophy while the universe is about to end.”
Thalia laughs. “But you’d love to, wouldn’t you? I’ll admit, that’s a trait I always find so cute in Veseryn.”
I cough and hide my face. “Yes, well, whatever.”
She laughs again. The writhing worms devour each other around us. “I’ve got this handled. Prevara has a few more tricks up its sleeve, but they won’t be enough. You should help the others, they might need it.”
Shit, right. “That is an exceptionally good point! Have fun with the worms.”
The tear that Thalia cut into this space is still there, but I want to try carving one of my own. I wasn’t sure if Prevara had actually transported me to the Abyss or just called up a simulacrum, but closer examination reveals it as something more comparable to a throne world overlay. This space is the Abyss, that much is certain, but it’s also still Fata Morgana.
Hastur’s hands pry open the barriers between dimensions and I slip through the cracks. I catch a glimpse of other pocket realities torn apart by the Adversary’s passing, and two bubbles still unpopped.
The first contains Mordred, who almost seems to be having fun as she crosses swords with the corpse of Ruzica. Her joy is sharp-edged and vicious, seen in the mocking laughter that accompanies each parry and riposte. My intervention clearly isn’t needed here.
Kiana, however, might need my help. Her pocket dimension looks like the inside of Reska’s castle, only the roof has been blown off to expose an endless void. She’s in the throne room of the castle, and she’s fighting her father.
Kiana descends on Kresimir in a swarm of hungry darkness and he blasts her back with a ray of pure sunlight, sending her tumbling across the throne room to crash against the far wall.
I step out next to her and offer a hand. “Need some help?”
Kiana hesitates, but then she takes my hand and I pull her up. “I can do this. Reska defeated him in this very room.”
“That’s right,” the dead king says, cold and stern. “You murdered me here. Are you going to do it again, child? How many times will you betray your parents?”
A slash of shadow meets a flash of light. Kiana glares at the corpse with more hate than I ever felt from Reska. “You’re not my father, and you’re not even Reska’s. And for all the strife we had with him, for all the anger and the frustration and the grief, we never wanted him to die. That was your doing, Prevara.”
Prevara sends another blast of sunlight at Kiana, but I counter it with a pane of conjured glass, an Intercessor trick. I drawl, “Things really aren’t looking up for you, are they? You could always surrender now and subject yourself to our tender mercies.”
Three more rays provide an answer. Kresimir raises the artifact and a miniature sun grows in the air above him, drawing in light and heat and power. “You sound so sure of yourself, girl, but the path you walk leads only to ruin. You may best me here, but you will not survive what is to come. When the end swallows you whole, remember this: I could have saved you.”
I laugh at Prevara’s last desperate attempt at manipulation. “You can’t even save yourself. Let’s finish this, Emissary. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
One day ago, Prevara was an entity so far beyond me I couldn’t even conceive of how to fight it. From the view I had still stuck as a lowly demon running through pointless games, the Emissary was my final boss. The greatest challenge I’d have to overcome on the path to the tower and what lay beyond.
But in the real game, Prevara isn’t even a player. If I take the Adversary’s point of view, Prevara isn’t even a person. It wants to believe in its importance, and I can relate to that. Destiny is a heady drug.
I’m not sure I believe in destiny anymore. My role is to die, and that’s a fate I can’t accept. Every girl who came before me, every Alice, they all failed. There’s nothing in the stars to say I’ll do better than them.
So damn the stars, and damn the woman who put them there. I’ll carve my own path.
Kresimir throws the sun at us and Kiana drowns it in darkness, and it’s my blade that sinks into his chest and my will that seizes the shard of Prevara clinging tight to this corpse. I rip the parasite free of its host.
I can tell this is the last piece, meaning Mordred and Thalia must have finished with their shards. Prevara made a mistake in challenging us, unaware that Thalia could close its escape routes. It talked, it fought, and now it dies.
I crush the last of its essence and feel the Emissary cease.
The king, corpse though he may be, lets out a rasping breath. His eyes have lost their rings of black and are rapidly fading, grown rheumy and decrepit. His gaze slides off me and finds the girl that looks just like his daughter.
His voice is thin, his words coming out in strangled gasps. “Reska… my Reska…”
Kiana steps beside me and looks down at the ruin of a man. “What is there to say?” she asks. She sounds so tired, and her eyes are wet. “Nothing can be fixed now.”
“Too late,” the king coughs. “Always… too late.” His body stills, the life drained out.
Kiana stares down at him, sniffling with suppressed tears. “You were a terrible father,” she whispers. “I wish I still had you.”
I’m afraid to say anything, so I stay quiet as she kneels by her father’s corpse and holds him close. The world around us fades away, the castle and the void melting back into the city of glass. The tower looms tall, and I catch sight of Thalia and Mordred by the archway entrance.
Then the sky shatters.
The clear blue above, already cracked from earlier, collapses completely as a vast force pushes through. A raging storm of wind and fire and regret annihilates a dozen floating islands and the furthest edge of Fata Morgana, dragging them all inside its whirling mass.
A keening wail scrapes against my ears, and I know her to be Contrition. The archdemon of regret, once the anguished princess Reska, has entered the Labyrinth.
A great shadow follows her, a thing of blades and teeth and hate that rises from the depths below. Malice. The archdemon of sin and hatred, the former Homura, chases after her old love and enemy.
Beyond them both, in the Labyrinth proper, I see a thousand flashes of light. I see great dragons whose wingspans could eclipse whole cities. I see a horror of bone and ice locked in struggle with another of flame and bark, and I see more archdemons like the two approaching the city. All of them, all these Royals and their dominions, are coming to war.
The end of the world has begun.
