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Mad Tea Party (Redux) I
🕑 Added 2022-08-27 00:13:01 +0000 UTCFEAST OR FAMINE
ACT ONE
PART FOUR: “Mad Tea Party (Redux)” OR “New Friends, New Faces, and the Neighborhood Potluck”
“Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished with this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.”
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Twice upon a time, I find myself haunted by glass in a strange and dangerous wonderland.
Once, I ruined the life of a girl who thought she could trust me; now, I dream my past self’s machinations through that ruined girl’s eyes. Once, I plucked a needle of glass and wove it into a blood-red blade; now, that blade returns to my hands dormant but awakening. Once and now again, I feel the shadow of a glass tower and a crawling chaos. I have felt the touch of a dark and terrible Demiurge, and I wonder how far back her influence stretches.
I drift to wakefulness in a sea of confusion and curiosity, mind whirling with fragments of memory. I am Reska Ines Zelic, sick with jealousy and longing. I am Homura Annatar Bloodfallen, twisting the truth to get my way.
I am Maven Alice, lying in bed with a cat curled in my arms.
I groan, head still spinning, and find myself wishing that just once I’d be able to wake up in this fantasy otherworld without having to process entirely new revelations about the nature of my presence here. I mean, I get that mystically-important dreams are a staple of the fantasy genre, but every night? Hells, I even had one of these vision-dreams while knocked out from a fae sleep spell.
I feel Cheshire stir in my arms, the changeling seeming to wake at my noise of discontent. I open my eyes and see the white-furred cat stretch her limbs and yawn, which of course gets me yawning too. The cat steps out of my arms and hops to the floor below, and I keenly feel the absence of her warmth, though I still have too much pride to ask her to return.
I roll from my side onto my back and stare up at the plain beige ceiling. “We don’t have to get up,” I grumble-mumble, unwilling to part with my bed quite so soon. It’s not the comfiest bed I’ve ever slept in, sure, and there are still bloodstains from the two times that I’ve slept in it while covered in my own blood–that is to say, the two times that I’ve slept in it–but… eh, a bed’s a bed, and I’m used to sleeping on the floor.
I hear Cheshire’s rich laughter, and then her pale face is looming over mine, once more in her human form–or rather, human-adjacent, as those cat ears remind me. Her mismatched blue-and-yellow eyes gleam with mirth, and when she smiles I see hints of her cute little fangs.
“You know,” she says, “we are on a timetable, but far be it from me to say no to more cat-cuddles.”
I grimace, but of course she’s right, so I reluctantly kick the covers off and rise from the bed, Cheshire taking a step back to give me space. Then I stop and blink a few times at Cheshire, because her appearance has changed. “You look different.”
Cheshire gives a little twirl and shows off her new outfit. “You like?” She’s traded her skimpy JRPG outfit for something relatively more modest: a baggy sweater with thumb hole sleeves, faded jeans, and scuffed sneakers. “New dynamic, new threads. This is what I’m more used to wearing anyway.”
Were those other outfits just another vector of manipulation, then? Did you pick those to throw me off, knowing I would be made uncomfortable by how they accentuated your attractiveness? Did you–
I blink hard and try to banish my paranoid ideation. We agreed to give her a chance. Trust is a risk, but risk is the creed we’ve sworn to live by.
I force a smile and tell her honestly, “You look great. It suits you a lot better.”
Cheshire preens and gives a little wiggle, smiling, but then she pauses and claps her hands together. “Oh! One more detail: I can’t make my ears disappear, because they’re part of my changeling tell, but I can hide them under a hat. That’s what I used to do when I was mortal, and it might be useful if we want to keep anyone else from figuring me out like Bashe did.”
She lifts her hands and materializes a knit beanie cap with two raised parts made to look like cat ears. She slides it over her own cat ears, fitting perfectly, and once it’s snugly in place she looks like an ordinary human girl, albeit one with heterochromia and white hair. “Ta-dah!” she grins.
“Cute.” Then I frown, the implication registering that at some point as a mortal she felt the need to hide her ears. A reminder that, if her story is to be believed–and again, that’s the choice I’ve made–then Cheshire has spent a great deal of her life as an outsider for her changeling nature. And that, inevitably, draws me to my dreams.
I remember Reska: aberrant, monster, demon. I remember her shame and fear, cursed with magic that made her a pariah in her own home. And I remember Homura, lovely lying Homura, with her words sweet like poison. From one outcast to another, it’s so easy to pull the heartstrings. But which of us is really in control?
Perhaps neither of us. A wave of revulsion passes over me and I shiver at the memory of Nyarlathotep’s violating touch. Whether I’m taking advantage of Cheshire or she’s taking advantage of me, we’re both just puppets on the Soul-Sculptor’s strings.
Cheshire sees my shiver and tilts her head, expression curious. “What’s up?”
I grimace. “Just… processing implications.” I wave a hand dismissively. “We can talk about it later. Breakfast?”
“Sure! You’ll have to make me physical again, though.”
I don’t remember unsummoning her, but I can see the charm bracelet lying on the bed where Cheshire had previously curled. “Ah.” So she can unsummon herself. That… probably shouldn’t surprise me, it only makes sense.
I grab the bracelet and hold it out, beginning to concentrate on the summoning ritual. I take in Cheshire’s new form and try to burn it into my mind like the way my dreams have been seared into memory. I say the words, calling upon my authority as a demon and the inherent properties of the anchor object I’ve chosen for her.
“Let the stuff of dreams become your body, and may you ever take the form you please. Rise, Cheshire, O geist of mine, and walk with me along this winding path.”
Physicality fills Cheshire’s form, and once again she moves with mass and solidity. She stretches her newly-physical limbs and again I am struck with a keen difference in detail: the first time I gave her a body, she stretched to tease me; this time, there’s no artifice or showmanship to her casual motions. She’s just stretching.
I wonder… is it just to put me at ease, or has she really accepted taking the long road to a relationship? Is this a fresh start, or just a new mode of attack? I tense, struggling to halt all the suspicious thoughts running through my mind. Paranoia is my default state, but I refuse to let it control me.
Cheshire looks at me and I see uncertainty in her eyes, in the corners of her lips, in all the little microexpressions of her face. I can taste the faintest whiff of fear, with that strange demonic sense of mine, and I know that she is afraid of what I might think of her. She told me that she was scared, in that dark hollow in the heart of my soul, and I believed her. I still do.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “I… I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful, whatever else I may feel. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you. And… I don’t just mean power. Thank you for being there for me when I needed comfort, and there to challenge me when I needed perspective. Thank you for… for understanding me. I know I’m not the easiest person to deal with, and I know it wasn’t really your choice, but… I appreciate you. Thank you, Cheshire.”
Her expression softens, and her eyes are wet with held-back tears. “Thank you for letting me in, when it mattered most. I hope that I can continue to earn your trust, Alice. I…” she hesitates, lets out a ragged breath, and looks away from me. “I think I’ll go get something ready for breakfast.”
“Thanks. I, um, I’ll be out in a minute.” I watch her leave the room, closing the door behind her, and when she’s gone I let out a deep breath of my own.
Okay. Let’s utilize a classic healthy coping strategy and bundle up all our complicated feelings about Cheshire to deal with literally never. Instead, we can play with our shiny new sword!
I curl my fingers around the swept hilt of my recently-acquired war rapier. I lift the weapon from where I had left it leaning against the bedside, and I am mesmerized by its crimson blade and the memories that it evokes. I remember Homura holding this sword, naming it as her sorcerer Crest: Vorpal, the Bloodstained Blade. And dimly, in less detail and less clarity, I remember the months of effort that went into forging this blade.
I remember the night horrors we carved through to retrieve the bloodstone ore. I remember teaching myself–I remember Reska teaching Homura–how to attune deeper to her affinity, how to shape it and externalize it. I remember the needle of red glass you–I, Homura, dammit–produced as if by miracle.
Somehow, this artifact was made by me. A younger me, parted by time and space, full of rage and hate with a silver tongue, but still me in ways I can’t ignore. I made this sword, named it my vorpal blade, a weapon fit for an Alice. And now that I have returned to my forgotten wonderland, Vorpal has returned to me. That cannot possibly be coincidence, and I am more convinced than ever that the Homura of my dreams is somehow my past self. It feels right, narratively.
I take a few swings with the blade, finding it perfectly fitted to my palm and so easy to maneuver. I have so, so many questions, but I think my very first question has to be purely practical: can I store this sword inside my soul, or will I have to carry it with me wherever I go? I take a final test swing, then picture one of the many rooms of my soul’s castle and send Vorpal away.
At the very start of my very first vision of Reska’s tragic story, the shadowborn princess trapped a sentry artifact inside an extradimensional space: her second shadow, which she identified as a manifestation of her soul’s pleroma. She said, “No artifact would allow itself to be imprisoned for even an hour’s length.”
However, I’ve held several artifacts in my own extradimensional space for far longer than an hour; my bug-summoning artifact [Swarmheart] has spent most of a day–or more–inside my throne world, while my more recent acquisition [Hunter’s Marker] has been there for at least half a day. Neither of them have given any indication of fighting back against that storage, so will Vorpal also go without a fight?
Alright, let’s keep an eye on that while we grab breakfast, see if there’s any reaction. With the artifact blade secured in my throne world I finally step out of the bedroom and into the apartment proper.
It’s weird having this whole place basically to myself. It’s not a penthouse or anything, but it’s still a very nice and very modern apartment… in another world full of magic and monsters, where rent as a concept doesn’t exist because this is a city maintained by simulacra of humans with hollow souls being puppeted by a terrifying eldritch horror convinced that she’s made “paradise.”
Okay, so maybe the nice apartment isn’t the weirdest part, but it makes for some very surreal contrast.
I join Cheshire in the kitchen, where she is snacking on some of those coconut rice cakes that Bashe brought with the rest of his grocery run. I probably wasn’t going to eat those, ever, because I don’t like coconut, so I’m glad to see Cheshire enjoying them. I rifle through the pantry and fridge but Bashe didn’t actually get us any proper breakfast food, and a quick check of my throne world’s kitchen reveals that I also neglected to acquire any item of food more suitable for before noon than after it.
Ah well, it won’t be the first time I’ve eaten like a scavenging possum. I grab one entire hunk of blue cheese from my throne world and wash a tomato from the apartment fridge, and then I chow down while contemplating the question of my new artifact.
Vorpal hasn’t sprung out of me yet, and I don’t feel any strain on my soul that might indicate it trying to break free. I have to assume that the artifact that Reska captured was less metaphysically important than a full-blown sorcerer Crest, so why isn’t Vorpal fighting me?
It could be that artifacts of the “new” system–which I can now confirm to be new after a comment from Cheshire–are more placid and easier to seal away… or perhaps the key distinction is that I’m not “imprisoning” them because they’re metaphysically tagged as mine to hoard, or maybe it’s some quality of my throne world that allows for such storage. If affinity magic predates the existence of Thrones and Truths, maybe sorcerers like Reska didn’t have throne worlds at all.
From my limited time in Pandaemonium, I’ve learned of two parts to the soul: the pleroma, which Bashe called the soul’s “outer body” and named essential to casting spells and storing mana; and the core, which contains one’s fundamental qualities–with the animus at its very center, the animating principle of the self. Perhaps my throne world is more core than pleroma, and that’s what allows it to hold artifacts.
It certainly seems to be holding. I’ll keep checking in on it, of course, but for now it would appear that Homura’s Crest has no issue staying inside my throne world.
…Which spares me to think of the other pertinent details from my latest vision: the presence of the Crawling Chaos, the mention of a tower made of glass, and the reveal that my presumed-younger self chose the name “Homura Annatar Bloodfallen.”
I almost laugh, and having polished off both cheese and tomato I quickly grab a peach and a plum to keep my mouth distracted so I don’t give the game away to Cheshire. Homura Annatar Bloodfallen. What an absurd name. The first and last are characters from anime, and that middle name… I know it from somewhere, but where? It seems very fantasy, and I’m pretty sure it’s from a book, but I can’t quite put my finger on which book. That’s going to bug the shit out of me until I figure it out.
“You know, you really are cute when you’re lost in your own head, Allie. How was the meal?”
I blush as I realize that I’ve been staring off into nowhere while Cheshire’s right there next to me, leaning against a kitchen counter and watching me think. There’s an empty box of rice cakes next to her, and I’ve consumed the remainder of the food I grabbed. “Sorry, lots to think about. Uh, good. Blue cheese is divine ambrosia. We should probably grab actual breakfast food at some point, though.”
The catgirl laughs lightly. “Yeah, probably. But, I’m actually a little more interested in the meal you had last night: the one that came with meat.” Her gaze sharpens, and I get the distinct feeling that we’re back in geist-and-demon mode.
“Right. Yeah. The woman I killed and ate. Probably worth talking about.” I dump the fruit pits and pour a glass of lemonade from my throne world. I take a few big gulps, then set the glass down, lean against the fridge, and close my eyes.
I breathe deep and let my senses rove at random over my body. I felt something when I ate Mahiri, just like I felt something when I ate the hunter in the hall of doors, and when I bit into the werewolf, and into Lena. Each successive act of hunger and consumption brought something new into me: the blood of a husk, the blood of a beast, the blood of a kill, and the blood of a soul.
I flex my fingers, and I feel strength in my hands. I breathe, and my breath is clear and easy. I roll my shoulders, and I feel coiled potential in my spine. I run my tongue along my teeth, and I hunger to sink my fangs into someone just to prove I can. I could, too; I could have any meal I wanted, with just a bit of effort and will.
“I feel… powerful. Confident, mentally and physically. I feel an energy, contained but present, crackling and full of potential. Like reified volition.” I open my eyes and stare straight into Cheshire’s. “I feel indomitable. I feel hungry for more.”
Cheshire watches me with those clever eyes, taking it all in. “Do you still feel that way when you think of facing Averrich?”
Like a layer of frost settling over my skin, that feeling of power and strength dampens. Averrich, the man with a soul like old stories and moonlit nights. Averrich, the elven huntsman with a cabal of hunters and beasts arrayed around him. “I think I could take any of his followers at this point: the hunters, the goblins, the imp and the lycan, even the owlbear. But even just from that short interaction, I could feel something of the difference in power between his followers and the fae himself.”
And he’s coming for me, soon. I pull [Hunter’s Marker] from my soul, the artifact dagger that I made in Averrich’s throne room from the residue of half a dozen tracking spells. The dagger is still keyed to Averrich, and a tickling in the back of my mind gives me the sense that he’s far from me, but he’s on the move… and I bet I know why.
“I think he’s already moving against his rivals,” I tell Cheshire. “Maneuvering himself and his forces in position to strike against the other candidates as soon as the Nobles call for their Game of Glass.”
“Which includes us,” she says grimly, “if we’re to believe his guess at Eirdryd acting on someone else’s orders.”
Eirdryd Llewellyn, who bought my name for a magic compass, and who may be working for another of this Labyrinth’s Noble rulers. I’m still disturbed by the idea that our chance encounter in the forest may have been premeditated, but that’s a problem for later. “Even if Averrich is wrong about that, it won’t change his actions; he has plenty of reason to hunt us down.”
Cheshire nods. “So what’s the plan?”
I crack my knuckles and grin. “Simple: we murk his ass before he can murk ours. Which means finding whatever [Find the Path] thinks will help us win that fight.” I call the wheel of flame to my hand, its burning arrow currently pointing toward the door of my apartment.
My geist smiles back at me. “Sounds good. Shall we?”
“Absolutely. But first, I should probably change out of these bloody rags and take a shower.”
My clothes keep getting ruined by people stabbing me, which is incredibly rude of them to be honest. It would be nice to find an outfit that regenerates on its own, but barring that, maybe I could grow some extra layers of bone plating for modesty? Since my body has doll anatomy and porcelain skin, I could go around wearing just a cloak, like Ryuko in that one episode of Kill La Kill, but that still might be more fanservice than I'm comfortable with.
Ooo, what if I could get one of those cool magic cloaks that are like, made of shadows and cosmos and whatever, and they’re always as long as they need to be for any given scene, so I could wrap it around myself and also let it flutter dramatically in the nonexistent wind? Yeah, that sounds rad, kinda wanna find something like that. Or make something like that, since I do have an artificer superpower.
If the sky’s the limit, maybe I could get a symbiote suit like Gwenom. Actually that one might be feasible, maybe it's close enough to creepy crawlies that I could leverage my Truths to get a spell? Wait, Truths, could I make an outfit out of my own blood? Or could I clothe myself in my own shadow like Darquesse?
Man, now that I think about it, there are a lot of fictional characters that have weird relationships with clothing.
I step out of the shower, dry off, and consider what to wear. I dumped my damaged vampire magician outfit in my throne world, and I’ve got a few choices to replace it with. I could pull out the witch’s ensemble I put together during our trip to the mega-mall, but it’s a bit more femme than I’m feeling right now and it doesn’t quite feel right now that my character build has switched from “blood-draining fragile-as-glass summoner” to “rapier-swinging soul-eating juggernaut.” I mean, I’m not invincible–yet–but if I can get my hands on someone I can basically guarantee that they’ll die long before I do, and that leads to a very specific set of battle tactics.
I could be lazy and just wears jeans and a graphic tee, but the semiotic logic of this world’s magic system would penalize my spellcasting as a consequence. So, okay, let’s try to work through that semiotic meaning. I conjure and dismiss articles of clothing in sequence and examine each one of them, trying to interpret what meaning they would broadcast and how that might tie into my Truths as a demon.
My three Truths are Blood, Gluttony, and Fear, and the animus I have chosen to live by is Feast or Famine: the principle of ultimate risk or sacrifice in exchange for ultimate reward. My Truth of Blood contains the concepts of risk and sacrifice, but also bonds, both mutual and parasitic. My Truth of Gluttony is a hunger for power and knowledge, and is associated with consuming flame and the ravenous Abyss. My Truth of Fear contains fear of death, rule through fear, and fear of abandonment–the last of which could be reframed as a desire for attention if we wanted something more active and positive.
The desire for attention could be read two ways when applied to fashion: something distinctive and flashy, like this gothic lolita dress, or something skimpy and revealing, like this backless red dress. The skimpy reading would actually synergize with risk, since baring skin is inviting the point of a sword, and it would synergize with bonds, if you consider the natural endpoint of that kind of attention to be intimate interaction.
The flashy gothic lolita outfit might align with other elements of Fear if I added details like bird skulls and other bits of macabre imagery, but I’m not sure about my other Truths. Maybe if I took the witch’s hat and swapped the funeral veil for a pair of glasses, I could channel the “nerdy sorceress” aesthetic and splice in Gluttony’s concepts.
…Hmm. It does occur to me now that there is a very obvious intersection point between “nerdy sorceress” and “skimpy outfit.” Fuck, have I accidentally logicked myself into dressing like a sexy anime witch?
No no, we can reason our way out of this one. Whatever aesthetic we settle on, it still has to feel like us, right? So anything sexy is definitely out of the picture.
Okay, counterpoint: Cheshire would definitely say that’s us being self-loathing and possibly gender dysphoric. She would also, in all likelihood, be correct about that.
Bleh. Nope, not engaging with that one.
I pick the skater dress with the black-and-white tentacle pattern, the black-and-white stripey leggings, the lace-up thigh-high boots, and the oversized witch hat. For maximum spell-boosting I should really keep thinking about the optimal aesthetic choice, but for now I just want to get moving and figure it all out later.
Cheshire beams at me as I emerge back into the living room. “Oh, nice, that dress was my favorite. You know, with round shades and some kind of shawl you could get a real hipster goth vibe.”
I pause, envisioning that, and find the image actually quite appealing. “Okay, remind me to do that when we get a chance. If we get a chance. I have no idea where this spell will lead us.”
I summon the burning compass and we follow it out of the apartment complex and into the city of Sanctuary 7. To my surprise, it’s still nighttime outside, but then it was still bright out when I crashed in bed after making it back to the apartment, so I guess that makes sense.
The starry sky glitters above, and lampposts line streets devoid of cars. A sprawl of stone and metal greets me, the city of grand architecture and neon signs that is both paradise and prison to its free-willed inhabitants.
A stone amphitheater dominates the skyline in one direction, a vast structure that I know to be the domain of the Beast of Lamentation and Euphoria. My compass points away from it and toward the other major structure visible from here: the massive techno-pyramid that contains several malls-worth of “shops.” Because this is a Sanctuary in the Labyrinth, and money doesn’t exist here, I still maintain that “shops” is a misnomer.
We start walking toward the Pyraplex, the streets relatively clear except for a few early-risers. A quick scan with my soul sight shows none of the people milling about to be actual people, just figments, and [Hunter’s Marker] doesn’t show Averrich getting any closer, so we seem to be in the clear. For now.
Cheshire actually walks alongside me, hands in her pockets and humming to herself, rather than vanishing into my shadow or turning into an animal. She seems pensive about something.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask.
The geist bites her lip and looks up at the stars. “Thinking about the Game of Glass. I’m… nervous.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What, don’t like our chances against the competition? We don’t even know who most of them are going to be yet, beyond guesses.”
Cheshire laughs. “No, not that. I’m confident we’ll overcome whoever stands in our way. No, what I’m really worried about is what comes after.”
Ah. “You mean the shard.” The corporeal animus of the Beast of Lamentation and Euphoria, which grants its wielder godlike power at the cost of stagnation. The glass shard that the Beast offered me when it plucked me from the Reveler’s maze just in time to escape the hunter on my tail.
“Yeah. It’s irrational of me; you rejected the shard when it was offered, after all, and that was when the Beast was just going to give it to you. But… I get nervous. What if, after fighting off all the other contenders, you change your mind?” She’s still looking away from me, toward the sky, but I can clearly see the lines of worry on her face.
“I won’t,” I say with conviction. “I made the choice to trust you, to shape a new animus, and I’m sticking with it. We are in this together.” That doesn’t stop me from having my own doubts and fears, but I have a lot of practice managing paranoia. “And hey, even if I start to feel some sunk cost from whatever goes down in the Game, it won’t outweigh the less fallacious sunk cost of whatever advancements I make in my demonic abilities. I promise you, Cheshire: I have no intention of claiming the Beast’s shard unless I can do so in a way that preserves my demonhood and my connection to you.”
She looks away from the stars to meet my gaze, visibly relieved, and she smiles. “Thanks. I needed to hear that. So… what is the plan?”
I shrug and fold my hands behind my head. “Kill a bunch of powerful assholes before they kill us, eat their souls, then kick the Beast’s ass and turn her shard into a paperweight? Throw it off the side of the island? Backtrack to the abandoned schoolhouse and dump it in the Abyss?”
Cheshire shivers. “Let’s not do that last idea. No one deserves to be trapped in the Abyss for all eternity.”
“Oh, hey, you still need to finish telling me that creation myth at some point. But yeah, fair, we’ll find some other way of dealing with the Beast. Got any suggestions?”
“Maybe. I think we should start, at least, by defining our goals. If our objective in the Game isn’t going to be attaining the shard, we could instead define our objective as preventing our enemies from attaining the shard. Averrich is one of those enemies, obviously, and I think it’s very likely that Vaylin Kirinal will be another.”
I nod. “Yeah, the few things I’ve heard about Vaylin suggest she’s going to be a problem for us sooner or later.” Part of me is almost looking forward to matching wits with a rival demon, but the more intelligent parts of me are concerned about fighting a demon with years of experience on me and a whole pack of minions at her beck and call.
“Conversely,” Cheshire continues, “we’ve met with Esha of the Myriad and right now she isn’t our enemy. The Machinist was mentioned as another major power in this city, and one that the Myriad have at least a neutral relationship with.”
I chew my lip and consider that. “I don’t think we have enough data to make any decisions about the Machinist, but Esha… she seemed positively inclined toward me, when we had our little talk. And she is, so far, one of the only people I’ve met in this city who wants to treat figments like people, which is a pretty big point in her favor.”
“So the question: are we okay with Esha being the one to claim the shard, if that’s what it comes down to?” Cheshire watches me intently.
I mull it over, but it’s not really a difficult decision. “I think that there are much worse options, and it would piss off the bastard that set Eirdryd on me, so I’m giving that a tentative ‘yes.’ If I can find a way to claim the shard without losing my demonhood, I will, but otherwise the plan is to put it in Esha’s hands and stay on her good side.”
The compass spell leads us inside the grand shopping center, which is fully open despite the early hour as yet another sign of this city’s unnatural nature. There are fewer figments here than last time but still a fair number, and the whole interior is awash in the glow of neon circuitry and touchscreen kiosks.
[Find the Path] leads us to the center of one of the mega-mall’s two distinct food courts, and there it does something I haven’t seen happen before: the lines of the flaming arrow reorient to overlap, both pointing to the top of the circle, and then that single line of flame starts inching slowly to the right, like the minute hand of a clock ticking down.
“Huh,” I say.
“Huh,” Cheshire repeats.
“Have you seen anything like this before?”
“Nope. Granted, I’ve not seen much of this spell at all, but I definitely didn’t know it could do that. It looks like a clock, right?”
“Yeah, I see it too. So, what, it’s counting down to when the target will be in this location?” I take a few steps back from where I was standing, but the clock remains. I circle the entire food court and there’s no change in the structure of the burning circle, just the very slow movement of the clock hand. “If it’s telling me my target isn’t here yet, why isn’t it just pointing me to where the target is right now?”
Cheshire leans over my shoulder and peers at the spell, brow furrowed, and then she snaps her fingers and brightens. “Ah, I think I’ve got it! [Find the Path] is supposed to be the ultimate pathfinding spell, one of the aces of the Summer Court, but it can’t show you a path to something that’s genuinely unreachable. You asked for ‘that beyond the maze which would be most helpful in defeating Averrich,’ and I think that, somehow, the spell identified something that isn’t here yet but is going to be soon. Something beyond the Labyrinth, or beyond the part of the Labyrinth we can access with our means, but which is in transit toward this destination even as we speak.”
I whistle appreciatively. “Damn. That is a powerful spell effect. Almost makes it seem worth the trade for my name, if not for the incredibly limited number of uses.”
“And whatever Eirdryd’s plotting to do with that name,” Cheshire adds.
I sigh. “Yeah, still far from an equal exchange, but it was my only real option. Let’s just hope whatever’s on its way has enough value to justify burning the last charge. But, uh, it seems like we’ve got some time to kill before it arrives, so… breakfast?”
Cheshire’s expression is wry as she says, “Didn’t we just have breakfast?”
“That was first breakfast,” I grin. “Now it’s time for second breakfast.”
The Pyraplex has an actual full-service breakfast restaurant on one of its floors, because of course it does. I dig into french toast piled high with butter and syrup, the objectively superior counterpart to waffles and pancakes. Because I am a bottomless pit and I’m not sure my body is actually capable of eating “too much” anymore, I also order stuffed hash browns with sour cream and cheese, and an omelet with tomato and spinach.
I consume all of them, and second helpings of the french toast, and when every scrap has been devoured I find myself still hungry for more–not hungry in a hollow stomach way where I need more, but hungry in the sense that I could eat more and I know I would enjoy it. I sip my orange juice while I contemplate that.
Cheshire, seated across from me, ordered a much more modest breakfast of bacon, sausage, and cheesy eggs, with a glass of water for her drink. She also eats at a more reasonable rate, whereas I practically inhaled each portion of my meal.
“Is it a demon thing,” I ask, “that I’m still kind of hungry after eating all of that?”
Cheshire swallows a bite of sausage and nods. “Absolutely. Hunger is an essential part of the Throne of Shadow, for one, but you also have to remember that this stuff isn’t really your food anymore; souls are your food–and to a lesser extent, mana, which in your case mostly means drinking blood.”
I frown. “Okay, but I just ate two big souls less than twelve hours ago. That’s the kind of feast that should leave me feeling sated for a while, isn’t it? Hells, some vampires in fiction can go weeks without feeding after a particularly good meal.”
“Ah,” she says, pointing a fork with some egg on it at me, “but you’re not just any demon. You, my dear Allie, are a demon with one third of your soul dedicated to the Truth of Gluttony. You’re right that the average demon probably wouldn’t be hungry the day after winning a throne duel and chowing down on a nice, juicy soul, but your Truths make you a special case. I don’t predict you’ll ever remain sated for very long, even after feeding in the ways you’re meant to. And food like this?” She makes a sweeping gesture at what remains of her breakfast. “No matter how tasty it is, it’ll be a trickle of sustenance at best.”
It seems obvious, in hindsight. I feed on mana and souls, and feeding like this only provides trace amounts of mana. And, yes, I’ve tied one third of my essence to the very principle of disordered and excessive consumption: the sin of Gluttony. “Strangely enough, I don’t think that actually bothers me. It feels… right.”
Cheshire grins. “Toldja you’d make a great demon.”
She finishes up and we hit the shops, checking [Find the Path] periodically to make sure we don’t miss the big arrival. I grab two new anchors for Cheshire–a ceramic cat figurine and a manticore wargaming model–though I honestly doubt I’ll be manifesting her that way very often when I could go werewolf or put her on [Feast or Famine] duty instead.
I find replacements for all the parts of my vampiric regalia that were damaged during the maze run, and I also pick out the round shades and black shawl that Cheshire suggested I add to my current ensemble. I have to admit: with my black hair, slender frame, and dark red lips, I look pretty damn good in this outfit.
We return to the food court as the minute hand ticks down, watching the line of flame slowly return to its zenith. Then, through the glass ceiling of the food court, I see night become day as clear blue replaces starry swirls. The minute hand strikes twelve and the burning circle vanishes, and I feel the spell at last vanish completely from my awareness.
In the center of the food court, the air begins to splinter and warp. Tables and chairs turn to glass and then shatter, and the shards fly through the air to that crack in reality. A few seated figments are caught by it too, their bodies twisting and contorting, but they show no sign of pain or fear as their forms are torn apart and reshaped. The figments smile placidly as they are transmuted to sculpted glass, and then that glass shatters and is drawn inexorably to the growing mass in the center of the room.
The shards whirl around each other, orbiting at different velocities, and then all stop at once before starting again in perfect sync. The shards come together and form a single pane of reflective glass: a mirror, tall and wide, with no frame and no foundation, anchored in the warped air.
The mirror ripples and a man comes tumbling through, his clothes disheveled and a sheathed sword at his belt. Then, rushing from the mirror as a unit, three monsters leap after him–and as soon as all three are clear of the mirror, it melts to glass slag behind them, its purpose spent.
Comments
Mikki Phoenix
I like it. :-)
Mikki Phoenix
And now you're going to make me wait a WEEK to find out what happens next? Cruel, cruel!
