Chapter 14

  Elizabeth Eddison

  They sailed a green paper boat on a sea of ink, beneath a blank canvas sky streaked with clouds in negative. Jim, suffering from a headache, slumped listlessly at the prow. He dangled one hand into the black sea, and a swirling rainbow trail bled from his fingers, marking their path in a sinuous band of brilliant colors that snaked back through the placid ink until lost to distance. Elizabeth tried to comfort Jimothy in his hour of trial, but in truth, her own condition was not much better. The wounds of the scrivener smoldered on her leg and stomach, strange purplish words seared onto her skin. They didn’t hurt the way a burn would hurt. But they still hurt.

  Hazel and Callie had reached an uneasy armistice. Callie prowled back and forth on their tiny paper boat, not happy about being surrounding by liquid. Hazel had come to understand that he would get hurt if he tried to chase her or tackle her into the ink. The ink didn’t stick to Hazel, not in the slightest. It beaded on his fur and fell off easily when he shook himself. But Hazel didn’t let this stop him from covering most of the interior of their little sailboat with inky pawprints and myriad little speckles of black. Elizabeth had long since given up her present attire—loose khaki pants and a light cardigan over a yellow blouse—for lost.

  She wrote poetry in a blank notebook. Jimothy’s moon inspired poetry. She did not write in the book Lazaru had given her. That book was special, though also meant for poetry. Poems written in Lazaru’s book would cause a flurry of pages to fly from the book and take the shape of the subject of the poem. Thus: paper sailboat. It had been white until Jimothy colored it.

  Elizabeth wrote, lulled and distracted from her pain by the soft splash of ink, the rocking of the boat in the gentle swells, the faint mild breeze. She couldn’t truly be at ease, not with Jimothy suffering nearby. He groaned occasionally and sometimes shed unconscious waves of light and color. Part of Elizabeth’s left pant leg had turned a dull pink. Neither of them had any pain medication on hand. Elizabeth had made Jimothy drink a lot of water, but apart from that, he just had to weather it. Headaches were, unfortunately, a normal thing for Jimothy. He’d be fine soon enough.

  After a while, she closed the one poetry book and opened the other. She thought up a quick one:

  A pirate’s life for me!

  I’ve got a boat and a cat.

  But never a pirate I’ll truly be

  Without a pirate hat.

  She initialed at the end—the book’s way of knowing when the poem was done—and closed the book. It twitched in her grip, then sprang open. Loose-leaf pages poured up into the air. Not many of them, not like the reams and reams that had gone into making the boat, but just enough for two neatly folded pirate hats, the kind that Elizabeth and AJ had once made of newspapers. The hats dropped to the ink-stained deck of the boat.

  Jimothy had turned to watch the paper fold itself in the air. Elizabeth proudly raised one hat and tugged it down onto her head before offering the other to Jimothy. He accepted it with a grin. “Arr,” he said as he carefully arranged it atop his head. He made it black, then trimmed it with blue and emblazoned a paintbrush on the front—all in a second, without looking. Amazing.

  “You’re not seasick too, are you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t need to throw up. Just a headache. It’s getting a little better, I think.”

  Jimothy hadn’t seen either Lord Foe or Maugrim since their conflict, which had taken place not so far away from his lighthouse. Elizabeth, not keen to wait at the lighthouse for either of them, suggested leaving to find a safer place. But her own moon was not safe either, and there was no guarantee that opening a door onto Skywater Citadel would not be a trap. There were Ladies there, after all. Potentially there was also Lord Friend and Lord Fool, but what would they do? Were they fighting the Ladies right now? If so, would they win? Arcadelt would be there too, but that was small comfort to Elizabeth. She had her doubts about Arcadelt.

  Jimothy had suggested going exploring on his moon, away from where Lord Foe and Maugrim had last been seen. Laying low, as it were. Jimothy had a secondary motive: to look for crystals, which he needed for his lighthouse.

  Isaac had sent them directions to find Lord Fierce, Lord Fair’s guarantee of safety. But how to get to him?

  “Can Lord Fierce really protect us? From gods?” she mused out loud. “How powerful is he, I wonder.”

  She received a message, checked it, sighed. She said to Jimothy, “the orange one helped you, correct?”

  “The D-man? Yeah. Why?”

  “He just messaged me.”

  “Oh. What did he say?”

  DX: hey

  DX: whAT’s most liKe a bEe in May?

  She told Jim. He said, “I don’t know what that means. But he likes riddles and stuff. You should talk to him. Maybe you can find stuff out. He likes to talk.”

  “One of those, huh?”

  Jim began playing with Hazel while Elizabeth turned her attention back to her phone.

  EE: Perhaps you could provide me with clarity rather than silly riddles.

  DX: yoU got It! i kNew you Would!

  DX: anyway, aBout lord Fierce

  DX: tHE measure of His sTrenghT, SpeCificalLy

  DX: agAinst any phySical obstacle

  DX: hE is Strong Enough

  DX: he’S kind of liKe Rasmus in thAt way

  EE: Explain.

  RA: WHAT’S THIS NOW?

  DX: let Me put iT this way: yOu eveR read a boOk oR somEThing where there’s a mentor figure wHo’s way More Powerful than the heRo, and you wOnder whY he doesn’t just Go and bEAt the baD Guy anD save the Day Himself?

  EE: Lord Fierce is like that?

  DX: iT is a leGItimate Question why he doesn’T juSt go grab the dArk key himself

  DX: LIke right noW

  CG: cause he’d get fuckin swamped by all the trash mobs if he went in solo

  DX: gEt the fuCK outTa here jEroNimy

  RA: IT IS TRUE

  RA: THAT IS THE REASON HE GAVE

  RA: WHEN I ASKED

  RA: THE AGENTS OF THE DARK WORLD ARE SIMPLY TOO NUMEROUS

  RA: A GROUP WORKING TOGETHER MAY ACCOMPLISH WHAT ONE, HOWEVER MIGHTY HE BE, CANNOT

  DX: that’S just the “sTory” reaSOn

  DX: anyWay, Begone you two

  DX: oKay we’RE alone Now

  EE: Pardon me for not entirely believing you.

  DX: foR real theY’re goINg to get food

  DX: you wouldn’T Believe hoW much RasMus eats

  EE: I meant about Lord Fierce.

  EE: I have been told quite emphatically not to trust you gods.

  EE: Something you yourself advised Jimothy, correct?

  DX: corRect!

  DX: i’M gLad you get It

  DX: jImothY’s a liTTle Slow for a colOR priest

  DX: thaT’s fine tHOugh

  DX: he’s Got this tHIng, thiS line

  EE: Color priest—what does that mean?

  EE: He told me you called him that because he is a painter. Where does ‘priest’ come into it?

  DX: he doesN’t have the mInd Powers, True

  DX: but the Best cOLOr prieSts never uSe them anyway

  DX: he loves the colors

  DX: anD he Loves Everything ElsE

  DX: hIs mOon

  DX: his doG

  DX: You

  DX: and hE wantS it alL to be right

  DX: eVeryThing

  DX: not Wrong

  DX: Right

  DX: liKe in a bEautiful Painting

  DX: you kNow What i am talKIng about

  EE: Yes, I do.

  EE: Jimothy is like that. He wants to fix everything, to help everybody. His dearest dream is for everyone to be happy.

  DX: yOu are Thinking that mAkes him cHarminGly Na?ve

  DX: but it Is Not So

  DX: iT maKEs him a color priest

  DX: we belIEve in the imPossible

  DX: iN the haPPy ending, hoWever impROBable

  DX: we say ‘ForgEt loGIc’

  DX: we have Faith

  EE: Strange words from the trickster god.

  DX: eXactly!

  DX: hapPy endings are the BigGest Trick of all!

  EE: Have you ever seen one? A happy ending?

  DX: noT yEt!

  EE: Then here is a question: why are you trying to kill all of us?

  EE: You, the gods.

  DX: i’M not, peRsonALly

  DX: iF i wEre, yoU wouLd alL be Dead by nOw

  DX: exCept for jIMothy

  EE: A smooth evasion. Is that arrogance, deceit, or a veiled threat?

  DX: whY not alL of thoSe?

  EE: You are laughing at me.

  DX: i Am the lauGhing goD!

  DX: i hAve not stoPped since the beginNing of this CONversation

  EE: If you will not answer the question of why the other gods want us dead, then what about this one: why would you spare Jimothy? Because he is a color priest?

  DX: thAt

  DX: aNd i doN’t know hoW to kiLl him

  DX: beSideS making him kilL hImselF bUt i wouLD Never do tHat

  EE: You do not know how? What do you mean?

  DX: aW, you’RE so Protective!

  DX: yOu neEdn’t be

  DX: you do Not sEem to underStand

  DX: loRd Fierce is smaLl beanS beside the hERo of lIGht

  DX: i sAW him CripPle mauGRim the sECond Time they Met

  DX: hE is liMited by Light and ImaginatioN

  DX: bUt he hAS plenty of bOth

  DX: he could Go right nOW to the daRk woRld, iF he tOOk some arDa, and gEt that Key

  DX: if hE waNted to

  DX: thing Is, he’D have to kILl a loT of peoPle to do It

  DX: oH wElL

  DX: ain’T that jUst how it alWays gOes?

  DX: in a sTory

  EE: A mismatch of ability and will?

  DX: preCiseLy!

  EE: Those who can will not, while those who desire to cannot. I hadn’t thought of it before, but I suppose that is a key factor in generating drama in a narrative.

  DX: kEy facTor in liFe tOo, huH?

  EE: What is arda?

  DX: thE crysTalS he is coLLecting

  DX: the lIght

  EE: What sets you apart from the other gods, in that you are not trying to kill us?

  DX: baCk to tHAt?

  EE: It is of some interest to me.

  EE: Imagine that.

  DX: iT is becAuse there Is always a THird way

  DX: theY don’T believe Me

  DX: but it Is True

  DX: therE is never jUSt one Way

  DX: thEre are never only Two ways

  DX: there is alWays a tHird option

  DX: Rasmus should kNow beTter

  DX: hE is trYing toO hard to fiLl larGer shoEs

  DX: larger MetaphoricaLLy, of Course

  EE: What are these two ‘ways’ which your compatriots see as their sole options?

  DX: if I maKe it rreeEeeEEAaaAaaalLllLlly simple:

  DX: bad Ending for You

  DX: bAd enDing for uS

  EE: You are not gods at all, are you?

  DX: we aRe

  DX: iT is NOt a lIe

  DX: we are TheY

  DX: tHEir ecHOes

  DX: tHeiR sHAdowS

  DX: ouR stArs are The Same

  DX: they were the first

  DX: and we are the last

  DX: i Have to gO

  DX: jImoThy has bEen talKing to fiORa

  DX: yOu might Want to check on That

  DX: sHE is aLso a reason Why i aM Not tryIng to kill yoU

  EE: How much of what you have told me is true?

  DX: eXactly halF

  DX: noT incluDing that

  EE: Very helpful.

  DX: ;)

  EE: I really do get it, by the way.

  DX: ?

  EE: A bee in May: maybe. ‘Perhaps’ is most like ‘maybe.’

  EE: You will not catch me with word games.

  DX: wE wiLl seE!

  Derxis, the Laughing God, spoke no more. Elizabeth put away her phone and turned back to Jimothy. He’d been talking to someone as well, and he seemed better now. He still trailed a hand in the inky sea, but now the trail of color blossoming from his fingertips was broader than their boat, aswirl in wavy technicolor designs.

  “Feeling better?” she asked him. “He said you were talking to someone called Fiora.”

  Jimothy looked at her. He nodded. But he didn’t seem very happy. He looked afraid.

  “Jimothy? What’s wrong?”

  What happened next could have been called ‘The Anatomy of a Lie in Slow-Motion.’ Jimothy opened his mouth to reply, realized he did not want to answer her question, panicked while he thought of what to say instead, realized that she was watching him and he had to say something, and finally blurted out, “Nothing. I’m fine.” Every step of this process was written plainly on his face. Elizabeth had never seen, and could not imagine seeing, a more obvious effort at deception. A ‘natural 1,’ Isaac might have said. She would have laughed, if not for what Jimothy had been lying about.

  Jimothy at once regretted lying to her; this too was evident from his expression. His regret manifested as greasy dark gray waves of color that fell away from him, staining grainy shadows like radio static onto the boat and Elizabeth’s shoes.

  “Jimothy,” she said. “That is not true.” She said it without judgment, like a plain factual statement. The sky is white. The sea is black.

  He slumped, apparently in relief at having been called out on the lie. Then, at once, shame. Like a dog tucking its tail.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Jimothy. You can just say you don’t want to talk about it. But please, don’t lie to me.”

  “I…I’m sorry,” he said. “I just…um. I need to think about it, okay?”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “It’s okay, Jimothy. Whatever it is, if you ever want to talk about it, you can talk to me. Okay?”

  He nodded at her, serious, not smiling. “Yeah, I know. That’s…I mean, thanks. I know I can talk to any of you guys. But…” She could hear the rest of it: ...but the one I want to talk to is Mike.

  “Okay,” she said. “As long as you know that.”

  But she thought: If this Fiora hurt Jimothy…

  She considered questioning him further, asking which god Fiora was. She decided against it. He was already deep in his thoughts, troubled. Hazel, sensing his master’s distress, army-crawled over to Jimothy and forced his head onto Jimothy’s lap. Jimothy gripped the white fur like a drowning man clutching a life preserver.

  They continued like that for a while. Elizabeth went back to her poetry. Struck by a sudden idea, she wrote a series of short poems in the magic book, complete save for her signature, to be quickly activated in case of emergencies.

  After this, she removed The Ten from her pack, though she had already read it through twice. It was an educational picture book for children. Ten gods in this Narrative. And even if the entities who had recently begun messaging the heroes seemed surprisingly casual and sometimes even childish in their texting, they nevertheless matched up remarkably well with the ten gods described in the book. The Laughing God, for example. The Riddlemaker. The Trickster. Prince of Fools. Color: orange. Chaotic, unpredictable. His domain: the mind. A painter, like Jimothy. None of the gods in The Ten were given proper names, so she didn’t know if the Laughing God’s name was supposed to be Derxis, or even D-man. But in most ways, it all checked out.

  And who else, besides these gods, could the strangers texting them be?

  A great upheaval in the sea interrupted her thoughts. A mountainous form arose off the starboard side of their paper boat, either black itself or else coated in the ink. Its rise gave birth to a wave that pitched the paper boat and nearly spilled Jimothy and Elizabeth into the sea.

  Jimothy fell to the ink-stained paper deck. He cried out in surprise and fear; Callie hissed; Hazel barked frantically. Appendages surged from the depths around them, black tentacles dripping ink, dozens of them. Each looked large enough to easily overturn their boat, which now seemed like a leaf in the shadow of a beast. Ink splashed and churned as the bulk of the creature continued to arise from the sea, and now Hazel growled, but otherwise the entire scene was eerily quiet. The newcomer didn’t roar as it towered above them. It simply appeared, swiftly and without fanfare.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Any doubts about whether this was friend or foe were soon laid to rest. Something upset their little leaf of a boat from beneath, flinging it with immense force dozens of feet up into the air. Elizabeth and Jimothy screamed at the gut-wrenching sensation of being thrown, helpless and flailing.

  Elizabeth braced herself to fall back into the ink, not sure what she or her angel could do against such a large enemy. But it would have to be them, either her or Jimothy, dealing with this thing. No Lord or Guardian stood watch for them out here.

  She was ready for the fall, already accepting that she’d be doused in ink—again. (And she’d only just gotten all the ink out from under her fingernails from last time.) But she never did fall. Something held her in the air so gently that she couldn’t feel it, some force that encompassed her in a soft white glow.

  Elizabeth twisted, awkwardly struggling with what held her. Jimothy, cane in hand, pirate hat intact, hovered in the air, suspended in a thick brightness just like her. He faced the monster as it loomed closer. Now it made a sound, a deep burbling grumble somehow more frightening and ominous than a mighty roar. More tentacles arose; the waters churned with them. Elizabeth wondered if it had been a great mistake—the kind which a Guardian might have warned of, had it not been otherwise occupied—to venture this far out to sea.

  An array of black tentacles thrashed toward them. Their angels appeared, dog and lynx, differences forgotten. Hazel snapped at the inky tentacles, his every bite flashing with light. Callie attacked the main mass of the monster. But they were so small in comparison, like furious squirrels against a bear.

  Elizabeth shouted at Jimothy, for she suspected the light holding them up was his doing. “Jimothy! Let’s go!”

  But it was already too late. In the last moment before a tentacle swatted her out of the air, Elizabeth tried to summon up her powers, the ones she didn’t know how to use. Movement? Dance? Flowers? Spinning tops? She drew a blank.

  The tentacle slammed into her and stopped dead, completely halted by the light surrounding her, holding her. Elizabeth didn’t even feel the strike.

  Every dark tentacle exploded from within, eviscerated by countless blades of brilliant light. The light raced, shredding at blinding speed, almost too bright to perceive. All the ink in the sea blazed with reflected light. And the main body of the monster, a blimp upon the sea of ink, cracked like an egg. Light shattered over its surface, a scintillating aurora that cleaved through the mass of darkness like a bolt of lightning in the night.

  The monster fell apart into smaller pieces with a gristly sucking sound, akin to the noise of pulling a boot from a puddle of muck. The fragments splashed down into the sea where they sank slowly, piece by piece, becoming one with the black liquid.

  All was quiet and still as the ebony fragments of the beast rained down upon the black sea, save for Callie and Hazel, who were dismayed and exuberant respectively at their submersion in the ink.

  Jimothy rotated in the air to face her. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  Elizabeth shook her head. She tried to look at Jimothy, but her eyes kept going back to the big empty space in the air where a gigantic monster had towered moments before. She remembered what the Laughing God had said. Small beans next to the Hero of Light.

  “I’m fine,” she answered, surprised at how casual her voice sounded. “You?”

  “It didn’t hurt me,” he said. He looked down at the sea. “I used a lot of light to do that, though.” He looked around. “We’re close.”

  Close? To what? She followed his gaze and saw a pale line on the far horizon. Land?

  “Come look,” he said. He motioned her over as if she could move of her own accord. But…maybe she could. ‘Movement’ was supposed to be her thing. Her domain, as Isaac called it. Kate theorized that Elizabeth could manipulate or break Newton’s laws of motion, momentum, inertia, and the like. So perhaps she could just…move.

  As usual, she hardly understood how or why it worked—sudden motion, motion without cause. She hung suspended in the air, then she was drifting toward Jimothy, then she reached him and stopped. She wondered: what would she be able to do when she got the hang of it? When it came easily and naturally, as Jimothy’s light did for him? Would she ever reach that point?

  He was doing something different now, making a circular distortion in the air before him. “Isaac gave me the idea,” he said. “But I’m not very good at it.”

  It took Elizabeth a few seconds, as Jimothy made unseen adjustments to the strange disc in front of him, to understand what he was trying to do. He was bending light, trying to make a telescope but succeeding only in making a magnifying glass. Elizabeth knew little of the optic principles of telescopes, but she thought they might be a bit complex for Jimothy.

  “Here,” she said. “Let’s just use these for now.” She touched her medallion around her neck and created a pair of spyglasses. A matching set, just as she had imagined: leather and brass, old and weathered, marked and stained. “We’re pirates, remember?”

  That made him happy. He lowered them back down while Elizabeth signed off on the backup boat she’d written into the poetry journal. She snapped the book shut, and it flung itself open, pouring countless pages up into the sky. A geyser of white against the blank sky, a flock of innumerable birds. The pages arranged themselves with speed and precision: folding, joining, plastering together. Another boat: bigger, more pirate-looking. A successful experiment, proving that she could make some rather large objects with the book. Though still, they were only paper.

  Jimothy dropped them into the crow’s nest. Their weight made the ship sway dangerously, but it was apparently easy almost to the point of unconscious reflex for Jimothy to steady it beneath them with bands of light.

  Elizabeth snapped open the spyglass and put it to her eye, observing the distant land. Scratches marred the lens, a pleasing aesthetic. “A city,” she said in surprise after a moment of taking it in. It was a city in high contrast, white and black. She could hardly tell anything about it beyond that. Behind the city, coastal cliffs rose up into what might have been low mountains beyond. Dark clouds gathered there, a storm brewing.

  “There’s a ruined city close to my lighthouse,” said Jimothy. “Your favorite color is gold, right? Gold and turquoise and purple.”

  “Yes,” she said. Of course he knew her favorite colors. “Why?” she lowered the spyglass and saw why. Those were now the colors of their ship. Gold, with turquoise and purple details, decorative feathery patterns on the hull and rails. It was lovely.

  “I can do your clothes too if you want,” he said. “Since they have, you know. Ink on them.” He thought for a moment. “I mean, they’ll still have ink. But I can change the color of that too.”

  She gave him a smile. “Only if you do your clothes, too.” He apparently had not yet thought of that. In a matter of seconds, Elizabeth’s cardigan was a lovely floral gold, with tasteful blooms of cool shades. It still smelled of ink, and was sticky in spots, but the ink was practically invisible now. Jimothy simply changed his back to what it had been: blue shorts, blue T-shirt. Simple.

  Elizabeth dropped to the deck while Jimothy lowered himself in a veil of light. She did not notice until a few moments later that the distance she’d fallen was about twenty feet. True, the deck was only paper. But she had slowed herself, hadn’t she? She could hardly remember. Why must her ‘abilities’ be so difficult? So subtle? They obviously mattered. Yet she was a child in this area compared to Jimothy. On Earth, she had been the capable one, able to help him. On Earth, Jimothy had needed help from everybody. But here in the Narrative, it was she who required his protection—first from Maugrim, who would have killed her, and now from this sea monster. Both of them insurmountable threats for herself, yet seemingly trivial for Jimothy.

  Jimothy wandered up to the prow of the ship, mouthing inaudible words to himself, distracted. On Earth, even a stationary surface presented Jimothy with considerable difficulty. Now, although this ship rocked gently in the rolling swells, he seemed to need his cane less than ever. Pads of light flashed in the air exactly where and when he needed them to support himself, steady himself, not fall. Elizabeth doubted he was even conscious of doing that. He paused to tap a nearby paper railing with his cane, instantly coloring its entirety a pale coral-pink. He gazed at it, nodded in satisfaction, continued on.

  “You were made for this world,” she said to herself, watching him. “Or, perhaps, it for you.”

  She decided, in that moment, that she would not be left behind. She had never considered that she would be left behind by Jimothy, which itself was something of a shameful thought. Jimothy had always been special, but capable? Of anything more than painting?

  She would learn. Movement, her own abilities, whatever they were. She would practice, would become able to protect Jimothy, or anyone, should they require it.

  There was one thing she could do for now. Elizabeth retreated to the rear of the ship, which was just large enough that it put her out of Jimothy’s hearing. “Fiora,” she said. “Are you there? Are you listening?” Elizabeth did not know which god this was, or even whether the contact was in her phone.

  Someone answered almost at once, vibrating Elizabeth’s ink-stained phone.

  FG: What wouldst thou have of Fiora?

  The Frozen God. The one that called the Thunder God a fool, along with any who ‘strove against the inevitable.’

  EE: Words.

  FG: Words are meaningless, lover of cats.

  EE: That claim is self-contradictory.

  EE: Conveying meaning is the entire purpose of words.

  FG: Thinkest me a fool? One easily muddled by childish games?

  FG: Play no games with me, human.

  FG: Speech is nothing but that it leads unto action.

  FG: Words are nothing but that they avail unto deeds.

  FG: Nor thought, nor dream, nor any love.

  FG: Meaningless all, until realized.

  EE: That is certainly pragmatic.

  FG: It is reality, human, whatever the color priest says.

  EE: You are referring to the Laughing God?

  FG: A fool.

  EE: The Prince of Fools.

  FG: Thou knowest it.

  FG: All speech, all tricks, all foolish contradiction.

  FG: Fools encompass me, before and behind.

  FG: And I, unable to exact judgment upon those deserving.

  FG: Yet the sea is patient.

  FG: And it does not forgive.

  EE: You seem upset about something.

  FG: If I am, human, thou art a cause.

  FG: Thy kind is naught but hollow speech and empty valor, of what I have seen.

  FG: Thou art unworthy.

  FG: Yet we are the same.

  FG: There is none who join with Justice, save myself.

  FG: And Justice rests not. It fails not. It abides.

  EE: Unceasing as the icy tides?

  FG: You mock me?

  EE: Your speech is so poetic, I thought I should contribute.

  FG: Fool.

  FG: Since one beast of the deep failed I shall call unto more. As many as are required. The iron grasp of cold judgment shall enclose thee. The very blood in your bones shall rise against thee.

  EE: You summoned that sea monster?

  EE: You will have to do better than that against Jimothy Whyte.

  FG: I shall.

  EE: Threat received.

  EE: Now could you tell Fiora I wish to speak to her?

  FG: She is nigh.

  EE: Is she a fool as well?

  FG: The greatest.

  EE: I thought the Laughing God was the most foolish.

  FG: I said ‘greatest,’ not ‘most foolish,’ ye who values words and cats so highly.

  FG: I shall have done with thee for this time, human.

  FI: what is it, Rosma?

  FI: oh!

  FI: wait, where are you going?

  FI: okay

  FI: hello human!

  EE: Hello.

  FI: you are the pretty one!

  EE: Am I?

  FI: that is what the color priest said

  FI: and I have to take her word for it because I do not know what a pretty human looks like

  FI: your skin and hair and eyes and blood are all different colors, so...you are not really very pretty to us

  FI: and you all kind of look the same, actually

  EE: Excuse me?

  FI: but I heard you like cats!

  EE: I do. Very much.

  FI: me too!

  EE: Though until speaking with you gods I would not have considered it a cornerstone of my identity.

  FI: hee hee!

  FI: I like all kinds of animals! I do!

  FI: did you know Rasmus is a cat?!

  EE: Yes. A tiger.

  FI: yep!

  EE: How can one be both a tiger and a god?

  FI: well he is not REALLY a tiger

  FI: like I am not really a frog!

  FI: but those are the creatures we bonded to, so we are like them in some ways

  EE: Interesting.

  EE: To what did the Frozen God bond?

  FI: Rosma is a shark!

  EE: And the Laughing God?

  FI: a chameleon!

  EE: I see. That fits with his ‘color’ theme.

  EE: And now that we have come to the subject of colors, I gather you were communicating with Jimothy?

  FI: your color priest? Yeah!

  FI: she is so weird!

  FI: she seems a lot like Derxis but not as clever or as annoying

  FI: but maybe all color priests are weird

  EE: Jimothy is a male.

  FI: oh! I am sorry! I am!

  FI: I am not sure how to tell the difference

  FI: is it the hair? The clothes?

  FI: why do you humans always wear clothes all the time?

  FI: hee hee! You are like Zayana, dressing up even when it is not cold

  EE: Until I am comfortable discussing this with you, just remember that Kaitlyn and Heidi and I are the females.

  FI: okay!

  EE: You do not seem malicious.

  FI: I hope not!

  FI: I do not want to be!

  FI: I am sorry for what all the others are doing, but they will not LISTEN to me!

  EE: Jimothy was upset after speaking to you. Why?

  FI: oh

  FI: that

  FI: uhh, he asked me not to talk about it

  EE: Very well.

  FI: but I kind of feel like maybe I really should talk about it

  EE: No, I trust him.

  FI: okay

  FI: maybe it is a human thing

  FI: oh!

  FI: humans have mates, right?

  EE: Yes.

  FI: are you and the color priest together then?

  EE: No.

  EE: We are rather young for that, in any case.

  FI: I see!

  FI: that is too bad

  FI: there is not much romance left among us here

  EE: Romance among the gods? Do tell.

  FI: I would love to!

  FI: but like I said, there is not much

  FI: anymore

  FI: heh heh

  FI: ...

  FI: oh no!

  EE: What is wrong?

  FI: did a scriven beast get you?

  FI: you have the Script on you!

  FI: oh nononono

  EE: It was a scrivener.

  EE: If that makes a difference.

  FI: it does!

  FI: it is worse! It is!

  FI: I could not even totally fix that even if I was right there with you

  FI: let me see!

  EE: See?

  FI: it does not say how much you have

  FI: show me!

  Elizabeth glanced up at Jim. He was still preoccupied with the approaching city. She turned away from him and raised up her shirt to expose the hand-width line of unsettling purplish marks that ran diagonally across her abdomen. Then, after a moment, she raised the left leg of her pants to reveal the same, wrapped once around her calf.

  FI: oh good it is not very much

  FI: Rasmus has almost a whole book on his back!

  FI: that does not matter much for him

  FI: but you might be in danger!

  EE: Why?

  FI: anything that can read Chirographic can see it, or smell it, or follow it somehow

  FI: they can tell whatever it says

  EE: Can you read it?

  FI: gods, no!

  FI: it is NOT good to be able to read that!

  FI: do not even try, okay? Do not!

  EE: Understood.

  FI: but you are marked now

  FI: I cannot fix that

  FI: but I can do this

  A greenish shimmer crawled over Elizabeth’s skin. It found the ugly purplish marks and sank into them with a cool tingle. The pain that was not quite like a burn receded. It did not depart entirely, but it smoldered low enough that Elizabeth thought she could come to ignore it.

  EE: Thank you.

  FI: you need to be careful now

  FI: run away from any purple fire, because it will look for you!

  FI: make sure that mirrors are actually mirrors

  FI: if you are at a crossroads, do not speak any words if you do not know what they mean

  FI actually do not do that ever

  FI: and double check any books before you open them to make sure they are not

  FI: you know

  FI: like THAT

  FI: oh! oh, and do not talk in your sleep! And wake up quick if you have any dreams with those words!

  EE: Is that all?

  FI: all I can think of

  EE: Those are disquieting restrictions. Yet I shall bear them in mind.

  EE: Thank you again.

  FI: it is no problem!

  FI: I mean it is actually a huge problem, for you

  FI: but I meant that I do not mind trying to help!

  FI: it is actually really exciting for me to talk to a whole new race!

  FI: I am so curious!

  EE: I am enjoying it somewhat as well.

  EE: Except for the part where you are trying to kill me.

  FI: uh oh

  FI: I have to go sorry

  FI: I will put your book back

  EE: My book?

  FI: do not worry!

  FI: even though Acarnus does not have many feelings and is the one saying we need to kill you, I think he already likes your scientist so maybe I can change his mind!

  EE: You mean Kate?

  FI: just be careful!

  FI: the Script is SUPER dangerous

  FI: and it can eat light

  EE: Meaning that Jimothy’s powers will prove inadequate?

  EE: Very well. We will be careful.

  She rejoined Jimothy at the prow of the ship. With a bit of his help, the ship reached the shore minutes later.

  It was a city indeed, and a strange one. Vast blocks of smooth stone, sculpted into sweeping arcs and odd angles, stood in places like natural rock formations carved by eons of weather. Yet in other places the stone formed clearly deliberate spirals, arches, bold lines and geometric patterns. No windows could be seen from the shore, no doors, and no structure smaller than a stadium. Only towering, peculiar shapes of stone.

  Yet it was not any of this that made the place unique; it was the contrast. There were two shades here, and only two: brilliant pure white and absolute jet black. Unqualified contrast. It appeared that the buildings were white and their shadows black, yet it was quite impossible to tell—especially since nothing else had shadows during the day on Hyperion. Was that a shadow cast by a seashell-shaped dome, or an angular black wing extending from it? Was that triangular monolith facing them head-on with something dark behind it, or was half of it colored black instead of white? The whole skyline could have been painted on a great flat canvas for all that her depth perception availed her.

  “We should name it,” said Jimothy after they had disembarked the ship and spent a minute taking in the view. He turned to look at her as though this task obviously fell under her purview.

  She required only a moment. “Chiaroscuro,” she said. She didn’t need to explain that word to Jimothy. There was one singular subject on which he was an expert, and it was art. Chiaroscuro: the use of stark contrast between light and dark.

  “The Lost City of Chiaroscuro,” he said. He squinted out at it and adjusted his pirate hat. “We found it!”

  She went along with it, assuming the persona of an explorer, or perhaps a treasure-hunting pirate. Or Rebecca Carter. She struck an exploratory pose. Lewis and Clark. She dramatically shaded her eyes, though there was no sun. “At last,” she said in her best pirate voice. “What do you make of it, Captain Jimothy?”

  He stroked an imaginary goatee. “Monochromatic,” he said after a moment of introspection. He leveled his cane at the city like a sword and at once began to fall sideways, but Hazel was there in an instant to brace his legs. Jimothy reached down to pat Hazel with his free hand. “Let’s go exploring!”

  They set off into the strange city, gargantuan and empty.

  It rained later. The rain was also black and white, like paint, speckling the white parts of the buildings with galaxies of black stars and vice versa. Elizabeth wrote a paper umbrella big enough for them both to huddle beneath, along with Callie. They wandered while black and white rain pattered on the paper overhead and Hazel ran hither and thither.

  They eventually found their way into the cavernous labyrinth of interconnected structures. Inside, many of the white walls were covered in strange black markings that Jimothy told her the shadow monsters liked to make on things during the night. He paused for a while there, gazing thoughtfully at those markings.

  They also found, eventually, another crystal for Jimothy’s lighthouse. They ascended to a high point in the city and debated whether Jimothy ought to use the crystal to color Chiaroscuro.

  In the end, Jimothy painted the rain. He might have showed off a little. He used the crystal to make the clouds overhead blue and green. They smeared together, leaking colors into the surrounding sky, and they left streaky trails on the blank canvas sky behind them as they crawled past. And the rain, black and white, became instead many shades of blue and green and all between as it poured down and turned the wet city into a mosaic of high-contrast watercolor. All this was among the most strange and beautiful sights Elizabeth had ever seen. She forgot the pain in her stomach and leg, and Jimothy forgot that something was troubling him. They became lost together, for a time, in wonder.