Chapter 19: The Montage (part 3)

  It was fun to color things with a touch and a thought, but Jimothy still liked actual painting best. He loved paints that smelled, that could drip and spill and run into each other. When he made a painting with normal paints, it would be imperfect, and he was just realizing that he liked that. Using his new ‘light’ powers, he could make perfectly clean lines, colors with perfect gradient, perfect shapes and circles. Like a computer. And he didn’t like it. Or at least, it was never as good as the old way. The slow, messy, smelly way. The way that made him happy.

  So he was painting now, up on top of the lighthouse, doing a landscape of the hilly horizon. The hills were blank in real life, but he painted them mint and jade and teal, rolling beneath an arctic blue sky. The distant scattered copses of trees he laid down in cooler shades, and a few wispy clouds were shining silver wool stretched over the cold expanse.

  It was all just paint, oil on canvas, stroke by stroke. But sometimes when he looked out at the scene, the same chunk of landscape he was painting, he thought he saw it flicker with the faintest hint of color. It came at regular intervals, as though the turning searchlight at the top of the lighthouse invested the pale hills with light and life.

  Jimothy finished the painting in the afternoon, or at least the first pass. He wanted to do more layers when this oil dried. But he thought, in comparing his 2x3-foot canvas to the real thing, that something wasn’t right. There was a problem, both with the colorless original and his reimagining of it. They were empty. Landscapes needed figures to give them significance. But there was nobody on his moon at the moment—nobody but vandal shadows, maybe a giant wolf, and the big guys made of playdoh. His friends came sometimes, but they had their own things to do too. And Jimothy didn’t dare bring anyone else. He couldn’t stop thinking about Niri.

  He wondered about Maugrim and Lord Foe. What had happened? Were they still on his moon somewhere? The thought that Lord Foe might still be out there made him a little nervous. But he would be fine as long as he stayed close to the lighthouse. He could go through his door anytime, on to Skywater and the protection of Lord Friend and Arcadelt. Plus, he had other doors now: Elizabeth’s glass door, Kate’s pretty and colorful door, and Isaac’s futuristic portal. He still needed Eric’s and Heidi’s. Then he could go to any of the moons whenever he wanted. Well, not Isaac’s. Isaac didn’t have a moon.

  Jimothy looked for a while at Heidi’s slice of the hexagon. He was worried about her. Nobody had made a door with her yet. Metal crashed on metal in a cold, dark place. Soot and shadow marked a prison with regrets for locks. Heidi was trying to be strong, like Alan, but she was just a girl and she was small and hurt and alone.

  The sound of something large collapsing shook the lighthouse and startled Jimothy out of his imagination. Rocks crashed and clattered. Hazel appeared out of nowhere and scampered around the stained glass in an excited furry frenzy, barking and barking. Jimothy noticed that he had inadvertently colored over his landscape painting. The canvas now depicted Heidi and her angel Bahamut hugging each other in the dark with monsters all around, and it made Jimothy sad. He wished he could be there with her. At least she had her new friend.

  “Calm down, Hazel,” he said. He took his cane and walked to the edge, where he leaned on Kate’s door and looked down to see what had gone wrong this time. Four of the big, roughly humanoid creatures that Isaac called ‘playdoh golems’ stood around a collapsed structure the size of an aircraft hangar. It was made of rocks glued together with playdoh, and this was the third time it had collapsed. Jimothy was beginning to think that a giant doghouse for Maugrim wasn’t going to work. At least, not one made of rocks and playdoh.

  (Lord Friend had told him that Maugrim roved about Hyperion without a home.)

  Also, the playdoh golems weren’t very smart, and Jimothy didn’t think he was much of an architect either. But then again, the golems had made some pretty extensive buildings at their home. Maybe he just needed more of them. He had found out, eventually, that they became friendly once he colored them. Because he’d colored them, Maugrim’s would-be doghouse was made of pale rocks held together with bright playdoh. Maybe Maugrim wouldn’t like it, even if it stayed up without falling, but Jimothy wanted to try.

  His phone buzzed. A message! These days it was always exciting to get a message. There were all kinds of people it could be from.

  RA: HAVE YOU A MOMENT, COLOR PRIEST?

  JW: Uh, yes

  RA: I DO AS WELL!

  RA: LET US SPEAK TOGETHER, THEN

  JW: Aren’t you the boss of them? Kate said you’re supposed to be the biggest and strongest

  RA: TRUE ON ALL THREE COUNTS, COLOR PRIEST

  JW: You can call me Jimothy

  JW: Or just Jim, I guess, if you want to

  RA: VERY WELL, JIMOTHY

  RA: THEN HEAR ME WHEN I SAY:

  RA: STRENGTH IS OVERRATED

  RA: POWER IS NOT STRENGTH

  RA: NOR STRENGTH POWER

  RA: ANTHEA WAS PROOF ENOUGH OF THAT

  JW: You guys are all pretty hard to understand sometimes

  RA: I HAD FORGOTTEN THIS, JIMOTHY

  RA: AND YOU ALSO WOULD DO WELL TO REMEMBER

  RA: AS YOU ARE “THE BIGGEST AND STRONGEST” OF THE HUMANS

  JW: uh

  RA: AND THERE IS MORE:

  RA: DO WHAT YOU HAVE DECIDED TO DO!RA: DO NOT GIVE UP

  JW: Are you talking about

  JW: Painting?

  RA: IS THAT WHAT YOU HAVE DECIDED TO DO?

  JW: I guess there’s a lot of things I decide to do all the time

  JW: I don’t really think about what I’m doing, usually

  RA: AHA! WE ARE ALIKE, THEN!

  RA: IT HAS BEEN SAID OF ME THAT I THINK WITH MY FISTS

  RA: NOT AT ALL LIKE ANTHEA

  RA: IN THIS WAY I FEAR I AM A POOR SUBSTITUTE

  RA: SHE WAS UNSHAKEABLE

  JW: I’m pretty sure I don’t think with my fists

  RA: WITH COLORS, THEN?

  JW: Maybe sometimes

  JW: But usually I’m pretty sure I think in words

  JW: I think that’s normal

  RA: I SEE

  JW: Do you guys think in colors?

  RA: THIS IS A QUESTION FOR DERXIS

  RA: COLORS ARE IMPORTANT TO US, CERTAINLY

  JW: And you each have a different color, right?

  RA: INDEED!

  RA: MY BLOOD FLOWS AMBER IN MY VEINS

  RA: MY SPINES ARE GOLD AS THE SUNRISE

  JW: Wow, your blood too?

  RA: WE DO NOT MINGLE COLORS EXCEPT FOR SPECIAL REASONS

  RA: THUS THE IMPORTANCE OF COLOR PRIESTS!

  RA: AND PERHAPS YOUR IMPORTANCE AS WELL

  JW: I don’t know about that

  JW: I don’t feel very important

  JW: I feel just pretty confused and sad and maybe lonely most of the time

  JW: A lot of the time, I mean

  JW: I have Hazel, and my friends

  JW: But I miss Mike

  RA: HA HA HA!

  RA: WE ARE ALIKE IN MANY WAYS, JIMOTHY

  RA: I TOO HAVE LOST THOSE I CARED FOR

  RA: EVEN I WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH, IT SEEMS

  RA: AND I TOO AM OFTEN CONFUSED, AND EVEN SAD

  RA: AND I FEAR MY LEADERSHIP HAS BEEN FRAUGHT WITH ERROR

  JW: I’m sorry

  JW: Being a leader must be rough

  JW: Especially because the other gods seem like a handful

  RA: AHA! THAT, IF ANYTHING, IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT

  RA: AT LEAST TWO OF THEM WOULD LIKE AS NOT KILL ME IF THEY COULD

  JW: Well, I can tell that you care about them

  JW: At least, the green one, Fiora, called you her shield

  RA: AND THAT IS WHY I AGREED TO ACARNUS’ PROPOSAL

  RA: TO KILL YOU, THAT IS

  JW: Because you need our door

  RA: WE HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO

  JW: You don’t know what you’ll do now?

  RA: WE SHALL ENDURE

  RA: WE WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY

  RA: I SAID THIS TO THEM, AS A PROMISE

  RA: AS THEIR LEADER

  RA: THEY BELIEVED ME, JIMOTHY

  RA: MOST OF THEM

  RA: YET I WONDER...

  RA: DO I BELIEVE IT MYSELF?

  RA: I MISS HER

  JW: That’s hard

  JW: I’m sorry I can’t give you any good advice

  RA: WOULD THAT WE HAD A TANGIBLE FOE

  RA: WE EXCEL AT OVERCOMING THOSE

  RA: PERHAPS TOO MUCH SO!

  JW: When things get hard for me, I paint

  JW: It probably doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes me feel better

  JW: I guess you can’t paint because you’re not a color priest

  JW: What do you like to do?

  RA: I MAKE THINGS

  RA: OF METAL

  RA: WEAPONS

  RA: AND GONGS

  JW: Maybe you could do that?

  RA: THE GONGS?

  RA: WE ARE IN A LIBRARY

  RA: I FEAR OUR BLIND LIBRARIAN WOULD NOT APPROVE!

  RA: AHA! HA! HA!

  JR: hey shut the fuck up over there

  JR: for tash’s sake

  FI: Yeah!

  FI: Don’t you know this is a library?

  JR: also we can hear every fucking word you’re shouting cause we’re not all deaf in both ears like you

  RA: WHAT WAS THAT?

  FI: He said we are not all deaf, Rasmus!

  RA: THAT IS WELL

  RA: ELSE WE WOULD ALL BE SHOUTING!

  FI: We are shouting already, Rasmus!

  AC: Could you all please take this conversation elsewhere?

  RA: MY APOLOGIES

  RA: EXCUSE ME A MOMENT, JIMOTHY

  JW: Uh, okay

  RA: THAT IS BETTER!

  JW: I was just thinking

  JW: You should try to be better friends with all the other gods!

  JW: Even if it’s hard

  JW: If you don’t know what else to do right now, I think that’s probably a good goal to try and do in the meantime

  JW: That’s just what I think

  RA: I WILL TAKE IT IN SERIOUS CONSIDERATION

  RA: YOU ARE SPEAKING LIKE A COLOR PRIEST, AFTER ALL!

  JW: Oh, uh, thanks?

  RA: AND NOW!

  RA: HOW ABOUT A STORY?

  JW: A story? Sure, I guess

  RA: THIS TALE BELONGS TO AN ANCIENT COLOR PRIEST, AN ELDER OF NUNCIO...

  *

  They lay in the dark and the mud, breath labored, hearts hammering. For a long moment, neither of them dared to speak. They listened for the snarl that shook showers of rain from the dewy branches; they felt the muddy ground for the thomping of heavy hooves that rippled puddles. Neither came.

  “Is it d-dead?” asked Kate, eyes wide with exhilaration.

  “Yeah, I think it’s pretty fucking dead,” said Eric, but he didn’t sound convinced. He muttered something that sounded like, “better be fucking dead.”

  They kept still for another minute, but the cool night air remained clear of bestial growls, the earth below unshaken by menacing hoofbeats.

  Then Navi fluttered down from a dark and cloudless sky, a few luminous wisps lit strangely by several moons, and Navi told her that it was all right. They had indeed killed the monster.

  She breathed a sigh of relief and shared the good news with Eric. “We g-got it!”

  “Thank god,” he said, trying to sound surly and tough. But Kate could tell that he was excited too, and happy too. They had fought off a monster, the fiercest one yet! AMs, Eric called them, which stood for Assorted Monsters.

  Kate was in no hurry to get up. It’s not like she could get even wetter and muddier than she already was. And she liked it, all of it: the shifting stars far above, the glimpse of the sinister Metal Moon peeking through the bright wispy clouds, beautiful Navi flitting about overhead, the cool night breeze carrying the scent of grass and clay and mud, Eric next to her. She sighed, content.

  Eric sat up. “Fuckin cold up in here,” he grouched. “Hey, think if we go loot its corpse we’ll get some gold and XP?”

  Kate’s nose crinkled at the thought of looting any corpse, much less a big, stinky monster they’d just killed. He was joking, anyway. She made a clean cloth and wiped the mud off her glasses.

  “There was that town over there,” he said. She couldn’t exactly see him, but she knew where he was pointing. “Having a party or some shit. Wanna go crash it?”

  He was already getting up, his boots squelching in the mud. Kate propped herself up on her elbows. “Eric! Are y-you inviting me on a d-da-d-date!?”

  “We got all that shit on hold, remember?” He turned to look at her. “Damn,” he said, “return of the swamp monster.”

  She scowled at him, even though he was probably right, and she probably did look like a swamp monster. But he was covered in mud too! And she’d been joking about the date thing; he knew that, right?

  He stepped over and offered her a hand up out of the mud. He was strong, even though he was shorter than her, and he pulled her up easily. His hand had callouses on it. It was a lot different than her hand, which was thin and soft and pale in comparison. Something about that interested her.

  “Our hands m-make a good t-te-team,” she said, though she wasn’t quite sure what she meant.

  Eric looked at her in confusion. “What?”

  Kate’s face was suddenly hot; she was glad it was dark and cool. By fortuitous circumstance, a cloud dispersed at that moment, concealing them in cool shadow. “I-I mean,” she said, “w-we m-make a good t-team!” And it was true, although she hadn’t put it into words in her head until just then. Her own enthusiasm, or crazy recklessness as Eric and Liz might call it, was balanced out by Eric’s down-to-earth practicality. Like Earth and Sky, maybe? Nah—she was no poet. But they did make a good team.

  “Huh,” said Eric after a moment of consideration. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  And they set off toward the town. They came across a brook swollen from the recent rain, which gathered into a deep pool. Kate jumped in to wash herself of mud. When she emerged, her dress of sky was good as new! Though still soaking wet. It wasn’t blue at the moment; it was all moonlit clouds and star-scattered darkness. The clouds scudded silently across. A star fell up above and disintegrated in the upper atmosphere in a burst of shimmery iridescence. It was, as always, beautiful. And maybe Eric had been right in saying earlier that the painted lab coat didn’t match the dress beneath very well, but she wasn’t about to take off the lab coat. He would just have to deal with it.

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  A tiny dragon chased a white butterfly through the branches overhead as they trekked through the forest.

  “Hey,” she said as the lights and music of the woodland town began to filter through the trees. “Why d-don’t you ever h-hi-hit me?”

  “Because you’re a delicate fucking flower.” He didn’t look back or alter his pace.

  “I’m serious!” Kate hurried to catch up to him, her dress swishing like clouds.

  “How the hell can you be serious about that? Is there some reason I should hit you, like some dark secret I should know about?”

  “I’m t-ta-talking about how you hi-hit Heidi!”

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “Hey, she hit me first. There it is.” Eric squinted ahead at the town. “Sounds like a jam. Also, it’s just like our thing, we just hit each other. Why, are you feeling like left out or something?”

  Kate bit her lip, thinking. Did she feel left out? Why had she even brought this up? She resolved to think more before speaking, especially around Eric.

  “Fine, whatever,” Eric said as he slid down the embankment. “Frisby, go hit Kate.” The tiny dragon swooped down from above and latched itself to her upper arm in a hug.

  “Aww!” Kate scratched Frisby behind the wings, and he chirped happily in reply.

  Minutes later, Eric walks into the town while Kate pretty much skips along beside him. It’s a decent-sized town; they saw it on their way over to the Monument. Its occupants are mostly human, and all thousand-or-so of them are out and about tonight in honor of some anniversary. The main square, which isn’t actually shaped anything like a square, is jam-packed with people in a bewildering assortment of unusual costumes. Strings of colored Christmas lights sweep from rooftop to rooftop. Dozens of stalls along the cement sidewalks sell delicacies grilled, fried, baked, or frozen. A cloud of mouth-watering scents envelops him, somehow only enhanced by the occasional whiff of less-appealing fragrances: propane, body odor, excessive cologne. Eric realizes that he himself is probably not doing the local olfactory atmosphere any favors. And music, of course: a quick reeling dance from somewhere in the dense crowd of the main square. Rhythmic clapping, shouts and laughter.

  All in all, it is festive as fuck. A straight-up jamboree.

  Kate makes a beeline for the music—a beeline in the sense that she has to veer off and investigate everything in sight along the way. It doesn’t take the two of them long to get noticed, especially since it is apparently common knowledge that two Heroes were out dealing with the Monument this evening. Eric would rather not be noticed; he is suddenly tired and he doesn’t want to deal with all these people and all this energy. Kate alone is energy enough. He yearns for one hour ago, when it was just the two of them walking through the woods talking about random bullshit after beating a monster.

  Kate loves the attention, though, or at least she seems unaffected by it. She talks and laughs and stutters with the crowd of people around them. They gasp when she tells them about the terrible monster that was guarding the Monument, exaggerating Eric’s role in its defeat. The people want to know: Did they succeed in restoring the Monument? Well, no, says Kate, there is a really tricky puzzle. But luckily, they have a puzzle specialist over on Hyperion, and they’re going to bring him in to have a look.

  Eric and Kate gratefully accept the variety of food offered to them, though Kate declines the meat. It comes with showers of thanks for the defeat of the monster, which had been terrorizing the woods for years. It feels pretty fucking good to be a hero, Eric thinks.

  He keeps a close eye on Kate, because they are also offered a variety of beverages, including something he’s pretty sure is just moonshine, and he’s also pretty sure Kate would just chug that shit without thinking about it. And if there’s one thing he does not want to deal with, it’s another drunk-ass Kate on his hands. He thinks: she’s a lot more like her aunt than she wants to admit.

  But Kate cannot resist the lure of the music, so soon she’s off toward the band at the center of the main square, and she drags Eric along with her. And this is where shit gets fucking stupid.

  Because she starts playing with them, these six people wearing dark suits shimmering with subtle iridescence, men and women with more-or-less conventional instruments: banjo, tambourine, drum, flute, fiddle, some kind of goofy brass contraption.

  They start playing, and it’s another lively dance number. And one of them starts singing, and Eric thinks it must be improvised because it sounds like it’s a song about them, him and Kate and the monster. But then the other musicians join in like they all know the words, and then Kate joins in, both on guitar and vocals. She forgets to stutter, and while she’s certainly no Elizabeth Eddison when it comes to singing, she’s definitely no Dwayne Hartman either. But it occurs to Eric that it’s weird she’s singing along like she knows the words. Something about this entire situation strikes Eric as both very familiar and very odd.

  Now everyone starts dancing, not in some disorganized sprawl, but everyone, all at once, stepping together, clapping their hands, one platoon marching out and spinning in pirouettes while another steps back and jumps, all in sync, all in perfect time, all as if they’d rehearsed this for months, and Eric himself is standing in the middle of all this, gaping about in amazement. Then they start singing the chorus, the whole crowd all together, and it makes no fucking sense, and then suddenly Eric gets it. His eyes widen in horror.

  Somehow, he has found himself in a scene from a musical. The entire population of Dormuth, or whatever the fuck this place is called, has engaged in a spontaneous, elaborate song-and-dance routine all around him.

  The worst of it is, he can feel it in himself too. He knows exactly what to do, what to sing, how to dance. He could easily just…do it. The way that Kate is over there, spinning as she jams quick chord progressions onto her bass, her lab coat and dress alternating dark and light as she spins. She probably doesn’t even notice that she’s stirring up the moonlit clouds overhead.

  Eric refuses to become involved, even though the beat is poppin, and the tune is catchy, and he feels more tempted by the second to just let go, just start by tapping his foot, maybe pulling a Jacob Hollow and snapping his fingers. But that is a slippery fucking slope.

  “Eric!” Kate shouts at him briefly during the instrumental bridge. She jerks the neck of her bass at him, indicating that he should come and join. He gives her an emphatic shake of the head. She sticks her tongue out at him.

  He turns and begins dodging through the complex dance number. He soon realizes he doesn’t need to dodge; they miss him easily, and he probably couldn’t interrupt these people even if he wanted to.

  He is willing to put up with a lot of stupid shit. Stories and gods and dragons and magic and all kinds of other crap. But he draws the line at fucking musicals.

  “Gotta get outta here,” he mutters as he finally escapes the crowd and heads for one of the empty cheese-fry stands. “Before Liz brings a fucking opera down on us.”

  *

  AC: Two truths and a lie? What is that?

  EE: A game, useful for getting to know each other.

  EE: Apparently Isaac has made interesting discoveries about you daimon through playing it.

  AC: How does it work?

  EE: We take turns making three statements about ourselves.

  AC: I see. Two truths and a lie.

  AC: The objective is to determine which is the lie.

  AC: So simple.

  EE: Fine. Forget I said anything.

  AC: No, let us play.

  AC: You go first.

  EE: Very well.

  EE: I know a lot about pottery.

  EE: I know taekwondo.

  EE: I wanted to join the circus when I was young.

  AC: I do not know what taekwondo is.

  EE: Oh, my mistake. It is a martial art.

  AC: The circus statement is the lie.

  EE: Incorrect.

  EE: I know very little of pottery.

  AC: But you know a martial art.

  AC: This is of interest to me. Would you demonstrate?

  Elizabeth looked up from her phone at the dim, near-empty lodge. Embers popped and sizzled in the nearby hearth as the fire died. Wind rattled the shutters outside. She felt their warmth even through the thick, soft blanket in which she nestled. The few others in the lodge were fast asleep. She could probably demonstrate a few moves without disturbing them. But…

  EE: Negative.

  EE: Too cozy.

  AC: Perhaps later, then. I am known for my skill in the martial arts.

  EE: Your turn.

  AC: I have met Miriam Fivemind.

  AC: I have dealt with the Desert Watcher.

  AC: I have encountered Maugrim face to face.

  EE: Yours are a touch more dramatic than mine.

  EE: Also, how am I supposed to know any of that?

  EE: Who is the Desert Watcher?

  AC: A legendary beast which grants wishes, though the wish it grants is always a curse.

  EE: And Miriam Fivemind?

  AC: A great hero; an investigator whose brilliance was unmatched.

  EE: A detective?

  AC: One who brought down nations, yes.

  EE: You should tell that to Kate. Her hero is a detective as well.

  EE: One of her heroes.

  AC: She mentioned it.

  EE: Oh? Did you have a nice chat? She said you were very smart and knew lots of science.

  AC: She is considerably intelligent as well.

  EE: She seems to forget so easily that you are the would-be mastermind of our demise.

  AC: For this I will not apologize.

  AC: Your answer?

  EE: The third one, meeting Maugrim.

  AC: Incorrect.

  AC: Unfortunately, whereas I have encountered the great wolf, I have never met the Fivemind.

  AC: Go again, human.

  EE: Elizabeth, please.

  AC: Elizabeth, then.

  AC: Tell me truth and lie of substance.

  EE: My favorite poet is Emily Dickinson.

  EE: My favorite flower is the peony.

  EE: I have one older sister.

  AC: A biological sister, that is?

  EE: Yes.

  AC: Hmm. I know nothing of the fertility rates of your species. How many on average per litter?

  EE: We normally come one at a time.

  AC: Then one older sister seems plausible.

  AC: But I know nothing of poets or flowers, much less favorites.

  EE: Guess.

  AC: The poet has two names, and thus must be of some import. I guess your second statement, about the flower.

  EE: Wrong again. My favorite poet is Edna St. Vincent Millay.

  AC: That seems an excessive number of names.

  EE: Do any of you have two names?

  AC: We are young; most of us never had the opportunity.

  AC: One of us had two names.

  EE: “Had?”

  AC: Are you a poet?

  EE: I suppose.

  EE: I enjoy poetry, at any rate.

  AC: As does Akkama. She could do what you do, creating objects of paper through poetry.

  AC: Because she creates origami, you see.

  AC: Hers was the Paper Moon.

  EE: Paper Moon. Doesn’t she burn things with fire?

  AC: Yes.

  AC: Yes, she does.

  AC: My turn.

  AC: I was in love, once.

  AC: I have defeated Rasmus in combat, once.

  AC: I shared my Song with my friends, once.

  EE: Your song?

  AC: Of course, humans do not have Songs. I forgot. My apologies.

  EE: We do too have songs!

  AC: Not like us.

  AC: Every daimon has a Song. It is unique, special, more important and personal than a name. It is not shared except in rare circumstances.

  AC: Music is a part of us. We sing with our arda. It is intrinsic to every aspect of our life and culture.

  EE: In that case, it is your second statement.

  EE: Defeating Rasmus is the lie.

  AC: That is correct.

  EE: I win.

  EE: :)

  Elizabeth considered saying more, continuing the game, but at that moment Callie rose suddenly beside her, hissing with frightful intensity. Callie snarled at the fire, and it took Elizabeth’s drowsy brain several long seconds to understand what was wrong. The fire was low, but the flickering tongues of flame had changed color. They were becoming purple, an entire spectrum from indigo to magenta. The tongues of fire writhed strangely, reached out for her, slithering over a bed of violet coals.

  The scars on Elizabeth’s calf and stomach tingled, prickling with pain. She flailed out of the blanket, out of the chair, and over to the bucket of water kept nearby for safety. She seized it and flung it onto the dying fire. The resulting cloud of steam was angry, shot through with fizzling purple sparks that inscribed odd letters in the steamy air.

  It was dark and warm in the lodge, but Elizabeth felt cold. She grabbed the blanket, wrapped it around herself, refilled the bucket and doused the fire again. When at last she slept, it was far from the warm hearth.

  *

  Mysteries abounded! For example: (1) Why were the stars seen through Lady Star’s wings the same as the stars on Earth? Isaac first noticed when he recognized the Big Dipper, most obvious of all constellations, in a passing glance at Lady Stars. By circling around her he saw that, yes, Orion, Cassiopeia, and all his other old friends were present and accounted for in her strange mantle.

  (2) Why did the Ladies all have wings? Eh, stupid question. Next!

  (3) Why were they all such beautiful singers? Lady Stars could teleport just like him, folding into her starry wings and just vanishing away into nothing. She could fly around in the void of space like a dark imitation of Anzu. She was an amazing scout. But when she was out there, she usually sang, and it was haunting, in an eerie and lonesome way. It didn’t sound anything like her speaking voice. Zayana, the Blind Alien Astronomer Princess or Whatever, thought that the music of Lady Stars was beautiful. So did Isaac.

  And (4), how come they could all hear her singing while they were in the control center, even when she was out in the void of space where sound waves shouldn’t be able to propagate?

  (5) How was it possible that he could steer his private spaceship just by playing piano? On the literal piano keyboard that existed instead of any actual controls? Honestly, who came up with this?

  Oh, right. (6) Who wrote the Narrative? Somebody did. Somebody threw around a bunch of words, put labels like ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ on things, came up with all these crazy characters. And hey, Isaac Milton was happy to play along. He’d always wanted to be part of a cool story, right? But he would have preferred one not quite so blatant about being a literal story. Now he couldn’t help but wonder: whose story was it?! Because it wasn’t perfect. And talking to these would-be gods, he was thinking maybe they should try and wrap this story up pretty quick. Because things had already gone Somewhat Awry.

  These gods, called daimon, coveted the white door. Having had their own Narrative (7), which they’d messed up somehow (8), they were now watching the six human kids through books or something (9).

  DX: okAY, okay, i Got aNOTher one

  The words appeared blinking orange at the bottom of his HUD. Isaac took his hands off the keys, stopped playing. He felt the thrusters quiet down, his little black bird of a private fighter jet coasting now on momentum. Derxis: Laughing God, tAlkS with RandoM cApitaliZation, color: orange, domain: mind, though he claimed to have lost his powers (10).

  “Autopilot, ARKO,” he said as he leaned back in the cushy chair of fibrous synthetic mesh. The piano keys began to tinkle out a soft, minimalist tune, ARKO acting as the player-piano to steer Isaac’s craft out away from the ADS Initiation and into the dark of space.

  (11) Why the heck did the flagship of the Ardian Defensive Fleet change its name to a different word ending in ‘-ation’ every single day?

  IM: Hit me

  DX: wHAt do yoU get wHEn you croSs a joke wIth a rHEtoricaL quesTion?

  IM: ...

  IM: ohhh

  IM: oh that’s a good one

  DX: hE He

  IM: So I bought some shoes from a drug dealer. I don’t know what he laced them with, but I was tripping all day

  DX: hEe heE!

  DX: dId you kNOw that a pLateaU is the hiGhest forM of flatTery?

  IM: Nice

  IM: Okay, so A, C, and E walk into a bar. They order a drink together, but the bartender says, ‘nah, we don’t serve minors’

  DX: hMm

  DX: i doN’t get IT

  IM: A, C, and E

  IM: A-minor chord?

  DX: what’s that?

  IM: Oh, it’s a music thing

  IM: I guess you don’t know

  DX: yeAh

  DX: tHOugh i have suDdenly discOverEd an intereSt in humAN music

  IM: Cool, I know, like, more than most people about it

  IM: I actually write music

  DX: wHAt?

  IM: Music. I write it

  DX: wHAt doEs that meaN?

  IM: Uh...like, I write down the notes? So that other people can play them later?

  DX: tHE same notes?

  IM: Yeah?

  DX: i doN’t get It

  DX: i Mean, whY?

  IM: So that other people can play the same song?

  DX: ...

  DX: oKay but wHy?

  IM: huh

  IM: Okay, back to the jokes while I think about it

  IM: the jokes are chill

  DX: “chiLl” and “cOol”

  DX: i kEep expEctinG you to puLl a Lord fRost

  IM: Lord Frost?

  DX: alWayS with the iCe punS

  DX: especialLy with roSMa

  DX: (wHO HAtes puns)

  DX: (and alSo HAtes humOr in general)

  DX: hE was kinD of An Idiot

  IM: What other lords did you have?

  DX: sAme as youRs, plus fRost, First, foUl, and fish

  IM: Lord Fish?

  DX: literalLy juSt a fish

  DX: iN a bowL

  DX: noTHing else

  IM: Did he narrate like the Lords?

  DX: yeAh but iT woulD only be Like “he’S swimMing arouNd ‘cause he’S juSt a fish”

  DX: i DIdn’T reaLly get iT, to Be Honest

  IM: Oh I’ve got some company

  DX: oKay

  DX: heRe’s one For the road

  DX: ThiS senTence contains tOo erRors.

  Isaac turned his attention back to the void outside. He put his hands on the keys, wondering whether Derxis would understand any ‘key’-based puns. And—what, the daimon just didn’t ever write music? This bore investigation. (12)

  Somewhere out there, ARKO had detected a patrol of Darkworld ships. Somewhere out there, Lady Stars was singing.

  Isaac began to play. He was getting a lot better at improv, because that was how he steered the ship. He still didn’t think he was great, not like Kate, but maybe some subtle magic in the Narrative was working on him, heightening his skills, because he found it strangely easy to match the eerie song of Lady Stars. He could harmonize with only a few mistakes, and that was enough for him to dance with her in the dark nothing as they approached the patrol.

  The trick to dogfighting was syncopation.