Shadowlands 14: in the middle of the night

Vix, Alice, and I walked along through an old forest. There was a feel of nervous apprehension in the air, which I alone seemed to be aware of.1

The forest was thick in the top, with a dense canopy of broad leaves, covered in moss. The floor of the forest was sparse with more mosses and fungi and ferns, and the air of the wood was thinly scattered with tall trunks of old gnarled trees. It felt like walking through a great hall.2

Ivies, violets, and other low light flowers grew in clumps lit by the blue moonlight. On the leaves and trunks of the trees, little white lizards crawled around looking for insects. They fled from sight as we got close.3

I could see far enough to know that we had a good hike ahead of us before we were in the open. Not that I wanted to be in the open, but I did enjoy the idea of finding a town.4

We passed a cluster of those weird walking stick plants, and Alice uprooted one. In her hands the makeshift staff sprouted a few small leaves. “Could I see that, Alice?” I asked. She handed it to me and the leaves withered. I handed it back, and it came alive again. She carried it as a walking staff.5

It had occurred to me that the heart legion alone was broken in morale, while the diamonds and clubs remained strong. I assumed the spades to have abandoned their post.6

It also occurred to me that they might follow us. The remaining royalty would have vested interest in recovering Alice. This occurred to me when I heard claws scraping through the branches of the thick forest canopy.7

I also then realized that I had never actually finished off the queen of hearts, and that she was probably really pissed at me. So on into the night I pushed my companions to keep walking.8

Eventually though, Alice could not walk any more. I lifted her up and carried her on my back.9

At around midnight I could not carry Alice anymore. I carried her to the top of a small ridgeline and laid her down in a pitted draw on the opposite face. When I set her down, moss grew beneath her. 10

I was famished, but a quick scan of the area revealed several fruit bearing plants. I gathered up what I could, and split it three ways.11

“Vix?” I said, chewing a mouthful of checkered pear, “Can you watch while we sleep, or do you need some shuteye?”12

Vix snapped to attention, puffed out his chest, and saluted.13

“Alright, good; climb one of the trees overhead and watch us for a while.”14

Vix shimmied up a sapling on the embankment overlooking us, and sat still. He folded up peculiarly, in the low light he looked like a giant orange flower.15

I flopped down in the moss next to Alice. She woke up and scooted closer to me, and curled up against my side.16

It was nice to lay down and rest, but I didn’t sleep. I just laid there for five hours with Alice next to me, listening to the night life, and random squads clicking past us.17

Apparently in the last half day they had developed wings. On more than one occasion I watched a scout fly past us, half wondering if we had been spotted.18

See how he runs and hides, see how afraid he is? Did you see his lack of faith in my vision?19

Alice woke up and shook me. “Al, Al get up. We have to start moving again.”20

I pushed off of the ground and stood up. We brushed moss off of each other, and started walking again. Out of curiosity, I halted the group and had them lay down. I climbed a tree, scanning the canopy for any movements. I could feel them, they were watching me. Something was there watching me. A nearby scout moved at the wrong time. I grabbed his foot and pulled him out of the tree.21

The scout fell and smashed into the forest floor. Suddenly limbs and bushes started moving. A scouting squad, ten strong had been tailing us.22

Vix showed them his fury. He seared the forest floor, and nearly lit up the tree I was hanging in.23

Five more maneuvered around the canopy. They closed on me. I grabbed the closest one and clubbed the others with his limp body.24

The Ace of Diamond’s face flashed into my mind, “My queen, our soldiers have surrounded the woods, we are sweeping them east; back to the castle grounds.”25

“We’re going west,” I announced. We turned our backs to the sun and started moving.26

After an hour of walking the ridgeline, I spotted a line of soldiers with red diamond service markers. They were thin along the slope of the ridgeline. “Alice, I want you to duck down here. As soon as this line breaks, run through the opening. Vix, no nuking them.”27

I started to move at the line, when Alice grabbed my hand. Her eyes were welling up. “Alice, I don’t have time to convince you or explain; I have to move. I’ll be okay… I promise.” She let go of my hand and I saw she instantly regretted it.28

I turned my back and ran down the slope at the soldiers. “Hey fuckers I’m right the fuck here!” They gave chase. A good hundred ranks to either side swarmed at me. When they got close I spun, scraping my foot back.29

Their slow reactions were almost comical. In their eyes I had suddenly accelerated to an insane speed, and reared back into an overwhelming force. I broke the line, and sprinted to cover.30

They searched the area a while and gave up.31

We made haste to the forest edge. From within the tree line I could see the front line of the soldiers. The Ace appeared in my head again, “My queen. They broke through our flush. We are sending another wave through. Yes my queen. I will triple the line.”32

Alice tugged my pant leg. “Al do you hear it too?”33

“Yes. Climb onto my back.”34

Vix and I ascended the low limbed trees of the forest edge. A thick line of soldiers broke the front of their staged comrades. I held my breath as they walked under us.35

The land beyond was mostly flat. It extended a mile and then dropped off into the void. Around a quarter mile out I could see a hill with a cathedral settled on top of it.36

They were down in strength here. It was a good opportunity to break the line a third time. After climbing down, I found a good clubbing stick. Shadows extended down my arm, twisting and curling around my weapon. I wrapped my chain around a small stump, and wrenched it out of the ground.37

We broke the edge of the forest. The watchmen were too busy basking in sunlight to notice us. “Alice, we are running to that cathedral. Got it?”38

She nodded quickly. As we walked, Vix chirped, screeched, whatever noise he makes, he made it at Alice, and she scooped him up in the crook of her staff. She carried her staff slanted bulb down, with Vix just above the ground.39

We got close and the alarm sounded. I swung the stump around my head and released the chain’s grip on it, sending it into the middle of the throng. It railed a soldier in the head.40

Alice wound up and launched Vix into the midst of them. He came down on them with fury. As I ran up the the steadily growing gap, violent explosions rocked the ground, and pieces of card flew past my head.41

A soldier moved across my path, and I clubbed him hard. His body convulsed with the hit. Another braver soldier advanced on us with weapons ready. Alice hooked her staff around his neck and swung him to the ground.42

We spent no more time than needed to break the line, and soon we were sprinting to the cathedral. The Ace of Diamonds made one last appearance. "My queen! Five of Clubs reports that his line has been broken! Six and Ten are closing on the mortals now."43

The cathedral was huge and spiky. The double doors were barred from the inside, but the lock on the smaller door into the alcove had rusted through, and busted in easily.44

I shut the door and blocked it with a bookshelf wedged between it and the second set of doors. I led the way through the side door of the small foyer, and jammed it shut with another set of shelves.45

The cathedral turned out to be a library, stuffed to the brim with books. Every shelf swelled, and the floors sagged from the weight. Some of the tiles in the floor were books, masoned into gaps, and even a few bookshelves were made of big books nailed together.46

It was more paper than I had ever seen in my life, not counting the army still trying to kill me. Alice turned, as though she heard something, and ran off. I followed her to the upper floor of the library.47

There was a sun shrine in each dome, with three balconies pointing out in cardinal directions. She led me to the center of the library, where someone had placed a scroll on an altar.48

A chance peek out a west facing window revealed the edge of the island, and a long wide -surprisingly straight- bridge. “Al! Come on! She’s calling for you! She doesn’t want me to pick her up.”49

I ran to catch up with Alice. She stood in front of the altar. I heard a woman’s whisper in my ear, “Al, you must be dense, the girl heard me from outside the building.”50

“Esmeralda!” I shouted, “I never thought I’d be happy to hear your voice. What are you doing here?”51

“Saving your punk ass,” she hissed back at me.52

“Alright, I’ll play your games. How, did you get here?”53

“You’ve accepted the idea of talking to a sheet of paper, and still can’t accept the fact that it’s not where you left it.”54

“Touche’. So how are you saving me, I can’t take on this many little beasties myself, and it would be rude to run around yelling 'die bitch die!'”55

“Hand me to the imp, the girl must never touch the tome or the beast will be unleashed.”56

I picked up the scroll and handed it to Vix. It changed into a thick tome. Really thick. This sucker was big. It was about two feet tall and a foot and a half wide, somewhere around nine inches thick.57

Burned into the front was a great daemon head with a forked segmented tongue, sharp teeth, and horns everywhere along the ridges of his head and shoulders.58

The book itself was leather bound. Along the spine were demonic characters written in a shimmering red ink. “This demon cannot speak,” Esmeralda explained, “and for a weak mind to listen to the whispers is to welcome insanity. Don’t think I’m giving you credit, but you should be okay. You’re too stubborn and hardheaded for the demon to affect you. Alice cannot touch the tome ever or the beast will be set free. Also, she cannot know any more than I have told her. It is a demonic book that few can read. If you cannot read it now, you will never learn the language.”59

I looked at the cover, it seemed to be a bunch of squiggles and sharp angles, every character seemed to rely somehow on the randomness of brushstrokes to be properly formed.60

Maybe I could survive the whispers, but those runes messed up my head. The soldiers were regrouping on our position. They mulled at the foot of the hill. Vix led the way to the east balcony of the east dome, with the book over his head. He walked to the stone railing, and held the book like a living pulpit.61

I was next to arrive at the railing. I leaned against it looking down at the advancing commanders cockily. In my hand I had a steel bar that I ripped out of a banister.62

Alice came up last and held her hand out at the book, palm out, fingers half extended and separated. The pages turned on their own until stopping on a page covered in pictures of rocks falling from the sky.63

The Ace of Diamonds moved ahead of the club commanders. “Mortal, you have done me a favor by eliminating the Queen of Hearts. But now my queen demands the pure one. If you give her to me, I will allow you to leave freely.”64

Alice was not paying attention to him. As he spoke, her eyes scanned the page, making sense of the ever shifting words and letters.65

“… Just walk across that bridge behind you and you’ll be out of here. Home. Free.”66

“Dude,” I said disinterestedly, “I really wasn’t paying attention, but I think I got what you were saying. Anyway, if I walked away now, you wouldn’t be any safer. Also, tell the archers behind those fake bushes to un-knock their arrows, and the two climbing up the balcony are about to die.”67

Alice raised the staff over her head like an axe. She started chanting strange words quietly, “Nu, Ek, Hel, Par, Ash, Fain…” every word carved a glowing red rune into the ground, pointing away from her in concentric circles. As she chanted dark clouds gathered. The Ace of Diamonds looked around, not really sure what he was supposed to do. His soldiers shifted uneasily.68

“A-Attack them,” he commanded, without much command in his voice.69

Her blue dress was slowly turning black. It looked like ink creeping out of the hems and trim and buttons. A black streak had spread through her hear. For a little girl she was fucking scary.70

The wind picked up. It swirled around Alice, puffing her skirt out like an umbrella, and tossing her long blond hair around. There was fire in her blue eyes. She was almost screaming the words, and I could barely hear her over the wind.71

Flashes of blue streaked through the sky. The Ace spoke up again, “Attack them you fools we’re going to die!”72

The front line started moving, but it was too late. Alice slammed the spike tip of her staff into the tiles of the balcony. Beach ball sized rocks covered in blue flames fell from the heavens. The legions of soldiers panicked and scattered. The stones struck the earth, covering the ground in blue flames. Explosions sent entire squads flying through the air.73

An hour later Alice, Vix and I walked casually across the bridge, and finally, for the first time in more than a day I relaxed. We found a small forest patch. Alice and Vix rested in a small cave overlooking a spring. 74

I sat in the shade on the solid rock cliff over them, throwing rocks into the pool of water, and feeling the cool breeze in my hair. And for a little while, all my worries were gone.