Chapter Twelve

ACT I


Outriders

PART TWO
Because it was his heart.

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

EDGAR ALLAN POE
A Dream Within a Dream

Mind is a good servant, but a cruel master.

MADAME BLAVATSKY

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Wall of Water

“What in the hell happened, and what in the hell’s going on?”

AVERY

Westwood Forest
88 Minutes Earlier
Citrine (November) 5, 2012

Relic’s eyes ached as the dark pressed in on him. There should have been comets burning up the sky, but the first sight to break across the black abyss was the whites of Jace’s eyes staring down at him.

He groaned over Jace’s next words—

“You okay?”

Relic stretched in the dirt, testing his limbs one at a time.

“Think so. Just tired. You?”

“Yeah.”

As he said it, Jace bounced a little in place.

“See anything before we went down?” Relic asked.

“Yeah. My life flash before my eyes. Other than that ...” Jace paused a moment. “No.”

“Dabriel?”

“Hm?”

“What in the hell happened, and what in the hell’s going on?”

Staring up at the Helix Nebula, Jace sighed.

“I think you just asked me the same question twice.”

Cold certainty crept up Relic’s spine.

“More than twice,” he found himself saying.

Urgent thoughts pinged off his molasses-slow mind and disappeared into the starless shade beyond.

He focused on bringing himself up—slowly.

As he hit a cautious half-crouch, the light of Luna Scarlet grew stronger.

Jace twisted into a sitting position, whistled loudly, and the horses rose.

Relic’s attention snapped to Jace, accusation there – but the other Outrider looked serene. Slowly, as he gazed on Jace in profile, the familiarity of the moment set in on Relic. He looked away, then blinked owlishly as he noticed something beckon in the gloom.

No reason to get excited

“Well,” Jace said slowly, “either we’re alive or Heaven’s disappointing as—”

The thief he kindly spoke

Relic’s eyes narrowed on that half-seen something partly submerged in the red glare, his words distracted as he rose to stand beside Midnight.

There are many here among us

“Seriously? You’re joking around about ... this?”

He patted the horse’s mane, more to calm himself than his steed. The horse showed no sign he was tense; nothing unusual had happened to him.

Jace was stretching and making his way over to Highfly.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” He followed the line of Relic’s stare, and wasted no time before loping in that direction. “Why don’t you take a look at this thing?”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure yet ... but I think it’s gonna get you your answers.”

Relic was pacing in a slow circle over the spongy carpet of grass, the cold earth squishing and crackling as he trod across dried leaves. As he peered over at Jace, he blinked his eyes to clear away the reddish halo around the young Outrider.

Then his gaze followed Jace’s.

“That’s one mystery solved,” he told himself. “There is something strange going on out here.”

“Yeah,” Jace said.

An alien silhouette stood in the distance, half-hidden by the swaying trees that bowed before it.

“Blue,” Relic thought aloud, his eyes ticking up to the nearest comet for an instant. On the edge of sight, something twitched in the clearing.

A long, slender shadow—something unspeakable.

“Jace,” he said again, but Jace paid no heed. “Dabriel!”

Then Relic’s eyes adjusted and the fear passed.

“You are not your thoughts,” Relic said to himself, gazing down.

Jace glanced over.

“Green,” Relic said, knowing without asking that the next comet—

Jace raised his eyebrows and cast a look as far out as he could see.

—would smudge the horizon a sickly shade of green before passing directly over their heads.

It painted the sky with ghastly light, rolling so low it could have come down on them in a flash. Yet, only the highest boughs of the trees were outlined in its rays. Every other trace was snuffed out by the shadows Jace and Relic stood in. Even searching for it, he could barely see it.

Jace let out a wordless grunt, but never stopped walking.

Relic kept up the pace – first behind Jace, then off to the side. He felt the comets pass, knowing each with ironclad certainty. With every one of them, the weight of silence grew heavier on his nerves.

Seven, eight, nine – and the ninth was more than he could bear.

“Jace!” Relic put a hand out to grip Jace’s shoulder, fearing the other wouldn’t stop. Mercifully, he did, and words tumbled out of Relic in a torrent. “Listen. Before this – whatever this is – happened ... I saw something. Something unspeakable—”

“Better keep it to yourself, then,” Jace said, tugging on the brim of his cap.

“But—!”

“Spit it out, Relic,” Jace said, but the tone wasn’t unkind.

“I was on the Thoroughfare, a few minutes out from the Tenzan Plains, when I saw ... I saw ...”

“Calloway. I know,” Jace interrupted.

“You know? Jace, it was like I was there!”

“You were there, Relic. And so was he. At least—” Jace frowned. “Most of him.”

“Tell me ... why do you seem so comfortable with what just happened, and I'm the only one totally lost? Did I die? ... I think I have a memory of dying, but then ... I saw Calloway, we were in some ... I don't know, some haunted town or something. There was a butcher ... some people on the street referred to him as the Leather Apron, and then ... he came at me and then ...”

“You were here.” Jace nodded. “I can spend hours telling you ... or I can show you.”

“Show me? How?”

Jace patted his friend on the shoulder, then spun on his heel and kept walking.

There was a spark of empathy in his stormy eyes, and the sight of it confused Relic all the more.

“How about ... with that?”

He gestured ahead, indicating the shape—

... and then, before Relic could form his next question, The Kid thrust a finger in the air to ask him for calm. In the hand-talk of the Outriders, used only in times of utmost stealth, he signed: Trust me.

Orange, Relic found himself thinking, even as Jace drew his crossbows.

Jace said: “What you saw is the place Calloway’s been trapped in since the day the sentry house was attacked.” He paused as Relic readied his weapons, observed a shiver run up the other man’s spine. A scholar’s mind couldn’t accept the words, but his body knew they were true.

“That’s impossible,” Relic muttered. “We saw him back at camp—”

“—the living, vital part of him never left it,” Jace went on. “And the rest of him, well—”

“I saw that, too,” Relic said with a nod.

“Things are a little different now. If we do our job right, he’ll be fine. Maybe us, too.”

Jace paused to push aside a low-hanging branch. He guided Highfly past it, then held it so Relic could do the same with Midnight.

“What happened is this: Something breached the Veil. That something never let go of him, but he fought it for a long time. Most people can’t.” Jace brought his hands together with a little clap that sounded thunderous in the dark. “Come on. There’s not much time.”

The clouds fell aside like a curtain the moment they passed into the clearing that housed the large object. It ruled silently over a cleft of gray-green pallor that seemed far more ancient than time and war could permit.

Relic straightened a little.

“What the hell?”

“Thought you were tired.”

“Shut up.”

Jace obliged, but Relic knew he was still smiling.

The fallen hulk was a close imitation of the bow-top wagons Jace could still see so clearly in his memory. The material stretched over the hooped frame, however, was cheap canvas, not the greenish carpet that would have made it authentic. Worst of all, it was lifeless. Abandoned and just slightly tilted, as if some great force had pushed it to its side.

“Let’s say I accept this for a second, Dabriel ... can I ask you just one more question?” Jace was studying the wagon, but no longer moving toward it.

“Shoot. I mean, not literally, but...”

“I may not know what’s going on ... but what’s stopping me from turning around and riding full speed back to camp right now?” He motioned back behind them to where he knew the bronze braziers of camp glimmered.

Somewhere, was his own private atom.

For so long he had stood there, looking mournfully at the trees that now surrounded him. Here at last, he wasn’t even sure they were trees, or if he could have said for certain what a tree was.

When Relic turned back, Jace was staring at him again – waiting for him to snap out of it.

“Point is ....” He stopped to see if Jace would interrupt, then pressed on: “We already know what’s killing us on this road, right? We know it’s the minotaurs. Why can’t I just deliver that intelligence to Creed?”

“Despite the fact, that from his perspective, we’ve only been gone about 15 minutes?”

Relic shrugged.

“So, I tell him the truth. Tell him what happened.”

Jace nodded slowly, but whatever he found interesting about Relic’s idea had run its course.

“So, you’re gonna tell Creed—” Jace let out a low whistle. “—we found out what was out here, why no scout has returned, but then you died, and right before I was about to die, I instinctively blew a horn that Alarick picked up from the Fairlawn Bazaar, and then we jumped back 88 minutes in time.” He waited for some kind of reaction from Relic, but it never came. “And that's why it only took us 15 minutes to figure all of this out.”

Relic made to say something else; paused; then busied himself gazing at the wagon. Jace knew he wasn’t really interested—it was a distraction for his eyes while his mind ticked feverishly.

Still, Dabriel took the quiet moment to look for himself.

On the wagon’s outside, near the front facade where Jace was standing, the name Madame Rogette arced in giant pink and purple letters over a mural of a crystal ball. A tattered depiction of a woman – presumably the Madame – sat behind the table, hands as gnarled as old branches.

Relic asked: “How do you know it’s been 88 minutes?”

Without looking, Jace motioned behind him—

“You might have noticed the watch you forgot to take with you is back on your belt, where you always keep it.”

Relic was holding fast, hanging on Jace’s every impossible, confusing, fascinating word.

He stood on the opposite side of the wagon, where the painting was identical:

The only difference was a wry, wizened older man in the woman’s place.

He had wispy gray hair on both sides of his head.

Arcing over it, the words Professor Marvel.

Opposite sides of a canvas coin.

“I noticed your horn is gone,” Relic snapped. Then he realized ...

How did I notice—?

Jace threw out one arm, presenting the caravan to Relic.

“It doesn’t look like much.”

“Maybe not,” Jace said with a grin.

“I'm not even gonna ask where it came from. And why haven’t you answered my quest—”

“I thought I did answer it. We can't go back and report what we've seen because Creed will think we're crazy. That we were driven mad by this forest like everyone and everything else that has come before us ... since these attacks began. Doing it will bring you nothing but misery.”

“That we were driven mad by this forest ...” Relic said, rolling his eyes. “He'd be right. Nice to know that you got this all figured out, though.”

Jace shrugged.

“Yeah, well ... for now. The more time that goes by, the less I'll remember. Until we only remember this go around as if it were the only one. And I didn't mean to just dismiss your idea. Because on the surface, it's a good one, and I understand what you're saying ... it's just that ... seriously, nobody would believe us, because time travel is impossible, as you’re well aware. Plus ... anything we do differently than we did before could have ... consequences.”

“The kind you won’t be able to predict.”

Jace nodded, saw recognition – and resignation – dawning on his partner's face.

“How far did you get, man? You made it to the Ezru Plains, didn't you? You saw them, didn’t you? You saw what was attacking us ... you know what’s out there. You’re the only one who does, you do realize that, don't you?”

“It's complicated, man. All in time, alright?” He nodded upward, changing the subject. “My mother raised me on these things ‘til I was eleven,” Jace said, ignoring Relic’s words and looking back to the wagon. “We called them ships in a bottle. Right time of year, clearings like this were the perfect place for a fortune-teller to set up and catch all the tourists heading east.”

Jace's voice was appreciative; perhaps he would have been pacing, to see things better— If he wasn't wary of presenting a lone target.

“The clearing,” Relic said suddenly. “It's all closed in ...”

“Right,” Jace answered. "It's meant to look like they sorta drifted in here on the wind. Most of the time, though, they're built right on the spot. A whole family helps out. C'mon,” he said suddenly, voice breaking off as he made a careful circle of the ruin. “Not far from ... here ...”

“Jace, wait a second,” said Relic, but it was futile. Whatever Jace was seeking, he had already found it, and was crouching at the foot of what appeared to be a sore on the earth. No; it was a stump, blighted with something or perhaps blackened from lightning.
Jace ran his hand across the stump and the rot came off as thick as greasepaint; it became clear to Relic as he stood at Jace’s shoulder, where he could watch his back. An illusion.

It was greasepaint.

And there was something beneath, too ...

“I knew it. See these?”

There was a mass of clinking treasure in Jace's arms, though he held it gingerly, trying to keep the sooty paint from smearing everywhere. The stuff was foreign to Relic's eyes; he raised his eyebrows to prompt Jace, who started to hand things over one by one.

“That vial ... nothing but water with purple dye, but if you put it to your ear, you’d swear you heard the Hezlin Sea.”

“That's stupid,” Relic declared, but Jace saw how he turned the vial in his hands.

“Really?” Jace motioned around. “All this, and hearing the Hezlin Sea seems impossible to ya, huh?” He focused again. “And this blue stuff ...” He shook the container. "Water from the highest peaks of the Glate. Sends you body and soul up to where the griffons are. If ...” he concluded, raising a finger. “If you believe." Then he smiled, seeming, in the wake of all of this impossible chaos, to be more relaxed than at any point before. "Tourists do.”

There was only one thing of true value there: A tiny diamond ring.

But sure enough, Jace found it.

"You’ll make a good souvenir later,” he told it; then slipped it on one finger. “Sit tight.” With that, he turned and took a few steps, his mirth melting away. “This place, Rel. Know what’s weird ...?”

His voice trailed off as if he was still thinking about it himself.

“What?”

“It must’ve been left in a hurry. A big hurry. They never leave their stash behind."

"It’d ruin their reputation,” Relic said, glad to be catching on.

He gestured to where he would approach the opening.

Jace nodded—

Then his hand shot out to grab Relic’s arm as he passed.

“Wait,” Jace said in an urgent whisper. He released his grip slowly, holding out a finger as he felt around his cloak and withdrew a parchment from a half-hidden pocket. Relic leaned over a little to look at the paper, recognizing Alarick’s spidery writing – cramped from fitting on tiny slivers of paper. The final tallies of the gauntlet bets marched in rows across the page.

Jace’s mouth twisted into a frown.

He looked, nodded to himself.

“How far did I get out there this time? The Gauntlet. Do you remember?”

Relic took a moment to think, eyes closed tight—

“Past seven, I think.”

“Looks like I’m owed a lot of money,” said Jace, handing the paper over.

“I doubt they’ll be cashing bets now.”

After a glance, Relic folded the notice and handed it back.

“Not that.” Jace frowned and pointed up. “This.”

Nailed cleverly out of sight, the wanderer equivalent of fine print, was the Commerce Guild business license.

The real names of Madame Rogette (Margaret Hamilton) and Professor Marvel (David Haller)

... same as on the poster Alarick had written all over the back of.

From the Fairlawn Bazaar ...

At the top, the poster declared the pair MISSING.

Jace slowly crumpled the paper and pushed it back into his pocket. Gently turning in place, the Outriders exchanged a final glance.

Jace’s crossbows were pointed straight ahead, and Relic’s back was against his; covering him by facing the shadows.

The signal was given.

They turned together on the back of the wagon, the opening that yawned like a black mouth.

Relic swung to join Jace, holding his weapons on the opening. “What do you see?”

The answer was nothing.

Pitch blackness.

Jace glanced up to the side where the little lanterns were kept.

He fastened one of his crossbows to his hip, struck his lighter without thinking and lit one.

When the lantern came to life, it exposed the corpses.

Relic’s eyes were drawn to a woman, face hidden by an old handkerchief. A rusty hatchet pinned it to her head.

The second body, a man, had withered into the folds of a bright red wool jacket and orange hat: A lumberjack with his mouth gaping open ...

Like the wagon itself, Relic thought.

... staring at the tattered canvas above.

Jace dropped the lantern, chains and all, back to the floor.

He staggered back; his right elbow brushed against, then past, a moth-eaten robe as he crashed into the table.

His left hand might have saved him, but it landed flat on a book that went skittering into the darkness.

Clink-clink-clink—

In all the nights Relic had spent ruminating over the shadows that were now simmering him alive, never once did he ever consider facing something so ... surreal. He finally felt the fear he hadn’t permitted himself in years, the fear he couldn’t face—and a gruesome sound obliged him.

A book shouldn’t go clink, he thought, but the warm down of confusion could not last.

Relic felt a knot growing in his stomach as he looked down to his belt, grasped the pocket-watch that hung there.

He held it in his palms for a few seconds, but it was colder than it had ever been.

The note it sounded was all wrong, and that all wrong sound burrowed into his skin.

In Relic’s mind, it sounded like blood drip-drip-dripping from the dead bodies; from Jace; from him.

With mounting dread, he brought the watch’s face to his and splayed his fingers to confirm what he already knew—

His watch

was ticking

backwards.

It was a sound like unraveling—a sound that could only come from that place: Mirror Lake.

Eleven.

Yes. That was the name – somehow, Relic was sure of it. He pressed his hand closed again. Ten.

He would smash the watch and stop it. He wouldn’t go back there. But just as he thought so— Nine.

There was a tightness in his chest—

Eight.

Followed by the sensation of being sucked through a straw made of blinding green light.

Seven.

And when it faded, there was screaming.

STATIC

Chapter Thirteen  (13+) The Scalywagons of Ozymandias #2190473 by Dan Hiestand