Chapter 47

  Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed.

  - Lord Dunsany, “ The Hashish Man”

  Having sealed a contract with the Bright World, Derxis was jettisoned out from that place of glass and light. He tumbled through the empty darkness, neither hot nor cold. He shut his eyes tight, because after all the Bright World was still right there, and he had no desire to turn even partially into glass. The laughter of the Prothagonus spiraled after him into the night.

  He panicked at first, clutching the mind spike he had so dearly purchased tight to his chest. But when his laughter subsided, he unfurled the tapestry, which now depicted a stylized vision of himself facing the terrible eyes of the Prothagonus. Once settled, and having created a bubble of atmosphere which allowed for the convenience of respiration, he took a long series of deep breaths, interrupted by outbursts of nervous chuckles.

  A bargain made; a deal struck. He held a mind spike: his own powers, all the powers of a color priest, all of his beautiful orange arda, torn from his flesh and condensed into a chitinous horn—splintery, hard as bone, the tangy orange of sparks off a grindstone. The price: his memories, seven years of memories—but not yet. He’d been able to squeeze that much out of the Bright World. Payment delayed.

  And knowledge gained: that the Bright World remembered. It knew everything about where (when) Derxis had come from. And it didn’t like what he was doing. His actions were like cheating, and the Bright World was a regulator. It moderated the Narrative. It punished cheaters. Bye-bye memories! And Derxis knew, better than anyone, that it was all about the memories. If no one remembered something, had it really happened at all?

  The answer, of course, was that it did not matter.

  Well he, for one, was perfectly fine with the last seven years of his memories being zapped away. Take them, he’d told the light with a laugh. Just not yet.

  Something bothered him, though, something the Prothagonus, which was like a bouncer or a concierge or a secretary, had said as it flung Derxis away into the dark. Something about how this deal was meaningless because the key was already gone.

  Derxis positioned himself comfortably on the tapestry. He formed some binoculars from his talisman to scope out the far-off moons of Ardia. Paper Moon ablaze, Crescent Moon missing one string, Thin Moon almost invisible because it was edge-wise to him. And of course Spreckle, his own ridiculous bespeckled gumball of a moon, like a paint-splattered cue ball or an egg with chromatic measles. Connect the dots, color by color. Paint by numbers. Child’s play.

  He let the binoculars fade and made a more powerful telescope. He noticed, as he did so, that one slice of the talisman had gone dark. Emmius. Which wasn’t right, not right at all. Emmius was the only one of them—the only one—who had never died even once. Seven years, and Emmius was the uncontested winner of the staying-alive challenge.

  It should have been Akkama. He remembered distinctly.

  Panic roiled in Derxis’s gut. He felt ill. How had a change so drastic occurred already? It must have been something he, Derxis, had done, an unforeseen consequence of the disturbance of the timeline. But he hadn’t even seen Emmius yet! And he’d only been here for like five gods-damned hours!

  Another deep breath. A guffaw of sickly mirth. Still salvageable. If Fiora finished her quest soon, and if Emmius’s body could be recovered, wherever it was…

  Acarnus. He needed Acarnus.

  Acarnus must have been thinking something similar. Their mutual thoughts aimed at each other collided, made invisible sparks, and Derxis saw the sparks. He glimpsed Acarnus’s thoughts: Bad News. Acarnus must have noticed Emmius’s death as well.

  Derxis’s comm band flashed. Acarnus, of course.

  “I’m here,” Derxis said.

  “Bad news,” Acarnus said. He sounded out of breath. There was an edge to his voice, almost a growl.

  “Yeah,” said Derxis. “I saw.”

  “If he’s gone, where did he go? And how are we supposed to open the door?”

  “There’s still…what?”

  “Where did he go?” Acarnus repeated.

  “Who?”

  “Abraham Black. He’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “I spoke to Maugrim. Something happened. There was some kind of outside interference in our Narrative. Abraham Black is gone.”

  “Gone…to where?”

  “I do not know. But he took the key with him. And we cannot assume he will be coming back.”

  Derxis stared blankly at the starry void. This close to the empyrean, the sharp multifaceted edges of the stars glittered as they turned and jostled. Their faint chiming danced at the edge of his hearing. The implications of Acarnus’s news trickled in. If Black had gone, then Derxis had just bought a mind spike for nothing. But more importantly, if Black had taken the key with him, then this narrative could not be finished. They couldn’t open the door.

  “Do you understand, Derxis?” asked Acarnus after some time had passed. No doubt Acarnus already grasped the entirety of the situation, probably better than Derxis.

  “I get it,” Derxis replied. A laugh exploded out of him. He had a guess about why, or at least how, Black had vanished. Only one external disruption had occurred to the Narrative. A big moment; a major alteration; an influx of energy.

  You played yourself, Derxis.

  You know it, D-man.

  No one does it better than you, Derxis.

  Correct, D-man. But what now?

  “Any ideas, Derxis?” Acarnus asked. He knew he was speaking to a Derxis much older than himself.

  If Black had left somehow on the wave of energy from the echo crystal, they couldn’t count on him returning soon. Or at all. And it raised serious questions about where the echo crystal had come from in the first place. Had it all been a trick? A really big, really excellent prank? But whose prank? And why?

  “Don’t panic!” he said to Acarnus, although his voice was limned with hysteric laughter. “We’re not out of it yet! Or rather, I should say, we are out of it. Or we will be.”

  A moment of silence from Acarnus. “Explain.”

  “We’re bailing,” said Derxis. “We’ll leave the Narrative. Abandon ship!”

  “That is possible?”

  “Indeed, it is! Our angels have a hidden functionality. One which would not have remained hidden had we not murdered Arcadelt.”

  Acarnus waited.

  “Akkama has figured it out somehow. She bonded Jeronimy’s angel to Black.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh. Right, right, you don’t know that yet. It means that Black has gained the powers of Jeronimy’s shadow-angel. But that doesn’t matter anymore if he’s gone. The point is, our angels can bond to something. Almost anything. Including ourselves.” He waited for Acarnus to ask a leading question, but was again disappointed. Acarnus just kept silent, expecting Derxis to keep explaining. “Our angels are native to the Museum, not the Narrative. They answer to the Dark Man, not the Bright World. But the point is, they can leave.”

  “Our angels…can leave?”

  “Yes! They don’t, because there’s no reason for them to. We’re in here, after all, and they stick close to us. But they can . And if we bond to our angels…”

  “Then we can leave as well. I see. But…” He didn’t finish, perhaps out of embarrassment, but he didn’t need to.

  “Don’t worry,” said Derxis, “it isn’t at all like melding. It doesn’t affect a daimon’s ability to, uh, mingle colors.” He wasn’t actually as sure about that as he sounded, but it was probably true. Why wouldn’t it be? Anyway, it probably didn’t matter for Acarnus.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “We won’t finish the Narrative,” said Derxis. “We won’t open the door. But if we can leave, well, it’s better than hanging out in a dead-end story right?”

  “In the future you came from,” said Acarnus, “why didn’t you leave once your Narrative became unwinnable?”

  “Our angels were dead by the time we understood what they could do. Except maybe Jeronimy’s angel. He may have got out that way. We don’t know. He just…disappeared.” Derxis didn’t bother hiding the loathing in his voice when he spoke about Jeronimy.

  “Then we have another problem,” said Acarnus. “Akkama and Emmius are both without their angels.”

  “Akkama’s other body never died. It’s still in the Museum somewhere. She’ll be fine; she just needs to die in here.” And that was something else he needed to take care of, on the double. “And as for Emmius, we might not need to worry about him. Look at your talisman.”

  “My…?”

  “The ten-sided thing.”

  “Ah…it means he’s dead?”

  “Yep.” Derxis observed his own talisman, the darkened segment that once belonged to Emmius. “We’ve been decimated.” He giggled.

  “You said Jeronimy also lost his angel,” Acarnus continued. “What about him?”

  “Fuck him. We’re better off without him.”

  Acarnus paused. “If I may ask…” He didn’t need to finish, and he knew it. Why do you hate Jeronimy?

  “We gave him a second name in the future: Jeronimy Betrayer. Does that answer your question?”

  After a long silence, Acarnus replied, “No.”

  “He left us to die. He’s the reason…look, it doesn’t matter. Forget Jeronimy. I need you to organize everyone. We need us all to bond to our angels before any other catastrophes come our way.”

  “Understood. And speaking of catastrophes, the Dark World already knows that Black is missing. They are mobilizing a sizeable counterattack.”

  Sizeable. Acarnus, ladies and gentlemen: master of understatement. “Then we’re on a tight schedule.”

  “Understood. Akkama and Rosma are likely to be uncooperative.”

  “I know. Leave those two to me.”

  “Understood.” Acarnus sensed the finality of their conversation and hung up.

  Derxis fell back onto the tapestry. It flexed slightly under his weight. He looked up at the curving dome of sparkling stars that swooped up and away. A sphere of stars, encompassing all that existed in this dimension. This dream. Well, almost everything. Everything that he could bear to think about.

  Derxis held up the mind spike, formed from his own arda, against the backdrop of stars. It shimmered bright orange. Some of the stars in the background collided with the edge of the mind spike and rebounded. Others were stirred in their motion by the faint ripples of orange energy radiating from the spike.

  Well, D-man, that whole Bright World thing was just a colossal waste.

  Maybe not, Derxis. Maybe not…

  Gotta believe, D-man.

  Gotta believe.

  We are all the stars in the sky, right?

  Sure, man. Sure.

  It’s not over yet.

  He had to tell Rosma. He thought long and hard, adrift on his tapestry in the calm dark of space, if there might be any other way. He couldn’t see one. In his own memories of the future, Black had corrupted Rosma. Dying, seething with a maniacal sense of “justice,” she and Black had bonded over their hatred of Akkama and their pursuit of their mangled ideals, which were in reality nothing more than vengeance, fury. Black had told her about the other way to become a Champion. The cheating way.

  But it had saved her life, and right now she was still dying. She had maybe weeks, maybe months left before her curse/disease killed her. And Derxis could think of no other way to save her. Maybe a wish? But he was out of wishes. And there was sure as hells no chance of Rosma becoming Champion the right way. At this point, she’d probably already slain most of the people she was supposed to learn to forgive.

  He decided to just do it. What more could it hurt?

  DX: Hey Rosma

  RO: I wish not to speak with thee, color priest.

  DX: Oh, I know! But you don’t have to

  DX: Just read

  DX: You are dying

  DX: You are in great pain

  DX: And you don’t have long

  RO: Desist, priest.

  DX: Listen!

  DX: The talismans (the ten-sided things) are made of the same stuff as the White Door

  DX: Nothing can break them

  DX: EXCEPT the owner

  DX: If you really want to, if you really intend to, you can break your own talisman

  DX: Doing this will kill you

  DX: BUT

  DX: You’ll appear in the Bright World. And before you die, it will grant you a single wish

  DX: Wishes from the Bright World are powerful

  DX: One thing you can wish for is to become a Champion

  DX: I don’t know if this is some kind of loophole or what

  DX: But if you wish to become Champion, you’ll return to life

  DX: As a Champion of course

  DX: You won’t even lose memories, which is the normal price for a wish at the Bright World

  DX: And your talisman will be restored, since you’re alive again

  DX: The talismans are like our links to the Bright World, you see

  DX: Which is also kind of our link to, like, this version of ourselves existing or something

  DX: The point is, if you do this, you’ll ditch the disease. You’ll still be alive, and you won’t be dying

  DX: Are you reading this?

  DX: Hey! Rosma!

  R O S M A

  RO: What is this new nonsense, priest?

  DX: Read what I wrote!

  RO: It is too easy.

  DX: Yes!

  DX: Correct! I’m glad you understand that

  DX: It’s basically cheating. You won’t learn like you’re supposed to from your moon quest. You won’t grow. You won’t have earned it. Being Champion will be essentially meaningless

  DX: I’m not sure why it’s like that. It seems like an oversight in the system, and I don’t like it.

  DX: But it’s the only way I can think of to save your life

  RO: Is all this true, Derxis? It is not another of thy tricks?

  DX: I speak now as a Color Priest: it is true.

  RO: Very well. Is that all?

  DX: It is

  She did not reply after that. Derxis sighed. He looked out at the Narrative displayed before him. Something tickled his mind, drew his attention to the talisman. He glanced down at where it sat in his lap and saw with surprise that Rosma’s slice had gone dark. She was dead. That had been quick. Perhaps the pain had simply been that bad.

  Well, D-man, at least she won’t go nuts and kill everyone this time.

  Don’t exaggerate, Derxis. She only killed four of us.

  I mean, she probably won’t go nuts.

  Yeah, probably.

  We should still keep an eye on her, though.

  Yeah. That’s good. It’s not like she suddenly stopped being a crazed psychopath.

  It’s the bells. She really wanted to ring them so badly.

  They were all she had.

  They were all she thought she had.

  A great light filled the starry heavens for a single second before all faded back to darkness. The Bright World at it again. The blue light of Rosma’s sigil, the conch shell, flickered back to life brighter and bluer than ever. She’d been at the Bright World for, what, a minute? Derxis laughed. She wasted no time.

  His next order of business: Akkama, who could not, under any circumstances, be allowed to do what Rosma had just done. He sent her a message requesting that they meet. He phrased it more like a challenge to ensure she would come. And it was a challenge, after all. He could guess already what had happened to Emmius. He had to put a stop to her madness, once and for all.

  He rotated the tapestry aslant and sideways to its previous orientation, on a course for Ardia. Their meeting would take place in Skywater. He shot Fiora a quick message on the way.