Act I

[https://i.imgur.com/ZaYSdEX.png]

After a brief meeting under the blossoming jasmine, the six orphans decided to pair up and scatter — two west, two north and two east. They did this for three reasons: one, to avoid being caught off guard again; two, to locate the Locust Queen more quickly; and three, to avoid infighting, as the heroes blamed each other for their curse.

Up the steep clines of the western pass ran Florian and Madelief. For the whole morning, they thundered like a cloud of worry through the forest, sending jays and squirrels scrambling away, vaulting over pillboxes if going around would take too long, and when they finally reached the foot of the cliff they hefted their packs onto their shoulders and set about scaling it without a word.

All this left Florian exhausted by the time they reached the top. He collapsed on the smooth rock of the next hexagon, an arid mesa carved up by canyons with a road that wound over them. Above him stood Madelief, her legs trembling, sheer anxiety keeping her upright. Despite this apparent strength, her voice was softer than moss, and she often seemed to be fading away into some other reality.

"Come on," she shout-whispered. "We could have been across the first canyon by now."

Since the first moment of the hex, her eyes had been glued to the countdown on her hand. She maintained a steady tremble, like an idling engine.

"Three," she said. "Three what? Hours? Days? Please, Florian, I don't want to die for lack of trying!"

Florian nestled into his green jerkin as he lay gazing back over the thick carpet of pink that had been their home.

"I can't walk another step," he chirped, strumming on a lute. "And I don't want an early death. Let's go to town and have a rest — and may we there complete a quest."

Off the main road stood a cluster of ramshackle shacks, identifiable from Mr. Begeleider’s teachings as a stereotypical wild-west high street. The majority of buildings lay in ruin, and the few that actually had four unvarnished, splintery walls were jammed together with rusty nails, their windows boarded up. Tumbleweed flocked about the streets, but they seemed otherwise deserted.

A bowed-over sign admitted the place was called 'Fietspad,' but gave no more information.

Madelief drew her robe about her, adjusting her pack in flowing, ethereal motions, and then whispered, "We have enough supplies for the week, and the sun's still high in the sky... do we really want to be wasting time on rhyming couplets?"

Groaning, Florian sat up, and holding his cricket amulet etched the shape of a circle into the rock. Writing began to spider away from it at even points.

"Our hero's journey concerns not distance, but time," he crowed, pointing at his diagram. "Here we stand at REFUSAL OF THE CALL — obligatory rhyme — after which we must CROSS A THRESHOLD LINE. And all the way around the circle, just here, we defeat the Locust Queen at RESURRECTION, by prophetic design."

Her face screwed up in agony; her moth screeched, and she stamped away the circle. "How can you live with yourself, doing such horrible things to the English language? The threshold is obviously that canyon over there! You're the one refusing to move on..."

She slid a few graceful steps towards it before stooping over out of fatigue. The sun beat down upon her. No matter how much she panted, she couldn't get enough air.

"Nobody said it would be easy," she said. "Come on, Florian…"

"I'm telling you, we need to wait," he said, unwrapping a sandwich from his bag. "A quest will fall upon our plate, the reward of which will put us in a better state. Why should we walk through endless nights, when we could sit upon two bikes?"

"Aaaaaaaargh," she cried, and it was almost loud enough to echo off the town, but not quite. "You and your story magic! I drew the short straw, alright. I was this close to going with Otis... but here I am with Mr. Sidequest! The place is deserted, Florian... can't you see all the fence posts twisted up? Where are the bikes you're going to buy?"

For the first time in Madelief's life, her voice peaked into an amplitude audible from afar, and suddenly a man swung open the shutters of a boarded up window, dressed in so many colourful fabrics as to be pitiable.

The man said, "What are you two doing outside, making so much noise? Hurry up and get indoors before the Harley-Davidson comes back!"

Indeed, something was coming, hurtling along the mesa in a cloud of dust, roaring louder than a war-horn, headed straight for the town. It blitzed forward at such a speed that it cut through the haze, and it was a kind of bike they had never seen before, with massive metal exhausts beside the engines, and handlebars like great horns on a ram.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Florian leapt to his feet, rippling with instant vitality, and he blew a whirlwind through his flute and did a jaunty jig.

"Lo, how a side quest fills me with energy," he hummed, "Protected as we are by prophecy, it should be a breeze — villager, put yourself at ease!"

"I hate you and I hate your cricket," said Madelief, unhooking her moth clasp and standing her ground. "How did you know this was coming?"

"Indeed I was the first to climb the ridge," said Florian, cowering behind her, "I witnessed the beast crossing yonder bridge. So thought I in our time of need, of resting now to harness its speed. As to why I didn't mention certain tidbits — I couldn't fit it into rhyming couplets."

The bike charged towards them, its shiny cladding flaring in the sun. The noises from its engine were deep and bestial, shaking the very earth itself — nothing like the orphanage's couple of docile ponies.

"Get out of the way!" cried the window-man. "Please, that thing's taken my entire family!"

"We have to tame it," said Madelief, hyperventilating with anxiety. "Riding that, we could get to her castle in less than three days, I'm sure of it."

"I don't doubt it," said Florian. "Now's the time for your magic, Maddie."

Madelief nodded, and seeming to float through the air, she ran straight into the bike's path. It was eating up the road, alright, churning through it with the power of a hundred horses — those spiky tyres were going to make a pancake of its new victim. Fifty meters, then twenty, then ten, then five...

Right as it was close enough for her to smell the sickly fumes pouring out of the bike's exhaust, she stroked the fluffy antennae on her moth, and the bike flipped at a ninety-degree angle, speeding away from her. Roaring, the Harley-Davidson skidded to a stop, leaving behind dark, acidic marks, and then it rushed forth once again to flatten her. But no matter how many times it charged, it found itself redirected, always wheeling towards a looming canyon in the distance. The beast revved and revved at a deafening volume, but still it made no headway. Finally, mystified, it turned tail and fled -- only to then hurtle back towards the magician!

"Nobody expects the redirect," whistled Florian alongside a power-chord on the lute.

"I would really prefer it if you would be quiet," said Madelief, her moth orbiting her as if she was a very bright lamp. "I can't afford to lose my concentration."

She wasn't wrong. The beast's energy proved bottomless. It whirled ceaselessly around the perimeter of Madelief's magic like a turbo-goldfish in an exceptionally small bowl. Twice it nearly caught her out, and she managed to flick it away in the nick of time. The sun had long descended beneath the peaks, and her firm legs nearly given out from under her, when it finally got the point and stopped in place. Still it revved.

Florian said, "It looks like—"

"Shh. Not a word, you spoony bard.”

She crept towards it, her entire body trembling and pumping out shallow breaths. Fatigue sapped her to the point that she was using magic to prop herself back up every time she stumbled. As she got closer, the bike seemed to grow, and when she came up alongside it the saddle sat at stomach-height. Its fumes set her in a sickly stupor. For a moment she froze.

Then she leapt atop it, and all hell broke loose. The thing raced off between her legs. Florian was gone. The window-man was gone. It rocketed her through the hamlet of Fietspad, the shacks blurring past in one contiguous brown streak, and it was only then that she began to notice the corpses by the roadside. Men, women and children alike had fallen, their blood flowing into the dry cracks of the earth. She gripped the handlebars with determination, adrenaline coursing through her veins, and she tugged on the bike hard, bent on controlling it.

"I must tame you," she whispered. "We must get to the Locust Queen!"

But her words were lost on the breeze. Suddenly the thing turned and slammed into a shack, bucking her off. She hit the ground with a horrific crack. Then it span its wheels and ran her over repeatedly in a terrifying episode of confusion and pain, but finding it couldn't quite flatten her due to a certain resistance, a certain thickness in the air, it simply left her where she was, crumpled up in a pile of wood and nails.

She lay there for a time, skin screaming. Shock barred her off from reality. Winded, bruised, torn — alive. Then she heard footsteps. Florian was running over with the man in the technicolour dweeb-coat.

"Maddie," said Florian. "Are you okay, Maddie?"

He lifted her up, wincing at the way her skin was torn, the way she'd broken out in a crimson oozing road rash, at the way her off-white robe was soiled in oil. The bicycle had failed to break any bones, at least.

"You're not shaking anymore, Maddie..."

"I tried to warn you," said the man, pulling at his rainbow collar. "Hell, I can't believe you're actually alive! Just this morning that thing came, and it ran down everyone who tried to get out of town!"

Madelief sat up, grimacing. She made a very pointed effort to not examine her wounds, which were singing a deafening aria of pain.

"What's your name, villager?" said Florian. "Tell us what you know about this pillager."

"I'm Joost," he said. "I don't know what to say. The land... the land changed, or something, and all our bikes ran away. Along comes this thing, destroys my ranch, makes its nest upon the ruins, and then it courses through town and kills anyone who isn't holed up!"

"That's your ranch, up there?"

The ranch sat above the town on a ridge, with fields outlined by a fractured line of fence. The actual buildings had all but collapsed in on themselves, but the main stable, a great barn the size of a football pitch, appeared intact.

"Let's go," said Madelief, shuddering to her feet. She looked like roadkill. Couldn’t stand still.

"You can't be serious," said Joost. "You were lucky the first time, but if you go looking for it — you'll die! That thing knows no mercy, and you've only gone and riled it up!"

In reply, she just shoved her countdown in his face. The number still read three. All the colour drained out of Joost, so sinister was the dark energy crackling from it.

"Maddie, you're no longer REFUSING the sidequest?" asked Florian.

She shook her head.

"Then it's time for us to put our magic to the test. And see if we can't CROSS THE THRESHOLD, no less."

"Stop!" she shouted. "Please! Just! Fucking! Stop!"

"Okay… sorry."

And drawing on some inner reserve of prophetic energy, they set off up the hill to Joost's ranch, Florian supporting Madelief every step of the way.