[2] The Same Place in a Worse World

The cemetery contained the corpses of twenty-seven former kings and queens of Whitecrosse, marked by statues in rough Romanesque style: stout cylindrical bodies and wide staring eyes. Arranged in two facing rows, each statue stood sentinel before a sharply gabled mausoleum, each mausoleum encrusted with depictions of its respective ruler's deeds. In bas-relief they rode again, atop staunchly striding stallions whose hooves crushed heaps of vanquished foes, vast armies or grim giants or dragons twined in awkward stillness. Twining too were the creeping strands of ivy that rose to blot these deific conquests under leafy bursts, entire walls swallowed, a subsummation of human history into an ever-insatiable maw.

Past the twenty-seven mausoleums the graveyard continued, but with only simple stone markers for princes and consorts, half-hidden amid a sea of frond and fern. The only place yet inviolate by the greenery was the grand cobblestone road that ran between the two rows of statues up to what in this world was known as the Door: an immutable stone archway that had not opened in nearly four hundred years.

Until, without warning, it opened.

It made no noise; only a translucent shimmer like the skin of a bubble in the empty space under the arch. A human stepped out and appeared in this world. Behind him the shimmer dispersed and the Door shut once more.

"Meh," said Jay Waringcrane.

Baseball bat on his shoulder, he tilted up the brim of his hat and took in the scene. The regal statues gave an overly serious high fantasy vibe, done infinity times before. Everything had been done infinity times before. High fantasy, low fantasy, any stratification in between, and every gimmick imaginable. Looking at this place, the distant mountains, the hilltop castle far to the west, Jay wondered if any world would've impressed him.

Maybe sending him to an unimpressive world was Perfidia's revenge for the day prior. What a garbage thought. Who was more likely to sabotage him: her or him? Despite her being a literal devil from literal hell, he knew the answer.

Someone sobbed somewhere.

But nobody alive seemed to be in the graveyard. Jay's eyes went to the biggest of the funereal statues, the closest to him, a king clasping sword and book. An inscription read:

HERE LIETH KING JOHN I

OUR DELIVERER

John. What an original name. Jay didn't give the statue a second glance as he started down the road in search of whoever was crying. His eyes flitted from statue to statue to mausoleum. Nobody. Then his shoe went crunch.

He looked down. Something like half of a rodent's body was there. Actually, it was the mangled lower half of a rodent-sized person, pencil thin legs inhumanly twisted.

From the body extended a trail of tiny bloody splotches that led to one of the middlemost statues, a tall queen imbued with holy blandness. Blood dribbled down the queen's side and from behind her shoulder a woman's face peeped, streaming slimy black tears.

Jay and the woman stared at each other. Still sobbing softly, the woman reached out two delicate hands to offer him something. The something was a small, squirming person.

"No thanks," said Jay.

Shyly, seeing her offering rejected, the woman broke eye contact, absentmindedly opened her mouth, and bit off the squirming thing's head.

The hard crunch of bone rose above the sobs until the woman swallowed. A heavy lump traveled down her emaciated throat. Then she opened her mouth wide and wailed:

"Charisma! Cha-ris-maaaaa!!"

Her sharp voice sent a flock of birds fleeing a nearby tree. She interrupted her wailing by biting off part of the torso and resumed wailing while she chewed. Stringy bits danced from her lips.

The noise quickly became irritating. Jay rolled his head onto his non-batted shoulder, eyed the rest of the graveyard, and noticed a rustle in the open door of one of the mausoleums. Something staggered out soon after, a creature with large leathery wings, one wing tangled around its body. The untangled one snagged on the doorframe and the creature flopped to the ground with slapstick exaggeration. Rolling, sputtering vague curses, it tugged three times hard until the wing came undone, at which point it quickly clambered to its taloned feet.

Its other wing unraveled from around itself, revealing the body and face of a woman in a ragged white nun's habit, stained with grime and brown blood. Her face was identical to the woman behind the statue, except instead of sobbing she scowled.

"Stow it Charm you God-forsaken whore! Choke on your vomit and die already!"

"Charisma, O Charisma!" the wailing one wailed. "'Tis time, dearest sister, for the inexorable judgment of our so rotted and twisted souls. Nigh—Nigh, comes our well-earned plummet into the abyss, cast down by the God whose love we denied!" She bit again into the morsel in her hands, causing the slopping red remainder to slip through her fingers.

"Oh you greedy tramp, you're eating again? How many is that now? At this rate, there'll be none left for when—" Her eye, unnatural red, lanced toward the big stone archway from which Jay had come, and in so doing lanced Jay, although the only one of them who flinched was her.

She changed abruptly; the fury on her face dissolved into a strained mask of a smile. Clicking onto the road semi-wobbly due to her birdlike legs, she pantomimed a gesture of humble supplication made macabre by one hand being a gigantic, furred, four-fingered claw. (The other was normal.)

"Guh—Greetings, great wayfarer hero! Please—accept my humblest—apologies, regarding the wretched state of my sister and I. We didn't expect you so soon. Archbishop Astrophicus is never wrong with his foresight, but sometimes he's vague on details."

"O, all is useless, all forever lost!" said the other. "Only humans may receive His benediction. Only humans may be saved! We, disqualified from being human, are disqualified from His love."

The stooping one cut a glare at her sister before continuing. "Anyway. I, Charisma, and my twin sister Charm, we—we extend to you—cordially—an invitation—Oh fuck it. I can't talk like this." She rose from her bowed posture, shrugging as though nobody had any right to expect better from her. "Archbishop Astrophicus, you know, he gave us some speech or whatnot to say, I tried to memorize it, I swear I did, but the words—" A flippant gesture of the clawed hand. "And Charm's worthless as you plainly see. So here's the short of it: the archbishop demands to speak to you. We'll take you to him—at the monastery, of course. That's where he is." She jabbed her good hand toward the mountains in the distance. "We can fly quick as—quick as, well, quick as a horse. Quick as a horse runs I mean, except flying. You know."

Her gruesome eyes gazed at Jay expectantly. Her wings extended and gave one tepid flap, demonstrating her capacity for flight.

A cloud passed overhead, briefly plunging the cemetery into shadow.

"No," Jay said.

Charisma's face scrunched. "Oh, hellfire and damnation! Charm you, you, you...!—Sir. Sir great hero, please. I humbly beg of you. Allow us to take you to the monastery. Astrophicus is wiser than any in all Whitecrosse—a word from him's worth its weight in gold."

"No," said Jay.

Credit for grotesqueness. Partial credit―he'd seen worse in even basic dark fantasy. But if these obviously shady sisters expected him to trust them they were stupider than they looked. Besides, if he wanted to talk to an authority figure and be told what to do, he could've stayed home. Getting involved in this world's Christianity-but-the-names-are-changed religion sounded especially unappetizing.

"You're sure," said Charisma.

Jay nodded.

"Nothing I can say? Nothing at all?"

Jay didn't even bother to nod. He just stood there. He would've started walking away if they weren't in his path.

A rasp rose from deep within Charisma's chest, traveling up her throat until it expelled as a bilious puff. Her talons clenched against the cobblestone, streaking broad gouges, and she rolled her red eyes toward her sister. "Well! Fine mess you've got us in you brainless floozy, you irrevocable dunderhead. This is your fault Charm, your fucking fault! If you were a better lookout! Gave us a chance to make a real first impression! And what have you to say for yourself, you dotty bitch?"

"Pray forgive me, dear sister. Forgive this wretched lump of inutile flesh and sinew. Forgive me in the stead of our Lord, who cannot." And more on that theme, while she rubbed her face against the shoulder of her statue so that her black tears ran alongside the blood and mixed into a viscous mire.

"Enough of that!" Charisma said. "You ate all the faeries, so I'm relying on you, got it? Focus. If he won't come with us willingly—well! You know our orders!"

A cloud passed. For an instant, all was shadow, dark enough to swallow the forms of the sisters. Except their eyes. And both sets, turned straight toward him, gleamed equally red and hungry.

Just as Jay expected. He gripped his baseball bat with both hands and when the cloud moved away Charisma was on him, clearing the entire span of the cemetery in moments, three limbs' worth of curved talons bared.

He swung, from shoulder height, only for the aluminum bat to clink between the spread claws on Charisma's monstrous arm. That kept her arm from striking, but she hopped up and scrabbled her legs like a chicken, an attack he backpedaled to avoid but could not keep from cutting deep into his thigh. An instant gush of warm blood flowed down his pant leg, while the pain itself stung in oddly localized intensity.

That pain snapped him out of boredom. Not just the boredom of the moment, which weighed heavy during the belabored wailing and swearing of the sisters, but a much longer boredom, one traveling seemingly uninterrupted as long as he remembered, even though he remembered times he was not bored—but because the memories themselves had become boring, the moments they signified retroactively turned boring in tandem.

Charisma screeched something in his face, a cackle half avian: "KCHH-HH-HH-HH!" And Jay whipped out his good leg between the swiping arcs of her talons and kicked her in the stomach hard enough to stagger her. His hurt leg transformed into agonizing stone and he knew if he attempted a kick like that again it'd give out and drop him. He had to remain rooted to the spot.

But now his stance had switched, his uninjured leg leading. That meant if he swung it would come from the opposite direction as before. Last time the bat went toward her monster arm, so—

"KCHH-HH-HH-HH," Charisma cackled again, swiping for his stomach.

He swung. Weaker than usual, but now into the direction of her normal hand. She couldn't stop it. Wasn't quick enough to try. His bat plowed into the side of her head with a sharp, clean, and unfathomably satisfying plonk.

Her intense red eyes went dull and she lurched an awkward direction slowly, suspended. Her wings beat the dead air and her talons clutched at nothing.

Before she hit the ground he drew back and slammed her head again. The second hit failed to satisfy because she was drifting away from it, but Charisma dropped like a lump. Jay tried to adjust his position, nearly fell due to the nonresponse from his right leg, and steadied himself on his left. He brought his bat down a third time; her entire body spasmed and went still. A pool of blood formed around her, although Jay noted clinically that most came from his sliced leg.

He raised the bat again, but faintness made him lower it. Out of his clear, precise, and immediate thoughts, all centered on his next move in this life-or-death struggle, blankness spread. The fleeting moment of exhilaration drained out of him and the straight line of zero resumed. Was this it? Adrenaline? Nothing more? Charisma's claws skritched the stone and a partial moan shuddered out of her. Her eyes squeezed shut as her wings curled around herself. All motions appeared involuntary, the throes of a dead insect.

Jay leaned on his bat like a cane and swallowed a deep breath. The entire fight consumed thirty seconds. No—ten at most. And finally, from behind her statue, Charm emerged.

She did not move quickly, like her sister. She stalked forward, careful not to topple on the bird legs she seemed unused to using. From her back spread wings—not batlike, but broad and feathery, each feather once white, now yellowed or browned. A trail of blood and black tears followed her every step. Dangling around her hip were three small metal cages, which clinked and tinkled as her ponderous movements knocked them against one another.

All but one cage was empty. It contained a little person like the ones Charm had devoured, who squeaked in a tiny voice that managed to carry: "Hey! Hey hero! Help me will ya? I'll help you too! I'll—"

But the rest drowned under Charm's moan: "O my dear sister Charisma! O, what a deserved fate for us both, to die today at the hands of this Godsent hero! How could we, wretches, inhuman and bereft, possibly contend against one still enveloped within a skein of divinity? O, O! Though it be a hopeless endeavor, I shall nonetheless display to him my impious arts. Thus shall he know my wickedness, and be not pricked by conscience when he slays me justly."

On one hand, Jay didn't appreciate her longwinded spiel, because he was losing blood fast. On the other, it gave him time to think. The fairy thing in the cage provided an obvious angle—it must have magic to help him—but the obviousness insulted him. Perfidia—did she plan this? Did she predict he'd decline the sisters' offer, that they'd fight, and that his only chance hinged on breaking out the fairy? Did she not have any faith in him to do it himself? But he was fucking bleeding to death. He lacked the luxury to care.

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Charm unraveled a long tongue that slurped the blood on her chin, while Jay pushed off the ground with his bat and hurtled hopping on one leg at a mad tilt straight for her. One shot. If he lost his balance he'd flop to the ground and die. Charm was doing something, muttering, her words fading in and out of his perception: "In my Father's house are many mansions... I go to prepare a place for you." The tears flowing from her eyes transformed into two harsh sprays of black liquid that whipped out like tendrils, poised to gore him.

He lacked maneuverability. But the time it took her to perform this attack gave him the head start he needed. His forward momentum built as he leaned forward and staggered with increasingly desperate hops; he'd already cleared most of the distance. Even if the tears shot straight through him like high-pressure jets he'd have to keep moving. Mentally, he braced for unfathomable pain.

Instead, the tendrils wrapped around him. Held him. Caressed him.

The graveyard, statues, sky—all turned milk white. Warmth glowed. Pain vanished, all fear and unease. He realized, the thought jarring in its reversal of what he'd thought only moments before, that he was perfectly, utterly safe. That nobody would, or even could, hurt him. That all loved him. Charm regarded him with a motherly smile. Radiance replaced raggedness—her wings, an angel's.

"There, there." Charm's voice lacked any shrillness whatsoever. Like song, minus meter. "You need no longer worry. You are elect, dear hero. God's love imbues your very aura—I feel it."

Her tears rocked him gently back and forth. He swayed on weightless legs, devoid of any sensation of his feet touching the ground.

"You—you do like it, don't you?" Her hands wrung together and she could not meet his gaze. "It makes you... happy, yes? I know my abilities are meager. I could not even hope to imitate the blessings of your God-graced world, no. But... if I could see you smile... even for a moment... then my damnation was a worthwhile price to pay for this witchcraft. O Lord, I seek not forgiveness. I know I have been sacrilegious. But I only ever wanted them to smile."

Honeyed scent rose around him. No sense left unattended. Every component a wash of pure pleasure, but pleasure devoid of guilt, pleasure imbued with another sense, a sixth sense, a moral sense. It was not simply joy to feel this pleasure, but correct. One's proper reward for virtue, and though Jay dimly understood himself to be not a virtuous person, when he tried to conjure counterexamples in his stickily saccharine brain he recalled only moments of kindness, moments of care and love. This world—this world he inhabited within the embrace of Charm's sorrow—was paradise in the true definition, not merely freedom from external misery, but freedom from misery self-inflicted. Doubt diminished into nothing. Logic decomposed and broke into pieces with frayed edges, erasing it of the power of its exactitude. Any components of self, dissolving...

"Now, great hero," she said, "will you remain within my paradise?"

Paradise.

Paradise.

"No," said Jay.

As soon as Charm blinked and the thick cords of black tears dropped and splattered the floor, his rational component instantly resurfaced and he understood his decision to be one hundred percent correct. He'd obviously been manipulated by Charm's magic―simple illusion. But in that world, there was only sensuality. Reason was prohibited from playing a part. Therefore, submerged in simple, guiltless pleasure, he made his decision with what, in retrospect, he considered only seventy-five percent confidence. Some doubt existed. Something about that world provided—solace.

But Jay Waringcrane did not want to live in paradise. He knew that at least for certain. He wanted to create paradise.

Tears no longer streaked Charm's face, her eyes so dry and red they looked skinned. Yet a genuine, depthless tragedy crept along her features. She clasped and crushed her hands together.

"Was it... not good enough?"

"It was good," said Jay.

He approached her, limping. Unlike her sister, both her hands were normal, but the talons on her feet served as adequate enough weapons. Nonetheless, she made zero effort to defend herself as he raised his bat with one hand and swung it into her head. She fell immediately and stopped moving.

Jay considered a few more hits to make sure she stayed down, but something in him resisted. Maybe faintness from loss of blood. Urgency departed as the world once more dropped into silence. His hurt leg no longer supported him. He sat beside Charm's body and panted heavily.

A cloud passed overhead.

Into this tranquility a tiny voice erupted: "Wow! Whoa! What a walloping! You sure showed em, hero!"

Fairy. In the cage on Charm's hip. The cage lay at an awkward angle, and the fairy itself contorted its body to avoid touching the metal bars that enclosed it.

"And here I thought you'd definitely need my help! So whaddya say? How about letting me free?"

"Why," said Jay.

"Cuz that cut on your leg looks reeeeeal ugly, and I can cure it!"

Compelling argument. Jay leaned or fell over, fumblingly undid a latch on the cage door, and let out the fairy, prepared for all sorts of horseshit to ensue.

It ensued. The fairy burst skyward in a puff of noxious dust that sent Jay straining and coughing and streaming tears. It descended back to face level, gripped the brim of his hat, and hung from it to look him in the eye. He'd described the fairies Charm ate as rodent-sized people, and that was still true, but this one looked more like a large insect than a small mammal. Dark compound eyes, two twitching antennae, and dragonfly wings composed of incandescent scales, from which more dust puffed intermittently until he sneezed the fairy away from him.

Frenetic spasms reoriented the spiraling fairy in midair, where it settled to a hover maintained by thrumming its wings like a hummingbird. It wore no clothes. It also lacked visible genitalia, so Jay could only guess at its gender, if it had one. Its body, slender, bristled with silvery filaments that lent it a general fuzzy look.

"Wow! I like this hat!"

Wooziness crept in. "Heal me already."

"Right right right! Sorry got distracted. Stupendous hat though! Okay anyway."

The fairy zipped in a circle over his thigh and expelled a rainbow powder puff that stung sharply. But as the dust settled, the sting settled too. And when the dust cleared, not only did he no longer have a wound, but the bloodstains were gone and even the gash in his jeans was repaired.

"Nifty magic, huh? Impressed?" The fairy dropped cross-legged onto his knee. "Wait—wait wait! I forgot to introduce myself! I am—"

It sprung back up, cartwheeled in midair, revolved like a ballerina, and ended with each limb spread amid a brief firework of multicolored dust.

"Olliebollen—Faerie of Rejuvenation! Ta da~"

Jay ignored the theatrics and attempted to stand. He succeeded effortlessly; no pain remained. He shouldered his baseball bat, stepped over Charm's body, and proceeded down the road.

"Heyeyey wait!" Olliebollen said. "Where are you going? We gotta talk!"

"I let you out. You healed me. Fair exchange. You can leave now."

"Buhbuhbut!"

A gate marking the end of the cemetery neared. Upon approach, Jay peered through the open door of the last mausoleum, the one Charisma had bumbled out of. The tomb inside had been desecrated, smashed to pieces.

Olliebollen zoomed into Jay's line of sight. "Look! Hero! You're new to this world. You know nothing about it! But I've got lots of knowledge. For instance!" It waggled a tiny finger. "Didja know those gross wicked twins back there aren't dead yet? It's true! Telling what's dead from what's alive is something a Faerie of Rejuvenation's gotta be able to do. So let's give em a few more thwacks. Let's not stop till we see their brains. Yeah!"

Jay glanced over his shoulder. Charm remained completely limp, but Charisma—despite having taken more hits—slowly, uncertainly started to rise, bracing her wings for leverage. Her bloodied head lifted and her glare stretched across the graveyard to meet him.

The strength she mustered gave out and she flopped to the floor.

"They deserve to die, so better make sure. Don't want em back for revenge later!"

Charisma nearly killed him and Charm ate those fairies (fairies apparently being sentient), so morally it made sense to finish them off. But Jay remembered that sad look Charm gave him before she fell and realized he lacked the feeling for it. Lacked feeling for much of anything now that the fight ended.

"Plus! Plusplusplus, they serve the wicked and apostate Archbishop Astrophicus! Ooh, so scary! He and his twisted women commit all sortsa vile, heinous, loathsome deeds. Know what they'da done if you followed em to their monastery? Slit your throat as a blood sacrifice, that's for sure!" Olliebollen pantomimed slicing open its own neck with a carving knife, flopping its tongue for effect.

"According to you." Jay lifted a rusty latch on the graveyard's gate and pushed it open; it squealed. The road stretched before him, leading toward a distant castle town atop a hill.

"Not just according to me! They've even done bad stuff to humans. For instance, they kidnapped the princess of Whitecrosse! You're in a country called Whitecrosse by the way. Just one of the undeniably helpful tidbits of knowledge you stand to gain if you listen to Olliebollen!"

Jay already knew the place was called Whitecrosse; Charisma mentioned it before the fight. "You're biased because they ate your friends."

"Oh, those weren't my friends. Didn't even know em!" But Olliebollen ceased flitting back and forth. Its shiny eyes went vacant. "I guess though... they could have been my friends. But now they can't. They're gone now. There's nobody left..."

It suddenly brought both of its hands hard against the sides of its face. After an audible clap, it lurched back into its frantic animation, like a machine restarting after a jam.

"Except you! You're left, hero! And we're gonna be spectacular companions!"

"No."

"Now go back and smash those ugly twins' heads in!"

"No."

For a moment, Olliebollen's jolly demeanor faded. But having already lost control once, it managed to shake off the dip with a shrug. "Fine! They'll be back to hunt you down later, so you'll have to kill em then anyway."

Of course they'd come back. But under no circumstances was Jay about to do something this annoying fairy told him. After all, wasn't it so convenient? He would've died of his wound―or at least been crippled―if there didn't just so happen to be a fairy with healing magic nearby. What a lucky coincidence.

Except he knew better.

Perfidia put the thing there. Of course she did. She needed him alive, at least for a month. And Jay had to admit, Perfidia pulled a clever move. One he wasn't immediately able to counter, even after sniffing it out. His first fight, against basic enemies, left him crippled; worse surely awaited. Perfidia had sent a clear signal: Without a healer, you're dead.

Until he figured out another way to cure his wounds, he needed Olliebollen. He didn't know how much Olliebollen was under Perfidia's direct influence, but either way, it meant she maintained some degree of control over his actions.

Maybe Perfidia was more than a chatty idiot after all. But no way was that the last word. Jay decided to let Olliebollen tag along―for the time being.

The fairy continued to talk while he thought, a droning voice from which surfaced occasional clear snippets—babble about archbishops, princesses, and wicked acts. Jay tuned it out and took a last look at the graveyard. Charisma remained shuddering on the ground, trying and unable to rise. Charm, however, was still as death.

No―wait. Charm lay still, yes, but something had changed: Her eyes were open. And though she made no effort to move, those eyes stared directly at him. Tearless—blank.

The statues of kings and queens kept vigil upon the cemetery and its denizens. A cloud passed, all went dark save two tiny red dots peering, and Jay broke the stare to start down the road.

"Now let's head to the mountains and save Princess Mayfair from the evil archbishop!" said Olliebollen as soon as the graveyard was behind him.

"No."

"No?! Where else would you even go?"

"There." He pointed his bat west, the direction the road curved. A castle town stood atop a hill in the distance. Nothing about the castle caught his particular interest, but if Olliebollen wanted him to go somewhere, he assumed that was where Perfidia wanted him to go. So he'd go anywhere else.

"The capital? It's pointless right now. The action's in the archbishop's monastery!"

"Those twins also wanted me to go to the monastery," said Jay. "You saw what happened to them."

The threat made no dent in Olliebollen's oppressive energy. "They wanted you there so they could sacrifice you in a Satanic ritual. I want you there so you can slay evildoers and rescue the princess. Your first step toward becoming a hero who can change the world!"

"Illusion of choice," Jay muttered.

"Huh?"

Many routes, all leading the same place. The twins, Olliebollen, pointing to the monastery. A sickly suspicion told him he'd wind up there despite his own will: Illusion of choice. But why bother explaining to this mindless instrument of fate?

"Why should I care about saving this princess," he said.

"Cuz! Cuz, uh—cuz it's the right thing to do!"

"Maybe she deserves it," said Jay.

"Uhhhhh?"

"Either way, I'll find the 'right thing to do' for myself."

Olliebollen paused its ceaseless dialogue long enough to ponder. Then it clapped its tiny hands and expelled a pinkish puff from its fluttering wings.

"I get it!"

"Do you."

"Yeah! You wanna beat your own path, not the path someone else laid out for you!"

Against expectations, that line accurately summarized his feelings. Jay refused to reward the effort with even a nod of recognition. He continued forward, looking forward, at the distant castle town. The road undulated over meadows swallowed by wildflowers, rippling fields of every cheery color imaginable, and some colors not so cheery. Small crystal lakes dotted the landscape. The whole world seemed to fan out around him.

"But then," Olliebollen said, "why follow this road? After all, it was laid out by someone else. Literally! Hundreds of years ago, right after King John died, with the express purpose of moving the next prophesied hero from the Door to Whitecrosse. So by walking along this road, you're bowing to the will of that intention, aren't you?"

"I'm not talking about literal paths."

"From my perspective you are! I'm a faerie, see? I live—uh, lived—in a forest. No roads, no paths at all! I go where I please, when I please. So your insistence on following this one tiny strip instead of going, I dunno, that way"—a finger jabbed a random direction—"or that way"—another—"makes no sense to me unless you're specifically trying to do what some other humans want you to do."

This argument reached heights of inanity Jay had only seen on social media. He rejoined with a tried-and-true method of debate: "You're obnoxious."

It worked. Olliebollen went into a tizzy, sputtered in midair, did a loop-de-loop, tugged its antennae, and aimed a finger at Jay's face. "And maybe I think you're obnoxious! Ever thinka that, hero? I've tried to be sooooo nice and you barely even talk to me. Just no, no, no—nothing but no! And you won't ask me a single question either! I've seen donkeys less incurious. You're from another world and you don't wanna know anything about this one? Anything at all?"

Despite everything, the outburst came as a relief. Honestly, Olliebollen's constant smiling demeanor unnerved him far worse than the grotesque twins. Like an automaton, a sprite programmed to only ever help. A constant reminder of the devil behind the curtain, a set of shiny strings wound around his wrists to tug him one way or another. Now he knew Olliebollen felt a wider slate of emotions—and that meant he could tug back.

"Alright. I'll ask a question."

"Really? You'll really ask? And not some mean question like 'Why are you so annoying' or 'Why won't you go away'?" Despite Olliebollen's obvious excitement, it eyed him suspiciously. It had a right to.

"Why do you care about this princess? What's in it for you?"

"That's mean! Why can't Olliebollen just be your altruistic guide? Keeping you on the straight and narrow path to being a hero!"

"Nobody's altruistic."

"I'm not gonna answer a mean question!"

"I won't go to the monastery if you don't tell me." (He also didn't plan to go if it did tell him.)

"Yeah and I told you already! It's about doing the right thing!"

It turned up its nose, crossed its arms, and harrumphed. Jay didn't buy it. Even if Perfidia told it to help him, Olliebollen must have a motivation for doing so. Something it wanted, either from him or her. If from her, then who cared. But if Olliebollen wanted something from him, he needed to be wary.

He'd find out sooner or later. For now, Olliebollen made clear that questions along that track were nonstarters, so he decided to ask a "nice" question instead. "You mentioned this archbishop wanted to perform a Satanic ritual. So is there a Satan in this fantasy world?" Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense for it to use the word. Unless it learned it from a certain devil telling it what to do behind the scenes.

But instead of becoming evasive or quickly rattling off a lie with a smile, like Jay expected, Olliebollen folded up its little legs and gripped its face with both hands, blushing brightly. "Ohh! Ohhhhh! So you do remember the things I say! You're not so bad after all, hero." The moment passed and Olliebollen reverted to business mode. "Anyway, of course Satan doesn't exist! Only stupid humans think that. He's in their Bible, though, and they do all sortsa crazy things cuz of their Bible."

"Bible?" Jay knew innumerable fantasy stories that shamelessly cribbed elements of Christianity. A common enough cliché that he thought nothing of the supposedly evil guy in the mountains being an archbishop. But the Bible eclipsed the specificity threshold. "Like, the Christian Bible? The one with Jesus Christ?"

"Yeah that one!"

"The people in this world practice a religion called Christianity."

"The humans at least. Look there. Seeseesee!"

Olliebollen pointed. Up and toward the northern mountains, dry snowless peaks that glowed bright under the noonday sun. Charisma pointed the same direction before, but Jay never so much as glanced. Now he squinted. The glare of the sun necessitated focus, but after a few seconds he saw it. At this distance it looked tiny, but it must have been fifty feet tall or more, rising from the summit of one of the peaks. Visible for miles in every direction.

A giant white cross. Whitecrosse.

"That's their symbol," Olliebollen explained. "But you already knew that, didn't you? After all, when the last hero came through the Door four hundred years ago, he brought with him a Bible too!"

For the first time since entering this world, Jay was unable to reconcile what he saw with what he expected. He stared, completely perplexed, even as Olliebollen flitted around him with a proud—and smug—expression. Jay could only wonder: What kind of world did that devil send him to, exactly?