[32] Act 6 Act 6 Act 6 (Part 3)

Smoke in the air. Smoke in her shitty holey lungs. They might not have come to drag her out from under the bed but they'd find a way to kill her anyway, hey? Bad enough just trying to keep calm. With DeWint's horrible corpse staring at her and all. Panic might actually make her faint. Happened before. Though not since California. Bright warm friendly sunshiny California golden light streaming onto the bed of her dying father twisted into an awful shape. "Viviendre..." His voice a claw reaching out for her. "Where is my Viviendre? Bring her to me..."

Can't think about that now. That claw reaching. If she smelled smoke she must move. Now. At least to her window. Maybe from it she might suck enough clean air not to die.

The corridor outside her chamber had gone quiet for some time. No red legs tromping. Only DeWint and all his feathers. Carefully Viviendre slid herself from under the bed. Scraping herself and snagging her sleeve on the edge as she did. Trying to remain quiet lest someone remained only just around the corner, outside her view. Staff of Solomon at the ready.

She went to the window, unlatched it, and hung halfway out of it. Breathing fresher air that still smelled stale. Whitecrosse city fanning before and all abuzz. Antlike men streaming through the alleys, shouts, screams. A strange, orange box moving quite quickly up the street toward the castle—not a clue what that was.

Some hero Jay. Leaving her like that right before she needed you most. But it was her fault. Can't forget that Viv. Your fault for meddling. As if he'd ever love you anyway. She wanted to believe. When they touched—when they kissed—If only someone could love her. Then she might love herself too. She had holes in herself. She needed someone to help plug them up. Of course she wasn't selfish. She'd love back anyone who loved her. DeWint died for her. Did he love her?

Stupid to think this with the smoke seeping into her lungs and knowing full well this tiny little window to the outside world wouldn't save her if the fire kept spreading. Move you dumb bitch. You cannot stay here. Moving would only strain her lungs worse. But you cannot stay here you fucking dunce.

Wouldn't it be fine to stay here? And just die. The lack of air would make her faint and she'd die in her sleep. Soft and peaceful like that no? Why strive for life. Nobody cared for her, she didn't care for her, and even if she survived how long until her brother learned of Jreige's death and sent an assassin anyway? She pulled that gambit thinking it'd be fine as long as it tied the hero close to her, he could protect her from her brother, and excellent job. Stellar assessment of risk and reward. Save yourself the fear and pain and float away here, hm Viv? Do you really want to live now that the adrenaline is drained and your headache's making you float in a cloud of nails?

She squeezed her eye shut. For DeWint. She ought to at least try. For DeWint if nothing else. That bastard just had to die for her huh? Had to put her in debt huh?

With one unthinking movement she pulled herself up off the windowpane and swiveled on her peg toward the exit. Only to swoon and place a hand on the bed to steady herself as her vision went dark and her skull faint, but it was merely a moment, and ebbing by degrees sight returned to her.

Okay. Okay. You can do this Viv. Viviendre. Princess Viviendre de Califerne you can do this.

She hobbled past the body of DeWint and refused to look down as her mouth twisted and rippled along her pursed lips. Though she felt the pressure building inside her chest she tapped her staff down to use as her cane and settled herself into the rhythm of forward movement. She had all the most efficient routes throughout the castle mapped in her mind. Right from her door, to the end of the corridor, down a spiral staircase, left, another corridor, exit. Doable within a few minutes even at her speed. If she made it outside that was everything. Then she might collapse and some passerby could even feel it appropriate to drag her to safety. Fehfehfeh. Oh, if even that slim fantasy could be entertained. How many of them might mutter, "Let the Californian witch be burned."

Too bad even making it that far was fantasy. For as soon as she turned in the corridor she saw those bright red uniforms milling about in the distance. Eight, nine of them perhaps, a good hundred feet off or so.

Let's see how fast they can run a hundred feet shall we? No other options at least. She lifted her cane aloft and said, "Divide."

She put the cane down and used it to hobble a few more steps as a bright red blob in the distance became two bright red blobs spewing out a lot more red between.

The halves flopped to the ground and she lifted the cane again and said, "Divide."

By now the others ought to have figured out that the figure walking slowly toward them had something to do with the spontaneous bifurcation of their compatriots, but they continued to stand around with little change in their position. Perhaps they readied to fire arrows at her, as they had with DeWint. But no arrows came. "Divide," Viviendre said.

"Divide."

"Divide."

She was now only about fifteen feet away from the four who remained standing in front of the spiral staircase. Finally in range of her poor eyesight. They were simply standing there, not even particularly distressed by the gruesome deaths and even now had the soles of their boots set deep into puddles of blood. Very well, she thought. Lambs to the slaughter, no need to complain.

Yet her good fortune could last only so long. Finally, after the fifth division, those who remained looked around and saw her. Maybe their patience for dismemberment ran out or maybe she simply stepped too close. Maybe they had eyesight poor as hers. Whatever the cause they turned and Viviendre became suddenly aware of just how thick the smoke had gotten in the corridor, how securely its black tendrils gripped around her ribcage. Each successive "Divide" had been a stronger rasp and she wondered if she would even be able to say the others, let alone have time to say them.

"Divide," she managed to croak.

The foremost of them went still and started to split and the three others continued forward without even glancing at the carnage. If she threaded the Staff of Solomon with her other relic—but that relic took far more words to say. Well she better say them or die.

She reached up and pulled off her eyepatch, tottering backward at an uneasy balance as she angled the Staff of Solomon to the next encroaching victim and kept her real eye on the one being split so she might time the next "Divide" precisely. In the interim she spoke the other words, the words that went to her ersatz eye, the bright glowing orb set within her socket so often shielded from the light of day:

"Nothing new under the sun."

Set them back fifteen years. Yes, fifteen was good. Her Eye couldn't turn them back to before they were born, so best to err on the side of caution. Even if they were more veteran soldiers—the smoke, blurring her vision, made it impossible to tell, their faces were simple monotone masks—the removal of fifteen years' worth of memories would disorient them long enough for her to divide them.

Except they kept coming toward her as though nothing had happened.

What the fuck? Were they younger than fifteen? Shit, shit, shit—

"Divide," she barely wheezed. One more split down the middle, but the other two were now so close their bloblike faces cohered into focus and she saw the elfin ears jutting out their heads and would've groaned if she could afford the breath. Fae. Their age could be anything, anything at all.

The one being divided was still dividing and as she stepped back one of the remaining two entered range to strike her with its spear. In that instant her body felt like nothing, an insignificance, hideously willing to die at the slightest stimuli, and not a single recourse to defend herself, nothing in her hands, no way she could move fast enough. Her arms clamped around her body in a final vain act and the spear lashed out and the tip dredged a line through the muscle of one arm and drove deep into her stomach.

Her pent-up groan escaped her. A rush of blood dampened her hip and thigh and leg as she sagged against the wall. Her hand fell down and gripped the shaft of the spear, she entertained some vague notion: Pull it out. Pull it out. But it didn't budge, the elf held it fast. And the second elf appeared and raised its spear to pierce her again.

"Divide," she somehow said. Somehow. Saying it caused her stunned numbness to erupt in pain, pain made lunatic by the accompanying image of the elf splitting and dividing all over her, its skull bursting and its brains and guts gushing against her as she swayed a lazy dance with the first elf who now, she realized, was attempting to wrench the spear out, perhaps to spear her again, and her hand gripping the shaft now tried to pull it the other way, deeper into her (though she was not strong enough so really only more slowly out of her), thinking that she must last long enough for her staff to work again.

Oh but it hurt. All the pain of her lungs and stump and eye socket combined and magnified a million times. Sharp hard metal cleaving cutting eating her up. Slicing and grating into little ribbons Viviendre de Califerne and herself spilling upon the floor. Her shoulder slammed against the wall and her grip loosened and the spear ripped out of her and a flood of tears ran down her cheek. Oh God. Oh God grant me strength. She slid along the wall down into the accumulated pile of gore from the elves and herself and the hot wetness was a rousing slap on the cheek, enough that as the elf standing over her lifted its spear she could summon the full total of her body's strength into her arm, just enough to feebly heft the Staff of Solomon and say the magic word.

Except when she opened her mouth, only a scream came out.

No. No. No, she needed to be able to speak. Just one word. Only one word, it wasn't much, even with the smoke now a visible black layer upon the ceiling above surely she could say a single word.

One word.

One word!

ONE! WORD!

It was only a scream. A scream trying to contort itself into something resembling the word "Divide," but it was only a scream.

She was going to die. Sorry, DeWint. Sorry—

A streak of metal lashed out and slammed into the head of the elf standing over her. One loud, heavy DONK reverberated and the elf staggered only for a man to lift the metal object again and ram it once more onto the head, then a third time, and after a pause of contemplation a fourth for good measure.

The man kicked the body aside and knelt beside her and said words and out of her bleary vision his face cohered and she already half expected it and half refused to believe it but it was Jay Waringcrane. "Viviendre." His hands shook her. "Viviendre. Viviendre. Shit. Shit!"

He placed his hands on the wound in her stomach and pushed and she screamed. Her head was truly going now because all she could think was: He came back. He came back for her. For her specifically. Why else did he come to this corridor first, this corridor that held nothing but her bedchamber? Then even that thought was swallowed by pain.

A small fluttering insect thing landed on Jay's shoulder and said in a sneering voice: "You idiot. If you wanna stop the bleeding stick your fingers in the hole. That'll work waaay better than pushing. Trust me, I'm the Faerie of Rejuvenation. I know all about it."

Fingers in the hole. Ha, ha, ha. Oh but it hurt so much. That's fine. She could die in his arms and maybe he'd remember her fondly. A tragic death to erase her terrible life.

"Can't you muster up enough for even one heal," Jay said to his faerie. "Just one?"

"I told ya! I'm ruuuuuined ever since I lost my arm. If I could do even the ittyest bittyest thing I woulda killed that elf in the woods."

"Useless," Jay muttered. "Lalum. Lalum, get over here. See if you can stitch her up."

"Stitches won't save her either," the faerie said. "That's a deep wound, yep! In such a painful place too. We're looking at a slow and agonizing death for your friend, hero. Oh well!"

Faerie of Rejuvenation. Faerie of Rejuvenation. Into the murk those words repeated. Since I lost my arm. Since I lost my arm.

Viviendre gripped Jay's sleeve. Her head tilted up and her eye bulged as she strained. The pain had lasted long enough she was able to focus past it. She twisted her lips, swallowed a hard groan, and croaked: "I—I can—fix the faerie."

She must have spoken too quietly because Jay kept shouting: "Lalum. Lalum!" But the faerie heard. The faerie heard and dropped onto her face.

"What? What'd you say? What?" It zipped back, forth, up, down. "Oh. Oh. This thing in your eye. This is—it's the Eye of Ecclesiastes, isn't it? Isn't it?!"

Good. It already knew. Saved an explanation. An explanation Viviendre could not give in her current state. She could barely nod. All she needed to say were the magic words, and she braced her body to say them. The pain remained but no longer so sharp and Viviendre faintly realized that was because her consciousness was starting to ebb. Ineffable fatigue swallowed her up, even breathing was an exertion that required full focus. She could say the words but she needed to know how long ago the faerie lost its arm. Five hundred years or five weeks. How long, she tried to purse her lips to ask: How long...?

The words didn't come out. But the faerie said, speaking with frenetic animation as it zipped back and forth and up and down:

"Twenty days nineteen hours thirty-six minutes twenty-nine seconds. Thirty seconds. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three—"

Each second encompassing three or four wild zips and the zipping and flicking of dull gray dusty flakes onto Viviendre's face combined to stimulate her tired mind and body, pulling her via sheer annoyance inches out of the black vat she was otherwise incontrovertibly sinking into.

The time tick-tick-ticked in her head with each metronome incantation of the faerie's sugary sweet voice and the strength was welling up inside, stronger still, stronger, she opened her mouth: "N—noth—" That was all that came out, her lips cracked with deep fissures and a cotton dryness on her swollen tongue, she swallowed and it was like a bundle of knives going down her throat, and the faerie quit counting and started berating her, saying COME ON YOU STUPID IDIOT JUST SAY THE WORDS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE YOU HAVE TO YOU HAVE TO SAY THE WORDS fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, and Viviendre's mouth split open and she said:

"Nothing new—under the—sun."

The light of her eye spewed out and flooded over the faerie, freezing it mid-flit into a brittle outline before all was drowned in white.

Before the white seeped away the faerie's voice was already fading into focus: "YOU CAN HEAR ME. YOU WON'T TAKE THE HERO! HE'S GONNA MAKE ME WHOLE AGAIN. HE'S GONNA MAKE ME WHOLE!" And then the faerie was there, fluttering its wings, its arm outstretched and its finger pointing. Its previously missing arm, which was previously there, and now currently there. The faerie had returned to its former state. Nothing new under the sun.

Disorientation was common in those she used the Eye on. The faerie blinked, looked around, took in surroundings that had shifted entirely from what it remembered. "Huh?" it said. "How did—what?" Meanwhile Viviendre sank back into the black vat.

That elf, Sansaime. She wanted the Eye's power. Wanted to go back almost all the way to the beginning of her life. Well with scars like those. Fehfehfeh. Viviendre wished there was any point in her life she could go to when she wasn't so deformed.

"What are you doing?" Jay's voice. "Hurry and heal her!"

Black, black, black. Nothing—

And then she was up. And the pain was gone. And someone had their arms around her, holding her body halfway off the ground, squeezing her tight, and his chin on her shoulder. "You're alive. You—you're alive." His voice was quiet, mathematical, a simple collating and cataloguing of a fact. But he was gripping her tight to him and after a moment her arms slid around his back and held him too.

He came back for her. He cared about her. He cared.

Past him, in the stairwell, the face of the spider woman peeped, eyes cold enough to cut through the smoke.

—

Getting back was easy. Given a clear destination, cutting through the forests they'd wandered aimlessly the past two weeks became a trivial endeavor. And the world was as it looked: minuscule. They were out of the woods and into the farmland by noon. Seeing the smoke billowing out the castle Jay hurried up. Dusky twilight fell as he reached the gates, forced wide open and with a line of trees sprouting out of their maw and without a guard on duty. Mayhem in the streets but the villagers who saw him stopped and followed behind. He made them wait outside the castle, since they'd only get in the way and die otherwise.

Did Perfidia set it up that he'd reach the castle at the exact perfect moment to save Viviendre? His first instinct was to not care. He saved her, and—well. That made him—happy, he guessed.

But a thought nagged: If they see one way to manipulate you, they'll do it again and again.

And a counterthought: Didn't he come here, didn't he make this wish, to be happy? What did it matter if it was all strung together like a puppetshow if it gave him what he wanted?

For once in his life, his mind offered no rebuttal to that.

Supporting Viviendre so she might walk a little faster, they descended the stairs and traversed the corridor. His goal was to get her out of the castle and then figure out what exactly was happening. The peasants outside had only talked about an attack, an attack—which was obvious at a glance, but who was attacking and what did the line of trees sprouting all the way up the side of the hill have to do with it? He supposed he also better make sure Shannon didn't get herself killed.

The whole time Olliebollen was on the fritz, annoying him with a ceaseless deluge of words. He'd briefly explained to her that she'd lost her arm a few weeks ago and only now gotten it back through some kind of relic Viviendre had in her eye. Olliebollen didn't remember any of it. He had no idea which was worse, her ceaseless animation or her previous state of sulky petulance.

They exited a side gate into the main courtyard at the front of the castle and Jay immediately stopped. In the center of the courtyard, parked beside the giant statue of John Coke, was the bright orange jeep that Shannon's friend Wendell had driven.

Olliebollen finally shut up—or rather, slowed down—and settled on Jay's shoulder. "It's been two weeks and they're still trying to take you away?"

No. Something was off. The villagers Jay had left outside formed an anxious semicircle around the jeep, muttering among themselves. Through the tinted windows a figure moved in the driver's seat; Jay tightened his grip on the handle of his bat. The door popped ajar with a click, and then swung fully open as the driver stepped out.

It was a rabbit. A rabbit girl, with a mostly human shape but tall rabbit ears sticking from a frizzy clump of auburn hair. She stood on the tips of her long rabbity feet, and on her back twitched the bob of a rabbit tail. Holding a hand over her eyes to shade them she scanned the façade of the castle, particularly its exits, and soon her eyes settled on Jay and his group.

She perked up instantly, bouncing with little hops toward them while wearing a broad smile, and she shouted: "Oh my goodness! Lalum? Lalum, is that you?"

By the time Jay glanced over his shoulder Lalum was already disappearing into the shadows but that didn't stop the rabbit girl from hip-hopping closer and shouting Lalum's name over and over until finally a web appeared and wrote: HELLO PYTHETTE.

"We all thought you were dead!" Pythette hadn't given a glance to Jay himself, which was oddly refreshing. "Charm and Charisma came back and said they'd lost you in Flanz-le-Flore along with Pluxie. Oh, oh, is Pluxie with you? Is she hiding back there? Do tell her to come out if so."

PLUXIE IS DEAD...

"Ah," Pythette said. Her face, so bright and shiny, darkened a moment, then resumed its luster. "I'm sorry to hear it, but I'm still so glad you're alive. Oh, you've got to stay around a bit. Everyone else should be coming out soon, I'm certain they'll all be happy to see you. It'll be just the thing to brighten everyone's day. Things have been so dour since you left. I don't suppose you know what happened at the monastery? Terrible, terrible." She noticed Jay seemingly for the first time. "Ah—well, if you're with him, you probably know. I won't dwell on dark things. Anyway! We've all been so sad and mopey lately and you know me I simply can't stand it, it really affects me harshly, I started to feel sick and weak every day and it was all I could do to get out of bed and eat my porridge, but all the girls—Demny and Cinquefoil and Theovora and such—all the girls did really help me through it, and now we've got a new girl and everything's started to look a lot brighter and—oh there they are now! Yoohoo! Yoohoo, everyone, look look it's Lalum, Lalum's still alive!"

They were filing out through the front gate. First a weasel, a toad, and a wasp, then the deer girl Jay talked to the day after the fire (although she'd sprouted antlers, which Jay thought only male deer did). A lizard or something like that rode on the deer's back, and pulling up the rear of the procession was Charisma—no, Charm—dragging along an elf.

Viviendre's eye settled on the lizard, who had wings so it probably wasn't a lizard. "That can't be—that's not Mayfair is it?"

"Oh no, not at all," said Pythette, still waving her arms frantically at her friends. "That's Mademerry. She's the new girl. Showed up and you wouldn't believe how. Oh it's a whole story, no time to explain—Hey! Hullo! Everyone, everyone look here!"

Jay and Viviendre glanced at one another. From the scrutinizing squint in Viviendre's one eye (she'd replaced the eyepatch over her relic), Jay suspected she was as dubious as he was about this "new girl." Mademerry. That was a name alright.

Though it was Olliebollen, seated on the brim of Jay's hat, who hissed under her breath: "An elf. A live one. Let's kill it hero." She pointed at the elf Charm carried.

It'd been elves dead in the corridor where they found Viviendre, too. "You'll get elves to kill soon enough." Carefully, supporting Viviendre, he approached the nuns.

"Good work, Pythette," said the lizardish Mademerry. "Was it difficult learning to drive?"

Pythette sputtered mid-sentence, ogled like she didn't know what was just said, then looked to Wendell's jeep and jumped up. "Oh! Right! Actually it was unbelievably easy once uh, once Charisma gave me a few instructions. Well, going straight's easy. Turning and such still gives me trouble, I wound up banging it a few places. But straight's easy, and most of the way's straight as can be. Straight as an arrow!" To illustrate, her body went taut in a sort of salute, and she wobbled slightly on her heels like a bowling pin.

"Very good work, Pythette." Mademerry slid off the deer's back. "Good work to all of you, my sisters. Everyone has done such an excellent job today. Pythette, what has happened to Sister Charisma?"

At the name Charm started wailing and was ignored by everyone, including the sullen elf in her grasp.

"Ah, yes, about that. She was giving me instructions on how to drive and I'd gotten most of the hang of it when she suddenly said there was an urgent matter and she needed to go back to the Door. Then she flew off. I was told to keep up my task and to bring you to the Door quick as the dead."

Mademerry's serene face went dark in a moment. "Something's happened. No wonder she stopped speaking to me—Everyone, into the 'car' now. Obedience, you'll need to ride in the trunk. Apologies, but it'll be a trifle packed and we can't have you touching anyone on accident. Cinquefoil, Tricia, Charm, into the backseat. We'll have to toss the elf back there too. I'll ride beside Pythette. Demny, terribly sorry, but there's no more room. You'll be fast enough to keep up?"

"Yes," said Demny the deer.

Amid the flurry of activity as the nuns rushed to the sides of Wendell's jeep and failed to comprehend at first how to open the doors exactly (especially since some had claws instead of fingers), Pythette looked around blinkingly. "Wait, everyone, but Lalum's here. Lalum's alive!"

Everyone stopped and looked up. "Lalum!" "Oh it's Lalum!" "Nice to see you again Lalum!" Lalum, despite having tiptoed out of her hiding hole to get a better look at her friends, immediately darted back into the shadow and wrote HELLO EVERYONE. I AM HAPPY TO SEE YOU ALL WELL.

The weasel girl, Cinquefoil, belted a raucous laugh. "That's our Lalum! Hey, why don't we bring her with us too?"

"There's no time," Mademerry said sharply. "No time, and she's with him now—the hero. Go on, into the car. Lift that handle there just like that. Go, now, we mustn't keep her waiting. If she needs us...!"

The sulky elf in Charm's hands tilted up her head, saw Jay, and boggled her eyes. "Hey. Hey! Hey you're that—you're that man, oh, what was the name, did you tell me your name? I forget. Can you help me out here? I don't want to do any of these things anymore. I want to be left alone, please help me!"

Fuck, was it really the same elf from the forest? Temporary. Jay couldn't tell because the elf he beat with the baseball bat looked more-or-less identical. ("Go die in a pit, bitch!" Olliebollen said. "I hope they torture you forever and ever!") So much shit was happening at once after his uneventful trek through the wilderness that it was getting difficult to keep up. He knew the nuns were going to the Door, though. Someone was giving them instructions, and who else would it be? Perfidia. Although Mademerry looking so much like Mayfair was odd.

Nonetheless he needed more info. "Look," he said. "Before you go. Explain—"

"The vault is open." Mademerry spoke curtly, and even while speaking waved her arms to conduct the other nuns into their assigned places in the jeep. "The vault is open. Is that not your goal—hero? It shan't open again, I believe. Your sister and the queen are down there now, fighting the Elf-Queen. So move with haste and bother us no more."

The other nuns waved at Lalum before disappearing into Wendell's jeep, with Pythette hanging out the driver's door and waving particularly ecstatically. Jay hesitated, thinking about the vault and Shannon maybe being in danger, and by the time his cynical streak caught up and accounted for the possibility that Mademerry simply lied, she and Charm and Temporary vanished into the jeep and the doors shut and the engine started. He let go of Viviendre and moved to the side of the jeep, but it jolted backward with a start and caused the villagers watching to scatter with shrieks. The jeep lurched back and forth in a series of awkward, abrupt movements, oriented itself into a proper angle only after bumping three times against the base of John Coke's statue, and then drove off down the hill, scraping its paint on the side of a wall as it did.

Last to leave was Demny. She turned her stern eyes to Jay and said, "Mademerry spoke truth. The vault is open. I know not of your sister, but there was fighting down there. Good luck." She too raised her hand in a stoic wave to Lalum, and then galloped off.

In the sky overhead, large clouds were building, clouds to cover the land in a solid sheet of gray.

Well—and what did he care what the nuns were doing anyway? The vault, wasn't that where he wanted to go the whole time? To get the relics, make paradise, et cetera et cetera. Or would he shirk away the moment his goal got close, like he did at the monastery, like he always did?

"I'll go with you," said Viviendre.

"What?"

"To the vault. I'll help you. My staff can help you."

"She said the Elf-Queen is down there," Olliebollen muttered with a gleam of sadistic glee. "The Elf-Queen herself. Oh, ohohoho, ohohohohohohoho! This is it. This is the time. I'll get my revenge. Oh yes. I'll make her suffer. Let the small fry go. If I get her..."

"The castle's on fire," said Jay. "Can you even breathe?"

"The vault lies deep underground," said Viviendre. "The fire and the smoke won't have spread there."

"How do we even get there?"

The thin strands of Lalum's web spread across the black crevice in the background of Jay's view. I KNOWE THE WAY.

—

Adrift on a sea of bubbles... sinking slowly sinking in soft shiny skin... Fullness and warmth and a tender embrace... was this not what a woman was?

(Time for you to be a woman—they said.)

Birth like a hot bath... aren't these the joys of motherhood... hold this thing, this wriggling thing, in your arms... isn't this the personification of love?

(As a woman this is your duty—they said.)

And the fluid that burst out... and the limbs, and the tendons, and the quivering flesh... and the tautness and the screams of pain... and the blood... was this not what a woman was?

The thing in front of her birthed, and birthed, and birthed, one billion elves bubbling bubbling bubbling out of the cunts in her palms and there was no end to them. Their colors were no longer solely pink, but blue, and yellow, and green, always in terrific patterns as they fanned in spiral array around their mother so best to die for her. If only we could all be so blessed in our offspring, isn't that so, ha-ha, ha-ha?

Her knights were all dead. Her maidservants dead too, they never had anywhere to run. And saddest of all her poor Fool was dead, he simply sat there and accepted it. War, love, and mirth. She was simply incapable of protecting them. She said she'd protect them. She failed.

There were elves everywhere. Both as bubbles and as writhing squirming naked things having long run out of spare robes to clothe themselves. They emerged as milky mewling whelps and no matter how many Mallory cut down more came, more and more and more and more. With the Sword of Christ she might cut down one hundred of them with a single stroke and yet two hundred more were already emerging out their mother.

She missed her Fool. Were he here now and not so sad he might say: How's a womb like a tomb. Yes! Yes, that's what he might say. How's a womb like a tomb.

Her lips split into a smile, she cackled insanely as she whirled around and drove her blade into an elf's groin and blasted a beam of light out his backside to incinerate the column behind him, then dragged the blade straight up to spray a cyclone of gore.

"HA-HA, HA-HA, HA-HA," she bellowed as she bounced atop the bubbles, gaining height with each outrageous leap, dragging the point of her blade above her to splatter the sacs and drench herself in them, her body now a red thing entirely save the Armor of God on which no blood ever stuck. She pushed herself, straining her muscles even through the superhuman power her armor granted her, driving toward the center where the Accursed Elf-Queen waited, filling herself with a sense of potent urgency as though all the battle were now building to crescendo, this moment in glorious combat, this is where the hero rises! It was like she was flying with how fast her feet touched the bubbles. Yet out of the hole she cleaved spurted a new spray of rubbery skin that buffeted her back before she could swing again and she fell to the hard stone floor scraping open her chin before rolling into a standing position and whirling her blade a full circle around her to clear the opportunistic savages who thought now might be a good chance to get a spear-shaft in her flesh.

A hideous feral howl escaped her, her eyes boggled, one hooked hand clawed its way down her face in rage. Why not a dragon? Why not a giant? Why not a Saracen army? Why not any other creature? Why this—mother? This apotheosis of all mothers, this ceaseless birther, and all in this tomb transformed by the overwhelming glut of flesh into a writhing, pulsing womb?

It was the only thing. The only thing ruining the moment of her glory, the moment she yearned for all her life. As young as she could remember they stuffed her full of stories of John Coke and her sick dying father so wretched and gaunt placed his hand on her head and promised her: You are of a great lineage, you shall do great things. But it was a lie, a lie, all a lie, even now it was a lie, because it wasn't her they expected or wanted to do great things, it was whatever wailing creature they could pry out her cunt nearly splitting her open in the process. "HYEEEAAAUGH!" Fourteen giving birth to Makepeace and it almost killed her and they would've been happy to let her die, the nurses cradling the baby cooing to it as she felt part of herself seep out and splatter the floor. Softness and warmth they said a woman was but to Mallory Tivania Coke a woman was screams and blood and the inside turned out and she was now pressed on all sides by that memory made manifest.

Losing it, losing your nerve Mal (nobody called her Mal except herself), losing your damned mind here and ruining it righteously. You countered their purpose for you with your purpose for yourself and this was it, war and battle, and you're ruining it righteously yes you are.

(And Mayfair you know. You didn't need to have another after you gave them the heir but that filthy old man who was her husband wasn't there for power or control. His only concern was lust. Isn't this the personification of love?)

Losing your nerve Mal. Focus up. Let's not ruin everything and make great big fools of ourselves alright? Now—

The jet of flame shot out while she was half-distracted, absentmindedly swinging her sword simply to clear space for herself, and even with the Armor of God's boon she only barely managed to blitz to the side to avoid being consumed by it. A live elf crawling under a wall of bubbles was spurting the fire like a jet, and damn that boded ill. It was bad enough simply dealing with the overwhelming bulk of them, but now some were living long enough to start using their magic.

As soon as the fire subsided, a second elf creeping in the periphery spat a spray of water that instantly turned to ice, and another lashed out root-like tendrils that tried to grab her limbs. Though the quarters were cramped the bubbles and other elves always managed to get out of the way right before the attacks came, as though they were able to communicate via thoughts alone, and that meant that not only was Mallory now being quickly corralled into a corner by successive blasts of magical attacks, but there were suddenly far fewer elves in her attack range, so their numbers were compounding at an even faster rate.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

A cluster of bubbles shuffled aside just as Mallory landed after a rapid hop away from a cone of harsh wind and an elf sprouted out of the woodwork to ram a lance at her. She twisted but it still cut through the flesh of her shoulder before she put her sword through his face and blasted his skull to pulpy smithereens. Something dropped from above and a heavy hit clanged her helmet which went toppling off and leaving her to dazedly twirl backward with her sword swishing out limp waves of light. She dodged in a direction and plowed straight into the wall of the vault before she rebounded in a whirl. An elf came at her wielding a broadsword, he moved faster than the other elves, a speed almost at the level of what the Armor of God granted her, and Mallory had time to think—they're copying my own magic, the bastards—before she deflected the incoming blow. The resulting shaft of light tore through the elf's leg, lopping it off cleanly under the knee, but he lashed his large blade as he fell and cut her glancing down the side of her hip before she could put an end to him.

Then the bubbles parted and ten more elves moving as fast as him rushed her.

This was starting to get bad. Mallory tried to remember what she learned from DeWint—back before she was married, of course—about the Effervescent Elf-Queen, there'd been a whole lecture on all the fae royals and their animus abilities but Mallory snoozed through the blowhard's classes as a point of pride. If the Elf-Queen was able to grant her children specific powers, though, it was only a matter of time before she got creative and gave them magic she couldn't easily handle.

(They're all sneering. Mordac, Meretryce, Malleus. What did you expect? A woman can't be a soldier, didn't they always say so? No—in the end they believed in her. That's why they sent her down here. But isn't it worse that they actually believed in her only for her to fail anyway?)

A horn trumpeted and a sheet of something perfectly clear, like glass, shot up in front of her. It absorbed the blows of the incoming elf elites with a tinny, reverberating sound, but whatever this perfectly clear surface was it was no glass Mallory knew because it did not shatter. Mallory glanced around and realized she was at the corner of the vault. The not-glass wall sectioned the tiniest part of the corner off from the rest, creating a small safe space that contained only Mallory—and one other.

"Reinforced Plexiglas," said Shannon Waringcrane, the heroine from another world. "It'll hold at least for a bit. What's the plan Mallory?"

Against the glass the bubbles pressed, distorted, and popped one after another to stream pink fluid and bodies down the side. Mallory snapped out of everything, all thoughts and feelings, looking at Shannon with the Trumpet of Jericho in one hand and the Rule of Numbers in the other—of course the Rule of Numbers, of course she would have that one—and realized all was not lost, there was still something to fight for. Fraught with physical energy there was nothing she wanted more than to strip Shannon down then and there and let the elves watch. This feeling was like dunking one's head into cold water after sparring outside on a long summer's day.

"It's useless to act defensively," Mallory said. Stern, quick, focused, even as she imagined things she'd love to do to the heroine.

"The more time we give her the more elves she makes." Shannon shook the Rule. "Trust me, I know."

"And they're starting to use magic. Either she can choose their animus, or else she's made so many it's effectively the same difference."

"No, she can definitely choose it. That's how she put up the wall so fast after the others showed up."

"Others."

"I don't know who exactly. I thought it was my brother at first but it might be—Look, it doesn't matter. With that wall we can't count on them helping us. I just came up with a plan anyway."

"Tell." The bubbles pressing against the glass drifted aside, creating a clearing. Mallory suspected they would start using magic soon, and she had no idea how well the special glass would hold up.

Shannon quickly related her plan with a couple of words and gestures. Mallory nodded. Good plan.

"You're bleeding," Shannon said. "You sure you're okay? I have another working idea but it's a bit of a last resort—"

"Stop wasting time."

"Alright."

One blow of the horn and a thick wall emerged under their feet. Shannon gripped onto Mallory's waist as they elevated, while Mallory slashed the sword upward to clear the immediate wave of bubbles that tried to ebb at them once the glass disappeared. They soon reached the roof, leaving only enough room to stand, and Shannon blew her horn again. A new wall emerged just below them and extended horizontally over the vault. It was broad enough to seal off their space under the ceiling entirely, and while there were still bubbles up here, there weren't any already-hatched elves, and certainly no elves with intentionally-chosen magic.

Mallory cleared the bubbles with several quick strikes, seized Shannon, and in a second's sprint carried her to the opposite end of the arena, cackling in rejuvenated glee, twirling Shannon in an impromptu dance as they skidded to a halt at the proper spot.

All her life they tried to tell her what it meant to be a woman and Mallory found it in her own way, her own definition, squealing court ladies pinned beneath her grasp, maidservants breathless under the weight of their master, and now this serious uptight wayfarer who nonetheless screamed like all the rest. Objects to grip and possess, oh maybe now she could understand the drives of that lecherous old husband of hers. A leech. Feeder of vitality and in a young woman there it was and so poorly defended, so readily given. Cuts, bruises, pains, fatigue all dropped into nothing.

"Drop the wall!" Mallory demanded. Life is a series of moods and one must make the best of the good ones.

Shannon blew the trumpet.

The wall below them broke apart and with Shannon still fast to Mallory's side they fell onto the endless sea of bubbles.

Mallory swung once and cleared the first layer and there she was: the Effervescent Elf-Queen. Had the idiot realized their plan she might've moved but nobody ever said fae were smart—merely clever. The Elf-Queen turned but she was too slow. Too slow!

The second swing rained the light of Jesus Christ savior of all mankind upon the Elf-Queen. The few bubbles that remained around her exploded; into her salmon-pink flesh the light-blade cut, splitting her between the neck and shoulder, digging deep into her chest. The Elf-Queen broke apart, parts of her peeling like the skin of a fruit, a grievous blow, a dolorous blow, a stroke the sort they sang songs about, God was this not the moment of glory?

That moment, frozen forever. Queen Mallory Tivania Coke descending from above, gripping a fair lady in one hand while her other wielded the mighty blade. A whole army set against her and her alone, and yet useless against her strength. With one stroke Mallory ended it!

A group of about thirty elves gathered around the Elf-Queen's feet instantly sent up a beam of rainbow light from their palms. It enveloped the Elf-Queen and no longer was there a wound on her. No grievous split.

Mallory's grin went wider, so wide it felt like it would rip open. Good, she thought. Good! The moment must last longer. A single moment wouldn't satisfy. Let them fight until their bodies were spent!

She managed a third slash on the way down and though it chopped off one of the Elf-Queen's arms the arm was back in its proper place before Mallory hit the layer of bubbles that covered the ground and was bounced back against the wall of pink light. Shannon had the horn to her lips and blew but as a slanted edifice of iron arose to seal them off from their adversary Mallory let go and dove over the edge to continue the fight.

Her feet braced against the slope of Shannon's new wall and she launched herself at the Elf-Queen, who was quickly vanishing behind a newly regrown tide of bubbles. Streaming through the cracks were elite elf soldiers set solely on a path to intercept her. The Elf-Queen must've called them back once Mallory dropped from above, but even so they would not reach in time before Mallory's next strike. This time she would go for the head. Let them try to heal a decapitated queen; not even the fae had the power to undo death.

One of the elf elites seized a newborn from the ground and hurled it into Mallory's path. That was no matter. It was only a single elf. It would not even begin to nullify the blow of her sword, nor would the thin layer of bubbles recuperating from the previous strikes. Mallory swung and—

And something split in her skin and she roared in agony. All forward momentum ceased. She plummeted to the ground, staggering on one knee as she groped at her chest, which felt like it was aflame. It didn't make sense. Nothing hit her. She possessed enough awareness even in her bloodlust for that. Yet somehow blood streamed out from behind her breastplate. What had happened? The last thing she saw was that elf that got thrown in front of her splitting in half, cut straight in the middle of its chest, in the exact spot where she now felt this unquenchable agony. Still kneeling, still reeling, her eyes twitched and blinked. Did that elf—did it somehow deal to her the damage she had done to it? She wasn't split in half, but that was because the Armor of God magnified her endurance just as it did her speed and strength. The cut was in the same place though. The same exact place.

She struggled to rise and one of the elf elites plunged its sword into her thigh. She whipped her blade, erasing its upper portion, thinking to herself: Any of them now could reflect her attack. No, not any of them, not the ones already showing an animus, not the fast ones nor the ones breathing flame. But the others—

Another elf shot between a parting wave of bubbles and then there was a spear in her stomach. A vast groan escaped her as her head tilted lazily and she watched her blood add to the pool that now sloshed so thickly from all the slain bubbles that it reached to her ankles. Then something in her face ripped as a sword drove through her cheek, wrenching her face to the side as flaps of skin rippled around her jaw. Her strikes were slowing down. Still moving faster than any ordinary human, but slow compared to the elite elves who kept coming in waves. Soon, the slower ones who breathed fire would reach her, or else new ones with nastier powers would spurt from their dam. She had to move. She needed to MOVE.

Shit.

She wasn't moving.

More elves were coming. Another spear stabbed into her arm and it took all that remained of her strength merely to grip to the hilt of the sword. Something hard like a mallet rammed into her from behind and she lurched forward and in that lurch every injury on her person screamed fiery agony.

What a waste. What a fucking waste. She sagged into a strange seated position. Her head bowed. Was this it? Was this what it came to? Failure. Failure, failure, failure. They said Makepeace died fighting a dragon. Shannon told her once what happened. An awkward moment, Shannon staring darkly at nothing, unclear with her words, ambiguous until Mallory pressed with terse and specific queries. He died smiling, she said. He'd uttered one final word: Escape.

Death as an escape... what a concept. All that time he spent fleeing the castle, sneaking out, making himself useless. Was that what he strove for—eternal negation? Or was it simply an excuse, an attempt to make something out of failure, a necessity to come to terms with death because it would otherwise be so sad and lonely dying like a failure. Mallory felt like a failure. An elf stood before her with its sword raised to lop off her bowed head and she couldn't move a muscle to stop it. She heard in the distance the trumpet blowing but knew it was too late. No. No. It couldn't be too late. It couldn't end like this. Not after a lifetime waiting. Mallory refused. No. She refused. She had to move. She wouldn't die like her worthless son in a ditch somewhere. She wouldn't be content with failure. He could be content because he never really had anything to prove anyway. Mallory had everything. Everything. Everything in this world...!

The sword came down.

—

The Effervescent Elf-Queen turned.

Phew! She'd managed to finish dealing with that irksome spawn of Tivania at the last possible moment. Truly no time left to spare, because something new was emerging. How it breached her wall she knew not, but it was rising now out of the pool of blood that covered the vault floor, starting as a slow lump that grew until the blood ran off it in waves and the wide staring terrified eyes of a horse emerged, its forelegs and hooves coming down and pulling itself slowly out of the pool, and then the heads of its riders following as though the blood itself birthed them the way it birthed her children. As though it—

"I REFUSE TO DIE," Mallory screamed.

Because half her mouth was split open entirely it did not come out so cleanly. The words were malformed, hissing, thrown from deep in the throat where there was still enough structure to determine the shape of sounds: IHHHRHHHFHHHSETODIIIIIEEEEEE.

The sword coming down to cleave off her head stopped an inch away from her throat because Mallory lifted her hand to catch it. Her fingers clenched and the metal crumpled like paper.

The wall Shannon summoned started rising and Mallory clambered atop it as it lifted her straight toward the Effervescent Elf-Queen. At the same time, from elsewhere in the vault, a thunderous crack rang out and Mallory thought it might be an elf using some sort of lightning magic, which she was prepared to endure. Instead, a tiny projectile launched at speeds exceedingly quick even compared to her Armor of God's enhancements and tore through a straight line of bubbles beside the Elf-Queen with almost no resistance. In the space cleared Mallory saw a horse standing in the center of the vault with two riders, but that was all she had time to process. The Elf-Queen was rising up before her now and with so much pain and so much damage Mallory needed to be wise about her movements, needed the perfect time to strike.

Except, as she looked, there were now three Effervescent Elf-Queens. Four. Five. Each identical, each with their arms outstretched. That couldn't be true, though. In this world there was magic of a lower order and of a higher order and the higher could not be easily replicated or reproduced. No matter what animus she bestowed upon her offspring it must follow certain rules. Unless—an illusion. An illusion! Facsimile, disguise, deception, and the moment Mallory looked more carefully she noticed that only one of the Elf-Queens were spawning new elves from her hands. But by the time she detected it the wall had pushed her too high, and the upper layer of bubbles swarmed her and she lost sight of the Elf-Queen and—

—And this was bad. Very bad. The spawn of Tivania somehow survived and now Flanz-le-Flore was here with a human champion of her own, a human that the Effervescent Elf-Queen understood at first glance originated from another world. Worse yet he possessed something utterly alien to her, a novel weapon with the power of a relic. She'd already expected Flanz-le-Flore to be the more dangerous of her two adversaries. Yet this new hero and new weapon made the situation far worse than anticipated. Fortunately her last-second ruse of creating children who could replicate her appearance was buying time. However, the hero was activating the lightning crack of his weapon and eliminating her decoys one after another; soon none would remain.

In truth, the Effervescent Elf-Queen had refrained from exploiting her abilities to their fullest extent in the fight thus far. As she battled Tivania, she had at the same time spawned children with particular powers and sent them to particular locations in the vault so that she might have a surprise lying in wait when it came time to battle Flanz-le-Flore. Normally, overwhelming numbers allowed the elves to win every fight, but against this most loathed archnemesis such tactics of attrition proved insufficient. The more raw material sent against her, the more weapons Flanz-le-Flore might manifest to her side with but a snap of her fingers. Craft and wile would prove essential to defeating her, and she needed to be defeated quickly; to that end, the Effervescent Elf-Queen already possessed useful contingencies.

No point dallying or worrying whether Mallory and the heroine with the horn relic might interfere in these well-laid schemes. Flanz-le-Flore, hidden halfway behind her hero, was snapping elves into trees, building around herself a copse for defense, entrenching herself. This could not be allowed to pass. She could not be allowed to gain an advantage. Not her. Not her!

"COMMAND THE BLOOD," the Effervescent Elf-Queen cried.

The elves who could control liquid dipped their hands into the now foot-deep pool. Instantly the inert pile of gore came alive and gained form, hardening into tendrils that were the fingers of a mighty palm rising from under the horse on which Flanz-le-Flore and her champion rode to clamp around and constrict them—and more importantly constrict Flanz-le-Flore's fingers. It was the sound that sparked her power, not simply the motion of moving her fingers together. That simple stark sound: SNAP, and if the blood swallowed up her hands she could not create it.

Under ordinary circumstances she might be able to snap the blood away into some other substance before it reached her, but the Elf-Queen had prepared for that as well. There were multiple children who could control liquid, and as the pool below rose up, the bubbles above burst in unison. Their fluid rained down, accumulating into two, three, four, five different funnels aimed at Flanz-le-Flore from different directions. Go ahead! Snap, snap your fingers! You can't transform them all at the same time!

The Elf-Queen hoped to hear those desperate, frantic snaps, that useless fruitless striving suddenly snuffed into silence. Instead she heard only a single snap, crisply.

Around Flanz-le-Flore burst a sharp eruption of flame, striking the plants with which she surrounded herself. At once the trees and vines burned in patterns that the Effervescent Elf-Queen realized were absolutely deliberate, designed to keep her safely defended on all sides without burning herself in the process. The bloody tendrils struck the flames on all sides and each one reeled back, hissing, spewing steam and smoke, incapable of penetrating the magnificent upswelling of heat. So Flanz-le-Flore had anticipated the Elf-Queen's move from the onset—Damn!

How had she made the fire anyway? She could only turn like to like, and the Elf-Queen had been careful not to send her fire mages to attack, knowing what she might be able to do with such a destructive material. Then how else could she have—It didn't matter. The offensive must continue.

"FIRE THE MAGIC BOLTS," the Effervescent Elf-Queen cried.

Flanz-le-Flore's other weakness. She must know a material to transform it. And while in her long life (though not as long as the Elf-Queen's) she had assuredly come to know every natural and physical material there was, she remained unfamiliar with the unique animus every creature possessed within themselves. The children she distributed strategically throughout the vault responded to her command in perfect synchronization. A perfect, arena-encompassing line of magic bolts fired from each side of the vault, straight long cords of pink magical material not unalike that which comprised the wall that sealed them off. They were fast and they were sharp and they would pierce everything at the layer of elevation Flanz-le-Flore and her hero were at—slightly elevated due to their mount.

If Flanz-le-Flore were like the heroine with the trumpet she might be able to erect a wall to defend herself in time, but she had just burned up the solid material around her. Flame would not stop these bolts and they did not; indeed, they moved so fast Flanz-le-Flore failed to snap her fingers in time. A loud and satisfying shlick of flesh, that was the noise made as the bolts tore into both their bodies at once. Straight through the chest, bursting them open with a lovely fount of blood—Flanz-le-Flore's sappy and syrupy, though the hero's was as red as any other—and the force launched them, still entwined together, off the horse's back and onto the ground.

Yes. Yes! YES. That was it. That was it entirely. Flanz-le-Flore, like all fae royalty, possessed some mean physical strength above that of a standard mortal, but even one such as her could not survive such absolute perforation. An anticlimactic finish, perhaps, but a necessary one. Tivania was cutting her way closer and closer, somehow maintaining her freakish whirlwind speed despite the brutality of her wounds.

But with Flanz-le-Flore dead she might commit her full attention to the lesser foe and thus—

What was that? What did you say? You there, elf. What were you telling her? No. You cannot be serious. They're unharmed? They're perfectly unharmed?!

Wendell Noh, perfectly unharmed, arose from the layer of blood looking down at his clothes and clicking his tongue in annoyance. Tough to get these stains out. Or maybe the faerie queen could snap her fingers and fix it. Who knew. He adjusted his glasses and inspected his .700 Nitro Express. Covered in blood too. Even a glance and he knew it wouldn't fire again.

A fantasy rifle. That's what he always considered it, but now it was the one thing mooring him to reality. When he woke up in that forest he'd been dazed. Unable to think coherently, logically, rationally. Sights and sounds and smells buffeted him, as did that constant loving embrace from the faerie queen who called herself, nonsensically, Flanz-le-Flore. Flore: Flora, flower. But what was Flanz? Linguistics was not Wendell's area of expertise. Simple nonsense? Why was the second half real if the first was fiction?

Wendell didn't remember exactly when he realized his situation. But it did happen. At first he felt it would be prudent to continue to act as though dazed. He did not know this Flanz-le-Flore and decided it would be unwise to change his behavior and perhaps prompt her to change hers in turn. Carefully, in the back of his mind, he observed his surroundings, plotted escape.

He had to return home, after all. He needed to be back in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Da-rae would chew him to pieces otherwise. A hunting trip was merely an excursion. A foray into the wilderness, an escape from civilization, but it lasted only so long. That was the way fantasy must be: Something glimpsed, something touched upon when the true world had depleted you to your limit, a moment to refill yourself with what it promised. Simple energy: Give and take, addition and subtraction. One couldn't live in fantasy.

Or so he thought.

Because when the last traces of his stupor wore off he realized how long exactly he'd been there already. Then his thought became: Did he actually want to return?

It wasn't as though this world was especially exciting in its current state. Sitting in Flanz-le-Flore's court had been boring, even, and he wasn't especially thrilled by shooting tons of generic NPC-style elves. This crazy Elf-Queen was more interesting, but she still looked too—human. He didn't like shooting humans. That was war, not a hunt. War was tragic. It was a fundamental representation of the failure of society to function as it should: Logically, orderly, by the numbers. Humans were rational beings and war, irrational, showed them only the worst image of themselves reflected in the mirror of their enemy. (He remembered Dalt talking about shooting "orcs." Where was Dalt now?)

Meanwhile, a hunt. Man versus beast, in it there was order. The order of the world as God created it. Animals were subservient to man and had been ever since the days of Eden, and even from an atheistic perspective (Wendell preferred to be aware of other perspectives) it was the greatest testament to the human mind that it might prove superior to brute dumb beasts who otherwise outmatched man in every regard.

Though these elves might bore or even somewhat disconcert him, the memory remained of that moment on the cliff against the dragon. His battle with it was cut short by interference and that lack of conclusion remained a restless animation deep in his chest. How could he go back when he still had that moment unresolved? Even if it was resolved, would going back ever satisfy? Could he look at his guns, look at his taxidermied buck's head, and find contentment ever again? As a kid Wendell once played a JRPG on his brother's PlayStation and for a few days became a boy possessed, spending hours upon hours playing with no interest in anything else, even eating. His mother kicked his ass and confiscated the PlayStation (to his brother's dismay), but for a few days afterward a tingling dissatisfaction with the real world remained. Wendell felt the same feeling now. Except there was no mother here to pull him back into reality.

He knew he had to return. He knew he couldn't remain here. He'd even told Flanz-le-Flore he needed to return. He shouldn't be here. He should be at work, helping Da-rae with the baby, anything, anything real. None of this was real.

The .700 Nitro Express was real. Though the circumstances of its creation were absurd, they were truthful in the absurdity. This machine had parts and components and they slid together and now that they were drenched in blood they could no longer slide. Like any machine under similar circumstances it ceased to function.

"Make me another gun," Wendell told Flanz-le-Flore. "One that fires fast. One that can blast everything in front of it to pieces."

The cord tying him to reality snapped and the snap was the sound of Flanz-le-Flore's fingers. He dropped the useless .700 Nitro Express and at the same time a new weapon manifested in its place, a weapon that never existed before, a weapon that could not exist in the real world.

It was a "relic."

When those nuns asked Flanz-le-Flore to transform all the relics, she played a little trick on them—as fae are wont to do in this world. Nothing spectacular. Sleight of hand. She gave the nuns twenty-four mustard seeds like they asked, but only twenty-three of them were "the Mustard Seed." The twenty-fourth was an ordinary mustard seed she surreptitiously created from rudimentary materials she kept on her person (those old brown boots she wore were full of seeds, leaves, and similar objects). The nuns, in a hurry, had not been fastidious enough to do the first thing every accountant knows: double-check your work. They didn't notice the decoy, so Flanz-le-Flore kept one Mustard Seed for herself.

She hadn't wanted to use it right away, not before they knew what the Elf-Queen had prepared for them. Now it was clear, and Wendell and Flanz-le-Flore both knew what he needed.

It was a kind of gun, at least as far as Flanz-le-Flore comprehended a gun to be, but instead of intricate machinery, tiny little pieces that slotted together perfectly to perform a singular function with expert efficiency, this gun ran on magic. It lacked a sleek military look, instead opting for one far more whimsical. The barrel funneled outward like a blunderbuss, while intricate arabesque designs (not dissimilar to those tattooed on Flanz-le-Flore's body) decorated the outrageously broad sides of its wooden stock. The parts that weren't wooden were green even though they shined like metal, and the whole thing felt spongy in his hands. He might be able to squeeze it and cause sap to spill out, but he resisted the urge to try. More than anything, though, the gun was gigantic. It put the .700 Nitro Express to shame for its size, even though it weighed less than some handguns Wendell owned. No worldly explanation existed for any of it—at least not in the world Wendell knew. It didn't matter. Wendell Noh initiated the process.

* He cranked the handlebar on the side in a rapid counterclockwise motion.

* He flipped all the flaps to their proper position.

* He activated the whistler. (It began to whistle.)

* He dispensed a large number of seeds into the chamber.

* He disengaged the safety.

"Deal with the bubbles, will you, my hero?" Flanz-le-Flore said. "I'll handle the elves."

That suited Wendell just fine. He aimed the Gun of Wendell into the air and fired.

From the funneled barrel of the weapon erupted an exorbitant number of bullets that were less bullets and more whipping, curving shafts of light. Each shaft twisted and turned as though it had a mind of its own to thread through as many bubbles as possible, impaling tens if not hundreds if not thousands with a single squiggly zip. For several seconds all the arena was light, all was blinding and brilliant, and the bullets were less weapons of war than instruments of a wondrous art, the art of someone's soul—if not Wendell's then perhaps Flanz-le-Flore, as all the curlicues of her body were written now in holy luminescence. A light powerful enough to shatter the boundary between man and God, between real and unreal. Wendell's eyes burned behind his glasses staring up at the sky of the vault where the bubbles exploded in firework arrays, as out of the congested pullulation emerged a vivid and lovely emptiness filled solely by the beautiful.

What was he thinking about before?

Arcs, angles, numbers, addition, subtraction, death. Oh God. Oh God.

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. NO, NO. This could not be happening. What was that new relic? How did it exist? The Effervescent Elf-Queen gripped her head in her palms even as her tears flowed out in an endless spray to form more bubbles. How did that bitch, that whore transmogrify something that never existed before, how did she learn to do that? This other hero she somehow stumbled about? Did he teach her? Flanz-le-Flore knew too many new tricks, even four hundred years of preparation were crumbling apart in a matter of moments without a thing to show for it. In a single attack the unknown relic eliminated almost all of her unborn. Meanwhile, Flanz-le-Flore herself focused her efforts on snapping the living children into harmless plants and small animals, meaning that even the offspring that reflected damage weren't useful—they weren't being damaged, merely transmogrified. The Elf-Queen hadn't prepared for anything like this—nothing like it had a right to exist in this world at all.

Oh, and so many of her children dead. So, so many. Their unborn bodies evaporated in the light of the relic. Not even corpses remaining, not even blood...! The brutes. They'd pay. They'd pay.

Her fingers clenched. The long nails pried between her sealed shut eyelids, slicing the flesh that had remained together so long that a thin membrane had formed between it. Blood streamed from the unseaming, and for the first time in almost four hundred years light struck her true eyes, a harsh hateful light that caused her to rear back her head and shriek wildly in full feral hurt and horror. These were the eyes that once looked upon John Coke, her one and only beloved, these were the eyes she closed forever so that she might not ever see another thing that wasn't him after he left her, not another thing so that the poignant lack of him did not rend her heart to pieces. That unbidden uncontrollable perpetually longing love rushed full force onto her now within the space of this vault he once inhabited, which contained the trophies to his eternal glory. For the first time in four hundred years she saw the world, not simply a telling of it informed to her innately and instinctually by her children, and in that sight her gaze settled deep and blood-red upon Flanz-le-Flore and her new hero, her not-John Coke who in pathetic inferiority she cobbled together so that she might replace him, as though he could ever be replaced. The mere thought he might be replaced was pride, arrogance, simpering moral cowardice. And within this seething wretched hate the Elf-Queen sobbed, the blood poured down her face and chest in torrents, for the hate was so painful and the light was so painful that she wanted it solely to STOP, for it all to STOP, for them to STOP, for everything to STOP save her and her children forevermore.

Flanz-le-Flore tugged the sleeve of her hero, pulling him back toward the somnolent uncaring horse from which they had fallen previously. Seeing now the true world the Effervescent Elf-Queen realized at once how the two of them had survived the barrage of her magic bolts. That horse was different, it was no ordinary horse, it was an affront. It must die first.

The blood streaming from her eyes whipped out at once in a spray of small, bloody bubbles. They fired down at frightening velocity, at speeds faster even than the projectiles launched from the hero's nonexistent weapon, and at such a speed the concentrated blood hit harder than the strongest minerals buried beneath the earth. Flanz-le-Flore attempted to snap but these bubbles were not her children—who she could create through the influence of John Coke—but her true animus, her animus as a fae queen, and like the Effervescent Elf-Queen herself Flanz-le-Flore knew not the slightest thing of it and thus could not transform it no matter how hard or fast she snapped.

The horse stared glumly at the bubbles, quietly, as though accepting its face. And at once the horse was pulverized into brutal, bloody nothingness, a horrid eruption of gore that did not the slightest to sate the seething bloodlust in the Elf-Queen's heart. Flanz-le-Flore turned a disgusted face to her and screamed: "My poor horse, my poor poor horse!" But now there was no further possibility of miraculous survival and the Elf-Queen turned her spray of bubbles toward them. Flanz-le-Flore gripped her hero's back and snapped and her hero lifted his novel relic but the bubbles sliced straight through the boulder that transformed out of the rubble and then straight through the middle of them. The force launched them back across the now nearly-empty vault, they struck the ground, they rolled and bounced and flew apart and the relic which had the power of a relic and thus could not be easily destroyed hurtled away spinning. Unfortunately the boulder and that relic had blocked the brunt of the impact and her most hateful enemies were not yet in pieces, not yet eviscerated for her delight, but perhaps that was for the best, they deserved to suffer. The horse, innocent, received a quick death, but they would not be so lucky. She would first erase their limbs one after another, make them scream, make them beg for mercy, and only then eliminate them from her despicable sight...!

A ray of light whipped up from below and behind and the Elf-Queen turned to obviate it from existence before it could reach her. That damned Tivania. There she was, a beaten and bloodied thing, heaving with great exhalations of her chest as she stared up at the Elf-Queen vengeful in the eyes, the left half of her face ripped open as though by hooks to expose her clenched teeth all the way back to her molars. In one hand she held John Coke's sword and in the other the decapitated head of one of her children, the neck streaming uneven strands as though ripped off by strength alone rather than cut. Her children had been slowing Tivania down, wearing her to a nub, but despite everything she remained standing and that stance was indignant in its stark and bitter refusal to die. But she would die. She would die as all the rest.

The bubbles streamed out and Tivania's spawn sprinted aside to avoid them—slowed, sluggish, her torn and battered body unable to operate at full capacity even with the aid of John Coke's armor. And she was trapped, the ray of the Elf-Queen's sight swept quickly with but a glance of the eyeballs and the loathsome human queen was pinned into the corner between the vault wall and the pink wall her children erected.

Elsewhere, the trumpet blew. Let it! What wall could that heroine create that could withstand the power of a fae queen's true animus? No wall of steel or diamond no matter how thick would stop it. Yet no wall emerged out of the ground.

Instead, the wall of the vault fell straight down.

And after a single, groaning moment, so did the vault's ceiling.

Ancient stone cracked and crumbled and dropped in chunks. Dust rained in fountains and a quaking shook the vast enormity of the entire chamber. Fissures formed in the walls that remained before they split and toppled inward, reducing further the stability of the whole. The falling rocks cleaved through the few remaining pink bubbles and as a twirling stone fell past her arm splitting it open the Effervescent Elf-Queen thought: Good. This is good too. We shall all be buried together in a most fitting tomb. That heroine has sealed their fates as well as I might have.

Then she saw the second wall manifesting, low to the ground and horizontal and broad enough to cover the entire area of the vault, the exact same type of wall she summoned when she and Tivania ran across the roof to jump down from above. So that was the game, was it? But no wall would hold her, she just said. Didn't you hear her say that?

The wall, comprised of the strongest, thickest, reinforced steel Shannon could imagine (she wished she had more expertise in construction so that she might have a better idea of what would bear the most load, but there was a reason this was her last resort strategy), finished building itself and sealed off the bottom part of the vault from the top, defending the people on the ground from the collapsing ceiling while leaving the Elf-Queen above.

Falling rubble pounded the wall, shuddering everything underneath with tremendous clangs and bangs that caused Shannon to flinch each time. God, would the wall hold? How much of what was above would collapse? Would it be the entire castle? The Elf-Queen's absurd eye beam bubble thing had blasted Wendell and was about to blast Mallory, though. Shannon felt like she had no other option.

The floor of the vault, which would have been entirely dark if not for the luminescence of Mallory's armor and Wendell's Flanz-le-Flore woman, was covered in all sorts of what Shannon could only describe as junk. Not even rubble or body parts anymore. They had somehow all changed into other things, although for what purpose she could not begin to fathom. These were thoughts designed simply to tide her over. Finally the rumbling above stopped. Everything went quiet. The wall held, and hopefully the entire castle had not collapsed entirely. She had been certain to remove only the part of the wall that extended past the pink barrier. If the other half of the vault remained intact they might still be able to walk out when everything was said and done.

She hurried over to Mallory, who sagged panting and covered in blood. Her face was—Shannon decided not to look at it as she attempted to help Mallory up.

"Wendell," she called out, trudging toward him with Mallory under one arm. "Wendell, is that you?"

His glasses gleamed in the light of Flanz-le-Flore. "That is my name, correct." He spoke with a groan. Flanz-le-Flore sat down and cradled her bleeding head in her hands.

"How did you two get in here," Shannon asked. "Is there a way out?"

His finger silently pointed and she looked. In the ground, hidden among some of the transformed junk, was a hole from which dim light filtered. When she inspected it more closely, it looked like the hole led to an identical version of the vault, or at least before it collapsed. She stared at the hole for several strange seconds, uncomprehending, before Flanz-le-Flore looked up and said: "A portal. It leads to the vault's other side."

Which meant the other side hadn't collapsed. Good. Great. The damage hadn't been as extensive as she thought. But then—

Two things happened at once. The first was that her ruler relic started to amend its count again, muttering something in her mind using its strange Biblical verbiage. She hardly had a chance to hear it, though, because a bright light began to glow from above. She, Mallory, Wendell, and Flanz-le-Flore looked up. A circle was forming on the wall Shannon had made, pulsing with red hot heat. Growing. Growing. Melting through.

"It's her," Wendell said.

"Good," said Mallory, the word a half-formed rasp whistling through the gaping hole in her cheek.

"Quickly, here are more seeds." Flanz-le-Flore reached out to Wendell. "You must reload your relic. It'll be dangerous to fire it in such a confined space, but we must try. There's no other chance."

Wendell glanced around. "I dropped it when she hit us."

Part of the ceiling above dipped inward. Melting. Dripping bits of molten metal. The rapid repetitive sound of a million ping pong balls bouncing against it reverberated. Her bubbles were breaking through.

The ruler kept speaking to Shannon. It was describing several new people, each from a different "tribe," repeating the same language to introduce them to her one after another, but she could hardly pay attention, her hands trembling, wondering what else they had to defend themselves, Mallory clearly at her limit, Wendell searching sluggishly for his gun, Flanz-le-Flore wincing and gripping her head. All of them wounded, all of them battered. It'd be up to Shannon. Maybe if she kept walling it off she could gain time, but making a new wall would cause the current to disappear and all the accumulated rubble atop it to slam down on them. There had to be a way, though. The portal. They should just exit through the portal. Could they close it afterward? Otherwise the Elf-Queen would only crawl through after them and they would be exposed in that large empty chamber with nothing to defend them, no options whatsoever—

Those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of California, were one.

California. California? Why California. Who did Shannon know from California. Wait, there was another California, wasn't there. One in this world. Who was from it? Didn't she know somebody from it?

The red circle above split open. No more time. Shannon tried to pull Mallory toward the portal and Mallory resisted. "Lhhhet herhhh come," her ripped-open mouth hissed. "One shot. One shot is allhhh I needhhh!"

The ping-pong sound stopped. Through the hole, climbing upside-down like an insect, emerged the Effervescent Elf-Queen and her horrible glowing red eyes.

Those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of Cleveland, were three.

Mallory whipped her sword lazily and a small, dim arc of light shot out. One spray of red bubbles disintegrated it before it even got close and all Mallory accomplished was immediately riveting the Elf-Queen's gaze straight on them. For an instant that was all Shannon saw, that face that looked like suffocation had caused every vessel in the eyeballs to burst, and then a ray of bubbles shot at them and that was all, like a bullet piercing the head.

Except it wasn't all.

The third numbered of them, even of the tribe of Cleveland, raised the Shield of Faith and the bubbles burst uselessly against it. In his other hand he brandished his metal bat as howling the Elf-Queen dropped into the darkened space atop the pile of molten rubble and screamed something feral to shake them.

A voice from behind said, "Divide."

It was the princess from California. Devolved wretch, most corrupted of John Coke's tripartite lineage, despicable for the besmirchment she cast upon him in her family's strangled attempt to maintain the purity of his blood. The Effervescent Elf-Queen gazed hatefully upon her, but the wrenching explosive force emitting from her eyes was pulled to the Shield, the final part of John Coke's personal armaments and the one he had wielded to tame her when he first came upon her in that enchanted wood all those centuries ago, back when she was something wild and feral just as now, a beast prowling on four thin and twisted limbs. In such a state he conquered her and changed her irrevocably, for he loved most that which he conquered, loved most that which he could mold to his will. This world Whitecrosse was an expression of the hero's will set against an original world that rejected it. That will was vested in her now. That will would not be overcome by these deprecated irrelevancies.

Her body started to split apart but she refused to die, not before she saw them all dead before her, and what better chance now that the Californian princess was here, now she might snuff them all in a single moment. From the palms of her hands, which had gone dry in her fury, new tears flowed, and a bevy of pink bubbles pressed around her even as terrific pain shot sharply from her groin to the crown of her head. Her final children, even unborn, pressed and pressed and pressed until they burst and their fluid washed over her, hardening as it grew exposed to an air made arid by her all-devouring screams. She would not die to a mere relic. Her children were stronger than it, she was stronger than it. The halves of her refused to part, sealed so fast, and the girl might say her "Divide" again and again and it would make no difference. None at all. Her insides were already split and the blood spurting within her but the husk of herself maintained its form and as a high fae queen she would not die so easily, not so easily at all...!

A soft dust fell upon her. All her pain vanished in an instant.

For a moment her thrashing went still. What was this? Had some of her children that possessed of the animus of healing survived? Her tired eyes, from which throbbed a strain that ate like maggots into her undividing brain, roved until they saw it: a tiny faerie. Its silvery filaments and beady eyes like those of a rodent or insect marking it as from the court of Pandelirium.

"Olliebollen Pandelirium," it said, its voice grinningly eager, its words sharpening on a whetstone of desire, "Faerie of Rejuvenation. That's my name."

But why heal her? The Elf-Queen destroyed the court of Pandelirium, she had her children feast upon its corpses. Was this one of those kept sedate with a pin in their neck for later consumption, its stasis somehow dislodged in the fight? But why heal her? Why did this soothing, placating calm wash over her, sealing her brain back together, her innards, her lungs, her heart, erasing all this pain and anguish. Why?

The bits of rubble beneath her, some melted from the wall and some collapsed from the ceiling above, onto which also the Faerie of Rejuvenation's dust settled, began to rise.

Rose straight through her.

The shards, the masses, they lifted directly through her twisted limbs, through her torso and her waist, through her thighs and throat. They did not move quickly. They floated with a gentle, graceful lift. Yet they did not stop no matter what stood between them and their original state. The Effervescent Elf-Queen quivered, attempted to twist herself away from the slowly rising onslaught. But she could not move. She stared down at the arms being eaten away by a million tiny pieces and saw extending from them thin, silvery lines. From her shoulders, from her back and hips. Lines that ran into the shadows, to a scuttling thing hardly glimpsed before it vanished into greater darkness.

"This is what you deserve," the Faerie of Rejuvenation said. "This is what you have always deserved! Now die. Now die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, DIE—"

And the Effervescent Elf-Queen heard no more. Oh John. Oh John, she squandered it all. Oh John. Their love was a splatter of pink on the ground now. Goodbye.

Jay Waringcrane lowered his shield and bat and turned away from the unrecognizable corpse diced to nothing under the faint light pouring down from the hole above that was slowly sealing back up. He stared at the people in the space with him, who stared back in solemn, weary silence—all save Olliebollen, who was still screaming DIE again and again though the thing was beyond dead, who screamed it at the void of nothing that existed where it once was. Shannon stared at him like she might say something, but instead only her shoulders shimmied in a release of something pent up deep inside and she leaned against the bloodied, semi-conscious queen. Wendell Noh picked up a strange-looking gun and dusted it off while Flanz-le-Flore, who had every reason to hate Jay, did not even glance at him. Viviendre shot him a strange smile and Lalum had disappeared from view.

Whatever it was, it was over now, he thought.

Elsewhere, it was not.