---Chapter 7
That evening they camped out on an open plain of grass, which was all starting to turn purple at the roots like the plants on Jackal’s world. The sky was also turning more purplish as it darkened. As evening fell so did a sense of impending doom.
That night they were attacked by the Night Things. As before, there were two types of them. One was winged and dark, like a bat with a gas-mask for a face. Their wings were outlined in metal brackets, while a steel tube protruded from their face as a proboscis. The second type were more like phantoms or wraiths, made of magenta and orange energy, with the faces of grasshoppers. They had long skirts that trailed behind them, glowing in the darkness.
All through the night the travelers fought the beasts, beating them away from the car with every weapon they had. There was no rest for them or let-up throughout the night. They fought desperately, outnumbered and backed against the car.
But as soon as the chilly fingers of dawn grasped the plain, the beasts faded away into the woods. All of the travelers were exhausted, but that was not the worst of it. Both Amber and Jackal had poisoned purple marks in their skin that had to be treated by Soleeryn. Though they had been using their guns at a long range, the winged beasts had jumped them from behind and stuck them. Dansei, fighting with his knives and short sword, had been slashed in the side by one of the phantom’s arms, which cut like a knife. This wound was deep as well as being poisoned, so that he was taken out of the fight altogether and made to lay on the back seat of the car.
Soleeryn had to trick him into drinking a light sedative in the end, as he kept trying to get up with a restless, feverish energy to go back to the fight. Even in his sleep, he muttered, “Shinobi no mono,” as if it were a call to action.
Lenny had used up almost all of his energy reserve by morning, though he had been careful in how he used it, mostly activating his lance instead of cannon. He had only a small amount left now, which he was saving for an emergency. Amber, too, was out of ammunition, as her gun did not use the same caliber or firing technique as Jackal’s weapons. Jackal himself would not tell how many bullets he had left, though Lenny had seen him taking extra out of his coat pockets during the fight.
Raggsy’s pockets were empty of iron shot for his sling, but there was plenty of rocks on the field to make up for it. Patch’s sword would have to be resharpened and the nicks honed out of it before it could be used effectively again.
In the hazy lavender-gray of dawn, two of the injured members of the little crew were resting in the car. Standing outside the door, Lenny had just asked Soleeryn if she thought that they would all recover.
“Since I still have my bag of potions, yes,” she told him, wearily tucking a long strand of black hair behind one ear. “But I have not been able to make more or replenish them for some time. I don’t know how many more wounds I can deal with properly. If only we could stay in one place long enough for me to find more herbs...”
But they both knew that was impossible. They had to keep moving from one planet to the next, defeating Power Cores as quickly as possible. If they didn’t, all their hard work would simply be undone by EX-2 behind them.
“You’ll have to do your best without, for now,” Lenny sighed, turning to look around and find out what the others were up to. Jax was leaning in the driver’s side door of the car, touching the controls and mumbling to himself about them. Patch sat on the ground, back against the rear wheel, using a small, portable wet stone on his blade. Raggsy was scuttling around in the grass bright-eyed, picking up the sharpest stones he could find.
At a little distance, both Leaflow and Jackal were sitting on a pair of watermelon-sized rocks, fiddling with their own weapons. Though he had been poisoned, Jackal would not stay in the car. It was not a dangerous wound, being a shallow one in the back of his arm, and Soleeryn had let him go after treatment.
Hoping for advice, Lenny started out towards them. He walked as quietly as possible, curious to see if they were talking about anything interesting. When he got near, a few words drifted to him in Jackal’s voice, “yes, it was him...I’m sure of it. No, we didn’t see him recently. But who else would have an odd name like that? And be an inventor?”
Piqued, Lenny tried to get closer to hear more. But as soon as he moved Leaflow’s hood turned to look over his shoulder, green eyes seeming to highlight the young man. Jackal fell silent after following his gaze.
“Greetings,” Leaflow said, still wiping his sword off with tufts of young grass. Purple ooze, some of it dried and crumbly, came off at every swipe.
“Hi.” Lenny stopped beside them, still wondering whom Jackal had been talking about but both too polite and too pressed for time to ask. Instead he broke into what he had come to say, “Soleeryn says that Dansei can travel, if we take it easy on the bumps. Amber is recovering fine, though she says she is still a little stiff in the back, where it bit her. I think our only chance is to press on towards Dodgelake and find Mendo Drann as soon as possible. But I’m not sure that is the best option. What do you two think?”
There was silence for a moment as Leaflow continued to clean his sword, and Jackal his rifle to prepare it for firing again. He spoke eventually, “what other options have we got? Go back and get an army to follow us? That is what the government has already tried, taking the city by storm. And will probably try again in the future, with an unknown amount of success. No, how I see it we just have to press on and get into a showdown with this Mendo character. The thing that bothers me is; what if night falls again before we get there, or before we can find him? We can’t stand another night of beating like last night. Not in the shape we’re in now.”
He looked up at Lenny as he spoke, deep-set eyes squinted up so that only a faint gleam of determination could be seen in them. But it was a fatal determination, that would go down fighting rather than give up, even when it was safer to do so.
Before, it might have frightened Lenny. Now he felt a kinship with it. “Yes. If we press on hard, we should make Dodgelake before darkness falls. But what then? How can we fight when there will be even more of the enemy in the city than outside like last night? It would be madness for our little group to storm them straight on. Unless...”
He let the last word hang in the air for a moment, before resting his gaze on Leaflow. “Unless you can help us once again.”
“How so?”
Lenny crouched down beside him, trying to look directly up into the solid green orbs of his eyes. But it was difficult to tell what they were fixed on, if it was not a person.
“With your mental abilities. You helped me when I needed it most, Leaflow. And you created a world with just your imagination. Surely you could attack Mendo Drann, distract him mentally, do something to give us a chance?”
“You seem to forget, I was plugged into the power of EX-2, then.” The cloaked one shrugged, moving his sword to rest across his lap. “Now I am not, but Mendo is. If I were to attack him directly with my mind, it would be almost the same as fighting against EX-2. When the computer senses something amiss, he’ll track down the source and block me, if not worse. I was forced to be the Power Core against my will, you know.”
“But you resisted him,” Lenny insisted, “you are almost as powerful as EX-2 in the realm of mentality. If you could make Mendo’s mind waver, for even just a little while, the creatures would become leaderless, maybe disappear. We would be given a chance to destroy him directly.”
Leaflow was silent at first, running a hand across his silver blade. The hilt was black, as dark as his gloves, with a blood-red stone set in the pommel. It had not become as nicked and dulled as Patch’s blade, though not through better swordsmanship. It was an uncanny weapon.
“Otherwise,” Lenny added grimly, standing up, “we’ll just have to fight our way through the town once night falls, hoping to find the leader where ever he may hide. And you would know better than I if there is a limit to how many creatures a Power Core can create to fight for him.”
“It varies on how many other things the Power Core has his mind set on maintaining. Everything must act regularly, within certain limits. That is probably why Mendo only makes these things at night, so that he can have more of them at once.” Leaflow put slow thought into every word. After a minute more of silence, he added, standing up to sheath his sword, “very well. I will see what I can do. But only once we are at Dodgelake and night begins to fall. And don’t blame me if you have to spend the next morning throwing my stiffened carcass to the dogs.”
Lenny nodded once, letting him walk away, back towards the van. Looking down, he saw Jackal watching him with the same grim, dogged eyes.
“You’re good at keeping everyone in line,” the old westerner commented, slowly going back to working on his rifle. “Even people who are hard to corral. But don’t burn out like a candle before you reach the dawn.”
“I won’t,” Lenny returned, and meant it. He was too cold now to burn out. Unless it was freezer-burn, like a forgotten piece of meat.
“Better not. It’s no fun, most the time.”
---
Because Amber’s back hurt her when she sat stiffly upright, Jax got to drive the car. He had been careful to observe how it was worked all the day before, so that he knew what levers to pull, when.
“Alright, Raggsy, stoke her up!” he shouted out of the window, wiggling into place on the seat. There were dark rings under his eyes, but his buoyant spirits could not be sunk by just one night of lost sleep. “Man, this is cool. Okay, here we go! I’m releasing the brakes now. We’re about to get moving!”
“Get on with it,” Patch muttered loud enough for him to hear.
The car lurched forward with a bump and a rumble, wheel bouncing off of a rock. Soleeryn called for Jax to be more gentle, upon which he swerved, hit another rock and then steadied out on the dirt track and they started moving more smoothly along it. The car always jolted, having little suspension, but as long as the driver kept it out of the ruts it was not too bad on the road.
“I’ve always wanted to drive a steampunk rig like this,” Jax confided to Lenny, who was sitting beside him. “Even if it isn’t real punky, you know. Isn’t it funny how this world is kind’a steampunkish? Then we have a pirate world, a Ninja world and a world with talking animals. It’s like a little kid’s dreams come true.”
“Except for that these are too real to be a kid’s dream,” Lenny pointed out, “it’s more like an adult’s nightmare about things they liked when they were young. And don’t forget the western scene we showed up in, on Jackal’s place.”
“But there was no dramatic gunfight duels, cowboys or Indians,” Jax said with disgust, jerking the levers to steer around a rock in the road.
Lenny just rolled his eyes, then wished that he hadn’t. It was such a childish gesture, but one that Jax always managed to elicit. Soon, the steady rocking and the flatness of the scenery had him nodding off to sleep, aroused every few minutes by a bump or the subconscious fear of falling forward in his sleep. Eventually, he could fight it no longer and fell into a deeper doze, where he hardly heard what people said around him or noticed the land going past.
At lunch they halted briefly and ate a little from their rations, before going on. Amber was feeling better now and sat up in front near Jax, giving him tips on driving the rig. Dansei was also awake now, though he did not say much as the car jolted along.
The time slowly went by as the land became more stained by the purple corruption. It made their hearts sink to look out at it, where it had blighted trees, turned the grass purple and ruined the farmhouses scattered along the way. All these seemed abandoned, with no livestock in the yards or farmers in the fields. Where grain or other crops grew, it too was touched with violet scars.
Then, up ahead, they saw the outline of Dodgelake on the horizon. Glittering domes, lofty, angled roofs and the carefully combed tops of park trees grew before them. Smaller houses stood in the suburbs, little yards picketed around them. On one side, dirty factories stood with empty stacks rearing towards the sky. And everything they could see in the town had a strange, lavender hue to it.
“About one hour until sundown.” Jax craned his head forward to look up at the sky. “We should reach the city in a quarter of that. Then we just have to find Mendo Drann.”
“If he comes out in the daytime.” Lenny frowned at the purple buildings coming up. “We only saw him at night, last time.”
“But he’s real.” Amber gestured at the houses. “He has to be somewhere in there. It’s only the things he makes up which fluctuate, right?”
“It depends on how much of Mendo himself is real,” Leaflow put in from the back, “but, yes, there will have to be a living Power Core somewhere in that heap.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The vehicle bumped on along the road, smoke rising from its little stack into the sky. Every few minutes, Raggsy shoveled another handful of coal in from the back. He saw hunched forward on the little chair, tail waving behind with its heavy splint on the end. His coat flapped at every bounce and he had not slept the night before, either, but he did not complain. Ratpeople were used to staying up for hours fighting wars with their neighbors, or scrounging scraps in the dark.
As the sky began to fade towards evening they rolled into the city. The wheels rolled smoothly on the cobbled streets as they chugged between buildings, smoke puffing up in gasps. The sounds of the lone car echoed in the empty avenue, bouncing off of the deserted houses. No one moved on the sidewalks and many of the buildings were boarded up and shuttered. Though Lenny was certain that he saw a woman’s face peer from behind a shutter in one second story and he even thought that he saw a child’s form disappear down an alleyway into a back entrance. A few people were still hiding out in Dodgelake, barricaded into their houses at night, beating the mad creatures away. During the day, they could move around and collect supplies, though it was still dangerous. If they were caught out alone at sunset, there was little hope of survival.
“Where should we go to?” Jax asked, slowing the vehicle down to a putter as they drove towards the heart of the city.
“We ran into Mendo Drann near a hotel on the west side of town, last time,” Lenny recalled, “what was its name?”
“The Frostheart.” Amber looked nervously down the streets they passed. “But then we ran into him in front of the Grand Marshal park. From the look of it, I don’t think it matters where in town we go. He’s conquered the whole thing.”
In the end, they decided to go towards the center of town, as it was more likely they would find him living in a rich building than a poor one, when he had the pick of the lot.
The lighting began to dim and sky turn shades of orange and violet as they came out into the main square of Dodgelake. A large mansion stood in front of it, originally painted white but now mostly shades of crumbling plum and black. To either side were tall, fancy shops and houses, with wide lawns around them. everything was draped in long, evening shadows.
Jax brought the car to a halt in the center of the square and jumped out, looking up and down as if he expected to see Mendo waiting for them there. Lenny also got out, moving over to pick up a stick of wood that had fallen in the square from an overhanging tree. It was purple at one end, but he held the other and broke the smaller branches off. It would have to do as a weapon, coupled with his cybernetic strength, if things came to a fight once again. Most of the others also got out of the vehicle, Raggsy coming around it with his sling wrapped on one slim paw. “What’s up?”
“We need to find Mendo.”
Just then a door leading onto a balcony on the second story of the mansion opened and a figure came walking out onto it. A wide hat shaded a face that was just a pale blur, while his white-gloved fingers gripped the rail of the balcony. A huge pack was fastened to his back, with giant copper tubes spiraling all around it. It was difficult to see what purpose they served, though Jax remembered with a shudder being grasped by claws of brass.
“Mendo has found you,” the figure’s hoarse voice rasped as he gestured with one hand. Glancing around, Lenny saw that there were Night Things slowly filling up the gaps between houses around the square, pushing in rank-upon-rank to block off the only exits. He gasped and glanced once more up at the figure on the balcony.
Mendo stood with his masked face tilted down at them. “Good-bye.”
Jackal raised his rifle to aim at the figure on the balcony. Before he could fire the creatures came pouring towards them from every direction. It had been a trap.
Swinging his stick, Lenny beat off the nearest one, while everyone around him was forced to fight with whatever they had for themselves. Jax jumped at a phantom, bright hair waving above him, shocking it with his taser. Without room to shoot it, Jackal swung his gun like a club to knock back the nearest beasts. Amber was pressed helplessly against the steam car without a weapon. Raggsy jumped in front of her, using his sling as a mace without letting the rock leave the sling.
Patch jumped out of the car with a crazy fighting-light glowing in his eyes, shouting sea-doggerel at his enemies. Even Soleeryn leaned out of the van, holding Dansei’s short sword and swinging it awkwardly at anyone who came too close.
“Leaflow!” Lenny shouted desperately, “do something!”
They were quickly being swamped. He felt a hot slash on his arm and turned to see a phantom standing there, swinging at him. As he swung his stick at that phantom, a bat-being jumped up beside him and hit him in the face with its steel-edged wings. He staggered, blinded.
Raggsy was going down, latched on to by a handful of creatures while Amber tried to beat them off with her pistol like a club. Jax was rolling on the ground, wrestling more of the beasts. And what seemed like a whole sea of enemies was pressing closer from the edges.
Lenny was going under himself, when suddenly there was nothing there to fight. It was such an abrupt change that he stumbled and fell to his knees, still trying to push away wings and claws that were not there. Jax lay sprawled on the ground nearby, his coat tangled around him as he looked up in surprise.
Looking up at the balcony, Lenny saw Mendo Drann standing with his hands clasped to the sides of his head, hunched over as if someone had struck him a blow. Staggering, Mendo ran to the door behind him, slamming through it. A bullet from Jackal’s gun hit the door a second too late, shattering the wood.
Leaflow was leaning against the van, his dripping sword still held in one hand. But his gaze was turned towards the house, burning with an eerie light.
“You had better hurry,” he said, “I can’t hold him off much longer.”
Lenny, Jackal, Jax and Patch immediately took off towards the mansion, running as fast as they could go. The wide double-doors burst open easily when they hit them, making them stumble as they dashed inside. It was a fine room they found themselves in. The floor was richly carpeted, there were pictures hanging on the walls and thick drapes on the windows. The entrance hall led to a dining room set with table, figurines and chandeliers. But everything was marked with corruption like a devouring disease.
Lenny and his company all rushed in, before coming to a panting stop and trying to decide where to go next. There was a staircase at the back of the room, with knobby ornaments on the banister ends, but there were also two doors leading to the right and left. Mendo would have just had time to dart into either of them while they came in, if he was quick. But he might not have come down the staircase at all.
“Watch out for purple sme--” Jax started to say, pointing at the floor, when Patch held up a hand with a hiss. Everyone fell silent and they heard a faint thumping from above.
“That way.” Patch pointed to the stairs leading up. The travelers hurried to the steps. Their footsteps thumped dully on the carpet, which smelled strangely musty in the enclosed space. They had to jump over boards rotted through with corruption, often taking the steps two at a time. At the second floor, a wide landing and three doors faced them, one of which had a bullet hole through it.
“Not that way.” Jackal waved his gun to point at the other two exits. “Pair off. Jax, you and Patch take that one. Lenny, come with me.”
He led the way over to the door, pausing for a moment as Patch reached the opposite one. Once they were in place, they both burst the doors open at once. At the same time, a sound of confusion started up again out in the square. But they had no time to see what it was about.
Inside the door Jackal had chosen was a library, the book cases well-filled with decorous volumes. Standing in front of them, arms crossed, was Mendo Drann. His white mask was pointed towards them, darkness glinting behind the slits. He did not appear to be under any mental strain, now. The darkness of the holes in the mask seemed to grin and he held up his hands. In an instant the pale gloves burst off, flutters of rag flying through the air, and shining claws jutted out where his hands should have been. Slamming them downwards, the claws burst through the floor in a terrible show of power, splintering the wood. Instantly, they came reaching up beside Lenny and Jackal, trailing lengths of coiled copper tubing. Three things happened at once.
The copper claws touched Lenny’s ankles, starting to wrap around them. Patch shouted that his room was full of enemies. And Jackal raised his rifle. There was a tiny click, followed immediately by a loud explosion. The bullet zipped through the air and struck Mendo in the chest, making him stagger back against the book case, long copper arms going slack. A second blast followed and there was another purple hole in his white dress-shirt. He sagged back, slid to the floor and the world changed.
It was not as fierce as the shift on Leaflow’s world had been, but it still felt as if something were being torn away in front of their eyes. The unnatural shades faded away from the buildings walls and the sky outside. The sounds of fighting ceased from the other room. Everything went silent inside and out. Looking once again towards the inert figure of Mendo Drann, Lenny saw that his pack and hat were gone, simply disappeared. Under the slipping hat was a young man’s face, someone no older than Lenny himself. He had dark hair, closely combed to his head and a long, stout jaw. But laying there with two holes in his chest he did not look evil. He was just a pitiful human shape, now devoid of spirit.
“That settles that,” Jackal said with some satisfaction, lowering his weapon. Turning around, he pushed passed Lenny and went out to see how the others had fared across the landing. But Lenny could not look away from the shape on the floor. It could have been him. Not just metaphorically, either, or through the common bond of humanity. He realized for the first time that he could have been the Power Core of his own world and suffered the same fate. All the travelers, any of his friends, could have been. Would they have stood the strain of EX-2's power any better?
“Lenny!” Jax jogged up to him, a bruise running across his forehead from the blow of a metal-shod wing. “Let’s go see how the others are. I think they were attacked again after we came in here. And there were enemies in the house, which means...”
“Leaflow must have failed.”
Turning, they all made their way down the stairs towards the ground floor.
---
When they had been attacked again, it was a surprise. The creatures had appeared out of nowhere, just as they had gone, and taken up the fight again with the remaining defenders of the steam car. They soon would have been overrun, with Raggsy the only real fighter able to go into action, but not long after the fight began there was the sound of a double gunshot from the upper story of the mansion. The creatures flickered, turned pale and went out like candles once again. The change came over the world. By now darkness was gradually covering the town and everything appeared shadowy and spooky in the gray dusk. But the purple smears were gone and the lavender hue missing from the sky.
Amber let out a sigh of relief and holstered her pistol.
“They must have shot the Power Core. That sounded like Jackal’s gun.”
“But why’d those monsters come back just before?” Raggsy scratched his snout under the helmet in puzzlement.
Amber thought for a moment before remembering why the creatures had disappeared in the first place. “Leaflow!”
Turning, she saw the cloaked one slumped against the wheel of the car, one arm thrown over his face so that his eyes were hidden. She could not see if they were open and burning or not. Stepping over beside him, she touched his sleeve.
“Mr. Leaflow? Are you alright?”
He let his arm fall down and she saw his green eyes glowing. “now I am. That was quite a fight. Stupid thing to do, really.”
“But it worked!” Raggsy exclaimed, clapping his paws together cheerfully. “How’d ya do that? Make ol’ Dranny let go of his creatures?”
“I asked nicely,” the cloaked one returned wryly, getting to his feet while ignoring the hand Amber held out to him. “But next time, we’ll find some other way. He wasn’t very polite.”
A few minutes later their four companions came back out of the mansion, mostly looking triumphant. Lenny appeared more introspective than gladdened, but that did not stop the others from wearing expression of grim joy. Especially of late Lenny had been quieter and less cheerful than before, no matter the circumstances.
Stories were swiftly exchanged as they looked about them, taking in how the world was no longer under Ex-2’s sway. The sky had turned truly black and stars were coming out, untainted by any shade of purple.
---
A palace of purple stone arose in Dansei’s mind. Vaguely he heard the sounds of fighting nearby and wished that he was in the fight, but he could not see it anywhere around him. Nor did he seem to be in perfect control of himself, as he began to move towards the palace without ever having wished to do so. It was more of a glide than a walk, and he was set down with perfect softness on the doorstep before the huge, ragged doors. Torches with white flames burned on either side of him, strange faces seeming to grow in the fire when he was not looking directly at it. The doors swung inwards before him.
He got a glimpse of a huge panel of gleaming objects, including flashing lights, silver wires and things he did not immediately understand. But as soon as he had been given a little peek of what was within the doors, everything began to fade away like a dream.
Dansei felt a pain in his side and opened his eyes to see the wood-lathe interior of the steam vehicle. There was no more sound of fighting, though he realized now that those must have been real sounds he was hearing while dreaming.
“Shi ha fusakui ga kirai desu (I hate inaction),” he muttered, groping over the side of the bench chair for his shirt. Slipping it on over the bandages, he pried himself up off of the leather bench. It hurt more to move, especially if he bent in the middle without care, but he wanted to know what was going on outside. Besides, a Shinobi does not shirk or hide because he was hurt. Pain is a transitory experience that should be ignored.
Standing up, he moved over to the door of the van and quietly opened it, peering out through a small crack to see what was going on. Had his friends been overrun, captured? Or had they won the battle against the Power Core?
Looking out, he saw the untinted sky and knew that they must have won. Even the smell of the night time air was cleaner than it had been before. He heard the sound of his companion’s voices and a footstep coming towards the door.
Soleeryn’s soft tones came to his ears, “I had better go check on Dansei now. He has been sleeping through everything. It is a good thing I gave him another sleeping potion before evening, or he would have been trying to fight despite his condition.”
So that was it, was it? She was keeping him quiet while the others fought. No more drinking ‘healing’ potions for him, as long as she was giving them out. As quickly as he could, he slipped back over to the bench and sat on it as if he had never got up, just as Soleeryn opened the door.
He could play games, too. In fact, he was an expert at it. Looking up, he saw her outlined in the door, a short blade held loosely in one of her hands. She had got hold of his short sword as well. He would have to be more careful with his weapons in the future.
The healer had to light a lantern that hung from the van’s ceiling before she saw him sitting up on the bench with his bright shirt on.
“Oh, Dansei, you are awake. How do you feel?”
Feigning weakness, he replied, “still sleepy and in pain, One Who Heals. What is happening? Is it night time?”
“Yes. Everything is fine. The others defeated the Power Core here and we are safe now. You should lay back down and rest.”
He let her fuss around him, quietly taking the sword from her hand as she did. Laying back down with the last of the supplies in its sack as a pillow, he agreed, “you are right, best of healers. Rest is important to get well. Are all the others unhurt?”
“A few bruises, cuts and scrapes,” Soleeryn assured him, “nothing I can’t handle. I must go see to them now, so you lay still.”
“Of course.”
And he smiled into his sleeve as she went away.