TRUTH AND DARKNESS WERE ONE.
One couldn't tell Trey otherwise as he raised his head to the zeppelin interior, its floor-to-ceiling windows, its curved foundation beams mimicking the structure of a monstrous ribcage.
Night poured into the polished glass like a poisoned gas, spreading amorphously to every surface of the blimp. The cloudy shadows took special care to slip over and between and around the lustrous slivers of moonbeam—because the darkness was incorruptible, and the darkness held steadfast to its nature. Trey knew it, Trey felt it, and Trey dreaded the rumbling vibrations traveling through his shoulder as Myst settled comfortably into her dark sky paradise.
Myst laughed, Myst purred, honored by the playfulness of flourishing night.
Trey wanted to recoil but didn't. He leaned into his new life—what had always been his life—now that he leveled with himself. He remembered the glowing 'T' aura of Swishy posing in the early morning plazas, absorbing the shadows. Trey learned what the scarecrow was feeling—the cozy dominance of night, its casual omnipotence—now that he'd personally entered the darkness, and now that said darkness promised never to leave him.
"Ah, it begins..." Trey softly breathed.
"It continues, you mean." Myst jovially said. "The bounty and beauty of our great Cearth is here for all time."
Trey eased forward, conscious of his mission. Control room, land this thing, find Swishy.
Each step he took brought him closer to the bewildering sights of the blimp carriage. A network of golden rods spanned from wall to wall in every direction, lost compass needles seeking purpose. Squared platforms were positioned at varying heights, each scaffold containing multi-roomed, multi-leveled birdhouses. In one corner, a prominent structure had a wood-carved sign with gold-painted lettering: THE HOTEL OF SHADOWS. In the opposite direction, the TALON N TONICS saloon resided with its swaying double-action doors. There was even a bodega-style kiosk, a bird feeder labeled NIGHT NIBBLES.
His vision filled with rippling shadows: snitchtalon movement. He measured his steps care, aiming to escape notice. The fledgling sorcerer counted on the Myst-darkened shadows around him, intuitively understanding that his body and soul were at least partially concealed.
"So smart, so sharp," Myst whispered in prideful mirth.
Within the darkened blimp, Trey's developing soul-vision kicked in. An outbreak of blue, bolt-like streaks propagated within the rafters, snitchtalons whizzing from perch to perch.
Trey's eye drifted toward a busy platform, a golden fountain of a tremendously breasted robin, water spurting upwards from its beak. The snitchtalons glided in leisure, misting their wings, sipping as they passed. This was their social hub, a flighted version of Straw City's Fountain Plaza. The statue's wings raised a sign of etched gold plating: ELEGANT ROOST.
The snitchtalons admired each other's gold-rimmed monocles and patterned necklaces. They raised their feet to display amber-encrusted talon rings. They spread their wings and golden earrings dangled freely, affixed to the bottoms of their feathers.
The birds took flight and the jing-jangle, jing-jangle of gold echoed in the cavernous room. As the snitchtalons soared above, displaying their flashy accoutrements, the dreadful notion settled upon Trey that something was horribly wrong.
Each additional step stressed him exponentially. A shop named the GLARE AND FLARE was on the platform overhead, just a table littered with golden jewelry. And one class case containing a mannequin neck. And laid upon the neck? A plain golden cross. He'd seen crosses like that all his life. A thin chain, adjustable notching, and 14-karat gold.
Clayhearth was full of crosses—and of thieving, Straw City snitchtalons.
Memories of prior shadowclaw visits to Clayhearth plagued him. The snitchtalons had appeared as normal birds, Ruby's well-trained supply runners. He remembered the shopping bags clutched in their strong feet—food, seeds, Bibles, and clandestine gold.
The embezzlement was clear: they'd drop off Ruby's items, then hoard their hidden gold in the zeppelin—which they alone controlled. Gas, piloting, repairs, signage updates—the snitchtalons ran everything. Who'd stop them from skimming goods?
Trey's ears were violated by the chiming sounds of pirated gold. He grew resentful, angry.
"Jeez, Myst. It's like they embezzled a mansion!"
"Oh Trey, have some fun!" The foggy Myst insisted. "Life is full of pleasures—the birds know this well. There's much to learn from them."
"Like how to scam."
"Scamming your people's gold, to be specific!"
"Uuuh, thanks I guess." Trey cut his eyes at Myst, who smiled back—dangerously. The young man received an accurate sense of the shadows, a barely leashed phantom of death awaiting his next snide comment.
"Sorry," Trey said.
"For what?" Myst slithered around his neck.
"Just sorry."
"Good."
(...)
Trey took another step—and stumbled over a hitch in the wood.
Every head turned. The eyes bore into him from the lower levels, the mid-levels, and the ceiling levels too. Hundreds of pairs of eyes, all wanting a piece of him. The crumpled shadows undulated as a single organism, forming a feathered cage. Trey sneakily glanced toward the left corner of the room at a closed door.
Please be the hallway!
He sprinted into the fuming darkness, sweltering bloodlust compressing upon him. The bird-shaped blue souls made preparations. The flock abided by a system: a pair of snitchtalons glided around Trey for a certain range, only for them to back off for another pair to patrol him. Each duo of birds clung to their zones, the result of years of teamwork—and flashcards, of course. Trey turned his soul vision to the birds, frightened by the words inside them: UNITY, TOGETHERNESS, FOCUS, and the star of the show—SUSPICION.
Within the darkness, the amethyst eyes of the snitchtalons began to redden. Blackwheat—it could be nothing else. Meanwhile, a far greater number were perched on platforms, guarding light-pots of gold-straw. They wore wheat-filled satchels, ready for medic duty.
These guys have healers now...they think they're in an MMO!
Trey ran but quickly struggled. His breath hitched and dragged. He was more bookwork than ball player, more tutor than track-star. The boy was fast with no stamina, poor stats for the current moment. He hadn't even been chased by a dog, let alone flying murder.
The snitchtalons slashed through the dark in pairs: one blackwheat bird in the front while a gold-straw medic took up the rear, wheat-satchel in tow. They were learning from their mistakes, ready for the long game—war in the city but chess in their minds.
He sensed the laser-red gaze at the back of his head and ducked, successfully dodging the winged dart. Trey jumped, hurdling over the floor-level glide of a medic-talon aiming for his legs.
A rectangular glow was etched into an upcoming wall.
He hoped it was a door. He prayed for it. But he wasn't sure. The breathless boy stopped, seeking rest, seeking light. Magic brewed within his chest, collecting and traveling from his core to his hands. Trey stretched his hand outward in anticipation of LIGHT, SHINE, SUN—but he only conjured a mild yellow glow upon his fingertips.
The blue jagged souls pincered him from both sides.
Trey wavered between panic and focus, struggling to gather his magic into a sensible form. Simple, Myst said she made it simple.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The birds were upon Trey, cawing and jangling. They stretched their beaks and talonstoward him. The glow from Trey's fingertips now encompassed his whole hand. The golden word—sound—appeared then: ZZT. A vibrant flare spread in an orb around his person, blinding the birds, singing them slightly as the ZZT buzz cracked against the gold. Even Myst was dispersed to the wall, shoved away by light. The birds squawked and screeched and whined. As the winged cretins blew at their injuries, nursing themselves, their gold-straw magics dropped the lustrous wheat upon them.
Meanwhile, the remnant spell particles clung to any gold surface they could find: the pole perches high above—and the snitchtalon jewelry which now glowed and made them easy to find. Trey smiled, seeing his advantage. Swishy had his straw while Trey had a lifetime around the Cearth's greatest conductor, Clayhearth gold. As long as Trey's soul grasped the luminous image, he could manifest real spells.
"You like it?" Myst said.
"It's good so far!"
The flock set upon him once more, munching straw-chews.
Trey rushed into the door that led into a hallway. Countless birds swooped in after him.
Control room, control room, control room. Please be easy to find...
Jing-jangle, jing-jangle! The birds were close again. They lit the hallway with their glowing gold-straw satchels and the remnant ZZT that clung to their jewelry. They pecked at Trey's shoulder.
He dodged—barely—and could feel the light pressure of beak stabs against his parka. Panting and sluggish, he urged his burning calves through the tight hallway.
Within the corridor resided closed doors on both sides, a hotel set-up. He maintained full speed, praying the rooms were bedrooms. The thought of missing the control room gnawed at him. But he trusted his judgment and resisted the urge to fling open doors.
"CACAW!" The war cries shredded his eardrums. Several birds glided over his head as a crown of embittered shadows. The earrings on their feathers grazed the back of his neck with knife-edge frostiness. A wetness dribbled down his right ear—blood—and a snitchtalon drew close enough to lick at it.
Trey felt embarrassment with a side of deep-fryer fantasies. The ZZT sentiments gathered in him again. But he needed a bigger ZZT, an upgraded ZZT.
He lifted his hands to the snitchtalon faces—who pecked at his palms, cutting and stinging him—and imagined a current heating his hometown's gold wiring. He released his level two spell: ZAP.
No orb this time—a concentrated beam. He blasted the closest birds point-blank. The cluster fell to the ground, burned and smoky, and were instantly tended to by gold-straw medics.
That was only a few birds out of countless others, though. The pursuit hadn't calmed in the least.
He turned the corner into the next hall, these sets of rooms properly labeled. Thank God! KITCHEN, READING LOUNGE, CHART ROOM, RADIO ROOM. Trey swayed his head away from the beak-nipping attacks, searching. The control room was near, definitely at the front of the ship.
A snitchtalon arrowed toward him with a rigid beak and bloodshot gaze. Trey hit the floor and watched the bird's momentum crash it against the wall. The several others pulled to a stop, hovering over the grounded Trey. One of the birds dropped a bundle of gold-straw onto its collapsed kindred, who then began to munch and recover, glaring at Trey with lucidity.
Myst, no longer on his shoulder, coasted along in Trey's shadow. The curse-purveyor gliding along the walls, waiting for Trey to falter. "I help, yes?" The cute tone was anything but.
Trey perceived the snarky grin, the set-up, the mini-game inside his current game of death. "I can't with you. You're expensive!"
"Expensive?" Myst gasped in a fake-hurt tone. "Trey, please. My aid is the strongest you can get. It hurts that you want to take advantage of me."
"Just sit back and watch me work."
"Fine, fine. If you must, Mr. Independent."
The snitchtalons hovered and observed, afraid to speak. Their normal taunting ways had quieted into a collective discipline. They'd noticed a dark presence surrounding Trey. They couldn't put their finger on the exact change but they whispered amongst each other, worried caws, inquisitive caws, and for once, hesitant caws. How'd he get here? His soul looks different...He has a friend inside. Hmm...I guess we can kill him? He's changed but is still weak. Same plan? Snatch and drop? Yeah, snatch and drop. And when we drop him, fly far away—in case that...presence...comes for us.
Trey sensed the atmospheric daggers, the bloodlust of the coming assault. A new image formed in his mind. Rather than drawing from his childhood home, he drew from the perils of the dark. He focused on the shadowclaw feathers merging into the night, smooth, swift, imperceptible. He wanted that movement for himself. Please, he told himself. Let's make this happen...
A warmth which spread toward the tips of his head and then down his arms and legs and feet. He held out his hand as if holding an invisible object—and a crackling of gold particles appeared, one at a time, then dozens and dozens, immediately integrating into a flashcard: ZIP.
A red-eyed snitchtalon sped toward Trey and snapped at his shoulder. Trey barely slipped the attack and used the card then, "ZIP!" he emphatically screamed. He ran away, panicking and desperate. "Zip this bird! Or zip me! Just zip, zip, ZIP already!"
The word dispersed into nothingness as gold formed around Trey's sprinting body—one step, triple the distance. And the more he exerted, the faster he became: the ZIP spell zipped him away from the hostile pursuers.
"Wow Trey, you're so fast," Myst's words were drenched in faux surprise.
"Are my abilities all sounds?"
"Not exactly. They're just expressive—they're you.
"I'm with it."
"Great! But they're gaining by the way, hehe..."
The snitchtalons had a talent for regrouping, for never letting conflict go. They reached into their vest pockets for another dose of blackwheat. Even a couple of the medics, too. As the birds swallowed, their bodies pumped up, winged and muscled. Even their talons augmented in size. The flock flew faster, more furiously, loose feathers filling the hall as they instantly entered Trey's space, wrathful and smug.
I'm so close, I have to get away! This should have a second level too...
Trey's instincts provided him with more ZIP, the letters transforming from his intent: ZOOM.
ZOOM filled the air in a shimmering Clayhearth gold. The shadows were at Trey's feet, making him light. His posture shifted to the side, which made him tense up until he recognized the spell. The dark aura carried him upon a skateboard of shadows, a black glider hovering him through the halls.
He relaxed, loosened up, and focused on steering. His control was immaculate and tight as he finessed corner after corner, smoothly, easily. He began to distance himself from the snitchtalons, and watched those feathered missiles recede into the distance.
Trey didn't know where he was going—only away—until he came upon a door with a wooden placard. Gold-straw letters were set into the block: CONTROL ROOM.
"Hell yes!"
"Oh, he calls upon Hell but not upon me," Myst said.
"What? You're not from Hell?"
A slight giggle. "I'm not telling."
He opened the door and slammed it behind him.
(...)
Trey expected a small room like any cockpit, an intimate two-man set-up. What he got resembled the expansiveness of the flock's social center, of the high-ceilinged and big-windowed ELEGANT ROOST. The enormous glass panes allowed the winter cold to settle into the room. His frosty breath ghosted the air. The room was empty, suspiciously so, but all the better for Trey.
"Finally," he said.
"Finally, yes. Good job." Myst said it straight, a real compliment it seemed.
Trey jogged up to a slight ledge to a raised platform by the front window. The cityscape was a black smoke, MIDNIGHT taking over. He couldn't see the streetlights, the lanterns, the gold-straw below. Black, black, and more black, the same as his time in Myst's abyss. He focused, tapping into his SOUL magic to peer through the arcane murkiness. He caught sight of the enormous clock tower, the fog before its face slightly clearing, revealing the time: 11:45.
There were valves, gears, dials, fluctuating needles beneath glass. He gravitated toward the largest wheel, what he guessed was the helm. And in a stroke of fortune, the scales of justice had served him accessible technology: a tablet. It lay next to the helm and displayed a black screen with a flickering green cursor. The LED controls—he could communicate!
He drafted a message: GO WITH HEART! SWISH-SWISH!
Kaboom!
"What the hell was that?"
A colossal quaking—incessant and intense rumblings shook the control room. The mechanical components began to shake. The wooden architecture cracked and fissured along the wall. Trey hugged the helm to his chest, gripping tight. He stared out the window as they descended toward the black city. Every sight through the window were now tilted diagonally, then fully sideways.
Trey flung into the air as the blimp inverted, but he grabbed at the control panel. One hand slid across the tablet, DFJGJERODFGJDF filling the screen.
Myst, that infinitely flexible shadow, yawned.
Trey hung from the helm, his legs swinging, his arms aching from the monkey bar maneuvers. A series of kabooms overlapped like a perilous popcorn. The din of combustion was distant, muffled by the mammoth stretches of blimp carriage. The explosions came from the back room.
"The engines!" Trey cried out.
"That's right," Myst glided along the surfaces with casual, shrugging energy. "You escaped but the engines stayed put. Funny how that works! Right, Trey?"
"Correct..." Trey's mind searched for an answer—as his throbbing arms sought reprieve. The ZIP card wouldn't do a thing. ZOOM appeared useless as well. But that same branch of spells warmed inside. His heart tapped upon its textured surface, discerning a third stage and final to the travel card: ZLIDE!
"What's a zlide?" He said to himself, his voice trailing off.
Myst let out a low laugh, her version of a slow clap. "Now we're talking!"
The ZLIDE card materialized before Trey, then disintegrated, gold dust entering him as anticipated—until he became the dust, his arms shrinking into pebbles, his hands, his legs, his everything.
ZLIDE!
He was gone, his presence zliding through the physical realm in microbes, teleporting himself outside of the sinking zeppelin.
Cold, cold, cold—a blizzard damn near. Trey reintegrated into painful and crackling iciness and the impact of air resistance. He twisted his body and watched the aircraft's incinerated tail end, dark smoke sailing skywards. And the snitchtalons, an endless spree as endless as the smoke, vacated the ship, escaping harm.
They'd already spotted Trey and flew toward him. They'd killed their craft and they'd kill him too. Trey groaned at how well that logic tracked. The birds cried out to him.
We'll make sure you die this time! Fall you idiot! Fall, fall, fall!
Thankfully for the snitchtalons, gravity handled that for them, sending Trey upon his savage descent. He was panicked, confused, disorientated. He pieced his scrambled thoughts together, a scattered puzzle desperately craving its destined shape. Fast thoughts, fast logic was the Trey special: ZIP meant speed. ZOOM meant speed—on a vehicle. And ZLIDE(?)—an essence slide, a full-blown teleport.
ZLIDE whisked him from the luxurious nest turned death trap, and now he was falling once more. Ah...falling...And then the realization, the sudden view of rooftops, the long-delayed freakout.
"Aaaaah!" Trey screamed.
"Aaaaah!" Myst merrily copied, having the time of her life.