In the Stable

Kenton was alive.

He was surprised too.

He blinked a few times, as the world settled. His blue blood seeped into his eyes.

Why was he bleeding??

Oh, he had a gash on his head.

Why did he have a gash on his head? And why was he upside down?

He was dangling over the side of the ledge. Sarah Beth was holding him over the ledge.

She grabbed his ankle as he tried to run. She had grasped it with her… it's living dress tendril and hoisted him up by his leg like a bag of mushrooms. He had fallen and smashed his head against the ledge.

“You aren’t my Love. Only my Love is allowed to push me around,” he said, his ears ringing.

A rush of power and awareness dawned on him, and he snapped back to himself. Oh, he was in trouble.

"Oh, oh no." he muttered, feeling woozy and vertigo at the same moment as he dangled over thin air. "Why'd I look down?"

In the Dungeon

The long-limbed creatures hesitated on the edge of the twelfth platform, no longer daring to ascend. The buzz bizz buzz of the Dungeon’s lights took prominence, the joining of the two spaces pulling apart.

Daniel glared at the Entity. The Entity held out a hand, clutching nothing over the ledge. But Daniel could almost see something…

Anger. Anger stronger than the dread and the fear filled him. White hot.

If Daniel held the Red Sword now, he wondered if he could at last call down the flame, if fueled with the purity of his anger.

He was out.

Out of Fire Flowers.

Out of Magic.

Against something that could almost certainly defeat him even if he had all of it. The Law of Fae was quiet and muted, demure in a way he had no concept of before this evening.

He needed more. Just one good sword. Just one coiled wand. Just stupid Esra and his endless attempts at any magic other than his own.

“It’s a training ground,” Daniel said.

“What?” The Entity spoke, entirely too at ease for standing on thin air.

“That’s the Answer to the Question: What is the Dungeon? I thought you traded in Questions for Answers.”

“Asking questions now?” The Entity spoke.

“Telling. You’re my Fear. Or you’re bound by it. My Fear of Self. But you aren’t my worst Fear.”

“Fear of Failure is here as well.” The Red Cloaked Entity wearing Elswith’s face said.

“Kenton said something was out there, with him in the Stable. Or is it in the overlapping section, this border between the Stable and the Dungeon?”

Elswith’s punchable face smirked at him. “Are you delaying, Dan?” the Entity said.

“Where is the third Fear? Where is my Fear of Success…that one is the one you should watch. Should I show you what I would do to avoid winning? Because I've done it before, and I set the entire Citadel on its head.” Daniel said. “So…tell me again. Are you clutching Kenton right now, or is he dead?” The lights flickered and rumbled. “Because your answer will determine whether I destroy us both, right here and now. I can bring it here.”

The silence stretched on for several moments, and then Daniel could hear noise from the Stable again. Including a very woozy sounding Kenton say something soft, "why did I look down?"

Daniel could barely hear.

But he did feel like a weight was lifted from his chest. If Kenton died, what about his family in that rural court out past the swamps? As long as he lived, there was hope.

“So Kenton is alive, then.” Daniel said. "But you hurt him."

It shrugged. “It is not a participant. It bears a counterfeit key. We have the right to remove those who interfere. Its death or life does not matter to the Dungeon.”

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“His life. You’re trying to stop Kenton from helping me. Why? Because I am a participant?”

"He is an invader."

"Release him safely, allow him to leave without harm."

"You dare think you can bargain?" The entity spoke, disbelief apparent.

"I have something you need. Myself. We stand in the twilight zone between realities. Is it not customary to make a bargain?”

In the Stable

Kenton tried to pull himself up right, at least so he could grab onto the ledge, but he was not one for sit-ups most days, and the thing that held him seemed uninclined to help him. Scratch that, the white entity was clearly an enemy. Whatever lies he had believed that the Dungeon's Fears could not hurt Mappers was clearly false, if the current situation was any indicator.

He kept trying to sit up, but the white entity shook him until he stopped attempting to right himself.

He just dangled there, trying to angle so he could see Elswith. Unfortunately, the Sarah Beth look-a-like kept blocking his view.

Why did it still seem so like his fiancé?

He knew that wasn’t Sarah Beth. This was one of the Dungeon’s Fears. The Fear of Failure. But why did it seem so like her, just as he imagined her every night?

Kenton wiggled until he gain enough momentum to swing side to side slightly, so he could see the clear wall again. Finally he caught sight of Elswith. He couldn’t hear Elswith anymore, but..at least he could see him.

The Lord stood tall, towering over the ledge in the Dungeon. He seemed…angry.

Kenton had once seen a Fae look like that. Over a hundred years ago, when Kenton was still just shoveling used hay from old stalls. Despite being a nobody, he was still in the right place at the right time to be privy to a tragic scene unfolding.

A High Fae Lord’s favorite griffin died in an ambush on a nearby mountain to poachers as the griffin frolicked on a golden afternoon, too old for combat but too dear to the Lord to send away.

There were no more poachers on that mountain afterward.

There also was not any mountain. In his anger, the High Lord of Knowledge had reduced the entire landscape to a flat plain, the ground so melted that it became smooth and shining like a mirror.

Prior to that day, some servants questioned his function, even calling him the High Lord of Folly. After that day, people called him whatever title he desired.

Elswith was about to do something scary. Something dangerous. Something really bad.

The Law of Fae was nearby, as was a brighter, hotter power. The Game.

They couldn’t get to Elswith. And they clearly didn't want him to complete whatever he was attempting.

But they could get to Kenton.

Kenton waited for the embrace of power, of knowledge, and knowing that came from being the sole focus of the game. Or Game, he supposed, capitalizing the G in his mind because it seemed rude not to.

Instead, he had a simple push of: face your fear.

Was that it? All the wisdom and knowledge of the Law of Fae and the Game combined? He needed to help that punk. If Elswith died or was taken away, all of Kenton’s hard work would go away…

Fear of Failure.

The Fear had power over him because he was afraid.

He knew what to say, suddenly. “I know you’re not Sarah Beth.” He said, to the Fear.

It was ignoring him, focusing on the exchange between Elswith and whatever that red blur was on the other side.

“Because you are exactly what I imagine her to be.”

Sarah Beth's face turned to him, surprised.

“I expected her to fret and worry. I expected her to nag me, berate me. But whenever I see her, I remember that she is more than I can ever know in full.”

The Fear turned toward him. “You know the question.” It said, and for the first time, Kenton felt like he was the center of its attention.

Kenton didn’t know what that meant, but he felt the Stable seem to cheer him on. “You showed me Sarah Beth as I imagine her, in my darkest places. Sarah Beth as I feared her to be, should I fail." He lunged upward, trapping the arm of 'Sarah Beth' with his left hand so he could, if awkwardly, pull himself up so he wasn't dangling head down over a great height. So he could look the fear in the eyes, level and on the same plane. "But that's only a fear, not real, and that’s not what would happen. And those were real conversations we shared, so that was very impolite of you.”

“The Answer.” It said. “But what the question?”

“Why did I think I was doing it all by myself? Sarah Beth was never the one being pulled around by her nose. We choose together, knowing the risks. We shared the trial. She stayed behind, so I could make our future. She takes care of my responsibility to our home court, so I can gather power and build. My why was wrong. Why was I afraid of failure?”

The sounds of flickering lights jumped and popped, and for a split second Kenton was not in the Stable but inside the Dungeon itself, the oozing smell of something the color brown assaulting his nose.

Don’t get distracted now! The Game seemed to say.

“Right.” And Kenton looked straight into the eyes of his Fear. For the first time, he noticed how dis-a-like it truly was to Sarah Beth. It didn’t look like her at the corner of her eyes, and the way its lips pulled back was completely alien.

“It’s been a long time since I held her last, so it makes sense I got a little silly. I got my whys mixed up. Sarah Beth draws strength from hidden places, even when it’s hard. You can’t overcome her.” He touched his other hand to his heart, feeling it beat, imagining it beating in time Sarah Beth as they lay on the downy pastures, hands clasped. Kenton moved his hand and clasped something. “I’m afraid to fail.”

The Fear undulated strangely. It clearly wanted him to stop, but it looked like its own nature compelled it to listen.

Kenton carried on. “But as long as I do my best, I know she did her best too. And no matter what, whether I return to her a Midling Fae and uplift our entire family from a life of toil and drudgery to authority and affluence, or I fail and lose all my influence and return and we spend the last few decades of our lives together as the rust takes us, we will have done it together, and to the best of our ability.”

It started to shake.

“And you...You are a pale comparison to her! Compared to the golden rays of her smile, you’re nothing. You can’t stop me.”

In the Dungeon

The Fear of Self shifted.

“A bargain?”

“Let Kenton go. He has nothing to do with this Game, and he only came because…whatever reason he had. If I’m a participant, surely, I must be valuable. Hard to beat your training program if I break my leg. As you say, it’s a long way down for something that can’t fly.” Daniel said, stepping closer to the ledge.

The Entity raised its hand, a command to stop. “So much work to avoid Questioning an Answer.” The entity said, in a voice like lava cooling and cracking ice.

Daniel glared at his own face. “So much work to avoid a proper working relationship. You need me, and we don’t need to be enemies.”

“So you propose a bargain.”

“You let me talk to Kenton, and I’ll complete the first trial.”

"It sounds logical."

Daniel stood up straight.

"But you forget one thing, Dan. Law of Fae has no power here, and I don't care for bargains." Then it focused beyond the wall again. "Drop the invader."