His world spun as he flew past a humanoid figure, barely distinguishable against the sun's blinding rays as it flung him through a set of wood bunker doors like a child discarding a toy. His brain struggled to keep up, the thoughts from a second prior now fighting for space with a new question.
Who?
And where had the bunker doors come from?
He met a rude awakening as his back met the hard, dirt floor with a winding thud. He watched through blurred vision and pounding ears as the figure slammed shut the barn doors, arrows still embedding themselves into the wood with crunches Matthieu could only imagine were to be his bones.
He blinked and groaned, lifting himself as the figure stepped towards him, somewhat still unclear in the dim lamplight. Matthieu backed away as it approached and bent down for a closer look. Friend or foe, he was beyond trying to make sense of anything in the underworld.
“Where's your other arm?”
Matthieu closed his eyes and shook his head, realigning his vision and shaking the shock from his brain. He felt a flick against his forehead, blunter than the tip of a fingernail. The figure came into clarity enough for Matthieu to realise the hue of his saviour’s skin was not of skin, but of wood.
“How did you lose your arm?” the puppet asked once more. Wooden eyes flicked from Matthieu’s shoulder to his face all too naturally, the blue paint of his irises peeling away.
“A shotgun,” Matthieu answered, noticing how the puppet’s fingertips were blackened by fire, and the wood underneath his loose-fitting tunic was lighter than the wood making up his forearm. Thinning black hair and a skeleton frame: what Matthieu would imagine if asked to describe a Pinnochio at the end of his rope.
“Was in aller Welt is a shotgun,” the puppet asked as it stood, its knee joints creaking as it did so. “I hope it was less painful than a mace.”
The puppet shook its other arm, the tip of an arrow embedded into it. Too casually, it wrapped its fingers around the wood and pulled it from its forearm with ease. Passing its eyes over it, the puppet began to disassemble it, plucking the head and plume from the shaft as if it hadn’t taken a hammer to drive the parts together. He ran his blackened fingertips over the arrowhead’s blade, watching ash scrape off them as he nodded.
“Get up,” the puppet commanded, whipping Matthieu with the arrow shaft before walking away. Matthieu, enamoured, followed the order, rubbing his backside and feeling his tailbone for damage.
“Thank you,” he said to the puppet’s back.
“For what?”
“For saving me.”
“I don’t recall,” the puppet said, stopping a few paces ahead and ushering him closer. Matthieu silently obliged, stepping forward and underneath a trapdoor identical to the one he had fallen through. “Arm out,” the puppet instructed, lifting Matthieu’s hand with the cane.
The puppet’s eyelids grew narrower. “You do have a knack for following orders. How unfortunate.”
The puppet tapped the trapdoor, and its padlock let loose. A silhouette against the sky fell through the opening just as Matthieu caught onto the puppet’s plan. The falling shadow yelped, and Matthieu timed his move to catch it centre-mass, slowing its fall with all the strength he could muster into his arm.
He caught Céline by the waist, breaking her fall just as her boots touched the ground. Matthieu let go as Céline stopped screaming, the ground under her boots solid once more. They met eyes, and Matthieu gave her a grin. “Hello,” he said, unsure if there even was an appropriate greeting.
Face still frozen in shock, Céline ran up to him and kicked his foot like a soccer ball. Matthieu yelped in pain and expletives as she threw her arms around him, hanging off his neck and affording him no respite through her squeeze.
“Idiot,” she whispered, between the pain in his foot and the warmth around his neck. “I hate you.”
Matthieu could not help but smile. “I’m sorry,” he conceded, forgetting the pain in favour of her embrace. Somehow, it felt more rewarding than a lifelong pension.
He felt the arrow shaft needle his side. “We have to move,” the puppet said, pointing to the trapdoor at the end of the tunnel. The tired planks and rusted padlock bulged with every rhythmic thump, bludgeoned by the footsteps of impending judgment. “Won’t hold forever, and you can’t outrun them now that you’ve greased their gears.”
Céline let go, sparing him her wrath for the moment, but—with her ever-expressive eyes—warned him that he would not, nor ever be quite off the hook. She dismissed him and began to follow the puppet.
Under scarce lamplight, the pair followed the ragged puppet, creaking joints in tune with the tunnels around them—on the brink of disrepair and functional by mere circumstance. Like a dried-up goldmine, Matthieu almost made out fossilised footsteps beneath his feet, but keeping his eyes open for too long only invited in the dust and made them water.
When his eyes recalled their trench-light training, he noticed Céline skip from the protection of one support arch to the other while the puppet refused to deviate from its cyclical walking pattern, no sense of self-preservation about it whatsoever.
Matthieu was more than accustomed to such spaces, the low ceilings that suffocated anyone above average height and drained morale like some cursed toll booth. It was generous, really, having not once forced him to his hand and knees.
At least no starving men lined the walls, barely more than bundled piles of rags, nor were the tunnels shaking, teasing collapse with every overhead boom. At least there was no mud. He would walk over hot coals before stepping foot in mud again.
A final turn in their winding journey brought them to a narrow indent branching off from the main tunnel, a wooden door at its terminus. Strangely homely, all things considered. The lamplight hanging from above was—although weak—a notch brighter, shining warmly on a dishevelled ‘welcome home’ sign hanging by a loose, crooked nail.
The puppet approached the door and fumbled with his fraying trouser pocket, pulling out the arrowhead and pair of feathers before finally finding a dull, metal key that looked more at home hanging from a dungeon keeper’s belt. It slotted the key into the lock, and with a heavy cluck, whir, grind, click and hiss, the lock relaxed, and it pushed the door open, hitting a bell hanging from the frame as it swung.
Céline glanced back at Matthieu, neither unsure of how deep down the rabbit hole they had fallen, only trusting the puppet out of fear for what was chasing them. The puppet stuck its head back through the doorframe, tapping the shaft against the door for their attention.
“Come on Hansel and Gretel, I wouldn’t have wasted my time bringing you to my house if I was going to kill you, Bitte denken Sie vernünftig.”
It disappeared behind the doorframe, and the pair looked at each other again.
“Am I mistaken, or is that exactly what happens in Hansel and Gretel?”
Matthieu shrugged. “If he turns on us, kick him in the foot.”
Céline scowled as a distant ruckus of metal echoed down the tunnel, warning them like the bell of a stalking housecat. They silently agreed that taking the chance of being boiled was more appealing than the guarantee of being skewered.
They accepted the invitation, hunching through the doorway and climbing a cramped spiral staircase. The dirt got damper as each step groaned in agony under their modest weights, eventually trading for foundations of rotting wood and ancient boulders. A final loop and the sun's light welcomed them back into their graces as free man and woman.
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“Wow,” Céline whispered, pausing at the top of the staircase. She looked back, the same wonderful expression as a child on Christmas morning. She ascended the last few staircases, making way for Matthieu to have much the same reaction.
A small cottage, cramped to the point it was almost immobilising, but Matthieu suspected it was originally much larger. He could not see the walls below head height, blocked out by shelves upon shelves upon boxes upon piles of stuff. Things. Nicknacks. Objects of unclear and diverse value, everything from copper toy trains to glimmering gold and silver jewellery. Six chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and so did eleven banners and three model planes. Statues, crystals and boardgames were stacked haphazardly on antique furniture, while bookcases tumescent with old and new tomes flanked every window.
There was nowhere to sit besides a poor man’s throne in the room’s centre, one the puppet leisurely creaked into. It crossed one leg over the other, twiddling the cane with his hands while he observed the pair with suspicious eyes and upturned chin.
“What are two flesh people doing in the castle?” the puppet asked.
“We’re here to rescue someone,” Matthieu said. The puppet’s gaze left him, turning to the girl, still enamoured by the treasure trove they found themselves in. Matthieu elbowed her, yet she still took her time in registering the puppet's glare.
“Ah…uhm. Yes. I’m the Deathseer for this realm. We’re trying to—”
She caught herself and closed her hanging mouth, her eyebrows comically changing their angle of attack to match the mood. “Tell me who you are first,” she said.
“Me?” the puppet said, flinging the arrow shaft behind him, unfazed by the awful clatter it made upon landing. It stood up, pointing at its body from head to toe. “What do you think I am?”
“Not what, who?” Céline reiterated, refusing to back down. The puppet looked at her with pity in his eyes as his shoulders slumped.
“Are you really the realm’s Deathseer?” it asked. “You’re awfully young, and if you can’t see that I’m a puppet, you still have a lot of training ahead of you.”
“I know you’re a damn puppet! Why can you talk so well and move like you’re a human being?”
The puppet raised an eyebrow as he plucked the arrowhead from his pocket. “Because I practice?”
Céline chewed on her cheeks as she gave Matthieu a sidelong glance, and they traded words of suspicion with their eyes. Céline’s verdict was clear, but Matthieu was still hesitant. Perhaps it was bias to his saviour, but he was desperate and in dire need of more help wherever he could find it.
He could feel it. Years of taking orders and never having time to assess the character of his allies manifested as a void in the path before him. Helpless at even beginning to discern a person, let alone a puppet. Trustworthy or not, he could only move forward. That was all he cared about.
“Why do you collect things?” he asked. The puppet raised the other eyebrow before he turned, hurling the arrowhead into a bookcase to his right and cleanly embedding it in its wood with a single thud.
“Why do I collect things,” the puppet repeated, glancing around his room. “Oh, this is hardly a collection. Puppets get bored too, as it turns out. Fascinating, is it not?”
The puppet swivelled on its heels and ventured further into the mess, wading inelegantly through piles of valuable junk as though it was a puddle of mud under its feet. “Now you said you were looking to rescue someone. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Matthieu said. “We know she has become something of the realm’s protector, but we doubt she did so willingly.”
“Protector?” the puppet said, arriving at a tall dining table, the base of yet another mighty mound of valuables. Jewels and metals glimmered in and amongst the cloths and coppers: something Céline seemed to take particular interest in. With no ceremony but a healthy dose of drama, the puppet grabbed the mound and shovelled it sideways in an avalanche capable of reducing any antiquarian to tears, including Céline. He heard a small whimper as the fine crockery smashed and the jewellery bounced across the floor.
A dining table and three chairs awaited them, sitting invitingly under the majesty of a beautiful chandelier, one that Matthieu swore was not part of the original six. The puppet rounded the table and sat down, offering the two seats across from it.
“You’re talking about the ascended, aren’t you?” the puppet said. “I noticed it isn’t an old man anymore but a young woman.”
“Yes, the young woman,” Matthieu continued. “We want to reach her.”
The puppet idled on him for a long second, eyeing him up and down before flicking his eyes to Céline and doing the same. Matthieu followed the interaction, but it seemed as though Céline refused to reciprocate. The puppet sighed, once again addressing Matthieu directly.
“Guards roam the gardens by day, so unless you want to draw their attention, I’d suggest you move with more caution next time. There are routes you can take into the castle, but from there, you’d have to make your own way to the top.”
The puppet stood and approached a window, hunching low as he examined the outside world. “But the sun is setting, so I would wait until tomorrow if I were you.”
“We can’t wait until tomorrow,” Matthieu protested. “We’re running out of time.”
“Hasn’t your Deathseer told you about the dangers of the night?” the puppet asked, ducking out of the window and back to the table. Matthieu turned to Céline, lips still pursed. She noticed his gaze and was, for some reason, flustered.
“The uhm…the grime. It congregates at night,” she answered. “Being so close to the castle where the grime originates from, I can only imagine how much there might be.”
She glanced up at Matthieu, fickle eyes meeting his gaze for a moment before turning back to the puppet. “But he’s right. We don’t have much time to lose, and I can do something about fighting off the grime if it comes down to it.”
The puppet creaked back into his chair, leaning forward and resting his head on a bed of interwoven fingers. The flaking irises scrutinised Céline, and Céline’s poker face began to crumble.
“Why do you want to save this person so badly?” the puppet asked.
“She’s my cousin,” Céline said. “I want…I need to save her.”
Something was off in a way Matthieu recognised. It missed the immediate terror he had most often endured the displeasure of witnessing, but it was unmistakable. The conflict across one’s face before they climbed over the trench, saying their prayers and convincing themselves of the paradise waiting for them on the other side.
The same expression. The same conflict.
“All right,” the puppet conceded, throwing its hands into the air in disappointed surrender. It stuck a hand underneath the table and retrieved a scroll of parchment, stained with years of age and wear. With lanky fingers, it unfurled the map, spreading it across the table end to end with exaggerated hassle, stubbornly refusing the pair’s offers for help until it had collected an assortment of six valuable items as paperweights.
Carefully etched pen lines glided across the parchment, connecting with each other to form an intricate map of the castle, named and labelled with illustrations of their nature, common guard outposts, and swathes of blotches market out with intersecting lines.
“We are here,” the puppet said, directing their attention to a small garden shed by the edge of the castle walls. “Once night falls, the guards most often congregate on the grand avenue and file into the castle, leaving you free to cross the tour paths around the gardens and into the lily pond. Make it to the other side of the pond using the stepping stones, and you’ll find an inlet into the castle that leads into the kitchens.”
The puppet drew the route with its finger, tapping on their final destination for emphasis. It was not much of an operation plan, yet when the belligerents were a young girl and an ex-soldier instead of an entire legion, the comparison made little sense.
“Why is the lily pond marked with crosses?” Céline asked, tracing the area.
“Grime,” the puppet said. “Lots of grime, but it’s the only way into the castle besides the main entrance and well…good luck getting through there.”
Matthieu poured his eyes over the map. As with any, there would be room for error, but Matthieu liked the odds of stopping a bullet with a penny more than finding a way in that the puppet hadn’t over its long, long residence. Time was running out, and betting too heavily on the one in a million would see them fall prey to both guard and grime, whichever got them first.
“Are you confident, Céline?” Matthieu asked, careful with his tone so as not to trample her honest objections, but she voiced none. Nodding her head, she made her choice clear.
“Take a weapon,” the puppet advised. “Deathseer chants take a while; it's up to you to protect her until she completes it.”
“You have a weapon for me?” Matthieu asked the puppet, remembering how utterly exposed he felt without at least a sidearm holstered by his hip. The puppet heaved itself out of its seat and once more rounded the table, patting down Matthieu’s shoulder before rummaging in a nearby pile.
“Take whatever you want. Gott weiß, dass ich es nicht brauche.” But despite the invitation, Céline refused to budge. The puppet straightened its posture again, holding to the fading dusk light a pearl white blade. Single-edged, with gold inscriptions running down its thick spine to a horn hilt. Pristine, yet primitive; a blade which found its place in ancient history.
The puppet turned, sheathing the sword into a leather scabbard and tossing it to Matthieu. “I have no use for it; may it replace whatever help I would’ve been going myself.”
“You’ve been a great help already. Thank you,” Matthieu replied, passing his eye over the blade once more. Certainly not the weapon he was hoping for, but if grime most often came in such volume, it would make sense to consider anything that required ammunition impractical.
“Why….”
Céline’s mistimed interjection recoiled as it drew their attention, particularly the puppet's. She began again, voice meeker. “Why are you helping us?”
The puppet watched her with eyes that seemed to reserve for her a particular scepticism. “It is up to you what happens at the end of your journey. I just find it a waste to leave you to die after saving your lives.”
The puppet walked to the centre of the room, swivelling his wooden throne and reassuming his place, talking to Céline’s back as his words went uncontested.
“After being…conscious for as long as I have, doing things to incredible detail out of mere boredom, I can pity anyone who has to suffer that same fate. It is something I would wish on no one, even if they are relieved of their self-awareness. So go, save your damsel no matter what the cost.”