Smoke snaked up the walls, spread over vivid hand paintings, and swirled about the draft at the shelter's opening. Spenser Pheonix struggled to hold onto his senses. No, to hold onto his sanity. The fire-lit room danced, and the figures within blurred—all except the witch, who appeared young and beautiful like the ghost of Clair come to visit him, yet he knew she was that shriveled Neanderthal. Only she moved among the clouded figures who remained anchored in place.
“That,” she said, “was easy. You were ready to come here. Beware, you have no control in the Side Realm yet, so don’t frighten yourself with inventions. Focus on me and what I show you. Let me be your guide.”
Whatever drugs she had given him were potent, throwing him into a world of watery shadow. His mind seemed clear, though. He replayed the day and had no memory issues, nor did he feel he’d become irrational. These were purely sensory hallucinations. She bade him walk out onto the outside platform and took his hand. The canyon fell away.
The feeling of dread or being watched seized him. Everything appeared closer as if he had an eagle's eyes, and at the far distance, reality crumbled away, and a blood sun raced around the horizon, never setting or rising but ever present as if the sky whirlpooled and caught it in its influence just at the rim of the basin. What should have been a spec to normal eyes announced itself to his vision. He’d found what unsettled him and knew the machine for what it was, though it didn’t have the shape he expected.
The Black Mage had the form of an old man with a quarterstaff, robes of darkness, and a beard of light. He was a strange version of a wizard, like a film negative out of his imagination. No doubt this was his brain on drugs.
The witch stood next to him, but they stood on nothing. They had risen a thousand feet above the canyon. “Do you see it?”
He shouldn’t have known what she referred to, but he did. A tether from far off connected to the wizard. “I do.”
“The metal man isn’t what it seems. Reflections on a calm brook mask what lies beneath. When you look under the surface, the shapes don’t always make sense until you stare at them a while.”
Spenser bucked against the idea that this was real. “We’re in a simulation. Not just here but everywhere. It’s just binary all the way down.”
“I don’t know this thing.”
“I’m losing count of how many times my world’s been turned upside down in the last few days. I’ve had enough.”
“That’s what’s allowed you here. The Side Realm is not open for those who are certain of things. But be certain now, for prisons wait beyond for those without a grounding.”
“You’re saying that if I break one illusion, another will take its place.”
“No. I’m saying treat this as if it is more real than real. You are like a young rabbit outside its hole for the first time. There are many dangers. Ancient things, mortal and immortal, dwell here.”
Spenser laughed. “And Daz thinks there’re no respawns. This is a mad simulation.”
The witch didn’t look amused. “I will link you to the Black Mage, and when you leave this place, you will feel a binding. The Black Mage’s master fears you’re the antigod. Why else would he send one of his captains?”
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The witch raised her hands, the tether frayed, and a piece flung forward and attached itself to Spenser. He felt it wrapped around him and sink in.
Blink.
The world reset. Spenser sat crossed-legged opposite the chief. He reeled. “What the…”
The Chief looked up from his bushy bench of a brow and smiled toothlessly. “You’ve returned alive, I see.”
Spenser looked from the Chief to the lump on the floor. The witch lay face down.
The Chief continued. “Yol gave her life to give you eyes that are not eyes.”
Spenser said, “I don’t know what happened here, but I gotta go.” Already, he felt the tether, the direction, the proximity. She had given him a sixth sense.
The Chief watched him go but made no move to stop him.
Spenser found it night and saw Daz talking to those around a fire like they were old buddies, their breath fogging. He pulled him aside at his first chance to relay what happened. “Daz, of all things, a witch just blew my mind. She pulled back the veil so I could see the inner workings of this place.”
Daz smirked and searched his face for a joke lurking somewhere in there. “A witch? Are you all right?”
“Just focus. Is it possible we’re in a simulation?”
“No, I don’t think so. What kind of computer would it take? Look at the detail, it's perfect. I don’t think it’s possible, especially not in century or millennia time scales.”
“Okay, let’s say that’s unlikely; what about augmented reality? What if everything is a mix of what's real, and then our brains are networked to run simulations? That would make the technology within reach of hundreds of years of AI.”
“Maybe. You’re making no sense.”
Spencer leaned against the rock wall. “Okay, listen. I saw some shit. I thought they drugged me, but the experience was over like that. And even now, I can pinpoint exactly where the Black Mage is as sure as a bird knows the direction to migrate. How else do you explain if there isn’t a digital layer over reality, magic?”
Daz leaned on the wall next to him. “I get you’re point. Let’s act under the assumption that you’re right. Do you think she gave you an advantage?”
“Yeah. I can steer us clear of it, and it won’t catch us by surprise. I should be overjoyed, but I can’t help but think there’s something terrible behind all of this.”
The next day, the sun filtered into the canyon. The ice dripped along the shelters like a constant drizzle, wetting the platforms. Mists clung to the shaded hallowed until late morning. Ben sat in the sun. Without power, he had wilted, but now he was like a flower in the sun. He hummed some old human tune.
Luna remained the biggest dilemma. She was in good spirits but was not in great shape to walk. After Spenser debated with the group for hours, they decided to pull her on a makeshift sled over the stream at the bottom of the canyon. Ado agreed that it would help them until they reached the basin's center, but that wasn’t a sixth to their destination. However, an ice river may get them south, at the risk of being easy to find by the hunter.
Ben helped design a wooden peg leg for her, but she would be too sore to wear it for some time. And the healers had packed it with a slimy concoction and wrapped it. Spenser spent the whole morning by her bedside and assured her they wouldn’t leave her. She had a fear they’d promise to take her but then slip away and leave her to become part of a Neanderthal clan.
She grabbed his shirt. “I’ll get around fine in a few days. And you saw how I shot that damn monster. I can be useful.”
Spenser held her hand in both of his. “There’s no way I’m leaving you. Not a chance in hell.”
Unfortunately for everyone, but Luna most of all, the time to go arrived sooner than expected.
Before the whistles and chatter of an enemy nearby, he’d already sensed the Black Mage. Now, they needed to climb down to the bottom of the canyon and depart unnoticed. The tribe bristled with spears and prepared to drop rocks. They would lose many if he didn’t leave, and they still might. But he feared their blood would paint the canyon walls if it saw him and they stood in its way.