Five
They proceeded cautiously if not completely quietly down the hall, the sounds of their combined voices singing binding them together as a group and also to the story. The tapestry Dan kept catching a glimpse of from the corner of his eye pulsed to their voices, confirming his theory that their singing was connecting them to the story.
He sang the next line below his breath. As he murmured about being touched deep inside he felt something tug at him. His Magick swelled, pressing at the confines of his skin, and a glittering tendril of the Story flowed from the tapestry and attached between his eyes. Panic surged for a moment. He fought his natural urge to slash at the tendril and let the story bind to his Magick.
The words of the song pulsed through his Magick and his skin and his veins. Fuck. Why did the song seem to be speaking directly to him? To his Magick? Was that hubris or a mind-fuck or was that actually happening?
The words left his mouth and wound into the story and it responded with the next line.
Part of him screamed “Back away!”, but the rest seemed to open, to blossom beneath the touch of the stronger, deeper, darker touch of a Magick that might be the next evolution of his own or possibly even the original source of it.
As the song around them swelled into the chorus the hall opened into a large room. To the left of the door a sign hung that read “Where a Harp is kept.”
The cloud cover was lower here, swirling at around ankle height to reveal glimpses of a black and white checked marble dance floor. In the center of it stood a figure dressed in gold. it’s head was thrown back, mouth open, and from it poured song. Strands of gold radiated from the figure in key locations – forehead, throat, heart, groin, shoulders, wrists, hips, knees, feet – attaching to the walls and feeding Song into the tapestry.
Dan looked quickly to the others to determine if they saw the same or it was a product of his Magick. Gwen, Siobhan, Ivan, and Ben walked right through the lines on their way towards the Harp, but Prairie stopped and gently traced her hands over one.
“Pretty,” she whispered.
Dan moved up next to her. “You see them?”
She nodded. “Like Spiritus but not quite. it’s beautiful.” Her tone dropped. “It looks a bit like something I read about. The cord that connects Spirit to flesh. I’ve never seen it but I imagine it looks like this. Only not so many.”
“I think it might be that, but co-opted by Story. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
The eyes she lifted to his suddenly glinted with tears. “If your Magick has hijacked Spirit, no. It isn’t a good thing. it’s a violation. A little like rape. No,” she shrugged and offered a weak smile, “A lot like rape.”
The Harp stopped singing as the crew drew close, stopping a short distance from it as if by consensus. it’s form was humanoid, it’s face the same, but it didn’t seem to hold a consistent shape. Instead it shifted, sometimes petite as Prairie and at others topping Dan’s height. It was round, it was thin, it was sharp and in between. And it’s face held both male and female features at once, some exotic amalgam from a fantasy world where wishes sparkled like diamonds and were traded like pennies.
Prairie walked directly up to it, standing only a few inches distant. It reduced to her height so they were looking eye-to-eye. “Are you trapped here. Do you need help moving on?”
It lifted a hand with long, expressive fingers and brushed Prairie’s cheek. it’s smile, a combination of welcome, longing, and subtle pain. And it said nothing.
Prairie placed her hand over the one on her cheek. “I will help you.” Quiet conviction rode on her words and underlying them was a thrum that spoke of the promise of her power. “But I need you to ask. I will not assume you are in distress if you have chosen this.”
The Harp rose a few inches in height and leaned forward to press it’s lips to the space between Prairie’s eyes. The pulsing lights which had travelled along the lines between it’s body and the boundaries of story drew back as Dan watched and then began to flow into Prairie. And any question that the others could see dropped away as Ben fell back with an exclamation and Gwen pressed her hands to her cheeks and exclaimed, “It’s beautiful.” Then amended, “I mean, it’s terrible…?” She darted a glance at Dan as if he had any authority to explain what was happening.
He nodded. “It’s beautiful.” Then he appended, his gaze assessing and reassessing Prairie for any signs of distress, “and maybe terrible. That sums up this entire thing really.”
Prairie opened her mouth and began to sing the first lines of The Church’s Under the Milky Way. Gwen darted a glance around, her wide-eyes skimming over each of them with a question apparent in their depths. Dan shrugged. Ben boggled. And then Siobhan stepped up and sang the next line.
Prairie – and the Harp – sang back about wishing to know what they were looking for. Another voice layered over Prairie’s blending flawlessly on the line about being peculiar.
“Wish I knew what I was looking for,” Siobhan altered the words of the song slightly, “Might have known what I would find.”
The Harp released Prairie and smiled. It had about it such a peace and beneficence that tears came to Dan’s eyes. As Prairie started crumbling towards the floor Ben dived in and caught her then lowered them both to sit in the swirling clouds. A smile almost as sweet and special as that of the Harp’s curved her lips.
She turned her head to look at the Harp. “I understand,” she said, her voice so low as to almost go unheard. The Harp began to sing quietly and Dan watched as the energy pulsed from it once more along the golden lines and into story.
Prairie closed her eyes, appearing to collect herself, then said, “We have to find an axe. A magic axe.” She stopped and whet her lips, closed her eyes, then continued, “Arfa says it was in here but something changed earlier today. It doesn’t know if the axe remains or if it was changed. They say a young man came through earlier and may have removed it.”
“Is Arfa the Harp?” Ben asked, tightening his arms around Prairie.
“Yes,” Prairie said. “And no. And I know,” she stopped to compose herself, once more closing her eyes. They waited as her eye lids twitched over the rapid movement of her eyes, as if she was reading something written on the darkness beyond the lids. Finally she opened her eyes once more and said, “that’s vague but this,” she waved her hand to encompass the area, “is vague. And pretty messed up.”
She turned her gaze up to the Harp which continued to sing. “I’ll find a way to help you.” Then she turned to Dan and gave a tired smile. “It’s all connected. Your thing and this thing and I’m not sure but a lot of other things. it’s…”
She sighed and pressed a hand to her temple. “My brain is so full right now that all it is in there is sound. Discordant sound. Maybe I’ll figure it out with enough time. it’s definitely your stuff and it’s definitely my stuff but I think there’s more to it and I’m not sure where it starts or where we start.” She pressed harder at her temple until Ben reached up and pulled her hand away with a murmured, “You are going to hurt yourself.”
Prairie pushed up from Ben’s hold, gaining her feet. She wobbled then caught herself, locking her knees. “That was trippy.”
“Super Trippy.” Gwen agreed. She jerked her head towards the entrance, her eyes wide as the sound of grinding mountains played through the room, “Fee Fi FoFarp. Someone’s playing with my Harp!”
“Oh, Crap!” Gwen exclaimed, yanking her plunger from the holster on her hip. She spared a quick look at Dan. “You have to get Prairie out of here. Maybe this isn’t Real and this turns out okay. Maybe it isn’t. But she’s got stuff in her head that may help and it seems like your Magick is involved too.”
Siobhan snatched several potion vials from her bandolier. “Gwen’s right. Go!”
“The Axe?” Dan snapped as he put his arm around Prairie’s shoulders and drew her close to his side.
“We didn’t come here for an axe,” Siobhan replied. “We came for information and we found it. Take Ben with you. Ben,” She directed to the other man, “Keep your eyes open on the way out. If you see an axe grab it. Otherwise, your job is getting them out of here.”
Ben split his attention between the giant that had entered the room and Dan and Prairie.
“Ben,” Siobhan snapped. “That is the best use of your resources. Go!”
She pushed him towards Dan and Prairie. “Get to the side, stick to the shadows, and when we make an opening get out of here.”
“You aren’t my boss!”
“No. I’m your friend. If Dan is right and this isn’t real then we’ll see you soon. If not, it’s been great.”
Ben dashed across to where Siobhan stood and grabbed her face in his hands, staring into her eyes. Then he did the same to Gwen, who jerked her chin and snarled, “Gross!”
Her gaze was already on the giant, intense and focused, but her lips quirked slightly.
That out of the way Ben summoned up a ball of shadow and hurled it across the room, directing the giant’s attention away from the patch of darkness he hustled Dan and Prairie into.
As the giant advanced, club at the ready, the Harp – Arfa – started singing Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now.
Ben mouthed the line about running as fast as he could as he held an arm across Dan and Prairie, as if he could shield them with his shadow.
As the song hit the line about getting away into the night Siobhan and Gwen dashed in, each from a different side of the giant and struck simultaneously. Siobhan’s explosive potions hit true, bursting on the shoulder and face of the giant and Gwen landed a walloping blow on it’s lower back that had it spinning in her direction.
No time like now, Ben thought, and grabbed Prairie’s hand. Prairie grabbed Dan’s and they ran as hard as they could towards the opening to the room and then kept dashing through the long hall, clouds swirling around their ankles, then their knees, then their hips as they forged their way towards the door they had entered to start.
Arfa sang through the walls, speaking of being alone with only the sound of their hearts beating. Arfa couldn’t have been more right, Ben thought as his pulse thundered in his ears. That was until he heard Gwen cry out loudly, “Siobhan!”
Fuck! Damn it! Ben almost stopped. Almost turned around. But he kept going because Siobhan was right. This was the best use of their resources. Fuck!
Still, he whispered, “Feels wrong to leave the two healers behind.”
Dan didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t diminish their choice.”
Ben heard sacrifice but Dan was right. Gwen and Siobhan had made a choice to save them, just in a different way than they usually did.
Dan and Prairie raced ahead with Ben slightly behind. When they reached the fork that would lead to the door Ben hesitated, his gaze going down the hall to the two rooms they’d explored and the area beyond that they hadn’t. He could detour, try to find the axe. His gaze went to Prairie and Dan who had stopped running and were looking to him.
He jerked his head to get them moving, still considering his options, then he heard “Fee Fi FoDo, where’d the rest of those Jacks go?”
Well, that solved that dilemma. Ben ran towards Prairie and Dan, indicating that they should go. They did and they all dashed for the space between door and wall which, thankfully, was still there. If the three of them had needed to try to open it there’d have been no way they’d succeed.
As Ben pulled free of the space he twisted and flung three balls of shadow behind. He split his attention, part directing his feet as he dashed with the others towards the beanstalk and part guiding the balls to their target. Their impact thudded on the part of him that called the shadow and he yelled, “Go! Down the stalk. Remember the flying things.”
“Like we’d forget,” Prairie yelled as she yanked her daggers free. She then jumped into the clouds and Ben heard her feet hit the first leaf. “Whee!”
Dan turned and gave Ben an arch look and muttered, “Whee,” in a dry tone before he took dropped from sight.
What followed was a harrowing jump, drop, fall down the giant beanstalk. Sometimes they’d miss a leaf and their drop would lengthen before they’d hit another. At one point Prairie had to flail out with her daggers and dig them into the stalk to slow her ascent. From the clouds the leathery winged things with dragon teeth would swoop in and try to take bites out of them. Some Dan shot. Some Prairie stabbed. Some Ben picked out of the sky with shadow. One he missed and had to ram his fist into it’s eye, sending it spiraling off into the clouds.
As they fell they were accompanied by the repeating sound of Arfa’s song, with an echo of “alone” coming from the cloud. It was background noise, overridden by the rapid thump of hearts and the sawing of breaths through parted lips and the intermittent whomps of flying creatures taking a beating. They were probably halfway down when the beanstalk swayed – enough that Prairie and Ben had to grab onto the stalk as their feet were flung wildly into the air. From above them came the muffled sound of, “Fee Fi FoFed, Gonna Kill those Fuckers Dead.”
If anything could get them leap/fleeing down the stalk faster it was that. At that point it didn’t matter if the danger was real or not their brains had fallen into fight or flight mode before they ever hit the stalk and now all they could do was give into the instinct to get as far from the giant as they could as fast as they could.
As they neared the bottom they let out a collective breath of relief only to give varying responses of shock when they saw a young man they didn’t know at the bottom with an axe.
Ben released his hold on the stalk and dropped the six or so feet to the ground, his leg out to deliver a kick to the guy’s head, hopefully avoiding what appeared to be a really sharp axe. Prairie wasn’t far behind, her daggers held out like an anime heroine come to life. Honestly, what the guy saw flying at him should have both awed and terrified him. And Dan dropped solidly to the ground, planted his feet, and aimed his crossbows.
The guy neatly dodged Ben’s hit, swaying like a willow in a breeze, then bounded back in time to give Prairie a jaunty salute and a cocky grin.
“Sir,” he nodded to Dan, then took two step to the left, aligned himself with the beanstalk and reared back the axe. “If you don’t mind, I have a beanstalk to chop down.”
Wisely Dan stepped aside and let the guy get to his chopping.
Ben pointed and mouthed, “Axe.”
Dan mouthed back, staring at something that only he could see, “Jack.”
Prairie slid up next to Dan and whispered, “Jack. But not Jack.” Her eyes were narrowed in the same direction Dan’s were fixed. “Mal. I think. But not quite. This stuff is completely Jacked Up.”
Ben snickered then settled on watching Jack/Not Jack apply the axe to the beanstalk. One. Two. He didn’t know how many hit’s it took but eventually the beanstalk started tilting precariously. From above came the sound of a confused mountain range, “Fee Fi FoFon, What the Fuck is Going On?”
“You are screwed, my dude,” Ben fell into the rhyming naturally, smiling as the beanstalk finally toppled sideways then taking back that smile as a shadow the size of a rhino descended on them.
No way was that not going to hit them. Eyes wild, he bolted, as did Prairie and Dan. Jack/Not Jack didn’t flinch, keeping his eyes to the sky and apparently judging the trajectory of the giant. When the shadow was *that* close to overwhelming him, he took three careful steps to the left which put him in prime neck chopping territory as the giant hit the ground with enough force to jar teeth. Sliding in like a shadow, Jack/Not Jack vigorously applied his axe.
Ben was struck with the utter conviction someone had to have to do an axe-murdering. He wasn’t sure he had it in him, himself, but this kid seemed to be of a mind to get the job done. Thwack came down the axe. Thwack again and he was halfway through the dazed giant’s neck. At that point, with a fountain of black blood geysering from a carotid the width of Dan’s rather sturdy wrist and spraying Dan, Prairie, Ben, and Jack/Not Jack in a torrent of gore, it was pretty much a given the giant was a goner. But, apparently dedicated to the full act, Jack/Not Jack reared back for one mighty swing and cleaved the giant’s head from his neck.
At which point the blood stopped bursting, replaced by a wispy spray of words. It took a lot of words to make a giant. That spray had to have gone on for minutes while Dan, Prairie, and Ben stood watching in awe and Jack/Not Jack fell back on his ass with a dazed expression and the axe clutched tight in white-knuckled fingers.
Black letters flowed into the air, tracing the shape of the beanstalk back into the sky. As they did the blood coating the four flowed in a black cloud from their bodies, filtering into the air where it changed to words which then joined the current of the rest skyward.
The world seemed to shudder and then belch, like an animal shaking off water. A haze flowed over them, heavy as a blanket, and they fell to the ground unconscious.
Enter The Woods 