6:10
Laughing under her breath, Siobhan put her hand on the square symbol. The lack of explosion was gratifying and it led her to press the triangle and then the circle again. There was a clunk sound from the wall and then a whooshing as a chunk of the wall slid forward like it was on rails and then glided back along the curve, revealing another exterior staircase built behind the wall they were facing.
Ivan moved over to the wall and peered behind it, at its side, and then stooped to look at where it met the floor. “Cool. It’s a kind of hydraulic system. Never seen one like it.”
He pulled out a notebook and drew a quick schematic of the device before tucking the book away. Siobhan jerked her head toward the staircase. “Lights in the front? Dempsey?”
“Yes?”
“Can you hold the dark stuff back with your crystal then dim it enough to use as a regular light.”
“It mostly just turns on and off.”
“Okay. So hold back the darkness until everyone except-”
“Me,” Dan said waving the alchemy light he still held.
Siobhan nodded. “Everyone except Dan gets to the stairs. Ivan, you go first with your light. Patti you follow him with yours. Prairie? You and Dan take the back with the lights you have. The rest of us will cluster towards the center. Good?”
The group stated their agreement and the configuration was formed with Ivan and Patti in the lead and Dan and Prairie taking up the rear. Siobhan and Gwen walked right in front of Dan and Prairie, with their backs touching, so the two with the lights could walk backwards and keep the darkness back. In this way they ascended the stair without any further interference, stepping off the landing into a circular room lined with books. Dan and Prairie stood at the top of the stairs, training their lights down. Siobhan eyed the landing, waiting for their exit to be sealed off. When after a few moments nothing happened, she shrugged and turned to the rest of the group which ranged around the room.
It looked like a plush library, the kind you’d find in a private academy or university or possibly in the cushy home of some minor royal. It was hard to tell the color or condition of the furniture in the uneven light of the alchemical torches. The entirety of the round room was lined in curving bookshelves that had to have been custom-made for the space, with no windows to let in light that could damage the tombs. And on those bookshelves was such a wealth of books that it made Siobhan’s fingers itch to explore. Dan seemed to be in some kind of euphoric state, playing his light over the shelves, pulling out a book and fanning it, then replacing it for another and another. Siobhan understood the impulse!
Ivan was leaning his head out a door in the wall opposite to the one they’d entered through, craning his neck to the left and directing his light into the darkness. Patti was leaning against the frame of the entry, gently sliding her fingers over Sass’ head where it popped out of her cleavage.
Ben idly leaned over and looked under the various chairs and tables scattered in conversational groupings throughout the space, giving each piece a second or two’s scrutiny before gliding over to the next. His feet made no noise on the plush carpet, though they did release clouds of dust as he moved.
Gwen had taken a seat in a cushioned chair and was idly rubbing at her calf below the neat slice in her cargoes made by the whip of darkness. Kim was leaning against the arm of another, her free hand deep in her pocket as she dropped her head back to squint at the ceiling which had to soar two stories up. It was hard to tell in the dim light but it looked like it might be painted. The ceiling was shrouded in shadows, making it impossible to tell what the painting might depict.
“Everyone good?”
Dempsey slid a book he’d been looking at back into the shelf and nodded. “These are all alchemy reference texts.”
Siobhan perked up. “Really?”
She eyed the bookshelves. Eyed the landing where Prairie and Dan waited. Eyed the shelves again. Bit her lip and counseled herself against lingering. The whatever those things were still were behind them and they hadn’t found Llora yet. Much as she’d like to linger – for days – to look at the books, they had to move on.
She started to say as much when Kim cried out, “Fuck!” and jumped away from the chair with wide eyes.
“Something bit me. Ow.”
Gwen leaned towards her, “let me see.”
“It’s okay. Just-” she rubbed the back of her leg against the other’s shin. “It really-”
“Burns?” Gwen pushed up from the chair then dropped to a knee in front of Kim, reaching for her pant leg. “Let me see.”
Kim evaded her touch. “It’s fine. Don’t-”
Gwen drew in a sharp, pained breath and jumped up.
“Damn it, Gwen!” Kim snapped. “That’s what I didn’t want you to do!”
Standing on one leg to massage the ankle of the other, Gwen eyed the shadows under the chair she’d vacated. “I don’t think we’re safe in here. Can we keep moving?”
Even as she said this Ben let out a yelp – a manly one, of course – and stood up abruptly from the table he’d been looking under. As he did so a tongue of darkness licked out from beneath the table and snapped around his wrist, then slithered beneath the cuff of his jacket. There was a sense of surging from beneath the table and then Ben went stiff.
Patti cried out from the door she was propped against, slapping at the back of her boot then snatching her fingers back with a cry. “Ohhwww.”
She cradled the hand against her chest, just below where Sass rested and then laid the other hand holding the alchemical light over it. In its blue-green glow blisters could clearly be seen to be forming on her skin. She panted through the pain and rocked against the bookshelf.
Siobhan in the middle of the room darted her upper body around, trying to take in a panoramic view of the space. Gwen and Kim jumped away from the chair then Gwen rushed over to Patti to look at her hand. Prairie, who had been standing on the landing of the entryway pointing her light down the stairs suddenly spun in a full circle, flailing the light beam in a three-sixty degree arc as darkness surged from the walls and up the stairs and started flowing up her boots. Dan kicked at the darkness, probably from instinct. His boot went right through it, then he let out a bellow and swung his light down in a hard chop towards the wedge of darkness that had arrowed at his leg.
And Ben stood perfectly still in the center of it all. His breath was slow and even, a counterpoint to the yelps and sounds of rushing feet as the others reacted to the sudden surge of darkness from out of the bookshelves, up the stairs and- Siobhan twisted her head to the side to look at the second stair Ivan had stuck his head out to explore in time to see a wave of black flow over Ivan, coating his feet, legs, and torso in a viscous mass of swimming darkness. It trapped his hand with the alchemical light by his side, completely engulfing the glow.
“Dempsey!” Siobhan yelled, “Get into the center of the room and get your crystal ready!”
She lunged for Ben, grabbing him by the shoulders, and attempted to turn him to face the bookshelves. With studied grace he shifted his shoulder, yanking it from beneath her hand with tensile strength, then straightened his spine and looked down his nose at her. It was hard to tell his expression in the dim light from the edges of the room, but his posture seemed wrong.
Where Ben usually sat low-in-the-pocket, his center of gravity somewhere below his hips with his weight dropped back into a not quite slouch that allowed him to adjust his stance quickly, now he pulled up, more like a ballet dancer who reached for the heavens with the crown of his head. Everything in his body aligned on this pole, so that Ben seemed to almost drift from the floor with his shoulders back and his chest out.
“I would ask that you take your hands from, madame.”
Dempsey stopped close to Siobhan and Ben, though back enough he could raise his weapon if he needed to. He held out the crystal even as he ran his gaze over Ben. “Do you want me to activate this?”
“I’m not-” Siobhan snatched a glance for Ivan. Patti had dropped back, eyes wide in the glow of her light.
“Patti?”
At her question, Patti slowly answered, “Yes?”
“Can you come over here?”
“I don’t know.” Patti continued to look at Ivan. “Maybe I should stay with Ivan?”
The lift of her voice at the end made it a question. Even as she spoke the goo encasing Ivan pulled away and he shifted his stance. The angle of his chin was wrong, head erect on a stiff neck as he shifted his gaze around the space.
“Patti?” Siobhan tried real hard to keep the snap out of her voice. “Please. Come here. Now.”
Patti nodded hard, her eyes wider than a jack-o-lanterns and carefully backed away along the curve of the bookshelves until she was about three feet from Ivan and then scampered towards the center of the room while keeping her light trained on Ivan.
“What the fuck is going on?” she muttered to Siobhan as she settled next to her.
“Not sure yet,” Siobhan said out of the corner of her mouth.
Ben lifted his hand and pressed two fingers to the side of his mouth and contemplated them with a half-lidded stare that was equal parts assessment and condescension. The light of Patti’s alchemical torch from beneath lent the look a diabolical air that had Siobhan taking a step back from him.
A subtle sneer lifting the corner of his mouth, Ben cocked his head and sauntered over to where Ivan was coming out of whatever frozen state had seized him. Ivan rested his arm against the door jam at shoulder height with his hand flopping forward and leaned into the wall.
Kim and Gwen slid up quietly next to Dempsey and Patti, their gazes largely on the two men standing in the opposite door.
“Why weren’t they burned?” Gwen asked.
Siobhan shrugged.
Kim squinted into the dark. “Why are they acting like the jackass male leads in an Austen movie?”
“Huh,” Prairie drew out the sound as she walked in front of Dempsey and trained her light at Ivan’s waist. Dan stepped up next to Patti and crossed his arms in a way that allowed him to prop his fist on one arm and hold his light in a Guard’s ice-pick grip trained on Ben and Ivan.
“Huh?” Siobhan directed at Prairie. Prairie didn’t respond. Instead she swayed on her feet and hummed beneath her breath.
“Yeah, that’s not creepy at all,” Gwen muttered.
“Shh,” Patti intoned, pressing her finger to her lip, then started humming in a counter to Prairie.
“Squee” went Sass, tilting its head back against Patti’s chest and letting its eyes drift closed.
Then both Prairie and Patti jerked their heads abruptly and Sass twitched against Patti.
“Oh,” Prairie said on a dreamy air. “That isn’t Ivan and Ben.”
“The fuck?” Kim dipped to stare at Prairie.
“Well,” Prairie corrected in a sing-song voice that raised the small hairs on the back of Siobhan’s neck. “It’s Ivan and Ben, but it’s someone else too.”
“Well, that’s fucked,” Kim muttered between clenched teeth.
“How?”
To Gwen’s question, Kim said, “I’m betting the goo.”
“But why them and not us?”
“Penises?”
“Uh,” Dempsey grunted.
Kim waved a hand. “I am certain you, too, have the required organ.”
Dan snorted.
“So,” Patti said, “if it’s not dicks, what is it?”
“Rats,” Gwen said in a contemplative tone. Siobhan looked to her and she expanded. “They both sucked rat farts.”
Now Kim and Dempsey snorted. Prairie gave a strangled sound then giggled.
“How does that help us with our current situation?” Dan asked.
Gwen shrugged. “Depends. Do we want to join them? In that case we’ll need a farting rat.”
Before the group could explore the concept more, or completely contain their mirth, Ben spoke drawing their attention.
Holding out the collar of his shirt he looked down the front of it. “Such odd vestments.”
Ivan rotated his head, taking in his frame. “I find the fit of this shirt revealing. But this,” he gestured with the alchemical torch he still held, “is quite interesting.”
He held it up to his face. Shook it. Cocked his head and peered into the torch, making Siobhan wince in sympathy for his retinas. He held it out to Ben, “What do you make of this?”
Ben pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, holding the other fingers furled like a cock’s comb. He raised it to his eye level. Gave it a delicate swirl. “Hmm. Sphalerite or wurtzite and sodium bicarbonate combined with acetic acid suspended in a fluid. Potentially hydrogen peroxide.”
Kim leaned around Dempsey to look at Siobhan who looked right back with a note of consternation. Because that was really close to her formulation and he parsed that in about two seconds.
“Hmmm.” Ivan took the vial back from Ben and slipped it into his pocket, then turned on his heel and stepped through the door into the darkness beyond.
“Do wait for me, won’t you?” Ben called as he hurried after Ivan.
Darting looks of confusion, consternation, and concern at each other, the rest of the group wasted no time moving over to the doorway with Dan walking backwards to sweep his light at the darkness encroaching behind them and Prairie and Patti taking the lead with their lights.
Luckily Ben and Ivan were taking their own sweet time climbing the stairs so the group was able to catch up. The shadows darted in from the sides, getting a few more licks in on Siobhan, Kim, and Gwen’s ankles. Stung like, huh- Siobhan’s mind started to break down the reaction on her skin. It felt like what you might get if you combined salt and ice.
There’d been one of those stupid challenges a few years back where people were dared to put salt on their skin and then place ice on it. A number of her kids had tried it and gotten second-degree frostbite. The yellowing of the skin where the darkness touched, combined with the blisters, suggested a similar response.
But, she frowned at Ivan and Ben’s backs, if it was a purely chemical or alchemical response why didn’t Ivan and Ben get burned? As men they were more likely to have salt from sweat on their skin. It wasn’t sexist, it was science. Men sweated more than women. Experiments done on male athletes injected with estrogen showed they sweated less during subsequent exercise. So, theoretically if the darkness was applying extreme cold, similar to ice, with its touch then Ben and Ivan should have been burned.
Gwen might have something with the rat flatulence. Perhaps something in the emissions caused them to sweat less. It was certainly an effect she’d witnessed a number of times while studying the effects of hallucinogens.
So, it might explain the not burning. But not the personality change or Prairie’s suggestion they were Ben and Ivan but also not.
Siobhan called up to Prairie. “Is the darkness Spiritus?”
“Not so I can tell.” Prairie said slowly. “But maybe. I haven’t seen every kind of Spirit but it doesn’t feel like Spiritus in the sense that I’ve experienced it before. In the sense there isn’t a feeling of individuals. More like an amalgamation.”
“Then what’s in Ben and Ivan?”
“Something new.” Prairie’s voice lifted slightly. “Isn’t it exciting?”
Kim dodged the slash of a spill of darkness coming out of the stair at her feet and slanted Siobhan a glance. “So exciting. Can’t- Ah!” she hopped another shadow, “contain this excitement.” Flicking her pointer finger off her thumb, she pegged the shadow that was sneaking out of the wall to Gwen’s right with a fireball the size of a marble. The darkness receded with a faint sizzle. “Take it!”
The climb was blessedly short, opening up at the top to another tower room, this one set up as an alchemy lab with benches built into the curved walls.
Ivan and Ben were at one of the benches. Ivan had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He’d also apparently uncapped the alchemical light and was now holding it over the flame jet of a burner.
Without thinking, Siobhan dashed across the space, determined to stop him from either releasing chemical fumes which could burn the mouth or throat or worse superheat the substance causing it to explode. Darkness rushed at her from all sides, burning minute pinholes in her shirt and pants. She dropped back into the small circle of light created by Patti, Prairie and Dan’s alchemical torches.
Unable to physically halt him, she screamed “Stop!”
He didn’t stop.
“Do you think they can hear us?” Patti asked.
Gwen shrugged. “Don’t know. Prairie?”
“I’m not sure.”
Siobhan surged forward, grabbing Patti’s arm to get her to move forward with her light. “We have to stop him. That mixture can explode.”
“Of course it can,” Patti muttered. She moved forward at Siobhan’s pull and the rest of the group moved with them, holding their formation against the darkness.
They were just a moment too late. The liquid in the tube flared brighter and then there was a popping sound followed by thick fluid burbling out of the top of the vial. Ivan, or whoever was inside Ivan, dropped the vial with a laugh and shook his hand.
“Almost lost a finger there!”
Ben/Not Ben grunted. “You always were an over-exuberant boob.”
“Science is no place for caution!”
“Apparently also no place for ten fingers.”
“I’ve done just fine with eight for years.” Ivan spread his big hand, turning it over to examine the front and back. “Although this vessel does have ten. Bonus!” He turned his hand over again, admiring the fingers. “I could get used to this!”
“Oh,” Gwen surged forward with her plunger raised, “You will not get used to this!”
Kim thrust her arm out, shifting a little so she hit Gwen’s chest and didn’t clothesline her. “I realize I’m usually not the one arguing caution, but what do you think that’s going to do?”
Gwen poked her lower-lip out. “Express my outrage?”
Kim shrugged. “Valid. Other than that?”
“Nothing.” Gwen looked down, her lip poking out further.
“We should probably do something,” Dempsey said, tightening his hold on his shield. “The darkness seems to be getting a little less scared of the lights.”
Siobhan looked at the floor and the walls and the darkness which definitely was drawing closer to the lights which Dan, Patti, and Prairie slashed at it.
“Ideas?” she threw out.
“Exorcise them?” Prairie ventured.
“Can you do that?”
“Probably. But I don’t know that will keep the darkness from surging into them again. It might be like emptying a sinking boat with a bucket. The water will probably just flow back in.”
“Hey!” Gwen yelled towards Ben and Ivan. They kept talking to each other and appearing to not notice the group at all.
“Hey!” she yelled again louder.
Ben stopped talking to Ivan, turned and glared at Gwen. “You are incredibly rude.”
Gwen, who really hadn’t expected a response, but whatever, worth a try, yelled back, “Well, I think you are pretty incredibly rude to be all jumping into my friend’s body like you did so – we’re even!”
“You are very obnoxious.” Ben turned his back on Gwen, going back to doing something on the bench.
“Hey!”
Ben turned back. “All this ‘heying’ is disturbing my concentration. Can you please stop?”
“Bite me!” Okay, it wasn’t the most mature response, but it was genuinely what Gwen was feeling and usually it just made sense to say what she was feeling or she might explode or something. Empathic Magick was a real pain. Literally. Try being the conduit for the flow of feelings some time and then they could talk about bottling up emotions.
Whoa.
She was arguing with herself again. Darn. Gwen shook her head. Time to get back on track here.
“Hey!”
Again Ben turned and gave Gwen a look that dripped with condescension. Like that would stop her. Amateur!
“What do you want?”
Ivan turned from what he was doing and gave Gwen a measuring look. “Well, that is an interesting question. No one has ever asked us that before.”
“There’ve been others?” Siobhan asked.
Ben flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. “Of course. And none of them were of any assistance. Which is why we decided to seize the opportunity ourselves this time.”
“The opportunity for what?” Prairie leaned towards them, cocking her head as if she was reading something no one else saw on the air. And perhaps she was.
Ivan smiled. “To free ourselves from this state. To truly transform to Spirit.”
Siobhan smiled, a knowing smile. “You were attempting the Magnum Opus. And you failed.”
“We didn’t fail,” Ben started, then tapered off, looking to the side, “we just didn’t succeed.”
“Nigredo.”
At Siobhan’s suggestion, Ivan nodded. “We’d managed multiple phases of the transformation and then…” He furled his hand at the darkness. “Nigredo.”
“Nigredo is blackening,” Siobhan explained to her group. “It is the phase of the great work, the Magnum Opus, where complex things decompose and reduce and break down to their basic components.”
“How does that amount to this?” Kim waved her hand at the oozing darkness.
“I’m not certain. It’s all theory. But,” she directed this at Ben and Ivan, or whoever it was that was in Ben and Ivan, “really awesome.”
“Very much so.” Ivan nodded his head, his features transformed by a mixture of excitement and discovery. “Quite ‘awesome’ indeed.”
“So,” Siobhan ventured, “Is one of you female?”
“Of course,” Ben said, “Who would try the Magnum Opus without a male and a female? That is just-” he seemed to search for a word, settling on, “ridiculous.”
“So,” Siobhan gestured at the area around her group, “the darkness is…?”
“Matter that failed to purify and therefore Rubedo was not attained.”
Prairie pushed forward and waved. “Hi, I’m Prairie.”
Ben frowned. “We’ve met.”
“No. We’ve talked, but we haven’t met.” She nodded emphatically. “So, I’m Prairie. And you are?”
“I am-” Ben stopped. Frowned. Looked to Ivan. Something light flashed across his dark eyes for a moment, a subtle sheen like oil on water. Then he said in a slow voice, “Uncertain.”
Prairie “hmmm’d”. “Have you been here a long time?”
“What is time?” Before Prairie could hazard to answer, Ben gave a negligent wave of his hand. “It is merely a construct. An obstacle to overcome.”
“That’s-“ Prairie paused, nodded. “Okay. I lack the understanding to argue that. It is interesting and,” she grinned, “time willing I might like to discuss it but, unfortunately, we just don’t have the time right now. There is a young woman who was abducted who we need to help. And to do that we need my friends Ivan and Ben who you, at the moment, are inhabiting. So, I’d like to ask what your purpose is and how we can help you achieve it, so that you can vacate my friends.”
Stopping she smiled at Ben then turned and did the same to Ivan.
“We need to-” Ivan stopped abruptly and frowned.
“We need to complete our work!” Ben snapped.
“Yes,” Ivan nodded. “That.”
“And your work is?” Prairie prompted.
Ben straightened and gave her a haughty look down his nose. “Immortality!”
“Oh,” Prairie brightened. “But you’ve already attained that. You have, in fact, always had it.”
Ivan blinked. “Your pardon?”
“You are consciousness, energy if you prefer, inhabiting a shell. And that consciousness is immortal. I could show you?”
Ben scowled. “That seems a great deal of metaphysical nonsense to me.”
“But, it isn’t.” Prairie held her hand out to Ben. “Really. Let me show you?”
Ben eyed Prairie’s hand, his posture with shoulders set back and head cocked projecting skepticism. Ivan made the decision for them both, grabbing Ben’s hand in his left and Prairie’s in his right. A look of calm and then of wonder transformed Ben’s face. A sheen like oil on water, rainbow dark, flowed over his eyes, obscuring the pupil.
“Well, what a waste of a life!” he uttered and then went limp, falling to the floor and pulling his hand from Prairie’s. Ivan fell beside him, his face set in waxen lines for a second before his eyes snapped open and he looked into Prairie’s face where it hovered a scant distance from his.
“Whoa!” he said in Ivan’s usual tones. He started to say more but darkness snaked across the floor and flowed over him. It did the same to Ben.
“We’ll have none of that!” Prairie intoned and grabbed hold of their hands again, forming a circuit between the three of them. Ben’s eyelids closed. Opened. Revealed fine threads of iridescences swirled over the surface of his eyes, chasing each other in undulating waves of orange and cyan, fuchsia and gold like his eyes were living labradorite. Prairie got lost in the swirl, letting it carry her effortlessly into Spiritus where she found swirls upon swirls of the colors forming a new layer.
Two cords, thick and textured like umbilicals, flowed back into the Real. They pulsed like a heartbeat, each contraction chasing knots of color beneath their surface. Prairie glided her fingers along the cords from the point they entered Spiritus to where they merged with the new layer of the plane.
It was like nothing else there. Tissue thin and yet clearly made up of multiple levels, like mica. In the very center of it bright white pulsed, becoming more and more prominent the more colors poured through the cords and into the layer until eventually the flow of color slowed and the tone of the layer settled into something resembling a geode, the center bright white layered over by translucent swirls of pink, blue, and gold. Deep, deep in the heart of the white small red specks glinted, adding to the opalescence.
A soft smile curved her lips as she reluctantly stepped back to the Real to find Ben and Ivan’s hands still clasping hers hard and their eyes, their normal dark shades, meeting hers. Her smile deepened, the glow of the beauty from the Spiritus lighting her from within.
The floor they sat on, previously black from the ooze that was the residue of untold lives suspended in transition, was now the standard grey of flagstones. There was no additional light in the room. It was still lit by the three alchemical torches. Yet, it was definitely lighter. As was Prairie’s heart as she rose from her stoop and stretched her back.
Ben slowly pushed himself off the floor with his arms and made similar adjustments of his back, followed by the stretching of his arms over his head with fingers laced together. Ivan grabbed the edge of the alchemy bench nearest him and pulled himself up to stand, then cracked his neck.
“That was-”
Ben finished Ivan’s thought, “Weird.”
Ivan held his hand in front of him, furling his fingers. “Phantom finger syndrome. Or something. Doesn’t feel like these are mine.”
Prairie patted his arm. “It will get better.”
Ivan stared at her. “Is this how you feel when you do that?”
“I’ve never, exactly, done *that*,” Prairie shrugged, “but, sort of?”
“Damn, girl.” Ivan shook his head, curling his hand into a fist.
“I have so much sympathy for puppets now,” Ben muttered, rolling his shoulders and dropping back into his usual low stance. “My back feels-”
“Weird.” Ivan nodded. “Same. Like my spine is made of an elastic polymer.” He gave himself another minute to readjust to being back in his body or the only one in his body or… whatever, then turned to the group and met Siobhan’s eye. “Let’s keep going.”
“You okay?” she asked.
Ivan hesitated, then said, “Sure.”
What else was he going to say? That he felt like a guest in his body; like a person in a foreign land looking around at the hostel room with the bunk beds that would be his home for a day or two?
He grabbed his jacket off the bench and pulled it on. “We should get going. We still have a girl that needs rescuing.”
Enter The Woods 