8:16
The novelty of running for the end of the platform and the opening door leading from darkness to light waned considerably by the third room and the third door. In fact the entire process, interesting as it was, of finding another picture frame with another transparent mirror and another two valves that manipulated another mirror and light combination in another room was getting tired.
Ben dropped his shoulders, pocketed the binoculars, and eyed the doorway. “You think this is the last one?”
Ivan rolled his head forward, brushing his chin back and forth against his collarbone to release the tension in his neck. “Like I know.”
Ben scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know how much more I have in me.” He eyed the area, dark with shadows. “The shadows are-” He shook his head, rubbed his jaw. “I think they are getting stronger the more light they consume. And there’s a lot of light here.”
“You still have a handle on them?”
“Sort of?”
Ivan turned so his back was to the wall, pressing his shoulder blades against the surface. “Maybe pull them back?”
Ben shook his head. “I’ve been trying. Figured I’d save some juice. They aren’t coming.” He raised his hand, directing it back down the darkened corridor and flexed his wrist and fingers. The shadows didn’t diminish at all. “See?”
“That’s bad.”
Ben nodded. “That is bad.”
“You ever lost control of them like this?”
There was a mikro pause, then Ben shook his head. “No.” Closing his eyes he pinched the skin above his mouth and between his nose.
“We gonna have a problem if we go on?”
Ben’s shrug was eloquent.
“Okay.” Ivan scrubbed a hand over his face and shifted to eye the lighted entrance at the end of the platform. “Logic says this should be the last. Unless there’s some kind of spiral effect we’ve covered three of four sides of the platform. I’m all for finishing this thing, but its your call at this point because without your shadows we can’t make this work.”
A sound came from the pit at the edge of the platform. In the shadows it was impossible to see where the drop started but Ivan was developing a sixth sense about its placement, like his mind was drawing a diagram, measuring distances, and marking the dimensions so he didn’t stray to far and tip over the edge. It helped to have the wall at his back. That gave a buffer of several feet before the drop, but it still helped his mind to draw the schematics. The sounds had started when they were working the second window. Quiet breathing. When Ivan pointed it out Ben had suggested it was just the shadows warping their breaths. Ben said sometimes it did that, if the shadows were deep enough they could swallow sound only to release it in a different area. Freaky shit. Ben said you got used to it. Ivan let it go because it was Ben’s Magick and Ben would know.
But still every time a sound came Ivan flinched. It was instinctive, like a kid clutching their sheet tight around their neck when a creak came from under their bed. It had been a long time since he’d seen his dad. The guy went out for a beer one night when Ivan was eight and never came back. To this day they didn’t know if he just headed to another town, the proverbial trip out for cigarettes, or was a victim of the kind of crime which was rampant in the neighborhood Ben and Ivan grew up in. Yet, in that moment, faced with the potential of danger lurking in the darkness, Ivan felt the need for his father to come in, bat at his shoulder, prepared to vanquish the monster under his bed. Or in the abyss.
Ivan stared intently into the darkness. “I heard it again.”
Ben looked up, gaze searching the shadows. “Is it still just breathing?”
Ivan let his eyes go soft so he could focus on his hearing. “I think so.”
“If it changes to words let me know.”
Ivan’s heart rate jumped several points. “Is that a risk?”
Ben rubbed his jaw, narrow-eyed stare fixed on the shadows. “Depends on what you consider a risk.”
“In this case that would be me asking if the shadows sometimes have voices. And if that’s a bad thing.”
“It would be a bad thing. If that happened. I’m not saying there’s a risk of it, just, if it happens let me know.”
“That answer does not reassure me.”
Ben just shrugged. “How about we try the door?”
Ivan spared one more look in the direction of the abyss then sidled along the wall towards the door, keeping his back in contact with the solid surface. “Good idea.”
The light from the door was a beacon, holding back the shadows in the corridor, if not the ones clouding Ivan’s thoughts. One more room. If they were lucky and this wasn’t a spiral. It would be nice to catch a break and have this be it.
He shuffled along the wall then stepped back into the lighted corridor beyond, his left shoulder keeping contact with the wall while his attention went to the gaping maw of the darkness at the edge of the platform less than four feet from where he stood. Pivoting with his left shoulder as the pin he turned so he faced the dropoff then turned another ninety degrees so he was facing forward along the narrow, lighted hall. The corridor was blessedly quiet, the whispers left behind in the shadows in the section he left behind. Ben walked up behind him. The corridor was too narrow for them to walk side-by-side, unless they walked with their backs to the wall and that action didn’t appeal as it left them staring into the darkness past the edge of the platform and heightened the optical effect of the floor tilting at odd angles.
“I’ll be glad when we get out of here,” Ben murmured at Ivan’s back.
“You and me both.” As was the case in the other three walls of the large cube in the center of the platform, a transparent window surrounded by an antique frame sat mounted two-thirds of the way down the expanse of the wall to Ivan’s right. He walked up to it and squinted at the darkened glass before turning to Ben.
“Ready?”
Ben’s shrug spoke volumes. “Enough.”
With that he took a long, deep breath, closed his eyes, then formed his hands as if cupping a large ball. In the center of the space between his hands shadows coalesced, at first forming a small tight dark nucleus then slowly expanding, the edges of the sphere tattered and wispy curling beckoning fingers on the air. Ben took another deep breath and brought his hands in slightly, compressing the darkness, then he drew his hands out until his arms were stretched full out at his sides and the sphere of shadow expanded, pulsing in time to Ben’s heart which Ivan could clearly hear.
Ivan jerked a glance at Ben. That was new.
“Dude? You okay?”
Ben tensed his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded. “I’m fine.” His voice cracked and he swallowed hard then swept his hand up from the level of his hips to that of his ribs. The shadows flowed out and up, spreading over the light corridor like a spill of ink, flowing to meet the darkness of the pit at the edge of the platform. Ben shook himself. Not just his head. His entire body, then lofted his chin to indicate Ivan should move along the corridor to make room for Ben at the window.
The light of the alchemy torch swinging from Ivan’s belt made rough inroads into the darkness. For some reason Ben’s shadows didn’t touch its light, a fact Ivan was infinitely grateful for. The light of the torch was inconsistent, warping Ben’s features and his form so it seemed to ripple slightly. Ivan turned his head to squint at his friend.
The edges of Ben’s form wavered like a heat mirage and he didn’t think it was a trick of the uneven light. “Ben? Are you okay?”
Hazy Ben shook his head. “Sure.”
Ivan reached a hand out towards the rippling outline of his friend. “You don’t look okay.”
“I’m fine,” Ben snapped. “Focus on the challenge.”
Biting back a response, Ivan turned to stare into the mirror and the room revealed by Ben’s shadows. As with the other three rooms the room was bare except for a mirror and lamp mounted on the walls. In this room the mirror was almost directly across from them, angled diagonally across the corner where the right wall met the back one. The light was affixed almost directly above the transparent window looking into the room. It was aimed down so a pool of light formed directly in front of the transparent mirror.
Ivan turned his head to look at Ben and bit back a curse. With Ben closer to him it was clear the edges of his frame were transforming to shadow, like either the Magick was pulling from him to create more shadows or the shadows were pulling at him, possibly to do the same. They had to get this done. And now.
“Can you find the target?”
Ben pulled the binoculars out of his pocket and started to slowly scan the walls of the room. The last room the target had been almost directly next to the transparent mirror and it had been a bitch to aim the light to hit it correctly. They’d relied partly on the view through the binoculars and partly on blind luck to hit it. Concern that this room could be more of a challenge rose in Ivan’s chest as Ben’s survey of the room went from the right wall, over the mirror, swept the back wall without stopping, and then moved on to the left.
Ben bumped him, indicating he should move. Ivan had to fight to not flinch when instead of contacting his side the material of Ben’s jacket dissipated, the molecules of the fabric or what was passing for it dispersing to flow through the solid cloth of Ivan’s jacket so the two pieces of material seemed to meld together. As it was bile rose in his throat and he had to straighten his neck to swallow it quietly and not alert Ben to the state of his body.
“Here, let me just-” he turned so his back was to the mirror, then took several ginger steps forward, in the moment not sure if contact with the abyss was worse than contact with Ben. Sounds rose out of the darkness, heightened breathing. Maybe it was his, echoing back from the shadows. Maybe it was something more.
Just get this over with as fast as possible, he counseled himself, edging carefully to the left and around Ben. Ceding the entirety of the mirror to his friend, he took up a position to the left of the frame, closed his eyes for a mikro, then asked, “Do you see it?”
“N- Actually yes.” Ben stooped with the binoculars at an angle to the mirror, gaze focused on a point in the left wall a short distance from where it joined the front one. “I might. Look here.”
He gestured for Ivan to look into the binoculars. Ivan eyed Ben’s form from the side of his eye then slowly turned so he was facing the mirror and leaned sideways so his eyes were in the area of the binoculars. He didn’t actually press his eyes to the eyepieces. Instead he made encouraging sounds and then said, “Looks good.”
Then he slowly reached down to the valves and began to turn them, adjusting the mirror only slightly before manipulating the valve to position the light to point towards the right back corner.
“It’s weird,” Ben muttered.
Ivan didn’t stop in his work, just muttered, “Huh?” in a distracted tone. Apparently Ben took this as encouragement because he added, “It doesn’t look like the other targets, does it.”
Ivan, having not actually looked at it, could only grunt in agreement. “Am I close to hitting it?”
“Close. A little more to the left.”
Ivan made a slight adjustment. “Now?”
“A little down. No not that far down. Up a little. Now a bit to the right.”
Ivan didn’t need Ben to announce when he hit the target. The by now familiar sound of a door opening at the end of the platform cut the darkness along with the rectangle of light released by the door’s opening. Ivan took a hard step back to the right, away from Ben. His eyes assessed the condition of Ben’s body. It seemed to have unraveled more in the short time it had taken to hit the target and open the door. He swallowed down his concern and said in a steady voice he was pretty damned proud of, “Why don’t you pull back the shadows now?”
Ben pocketed the binoculars, then turned so his back was to the mirror. At this point his movement was fluid, more shadow than form. Ivan winced. Didn’t Ben feel that? Shit.
“Any time now.” He turned to press his shoulders to the wall and waved at the darkness surrounding them. “I’m going to need a long vacation at the beach after this. Nothing but sun, sand, and women.”
“Sun would be nice. Not so sure about sand. It gets in uncomfortable places. Damn-” Ben cut off on the curse.
“Not happening?”
“No. Let’s just get through that door.”
“Sounds good to me. Go ahead.”
Ivan hung back, waiting until Ben reached the lighted entrance at the edge of the platform then moving quickly to join him. Ben stood in the entrance, the light behind him making his form look like one of those silhouette pictures people cut out of black paper. The fuzzy edges were clearer in that light. Ivan hoped, real hard, Ben wouldn’t look down and see the state of his body. He cleared his throat, calling Ben’s attention to him. “Try again. Now that you have the light from the corridor.”
The look Ben laid on him questioned his sanity but to his credit he drew a deep breath and let it out then raised his hands to the level of his shoulders, fingers curved again like he was cupping a ball, drew another deep breath and pulled his hand inward until he appeared to be cupping a small sphere the size of his head. While the shadows around Ivan didn’t ebb the fuzzy edges of Ben drew back until what stood in the doorway was his friend, in his normal state.
Ben shook his head. “Didn’t work.”
Ivan nodded and swallowed what he wanted to say, instead offering, “Guess it didn’t. You see another mirror?”
Ben turned and walked through the door. Ivan took a mikro to collect himself then squared his shoulders and followed Ben.
“No,” Ben called back down the hall. “No mirror. A door. And a wall cutting across the hall.”
Ivan walked towards Ben, confirming that there was a wall stretching across the hall from the wall to the right to the edge of the platform. An entrance cut the wall where the other four mirrors had hung.
Ben looked back at Ivan. “Going in.”
Ivan would have called ‘careful’ but what was the sense in that? Ben was rarely that. Ivan followed Ben through the door, stopping short when he almost ran into Ben’s back. Ben stood just inside the door staring at the right wall. Ivan cocked his head to see over Ben’s shoulder, trying to catch an idea of what had stopped his friend. His hand automatically went to his sword, prepared to draw if it was a threat.
His eyes focused on the wall where the light narrowed on a rectangle of glass. It appeared similar to the other targets they’d aimed for an hit, subtle concentric circles etched on a glass surface. But this one had an ornate picture frame around it and behind the glass was the image of a brown-haired woman in a yellow dress. She was holding a box and staring intently down into it. The rectangle was small, probably no more than three inches tall and less than that wide. The detail the artist had rendered the image in was incredible considering the small surface they had to work with.
“I think we found the piece of the lamp,” Ben said.
“Looks like. You want to grab it?”
“Sure.” Ben walked over and ran his fingers along the ornate frame wrought in small pieces of glass cut to look like wood grain. Really, the details were nuts. Then he tilted his head to look at where the glass sat against the wall. He turned his hand so his knuckles were to the wall and gently ran his fingertip down the frame. It pulled away from the wall with a small sound of suction, falling into the hand Ben cupped beneath it. Pinching its edge between his fingers Ben slid the piece into one of the interior pockets of his jacket and announced, “We’re good. Let’s get out of here.”
Ivan nodded. “Let’s.”
Ben stepped out of the room and eyed the wall cutting across the hall. “You think there’s a way to get this open?”
Ivan stepped up behind Ben and looked intently at the wall. He crouched and examined where it met the floor, then rose and looked at where it joined the wall. Finally, he said, “No. Looks like we have to go back around.”
Back through the shadows he thought, casting his gaze around at the bright corridor. Because why make anything simple?
Ben lead the way around the cube, trailing a hand along the wall to the left and steering clear of the edge of the platform. Ivan followed. He couldn’t help focusing his eyes on the edges of Ben, squinting to see if the tattering effect repeated itself when they entered the first shadowy corridor. Thankfully it did not. Probably because the shadows there were already fully formed. Ben didn’t need to expand any Magick to call them, nor did he appear to try to dissipate them. Ivan didn’t even consider asking him to. He suspected the fuzzy form effect was not a good thing and he was okay not pushing Ben to do any more Magick just in case the effect repeated or got worse.
The sounds from the shadows were no louder nor more intense but they were there. The shallow sounds of breathing coming at times from the abyss, others from behind them making Ivan tense and jerk and fight to maintain his focus on the wall solid beneath his left hand and not on the yawning drop to his right. Ben wasted no time moving along the shadowed corridors. Ivan looked down at the torch hanging from his belt, illuminating his steps, its light giving him small comfort in the shadows. He looked at Ben’s back, considering offering him the light since it would help direct their steps but either Ben was okay walking with his hand to the wall as a guide or something about his Magick facilitated his movement through the shadows. One way or the other Ben made short work of leading them aroud the cube. Soon they came full circle, or square, running up against the wall across the corridor, to the right of which the stairs cut down into the dark and down from the platform.
Ben lead and Ivan followed down the stairs. He drew a deep breath as the window resolved itself at the bottom of the stairs, hanging on nothing by darkness. He only let the breath out after Ben stepped up onto the sill and then into the center of the maze beyond. Once Ben was clear Ivan stepped up and out, glad to leave the whispering darkness behind.
Only after his feet were firmly back on the smooth surface of the black-and-white marble tiles, the natural darkness of the space blanketing him, did he take a natural breath. Then frowned, looking around at the space. Where was everyone?
“I wonder where they went?”
Ben turned to look at him, halfway across the space to the table in the center. “Some are probably in the other windows. And someone is probably running around keeping Gryphon busy.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out the piece of the lamp they’d collected. “I’m going to put this in the lamp.”
“Sounds about right.”
Placing the piece of glass carefully on the table, Ben hefted himself to sit on its surface then pivoted to grab the piece before sliding towards the lamp in the center of the table. “Wonder if this is going to need something to make it adhere?”
“If it does I have something.” Ivan routed around in the bag still over his shoulder and pulled out a small tube of adhesive. He walked over to the table and slid it across the surface towards Ben. “Here.”
Ben grabbed the tube. “Thanks.”
With that he turned to the lamp. He looked at the shade then slid over so he the two rectangular blank spaces faced him. He held the piece of glass to the first one. It was the wrong shape and size so he moved to the second. The glass slipped into the gap, fitting perfectly. Ben pulled his hand back, leaving it hovering close in case the glass slipped.
Turning to Ivan he noted, “Looks like it doesn’t need adhesive. Soon as I put it in the right place it clicked. Like-”
“Magick,” Ivan finished for him.
Ben flicked a finger at Ivan. “That.”
They both tipped their heads back to look at the image projected on the sky. The portrait of the young woman now joined the harp and the mirror with the ribbon winding behind it, through the strings of the harp and the opening of the bracelet to tie the pieces together. The word ‘wish’ appeared across the bottom edge of the piece Ben and Ivan had recovered.
Ben looked at Ivan who shrugged then stared harder at the image. “The words must be in a color you can’t see until light goes through the glass.”
The sound of slow running came from the entrance next to the window Ben and Ivan had just vacated. They both turned as Kim and Patti came jogging through the break in the hedge. Patti’s face brightened when she saw Ivan and Ben.
“Hey. You’re back!”
Ben nodded and leaned back on his hands on the table. “We are.”
Kim stopped to hitch up her cargoes, settling the waistband, then looked at Ben. “You up to a run?”
Ivan answered. “Sure.”
Kim turned to Ivan and shook her head. “Not you. We need you to go into the window with the bird. Patti will explain.”
Patti looked at Ivan and cocked her head before waving at the window in question. “No rest for the wicked.”
“I guess not.” Ivan hitched his bag over his shoulder and moved quickly to the window before looking back to where Ben was hoping off the table. “You going to be good?”
Ben grinned. “Am I ever?”
This drew a snort from Kim as she walked around the table and headed for the original entrance to the center of the maze. She shot a look at Patti, jerking her chin towards the window. “Go. Ben and I’ve got this.”
“Do we?” Ben asked, sidling up next to Kim.
Kim shrugged and gave him a wry look. “Don’t we?”
“I’d question your faith but I am just that good.”
At this Kim laughed and shook her head, before looking at Ivan. Patti had already climbed in the window, but Ivan was hovering, his gaze on Ben. Kim lifted her brows. “Go. We really do have this.”
Ivan would have hesitated a bit longer. It felt wrong to leave Ben and Kim to be chased by Gryphon, but he could be a team player. Sometimes. Damn, it was hard giving up the decisions to someone else. Before he could reconsider and suggest he go with Ben Patti reached through the window, curled her hands in the shoulder of his jacket and yanked so he either went through the window or… went through the window.
*
“Sorry. I think my adrenaline is still up from running the maze.” Patti released Ivan’s shoulder and backed away. “Last time I ran like that I used one of Marcus’ knives to open a package. That man does not play when it comes to his knives.”
“Uh,” Ivan gave Patti a dubious look, “I can appreciate that.”
He turned and looked around the aviary, gaze going over grass and trees, then shifting to look at the birds in the trees, the birds drifting lazily in the air high up near the glass ceiling, the birds perched on benches, the birds enjoying the multiple bird baths scattered around the interior. Patti would say he eventually exhausted the birds he could look at but she wasn’t sure that was possible being there were so many birds but he did eventually stop his survey of the area and direct his attention to her.
He shifted his focus to Sass, curled where Patti’s shoulder met her neck. “Birds eat mice. Have any of these,” he swept his hand out in the vague direction of all the birds, “tried to eat Sass?”
Well, that thought hadn’t occurred to her until that exact moment. Patti’s eyes went wide and she placed a gentle hand on Sass’s head, half covering its ears. “Don’t listen to him. That totally cannot happen with these birds.”
That said, she turned to Ivan. “Sass understands more than you think.”
“Uh,” Ivan leaned over to speak directly to Sass. “Sorry.”
Sass lifted its head from where it had tucked it against Patti’s neck and gave a tentative ‘peep’. Patti read that as ‘the jury is still out, scary man’. She didn’t think she was projecting. Maybe she was projecting. It was hard not to when you were living with a potentially Magick mouse who had picked you as its potentially Magickal partner and then failed to give you any more guidance. You found yourself looking for subtle cues and maybe, just maybe, projecting. Sometimes. Whatever.
She gave Ivan the censorious look she expected Sass would have given him, had Sass the ability to embody censorious.
“So,” Ivan scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck and shifted to look at the environment again. “You said you’d explain why you needed me once we got in here?”
Patti pointed at a sparrow perched in the crook of the nearest tree. It’s eyes were trained on them. So were the eyes of a cardinal idly fluffing its feathers in a birdbath to their right. And those of a blackbird that drifted idly on an invisible stream of air before alighting on the back of a wrought iron bench. “It’s the birds.”
“I’m not an ornithologist. Why do you need me specifically?”
Ornithologist! That was the word!
Patti met the intent stare of the blackbird perched on the bench. Then she raised two fingers, pointed at her eyes, then reversed them to point at the bird. The bird stared back, unmoved.
Ivan followed Patti’s gesture, a confused look on his face.
“Do you see anything weird about the birds?”
“Weird?”
“We don’t think they are birds.”
“They look like birds.”
“Right. That was my initial thought. But Kim said Air says they don’t move like birds and Air should know. And then I sang a Song and a sparrow flew to me.”
“Is that normal?”
“Define normal?”
Ivan bobbled his head and pursed his lips. “Valid. Do birds normally come when you sing?”
Patti shrugged and threw up her hands. “Eh? Sometimes?”
Ivan nodded. “Interesting.”
“But,” Patti steamed on, “that’s not the point. The point is when I sang to the bird it sang back. In words.”
“Like,” Ivan held his hand up, opening and closing his fingers like a beak, “tweet tweet?”
“No, like, the next words to the song. Real words. Not tweet tweet.” The confusion, and dread, she’d felt when the bird had done that rose up in Patti again and seeped into her response.
Ivan turned to stare more intently at the birds. He shifted his attention from the sparrow, to the cardinal, to the blackbird, to the birds in the sky flying like birds flew. “Kim said Air said they aren’t flying like birds fly?”
“That’s what she said it said.” Patti tugged her earlobe. “And that’s really convoluted. But, yes. She says they don’t fly like birds. She guessed they might be constructs.”
“Why would she guess that?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Well, okay.” Ivan smoothed his goatee with two fingers then clicked his tongue, like he was thinking. Patti left him to that. After a meros or two Ivan turned back to Patti. “Can you sing and get one of the birds to come again?”
Patti shoved the top part of her hair up and over to fall to one side of her head. “I guess. I could. But I’m not going to try to make it do anything.”
Ivan gave her a steady stare. “That’s random.”
“Kim asked if I could make the bird do something. I told her if it was a real bird, which these probably aren’t, I could but I wouldn’t.”
Ivan nodded like he understood. “Because free will.”
“Exactly. Why was she a harder sell?”
“Figure her Magick is asking things to do stuff all the time and its stuff that doesn’t really fall into the parameters of having free will, if it has will at all.”
“Oh, yeah, I didn’t think about that.”
“Plus, she doesn’t always get how people interact with each other.”
“Oh.” Patti looked down and kicked dirt. “I really didn’t think about that.”
Ivan shrugged, like it was no big deal.
“You get used to it if you are around her enough. We spend a lot of time explaining basic human interaction stuff to her. She just doesn’t always think on the same wavelength we do.” His grin tempted Patti to share in his humor. “Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes its confusing.”
“I also kind of caught a feeling off her that maybe it had something to do with the people who kidnapped her.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Not sure.” Patti shrugged. “Just some of the questions she asked. It’s just a feeling. Anyhow. Yes, I can try getting one of the birds to come, if you need me to.”
Ivan turned his attention back to the birds before nodding. “I do. If we want to see if they’re constructs I’ll need to get my hands on one.”
“Are you going to hurt it?”
“If its a construct it can’t be hurt.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Ivan’s answer was slow. “Pretty sure?”
“That fills me with confidence.”
“I won’t know until we try. So,” he turned his attention back to the birds, “do your stuff.”
“My stuff?”
Ivan slanted her a look. “Yes. Your stuff.”
Patti heaved a sigh and focused on the closest birds – the cardinal, sparrow, and blackbird. In her sensible mind she got that her reluctance wasn’t to Ivan referring to her Magick so cavalierly. It was really centered in that moment when that damned bird had turned and sung words to her. Yes, she was repeating herself. Sue her. That shit was weird. Anyone who claimed they could move beyond it like no big thing was a liar.
Back to the point. She shoved her reluctance down, took a centering breath, and focused on the Magick flowing inside of herself. Magick, she directed, I need a bird to come to me. Not to force a bird to come to me. Just want to. What you got?
A Song filtered out of her subconscious, flowing through the Magick and her blood to her lips. She opened them and began to sing Little Bird by Annie Lennox.
The cardinal in the bird bath turned its head and pinned her with a black-eyed stare. She gulped and forced herself to not shy her gaze. Instead she projected her Magick into the Song, letting it flow through the air, her intent it fall on the ear of a bird that would be willing to approach.
The blackbird turned its head without moving its body. There was something not quite right about the movement, like a blackbird head wouldn’t turn that far. An owl’s head might but a blackbird? Yeah. Unease rose inside of Patti, riding below the flow of Magick. The Magick swelled, pushing down the sense of dread, burying it beneath the purpose Patti had given to the Magick.
Patti let another line play along her Magick. Rising on spindly legs, the cardinal shook the water from its feathers then spread them and took flight, heading for Patti. Instinctively she held out her hand as she continued to sing.
The cardinal alighted on Patti’s hand and, like the sparrow, it felt heavier than a bird should have felt. Not like, oh my, I could do curls with this bird. More like just a slightly off, foreign weight. The cardinal focused it shiny eyes on her, turning its head slightly to look at her over the left and then the right of its beak. And then it opened that beak and it sang, “But mama, I feel so low.”
The Song choked off on Patti’s tongue, the sense of wrongness swelling bigger than the Magick for a moment. But then the Magick expanded, overwhelming her discomfort, and she sang the next line with the cardinal.
The bright eyes of the bird shone brighter. Like there was a light inside of the bird and it was glowing bright enough to show through whatever dark material made the bird’s eyes.
Ivan leaned in, attention focused on the bird. “Do that again.”
Patti gulped and then sang and the bird sang back the next line.
“Will it sing on its own?” Ivan whispered. Patti shrugged and looked hard at the bird, not willing it to sing, because again bad, but kind of hoping it would? And it did. From its open beak the next line flowed, unprompted by Patti. Patti’s Magick surged inside of her. It felt like it was swelling, like bread dough, and it was going to bust through the shell of her. She felt the tug of it, connecting her to the bird. And as the bird sang that bridge pulled taut, a string connecting their essences, so the words felt drawn from her to flow out of the bird’s beak.
Patti’s hand rose of its own volition, pressing hard to the base of her throat. She clamped down on her Magick, imagined herself reeling it in until the chord stretched between her and the bird snapped, rebounding back on her so she stumbled back a step. The cardinal tightened the grip of its claws on her fingers, keeping its perch. Like the sparrow before it, the claws of the cardinal didn’t cut like Patti expected. They felt more like a clamp, strong but not biting.
She gulped and jerked her eyes to Ivan. Afraid of what might come out if she opened her mouth she just shook her head at him, eyes wide. He responded to her panic by gently reaching forward his hand to the bird. It looked at Patti then looked at Ivan’s hand, then looked at Patti again, its bright eyes intent. Patti nodded and looked at Ivan’s hand. Only then did the cardinal delicately step from her hand to Ivan’s.
Patti wet her dry lips with her tongue and drew a deep breath through her nose. The connection between her and the bird tugged at her breastbone as Ivan pulled back and held his hand up to his face so he could stare intently at the cardinal.
It stared back intently, bright eyes gleaming, when he raised his other hand and gently prodded at its breast. Instead of starting and flying away, like a normal bird would, it cocked its head and continued to stare. Well, Patti thought, that ain’t right. Maybe there was something to this whole construct thing.
“It might be a construct,” Ivan said, like he was reading her thought. “Nothing I’ve seen before. It seems to have all the structure of a regular bird,” he gently slid his finger down to run between its legs so he could prod delicately at its under body. “Feathers. What feels like musculature. But its too heavy for a bird this size.”
“I noticed that.”
“It shouldn’t be able to fly.”
“There are fat birds.”
“Not many. The average bird probably weighs a few ounces.” He lowered and raised his hand a few times. “I’d guess this one weighs a pound or more. Suggesting there is something besides feathers, muscles, and hollow bones working here.”
“It’s weird that it knows the song. Right?”
“Maybe?” Ivan cocked his head. “I couldn’t say. If its a Magick construct maybe it was made to mimic sounds.”
“It isn’t mimicking sounds. Its finishing the song.”
“Yeah, I noticed that too.” He stared at the bird another meros, then looked at Patti. “It is very interesting and I’m excited to find a construct this exacting, but why am I needed here?”
Patti raised her shoulders on a deep shrug. “Kim’s idea. I’m not sure.”
“If the goal is to find a piece of the lamp what does these birds being constructs have to do with that?”
“Again. Don’t know. Kim did ask if I could make the birds do things.”
Ivan’s expression settled into one of curiosity. “She did?”
“She did. I told her I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because its unethical.”
“Its unethical to make a wind-up toy do something?”
“Is that all it is?” The cardinal turned its head and looked at Patti. Patti gulped. “It doesn’t seem like that’s all it is.”
“I’ll admit it is a very advanced construct, but it is one. It isn’t alive.”
“I know it isn’t but there’s something inside of me that doesn’t understand how it can fly and sing and use a birdbath. Wind-up toys don’t do that.”
“They would if that’s what they were designed to do. There’s some Smiths I’ve heard that have tried with some success to make automatons that mimic the functions of living creatures.”
“Like robots in scifi?”
Ivan held up his free hand, fingers flat, and shifted them back and forth. “Kind of. Only with Smiths they’d be automatons or constructs not robots. They would, to some affect, have life. Well,” he frowned, “I’m not explaining that right. More like they would be animated by Magick.”
“That’s a thing?”
Ivan’s eyes clouded and his brow furrowed. “It is. But there are a lot of questions regarding the use of Smith Magick in that way. Some people say its just like creating a wind-up toy but instead of winding them up you power them with Magick. And I can see that. But others, me included, start to ask ourselves about the nature of what makes us animated. Is it Magick? Is it something else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Me neither. Which is why I haven’t played with automation, much. I’ve made what some would call robots, but those are very specific projects and usually involve a control of some kind.”
“Like a remote car or plane?”
“Exactly. Like the nulls have those Robot Wars. I’d love to see one of those. But-”
“Magick?” Patti offered.
“Yes. But Magick. They use electricity and circuits to design the mobility of their robots and they have controls that use technology like radio signals. I’d short those things out in a few meros if I was around them. The idea of those, though, is what makes some Smiths consider making automatons which can be animated using our Magick. But no one can create a power supply that retains Magick so all the attempts I’ve seen are unsustainable. Not like this little guy.”
He held up the bird on his hand for emphasis, then gently stroked his finger over the bird’s breast. It cocked its head and leaned into the touch. It was the most natural thing in a thing that was not natural. “This little guy is somehow powered, I’d have to say with Magick, and its been created to act like a bird. The sheer volume of work that would go into something like that,” he lifted his hand to make a gesture like he was waving off something, “is mind boggling. These birds,” with that he looked first at the cardinal then at the other birds including the flying ones, “are works of Magickal genius.”
“Do you think we’re supposed to use them to find the piece of the lamp?”
“Not sure.” Ivan tipped his head. “What’s the logic behind that?”
“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe that they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t supposed to help us?”
“Going under the theory The House is trying to help us?”
“I guess. Maybe? That theory has been floated enough I’m starting to think maybe there’s some basis for it.”
Ivan went quite a few mikros, staring off into the air. The cardinal remained on his hand, occasionally looking around with its bright eyes but otherwise apparently content to remain perched on Ivan’s fingers. Eventually Ivan focused again. He pinched the bridge of his nose between the fingers of his free hand, directing a stare over them at Patti.
“I guess I don’t know. It starts to assign sentience to something that can’t be sentient and that doesn’t work in my mind.”
“Why can’t it be sentient?”
“Because its a house. An object. Like this bird.” He raised the hand with the cardinal in emphasis. “Maybe it can be animated by Magick, but its still an object. It doesn’t have a will. It just has instructions it follows, a purpose it was designed for, certain functions it can reproduce. But it isn’t free thinking because it doesn’t have a mind. Does that make sense?”
Patti considered it a moment. “It makes sense when you put it like that. Yet, I think we can’t argue that The House adjusts to what we do and it definitely responds to us.”
“Maybe it was designed to do so.”
“And what animates it? What pool of Magick fuels this?” Patti swept her hand, encompassing the detailed environment. “Who created it? And what is its purpose?”
“All good questions. I don’t know. Maybe its purpose is to help us, but why?”
Patti just shrugged. She did not have an answer to that. This all felt bigger than her. Up until she fell in with this crew she’d thought she understood her world. To an extent. Mostly. But now? Bonkers.
“So, by assuming its purpose is to help us you think the things in this environment exist to help us as well. So the birds are here to help us?”
Patti shrugged, hard enough her ribs raised. “Maybe?”
Ivan considered this then returned the shrug. “Maybe. Why not. Okay, if that’s the case how can birds help us find a piece of glass?”
“Birds like shiny things?”
“They do. Well, real birds do. And if these birds were created to function like real birds… Maybe.”
Sass stood up and tugged on Patti’s earlobe, demanding her attention with a sharp “peep!”. She turned and looked at the mouse. “Yes?”
“Peep!” Sass raised its little hand and smacked itself in the chest. When Patti just looked at it confused, it repeated the gesture and the sound. “Peep!”
Patti rolled her eyes. “Good glorious day, Sass. It’s like I’m supposed to ask you if Timmy fell down the well. Did Timmy fall down the well?”
Sass gave her a level look. She’d swear she read censure in it. Really, everyone was a critic. Even a mouse.
She continued to look at the mouse. The mouse continued to look at her. Eventually she shook her head. “Yeah. I got nothing.”
Sass looked down for a long moment. Then it raised its hands to its face, clutching its cheeks, the image of deep thought. If Patti wasn’t so confused, and yes, frustrated, she might have smiled at the overload of cute.
And then Sass took the cute one step further, lowering its hands and beginning to warble in mousey song. Its voice rose and fell on a rhythm that felt somehow familiar to Patti. For once she couldn’t place a song. She frowned. She could always place songs. That was her thing.
Frowning she focused on Sass’s warbling. Her Magick rose in her, pressing against the confines of her skin. And then it broke in a soft wave, flowing out of her and over Sass. An echo of a wave of energy flowed back over her and images formed in her mind. Of Patti focusing hard – it was weird to see her face as it was seen by someone else. Did she really look like that? Soft? Gentle eyes that also held a sharp spark of intelligence? Mouth full on a sweet smile. She smiled like that?!
She shook off the thought, letting the Magick – because this was Magick – wash over and through her. The image again of her focusing intently on something. Someone. Focusing on Sass. And then images forming in another’s mind, carried on a wave of intent from Patti to… Sass.
Son of a-! Suddenly she got it. She got that this was how she communicated with Sass, focusing her intent and trying her damnedest to convey her feelings or needs through images she projected with her Magick. The sound of her own voice, humming, filled her head and she realized that must be the carrier that communicated her intent to the creature that didn’t share her language but understood her heart.
Patti pressed her hands to her face and stared at Sass with eyes suddenly brimming with tears. “You amazing mouse! Is that the answer?”
Sass broke off its singing and patted Patti’s neck with both paws.
Ivan shifted next to Patti. “Share with the class?’
“It’s hard to explain but I think I know how the birds can work.”
Enter The Woods 