Chris readied himself to be enveloped in total darkness, but the well maintained a faint blue glimmer, no matter how deep he descended. It must have been some kind of magic.
A voice echoed in the tight confines of the well shaft. It was quiet and very self-assured. Chris couldn’t quite place it, but it sounded much like his own voice, or that of his father, maybe a blend of the two with a touch of the voice of God thrown in.
“You’re a grown man and you take a bubble bath every night,” the voice said. “That is not normal.”
Okay, so this was what the sign meant by truth. This creepy voice would whisper “truths” at him while he sunk lower underground. That really was easy enough. Much better than a kraken on open water, or spiders. The thing about the baths had always been a bit embarrassing to Chris, but not too bad.
“You suck at pickle ball. Dave doesn’t like to play doubles with you because you can’t keep the ball on the court.”
That one stung a little. He thought he’d been improving at pickle ball, and he thought his friend Dave liked playing with him.
What was to say these truths were real, anyway? This voice could just spout off whatever it wanted to, although it was strange that it knew about the baths, or Dave.
“Your first girlfriend, Hannah, says you kiss weird. She told her friends that you swirled your tongue around in her mouth like you were trying to stir a drink with it or something.”
What? Chris has always prided himself on being a good kisser. That swirl technique was money, wasn’t it?
“You once watched Titanic on basic cable, alone. You watched the entire movie, commercials and all. At the end you cried. A big, sobbing, ugly cry. You bawled into your pillow for at least two minutes.”
So what? Men were allowed to cry. Damn, he was glad no one had seen that, though.
“Your first pets, your two goldfish whom you loved. . . your parents told you they had to go back to the pet store to be with their friends and family, again. They’d actually found them floating belly-up in the bowl. Your parents had already replaced the fish twice without you knowing. The third deaths were a charm, it seems, because they didn’t have time to swap them out with live fish. So your parents flushed them and made up a story.”
No. Not Admiral Ackbar and Swimmy! His parents never lied to him, did they? Of course that was a long time ago, and he was just a little kid at the time. Had he thought about it as an adult it would have been obvious that his parents had never brought them back to the store, but he had forgotten all about those fish until this very moment. It seemed a silly thing to be upset about now, but that one had touched him on a deeper level than the previous truths.
“Your sophomore year everyone in Mr. Fleming’s class discovered a chair covered in dried boogers under the seat. You thought you had gotten away with it and that no one knew it was you. . . but they did. Many people suspected it was you. Some still mention it from time to time to this day, including Hannah.”
Okay, this was really starting to suck now. Chris gazed below him, hoping to see the bottom coming up any time. All he saw was an endless darkness leading down and down inside the narrow confines of the well.
“You were a mistake. Your father—”
“Shut up!” Chris’s voice reverberated in the well shaft.
“What?” Pete’s voice said, much more obviously “other” than the voice Chris had been hearing in the well.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Oh.”
“You can’t truly connect with anyone,” the uncanny voice said. “You see others with these real, genuine connections, though. They are absolutely carefree with each other. You’ve never had this and you feel like you won’t ever have it. You are unable to form this kind of lasting bond.”
Was that true? Chris hoped not. It was true that he feared this in the dark recesses of his soul, but he had never mentioned it to anyone.
“That feeling you have, in your center of your being, that you don’t deserve love, that you’ll never be good enough. . . it’s true. You know that it’s true. You not only know it, you feel it. You don’t understand why this is so, not clearly. You have suspected it since you were very young, and you’ve always been right.”
Chris felt a hollowness in his chest unlike any he had ever experienced. Perhaps it was the strange assuredness of the voice, perhaps the dark enclosed space, but the voice had cut to his core with that remark. Tears formed in Chris’s eyes and ran down his cheeks in the darkness.
“You were—”
“No more truths,” Chris whispered.
The voice stopped. Chris could feel warmth, and hope, flood back into him as if a depressive presence had just departed from inside his body.
Then, before he could enjoy one lighter-hearted breath, the well began to fill with wispy cobwebs.
Chris clawed at his face, ripping the webs from his eyes and mouth. In the pale blue glow, a swarm of black spiders rushed down toward him from above. They clung to the walls of the well and crawled along the webs at unreal speed.
As Chris took his wand from his holster, they were upon him. He fired bolts at the spiders in the vanguard. The ones he hit curled up and fell past him. One of the spiders crawled across a web in front of his face, revealing a vivid red hourglass shape underneath its shiny black abdomen.
These were black widows, his number one fear.
He froze as the spider crept on to his forearm. Through force of will Chris shook his head, avoiding the loss of consciousness, then knocked the spider away with his wand. He felt something on his ear, then the back of his neck. He wanted to scream, but dared not open his mouth.
As he shook his entire body, he slipped from the wooden swing. His non-wand hand desperately gripped the rope as he slid, burning his palm until coming to an abrupt stop at the base of the swing. He held his wand in his teeth and reached up for the other rope, glancing down into the abyss below. When he looked back up, there was a mass of spiders undulating on his hands. He almost let go in a panic, but managed to keep his grip.
“Just let go and your torment will come to an end.” The voice was back. “You will fall to certain death, but you will be rid of the spiders. . . . They won’t stop until then . . .”
Chris pulled himself up with every bit of strength he had and straddled the plank. He brushed the black widows from each hand and arm, his neck and head. With eyes closed he began firing bolts at random while violently shaking his arms and legs.
Every second was hell, and the seconds turned in to agonizing minutes.
Chris’s foot struck something under him. The other foot touched something solid as well. He looked down on a pile of human skeletons. The well had opened up into a cavernous underground chamber.
Chris dove from the swing and slid face first down the pile of bones. When he came to a stop he stood and began to wipe spiders away, again. But the spiders weren’t there, or the cobwebs either. He checked every inch of himself, unable to believe they had simply vanished, but they had.
The plank on the rope began to ascend, gradually disappearing back up into the well shaft.
“Are ya down, yet?” Pete said.
“Yes.” Chris’s voice was shaky.
“You should be in a huge room made of stone, right?”
“Yes.”
“All right. So there should be a big oak door at the end of the. . . great hall.”
“I see it.” An intimidating door stood beyond a massive stone hall lined with wrought-iron chandeliers.
“Just through that door is the Cave of. . . Abominations.”
“Perfect,” Chris said, looking back to the well, the only other obvious egress.
“Is there any way you could hurry it up? I’m pretty hungry back here and this whole thing is cuttin’ into lunch time.”
Chris dragged himself down the hall without a
word.
Retirement of a Mentor
On the way into the Conjuring Department, Harris almost ran into Eddie, who was rushing out the front door.
“Whoa, watch out,” Eddie said. “Retired guy coming through.”
“You got your retirement papers?”
“Yep!” He held up a small packet of paper. “Did you get my raven?”
“Yes, asshole,” Jake said, lightly punching Eddie’s shoulder.
“You guys have any luck?” Eddie said, smirking.
“None at all,” Jake said. “We just got denied at the Realm Travel Department, so we can’t even get started on our plan. Then I got this prophecy about slaying the dragon with the Venerable Sword, but we can’t go to find that either.”
“Why would you seek out a venerable sword? I mean, I had venerable sword a few times in the sixties, but that was a different time. We didn’t believe in rubbers back then.”
Somewhere, a cricket chirped.
“What? Not even one chuckle? A giggle? One lousy guffaw? You damn kids wouldn’t know a joke if it slapped you across the ass.”
“You know I love a good joke, but we’ve got to find this sword if we’re gonna have any chance of getting Silvia back.”
“All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. That sword is pretty famous, really. You can find it in the Realm of Valorous, a real high-fantasy place.”
“We were denied travel permits, though.”
“Well, I have a solution to that problem, and you all have earned it. In my locker is an inter-dimensional blade I’d like you to have. Then you can go wherever the fuck you want without asking for their permission.”
Jake, Ana, and Harris all leaned forward smiling as if to hug Eddie, but all of them stopped short. Xop flew in for an embrace, though.
“Thank you so much,” Ana said.
“Sure. You can keep whatever else you find in there, too. I’ve got the things I need in retirement already, the rest is yours.” Eddie turned to Harris. “But you gotta promise something first.”
“What?”
“You gotta promise to battle the bullshit at every turn. You gotta carry on my legacy at the Conjuring Department.”
“I promise,” Harris said.
“Okay, then. It’s yours!”
“Thank you, Eddie.”
“Just don’t let me down.”
“I’ll try.” An idea landed in Harris’s mind. “Hey, what were you researching earlier? Anything useful?”
“Nope. Nothing useful. I tried to find out something about that old grimoire, but I hit a dead end.”
“Oh. . .”
“Well, I’m off to the beach. The wife and I plan to live the good life.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little blue vial of liquid. “I’ve got a little age-reversal serum, here. A little water from the Fountain of Youth. We’re gonna live it up like we’re in our late forties again!”
Eddie held out a hand to Harris. Harris shook it, wincing a bit at the strong grip.
Eddie embraced Jake. “You’ve been a fun little shit to work with. Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
“I won’t.”
“Good luck getting your sister back,” he said to Ana with a wave.
“Thanks again.”
“Tell Killjoy to pound sand for me.”
“Okay.”
Eddie looked around, mumbled something to himself, then took out a bejeweled dagger and cut open a hole in the air.
“Later,” he said, then seemed to wobble on his feet. His eyes closed and he fell forward through the portal, vanishing from sight. The portal closed up behind him.
“I hope he landed on the soft beach,” Harris said with eyebrows scrunched.
Inside the building, Marian ran up to them. “You didn’t miss Eddie, did you?”
“No. We just got done talking to him. He said I could have whatever was in his locker.”
“Did he tell you how to get past the protections?”
“No. What protections?”
“Damn. He must have been in too big of a hurry and forgot. His locker has all these magic guards on it.”
“Shit.”
“I’ll try to help you with it, but knowing Eddie, it won’t be easy.”
“Can we call him?”
“He’s in a different realm by now. Normal cell phones won’t go across realms, and General Morgan has control of our inter-dimensional video phone at the moment. So no, unfortunately not.”
The same maintenance man from earlier came busting through the front doors.
“Good news,” the man said to Marian, excitedly wiping his sweaty palms on his coveralls. “We got the part. Actually had it back at the shop, so you’re in luck. Usually we’d have to back order it, and that takes about three months.”
“Sounds good,” Marian said. “I’m pretty busy here, so . . .”
“I know, but I need to tell you that we left our tools to open the unit back at the shop, so we’ll have to go back and get them. Then we’ll need you to sign packages for opening the unit, replacing the part, closing the unit, and terminating the job.”
“Sure. Do you want to leave the part here so you don’t forget it back at the shop?”
“That’s a good idea, but it would break the chain of custody for the part, and that’s not allowed. We have to keep eyes on the part throughout the job.”
“Okay. See ya.”
“Not today, you won’t. We’ll be back tomorrow, unless overtime is approved, then maybe you’ll see me tonight, if you’re here, that is.”
“Okay. Bye.” Marian turned away from the man. “Let’s go try to open that locker.”
On the way to the locker room, Marian filled them in on what had been going on at the command center. There wasn’t much to report. Apparently, the quest for the Ring of Brocéliande was in progress, but she didn’t know how close they were to finding it. Bill Gulley and General Morgan were in very limited talks with the dragon. It said it would talk to Bill more once the treasure started rolling in.
“Did you hear anything about Silvia?” Ana asked.
“Not directly. But the dragon had a bunch of stuff sent up for her.”
“Like what?”
“A small cabin with a bed and a couch, a taco truck, a grilled cheese truck, and a snow cone stand, all staffed. It’s paying them a ton of money and the military had them helicoptered up there as a show of good faith, and to keep Silvia comfortable and fed.”
“Really?” Ana sounded both shocked and happy.
“Yeah. It’s been all over the news.”
“Have you seen any shots of Silvia?”
“Yeah, a few. She looks healthy, and happy enough, considering.”
“That’s good. At least she’s got shelter, and tacos, and grilled cheeses, and snow cones . . . . This is the strangest thing I’ve ever been a part of, by far.”
“Me too, Ana. And I’ve been out at the Site for a while now. I’ve seen some strange shit, but this is on another level.”
As if intending to make things even stranger, Dan burst out from the kitchen area and dove onto the floor of a random cubicle.
“The duck!” he said, out of breath. “It’s in there.”
Harris rushed to the kitchen, but couldn’t find any trace of waterfowl.
“It’s gone,” Harris said when he came back, concentrating hard to not smile.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“But I swear he was there. That asshole. He’s gaslighting me. Trying to make me seem insane. In front of everybody.” Dan’s speech was choppy, manic.
“Why would he do that?” Ana had real concern in her voice.
“Why else?” Dan threw his hands up. “Revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“For conjuring him here.”
“Why did you conjure him here?”
“Curiosity, I guess. I didn’t really believe there were super-intelligent evil ducks from an alternate Earth. I wanted to find out for myself.”
“Well, it’s gone, now,” Marian said, helping Dan up from the ground.
“Okay. But you believe me, right?”
“Of course.” Marian’s face was warm, genuine.
“All right.” Dan looked relieved by Marian’s affirmation. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Have you actually seen the duck?” Ana said to Marian after Dan had gone.
“No.”
“Do you think it really exists?”
“That I’m not sure of. I know the super-intelligent evil ducks from Earth 1.3 are real. But whether or not one of them is here gaslighting Dan, I couldn’t tell ya.”
“Yikes,” said Harris, looking up at Xop. “I’m sure glad I got you, instead.”
“Hey, Marian,” Ana said, “do you think you could persuade the management team to help us get the sword, or anything like that?”
“We could try.” Marian did not look confident.
The group veered toward the command center. Marian explained the situation to the management team.
“We have initiated a course of action,” Bill Gulley said. “The quest for the Ring of Brocéliande is nearly complete. And we’re working on getting the dragon some gold to appease him until we have the ring. We don’t have time to assist your new employees with their wild goose chase.”
As they walked away, Marian said, “I could have guessed that was the answer we’d get, but now we can say we’ve tried.”
Twenty Questions
“Do you actually exist?” Silvia took a bite of a grilled cheese sandwich.
“Yes.”
“Are you sentient?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so you’re alive, you’re sentient, and you’re a food?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
“But not in the sense that a cow is food? You’re actually food?”
“Yep.”
The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex Page 11
