by J C Gilbert
We pressed ourselves as close against the cliff as we could. If I had had The Library key with me, then I might have tried to teleport directly upward, as it seemed like we were now within the museum grounds. As it stood, only Lilly had any means of digging through the clay in the form of the power that she summoned through the Rose of the Raven.
“Softly,” I said. “We don’t want the whole cliff to bury us.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Lilly, “but I’ve noticed that this power isn’t exactly subtle. It is usually either off or on, silent or explosive. I’ll see what I can do.”
To Lilly’s credit, she did manage to fire a purple beam upward that didn’t seem quite as deadly as those I had previously seen. However, it still resulted in a steady shower of dirt and stones streaming down over us. Lilly kept it up for about a minute and a half before large chunks of cliff started to come down, and she was forced to stop.
Clumps of dirt were in my hair and down my shirt and all through my clothes. I brushed them off as best as I could, but it seemed to have gotten into everything.
Lilly stepped away from the cliff and regarded her work. I followed after. “Well, it seems like we are getting closer,” said Lilly. “But pretty soon whole trees will fall on us. You think we will be OK?”
“We could continue around the perimeter and look for another way in. If this vulnerability is here, then there are sure to be others.”
There was a high-pitched whine and a grumble. A few more clumps of dirt fell from the cliff, and then the shield closed down through it, cutting the overhang entirely off.
“Huh,” said Lilly.
“At least that narrowed our options,” I said, as I did my best to empty my shirt of errant stones.
We continued our way around the perimeter. The streets were silent around us. We had just come near to one of the other gated entrances into the museum grounds, where some of the city buildings butted up against the park, when Lilly pulled me aside. She put one finger to her lips and peered out around the corner of the building.
“What is it?” I asked.
Lilly tried to mouth what she had seen.
I tried to convey back to her my puzzlement and general lack of comprehension.
She indicated the height of something somewhere around her chest, which I supposed meant the squirrel soldiers. She completed the picture by sticking out her top teeth and vaguely indicating that she had a tail.
“I think I get it,” I said in a whisper.
“Shh,” she said.
Soon I could hear them, row upon row of fuzzy, undead soldiers. They seemed to be marching up through the main streets. They crossed the road, and the gates opened, creating a gap in the energy field.
Some of the squirrels had unconscious people with them, carrying them one between two, or one between four for the larger ones. I wanted to turn the situation into an opportunity, but I couldn’t figure out how.
“Come on,” said Lilly. She ran towards the squirrels.
“Lilly!” I hissed. But she was too far ahead. I followed after her, sure that we were about to face another battle.
But I was wrong.
Lilly reached the squirrels at the back of their line. She crouched down and started marching alongside them. She looked ridiculous, but the squirrels didn’t seem to notice her. This was in line with my experience of the squirrels before. They did not appear to have minds of their own. I rushed up to her, joined her, and marched by her side.
“We have the most ridiculous life, Alex,” said Lilly. “It may be uncomfortable at times, but overall, I am glad to have it. I always knew there was something about normal life that was suspicious. Who knew it was hiding all these squirrels, just waiting for me to march along next to.”
“Always the philosopher,” I said as we passed under the gate into the museum grounds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Walking through the gate, I immediately felt dizzy. Something imperceptible had changed in the texture of the air, and it was now carrying with it the distinct smell of sulfur. I looked over to Lilly, and it seemed to have affected her too. So much so that she almost stumbled once the gate closed behind us.
“What is that?” asked Lilly.
“I dunno,” I said. “Is it less oxygen, maybe?”
“And what’s that smell?”
“Sulfur, I think.”
“Great,” said Lilly.
All around us, the world had changed. What was once the lush garden and woodland of the museum’s grounds had turned into a nightmarish hell. All the trees had lost their leaves, and all the flowers had withered. The light below the shimmering energy field cast everything in a silvery gray like we had walked into a black and white movie.
The museum was situated on a hill, and it took all my strength to continue to march along up that hill with the squirrels. We came to a clump of leafless trees where it looked like we could take some cover. The ground beneath the trees gave way beneath my feet like ash.
“Daniel has weird taste,” said Lilly.
“Second thoughts about that double date?”
“Yeah, I think I’ve changed my mind about Daniel. Carl seems OK, though. Do you know where he went to?”
“No. I haven’t seen him since Daniel’s soldiers first marched out. I hope he hasn’t done anything stupid.”
“I don’t think that he is the stupid kind,” said Lilly.
I looked past the blackened trees and toward where the museum stood, dwarfed by the fortress-like structure that Daniel had created around it.
“You think that he is in there?” asked Lilly.
“He doesn’t seem to be doing his hovering above the city thing anymore. For better or worse.”
“I’m still not feeling right,” said Lilly. “I think that I hit my head pretty hard back there, and this air isn’t making me feel any better.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. My mind drifted to Brunhilda with my book. I started to wonder what she would do after she did what she needed to do back in ancient England. Would she bring my key back to me? Or would she take The Library for herself? It was even possible that the Librarian would have to find a new Keeper. To my surprise, I felt quite relieved at that thought. For a moment I imagined what it would be like if we defeated Daniel here and someone else took on the role of Keeper. I could return to a normal life. I had almost forgotten what normal life was like. Would I get a job? Who would hire me? The only thing I was good at was going into the stories and seeing them through to the end. Well, here I was again. Seeing a story through to the end.
“We should go on,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Lilly. “You think he is in the museum? Or somewhere in that monstrosity?”
“We will search the museum first,” I said. “I know it reasonably well, so at least if he is not there, we can cross it off quickly.”
“Good point.”
I checked once more to see if there was anyone who might see us when we started out into the open again. The squirrel soldiers had marched on, and the museum grounds looked empty. All the same, it did not seem like a good idea to keep to the main path. I led Lilly as best as I could through the scorched words and dead gardens, staying low, staying out of sight.
We took several rests along the way. The air and the silvery light left me feeling fatigued after only a short time walking. The knock to my head was making things even worse. At length, we reached the museum itself and ducked behind a low wall.
There was movement around the museum, a lot more than I had seen anywhere else on the grounds. Several of the grotesque giants were digging something in the grass. They looked like they were carving out long low shallow trenches. Those trenches were then being filled with sand. The effect was to create lines and curves like writing among the gray grass.
“What do you think they are doing?” asked Lilly.
“If I had to guess, I would say that they were carving some runes of power or som
ething similar.”
“Runes? But they are massive.”
“Massive runes for massive power, I guess.”
As I watched the giants, I tried to trace some resemblance between them and the workers that I’d seen at the museum when visiting mom.”
Lilly started.
“What is it?”
“I think that one is Carl,” said Lilly, pointing.
I looked in the direction of her pointing and, sure enough, there was a giant with that strange look of Carl’s. He was unmistakable. “Well I guess that solves that mystery,” I said. “When all this is done, we will have them all back in their original forms. I’m sure of it.”
Lilly gave me a weak smile. “Yeah, I’m sure of it too.”
There were far fewer of the giants than there were demon squirrels. The giants were more watchful, but due to their smaller number, we were less likely to be seen by them. We managed to get to a service entrance to the museum undetected. Under ordinary circumstances, there was probably a security person responsible for this way in but they had either been unable to escape Daniel’s mutilations, or they had understandably elected to leave their post. We pushed our way in, and I soon found myself in the familiar halls of the museum. As we walked, the sound of our steps on the polished tiles tapped out strangely all around us. It was not quite like an echo and not quite like a thud, or clop. I can only describe the sound as slightly curvy and warped.
“What exactly are we looking for?” whispered Lilly.
I shrugged. “Somewhere where a megalomaniac might set up a throne room?”
Lilly stopped.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, if I were a power-hungry megalomaniac and I needed to set up a throne room, then I know exactly where I would go. I’ve thought a lot about it.”
“Where?”
“Follow me,” said Lilly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It had been one of my favorite rooms in the museum when I was growing up. At the center of the Cultures of the World exhibit, there was a giant table upon which a map of the world had been modeled. I used to love staring at the distant places, the seas, the deserts, the mountain ranges. Dotted around the map were representative buildings of each of the major cities of the world as well as other smaller models indicating other less populated places of interest. I knew exactly what Lilly meant. For a mind that had been tilted the way that Daniel’s mind had been tilted, this map would represent the reach of his future domain.
As we moved through the museum toward the Cultures of the World exhibit, we began to see more and more of the demon squirrels on their mysterious errands. There were even some of the giants in the museum. I couldn’t look on them without wincing inwardly at the thought of my mother trapped in a cage of light in the middle of an endless sea.
There were multiple entrances into the main exhibit, each coming from other exhibits that each represented a different point on the compass. We found ourselves in the south-east room with various replicas of Australian Aborigine artifacts alongside those of Indonesia, Polynesia, and New Zealand.
We continued to move as quietly as we could. One exhibit, in particular, gave me pause. It displayed a long spear tipped with a jade blade. A small placard indicated that this was a replica of something called a Taiaha. If I had been at all skilled in self-defense, I might have grabbed it. I shook my head with regret and continued after Lilly.
The light from the central room was glowing a cruel red. I could not hear anyone talking within, but there were definite sounds of people moving about. We crept in, moving quickly to the right along the wall, trying to stay behind the cover of the smaller glass cabinets that were everywhere in the museum.
Lilly’s guess had been on the money. Not only had Daniel chosen this room as his base of operations, but he had also fashioned a somewhat eccentric looking throne on which to sit. It looked like something George R. R. Martin might have thought up, only with fewer pointy bits.
Lilly and I exchanged glances.
There did not seem to be an easy way to get close to Daniel. If I were to use the Orb of Lyren, then I would need to be close to Daniel and far from any of his minions. As it stood, two giants were waiting in the room, apparently wanting to talk to their distracted lord. Daniel himself was occupied with a series of hovering screens that hung like illusions in the air.
“What are those?” I asked in a whisper.
Lilly tinkered with her glasses and then shook her head. “I can’t hack them,” she said. “I don’t think they are like normal computers.”
Daniel seemed to be getting frustrated with something. After a few moments, he swiped the screens away into nothingness and slammed his fist into the arm of his throne. He looked like a petulant child. Perhaps he was.
“Well, what is it?” he asked one of the giants.
“We have gone through the proper steps to open the portal that you asked for, my lord,” said one of the giants in a sickly voice.
“Well, that is something at least,” he said. “Everything is moving too slowly. When the delegation arrives, we must prepare to give a show of strength. I don’t want them in any doubt of what I would do if I were to become disappointed. They have made promises, and I intend that they keep them.”
“They are fickle, my lord. I have had dealings with their kin long ago when I had my own body. They do not think of power as we do, they do not think of death as we do.”
“Then I shall have to be creative,” said Daniel. “Are there any signs of those girls from my school? I should like to have them brought in for questioning and full assimilation into the process.”
“They seem to have gone, my lord.”
“And the one that was sending my missiles back at the fortress?”
“I have not heard from a patrol near there in a few hours. I assume she is still there.”
“Assume?”
“We need more hosts if we are to patrol effectively. The work on the runes outside–”
“Must not be halted,” said Daniel.
“No, my lord.”
“All right, get out of sight, would you? Why don’t you lurk in the shadows of something? God, you are ugly.”
“Such is the nature of my being, lord,” said the giant.
“Yes, yes, get away.” Daniel stepped down from his ridiculously ornate throne and rubbed his hands together. He formed a shape with his arms in a manner that I’d seen Elaine do many times before. Some ten feet or so in front of him, the air started to change.
At first, it was an almost imperceptible shimmer in the reality of things, but then that shimmer began to split. It reminded me somewhat of the rips in the world I’d seen when Kuyr was tormenting Kanboor. However, this rip was not rough and had both symmetry and elegance. Soon a doorway had formed, its surface of black shadow.
Daniel seemed pleased with what he had done and climbed back onto his throne. “You may enter,” he said imperiously.
A tall figure formed just inside the door, paused, and then stepped through into the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The figure could have stepped right out of a fantasy tale. He was tall, maybe around six and a half feet. Long white-blond hair hung down his back, now forming into braids, now curling this way and that. His skin was gray with a touch of purple, perhaps. Delicate silver cloth hung over elegantly crafted armor.
This was an elf.
“Did someone find Glorfindel?” whispered Lilly
I elbowed her in the stomach. She had always had an issue with that particular elf’s mysterious absence from Peter Jackson’s Rings trilogy.
Though the elf was stepping into a throne room, he might have been stepping into a hovel, so superior were his looks. He was followed by four other elves. They were not so grand as he, though they were similar in their appearance and their clothing.
The elf at the back was pulling on a chain. Once all were through, he yanked hard o
n the chain, and Darcy stumbled into the room.
Lilly gasped so loud that I thought that she would have given away our position for sure. My heart raced as I waited for our cover to be blown. Lilly’s eyes were wide.
“Polonius, I presume,” said Daniel with a slight nod of his head.
“My father has, alas, fallen ill. I am his son, Laertes,” said the elf in front. “Your host is insufficient. Allow me to offer you one of my kinsmen as a more satisfying mortal husk.”
“Host? You are mistaken, Laertes. I do not know what your dealings have been in the past with Beelzebub, but I can assure you that I am very much in control. My name is Daniel, the new Lord of the Earth.”
“Dan-i-el,” said Laertes, forming the word strangely in his mouth. “The Elders of Okra greet you and offer you homage.”
“That is all well and good,” said Daniel, “but what I need is for you to inspect the runes outside. I’m entering the final stage as described in your ancient texts and will soon come into my full power.”
“I see. Things are coming along much slower than we had anticipated. I expected that you would have reached that stage by now,” said Laertes.
“I would have, but there has been some interference. How hard this may be for you, Laertes, to see a human inherit the power that your ancestors fought so hard for.”
“I know my place,” said Laertes with a cunning smile.
“Good,” said Daniel, not entirely satisfied with that reply. “I see you have a prisoner?”
“We found this one wandering in our lands. He wanted to warn us about Beelzebub and was trying to discover his true name.”
“What on earth would he want to know that for?” asked Daniel. “Tell me, what is his name? If Darcy Knight wants to know it, then it must be worth knowing.”
“You know this boy?” asked Laertes.
“Yes. He used to go to my school, disappeared recently though. Dropped out, they say. Tell me, Darcy, why do you want to know Beelzebub’s true name?”
