Alistair Grim's Odditorium

by Gregory Funaro

  “Is everything all right over there, Grubb?” Kiyoko called from her cell.

  “Yes, miss,” I said, and I took a deep breath and opened Mack.

  “What time is it?” he cried.

  “We need your help, Mack.”

  “What the—?” Mack said, spinning around in my hand. “Where are we, Grubb? This doesn’t look like the Odditorium to me.”

  “We’ve been captured by Prince Nightshade. We’re in his dungeon.”

  “Prince Nightshade?”

  “There’s no time to explain. We need you to get us out of here!”

  “We? Who’s we?”

  “I’ve made a new friend in another cell. My plan is to slip you under the door so you can sneak down the passageway outside, fetch the keys, and set us free.”

  “Keys?” Mack said, chuckling. “Ya silly bam. Who needs keys when you’ve got ol’ McClintock?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hold me closer to that keyhole, will ya, laddie?” I did as he requested. “A little more to the left and—ah yes, that’s it. Just as I suspected.”

  And with that Mack shot a bolt of animus from his eyes into the keyhole.

  The door unlocked at once.

  “You did it, Mack!” I whispered—but then I saw his eyes had gone dark. “Mack,” I said, tapping his XII, and he immediately crackled to life again.

  “What the buh duh-buh,” he moaned in a daze, his eyes fading in and out.

  “Are you all right, Mack? You opened the door but then fizzled out again.”

  Mack wobbled his case and shook himself until his eyes glowed normally again.

  “Ach,” he said. “I forgot how much shootin’ me animus knocks me for a loop.”

  “Do you think you’ve got one more in you?”

  “Of course, laddie! I didn’t get to be the chief of the Chronometrical Clan McClintock because of me looks!”

  “All right, then,” I said, cracking open the door. “But we’ve got to be quiet. When I hold you to the lock, you’ll know what to do?”

  Mack wobbled his case to say yes, and I slipped my head outside. Checking both ways down the dimly lit corridor, I spied a red burning sconce at each end, as well as more cells running along the sides of the passage.

  “There’s no one left down here except you and me,” Kiyoko said. “Hurry, Grubb, before the guards return.”

  I tiptoed across the passageway and positioned Mack in front of Kiyoko’s keyhole, whereupon he shot another bolt of animus from his eyes. The door unlocked and Mack’s eyes went dark—when without warning Kiyoko burst forth from her cell.

  In a streak of rushing black, she darted around behind me and clamped her hands over my mouth. I tried to scream, but Kiyoko dragged me backward into my cell, threw me to the floor, and quietly shut us inside.

  Scrambling to my feet, I discovered a beautiful young woman listening intently by the door. She was dressed in a short black robe cinched at the waist and a pair of black trousers tucked into tight-fitting boots. Her hair was black, too, and rested in a thick braid upon her shoulder.

  “Kiyoko?”

  “Quiet, Grubb,” she whispered, her finger to her mouth, and I noticed that her hands and ankles were in irons. “The guards are returning.”

  “But I don’t hear—”

  “The watch,” Kiyoko said, shuffling toward me with her hands outstretched. “Use the watch again to unlock these shackles.”

  I hesitated.

  “Do it!” she commanded, and I immediately tapped Mack on his XII.

  “Duh buh,” Mack said groggily. But when he caught sight of Kiyoko, his senses quickly returned and he said, “Well, well, who might you be, lassie?”

  “This is Kiyoko,” I said. “My friend from the other cell. She needs you to free her from her shackles.”

  “Say no more, laddie.”

  Mack shot a bolt of animus into Kiyoko’s shackles, and they instantly dropped to the floor. I squatted down at her feet and tapped Mack awake again, and he shot another of his bolts into Kiyoko’s leg irons.

  “That’s some watch,” Kiyoko said, eyeing Mack warily. “Is he all right?”

  “Yes and no, miss. Mack runs on the animus. He fizzles out from time to time, but the upside is he never needs to be recharged. Even Mr. Grim can’t figure out why.”

  A door clanged loudly from somewhere outside.

  “Thank you,” Kiyoko whispered. “Now turn around and face the wall, Grubb.”

  “The wall, miss?”

  “Trust me; it’s better if you don’t see this.”

  I was about to protest, but Kiyoko motioned with her finger for me to turn around. I returned Mack to my pocket and faced the wall.

  “Help!” Kiyoko called out through the cell’s porthole. “I can’t take it anymore! I want out, do you hear? Out, out!”

  A moment later the Shadesmen were coming, the sound of their clanging armor growing louder as they approached from the passageway outside. The cell door opened and the Shadesmen entered, and Kiyoko let out a piercing cry of “EEEEYYAA!”

  Startled, I shut my eyes as the scuffle broke out behind me—the clash of swords and the clanging of armor echoing through the chamber in a frenzied wall of sound. Then I heard a grunt and a growl and a loud swish-clang-ping! And all was quiet again.

  “You may face me now, Grubb,” Kiyoko said.

  I turned around to find her with a sword in one hand and a Shadesman’s helmeted skull in the other—its eyes blinking red, its jaw flapping open and shut as if silently jabbering. The rest of him and his companion lay in armor-clad pieces on the floor, the whole lot of them squirming about like a cluster of lively maggots.

  My mouth fell open in amazement.

  “Snap out of it, Grubb,” Kiyoko said.

  “But how did you—?”

  “First things first,” Kiyoko said, handing me the sword. She picked up the other Shadesman’s head and moved to the door. The skulls stared back at me with their blinking red eyes and jabbering jaws—when suddenly I felt something grab my ankle.

  A Shadesman’s severed hand, arm and all, had crawled across the floor and latched on to me.

  Gasping in terror, I kicked it away. I could hardly believe my eyes. The Shadesmen’s body parts were beginning to join back together.

  “Even I cannot destroy the armies of Romulus and Remus,” Kiyoko said as she hopped over the scattered body parts. “However, if we keep their bodies out of sight of their heads, they’ll have a harder time regenerating.”

  Kiyoko dashed across to her cell, tossed the Shadesmen’s heads inside, and closed the door. Then she took back her sword and motioned for me to follow.

  “Are you coming?” she asked with a smile.

  And without a word more the two of us fled from the dungeon.

  What is it?” I asked.

  Kiyoko motioned for me to be quiet and pressed her ear against the large iron door. By my count, this was the sixth iron door at which she had pressed her ear since we escaped the dungeon. Usually she listened only for a moment and then either entered or moved on. However, it was clear from her expression that this particular door had caught her interest.

  “Is Cleona in there?” I whispered.

  “No,” Kiyoko said. “She is in the tower with the great machine.”

  “The great machine?”

  “The one they will use to extract her animus.”

  “We’ve got to hurry!” I said, and Kiyoko again motioned for me to be silent.

  I was growing impatient. We’d been traveling for quite some time—ever upward through a maze of narrow, red-lit passages that always ended in a flight of stairs or a door like this one. Many times we heard the clanging of armor echoing in the distance. And on one occasion, Kiyoko and I ducked into a small chamber just in time to avoid a regiment of Shadesmen marching past us.

  That had been at least ten minutes ago. And since then we hadn’t heard anything except our own footsteps and the moan of the wind through
the passageways.

  “Yes,” Kiyoko said, running her hand along the door frame. “The wind is stronger here. On the other side of this door we shall find the Great Hall, at the end of which is the armory. I will need to stop there first and find my sword.”

  “But you already have the sword you took from the Shadesmen.”

  Kiyoko looked down at her blade and then narrowed her eyes at me.

  “You call this clumsy piece of metal a sword?” she said. “When we get to the armory, I’ll show you a real sword. I might even teach you how to use it someday. That is, if we ever get out of this castle alive.”

  Without a sound, Kiyoko opened the door just far enough for us to squeeze through into the Great Hall.

  The cavernous black chamber was long and narrow, with great stone pillars that stretched up the walls and across the arched roof like a giant rib cage. High above us, shafts of red light cut downward through the gloom, and the massive hearth at the center of the hall blazed with a roaring red fire.

  I’ll wager all that red light is from the prince’s Eye of Mars, I said to myself. I’ll also wager there are other Odditoria around here too—Odditoria from which the prince harnesses power just as Mr. Grim does.

  Gazing around, I discovered that we had entered the Great Hall through one of its many side doors. At one end of the chamber, a pair of wooden gates stood almost as tall as the ceiling itself; at the other end was a high, stepped dais, on top of which sat a great black throne. The prince’s throne, I knew at once, and I shivered.

  “We haven’t much time, Grubb,” Kiyoko said, moving quickly. “When the banshee’s strength returns, the prince will begin to extract her animus.”

  “How do you know you’re going the right way?” I asked, following closely.

  “I have been a prisoner here for some time now. I studied the layout of the castle outside during the tournaments.”

  “Tournaments, miss?”

  “Yes, Grubb. There were once others from my clan here—powerful warriors like me who refused to help the prince. And so he made us fight his minions.”

  “His minions, miss?”

  “The evil creatures that have joined forces with him here in his castle.”

  I swallowed hard upon the recollection of Mr. Grim’s notebook—the trolls, the dragons, the goblins—and followed Kiyoko to a door at the far corner of the hall. Kiyoko listened for a moment, and then, without a word, the two of us slipped inside.

  What I saw took my breath away.

  The armory was packed from floor to ceiling with every sort of weapon imaginable. Racks of swords and spears and battle-axes stood in the center of the room, while stacks of helmets and shields and other bits of armor rose up in great piles against the walls.

  Kiyoko and I immediately began zigzagging our way through a maze of even more weapons—crossbows and long bows and maces and flails—as well as high stacks of crates labeled with words and symbols I did not understand.

  “Where are you, Ikari?” Kiyoko whispered, darting this way and that.

  “Who are you talking to, miss?”

  “My sword. The prince stole Ikari from me when he captured my clan. She is in here somewhere. I can feel it.”

  I was growing impatient. We needed to find Cleona, and here we were looking for a scraper in a mound of soot.

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” I said, “but what’s so special about this sword? I should think you could have your pick of the litter in this place.”

  “A shinobi warrior trains with one sword her entire life, and so Ikari is an extension of my spirit.”

  “Shinobi, did you say?”

  “Some call us ninja, but names mean nothing in combat. My people are known as the fiercest warriors in Japan.”

  “The same Japan from where the samurai hail?”

  Kiyoko stopped and turned to me. “How does a chimney sweep know about samurai?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Mr. Grim uses them to guard the Odditorium. Their armor is powered by the animus.”

  Kiyoko nodded approvingly. “I would indeed like to meet this Mr. Grim.”

  “Mr. Grim says the samurai are the fiercest warriors in the world, but I’m certain he’d change his mind if he met you. Which makes me wonder, how on earth did the prince manage to capture you, miss?”

  “The prince and the Black Fairy surprised my clan in our secret mountain fortress. We were no match for their magic. The Red Dragons, you see, led them straight to us.”

  “Red Dragons?”

  “A clan of winged serpents that have allied themselves with the prince. They were men once, long ago, but so evil that the ancient gods saw fit to turn them into half-human, half-demon monsters. They have plagued the shinobi for centuries, but we have had our revenge on them in the tournaments.”

  “You mean, the prince made you fight these dragons?”

  “Dragons and other monsters. I am the last of my clan to survive. There are many such beasts in this castle, but I have no intention of introducing you to them.”

  “That’s fine by me, miss.”

  Kiyoko gazed round the room with her hands on her hips. I followed suit, and through a tiny space in a stand of long rifles, I spied a rack of swords in the next aisle.

  “Mr. Grim’s samurai use swords like those,” I said, pointing. “Perhaps yours is among them.”

  Kiyoko dropped her Shadesman’s sword and, in a flash, leaped over the rifles and landed on the other side. Dashing after her, I joined Kiyoko just as she was unsheathing a sword from its scabbard. It was much plainer than all the other swords nearby—and for a moment I thought the shinobi would go on searching—but then she closed her eyes, dropped to her knees, and cradled the sword to her breast.

  “Avenge me, Ikari,” Kiyoko whispered, and then quickly sheathed the sword and tied the scabbard to her back. “You are full of surprises, Grubb. If not for you, I might never have found Ikari.”

  “Your sword, it isn’t much to look at when compared to the fancier swords here. But Mr. Grim says the most powerful Odditoria are usually those things that, on the surface at least, appear ordinary.”

  “You are wise beyond your years, Grubb,” Kiyoko said, rising. “And so I shall be forever in your debt for helping me find Ikari.”

  Kiyoko bowed her head in gratitude, and I felt my cheeks go hot. Then she began removing other objects from the rack—black darts and knives and spikes and strange-looking star-shaped disks that she inserted into hidden sleeves throughout her garment.

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” I said. “But are Ikari and all those other weapons magical?”

  “No,” Kiyoko said as she slipped on a pair of black open-fingered gloves. “But in the hands of a shinobi, such weapons are the next best thing.”

  From inside her robe, Kiyoko produced a black stocking and slipped it over her head. Then she donned her hood and tied it off under her chin. She was now covered completely from head to toe in black, save for a narrow opening through which her piercing eyes gleamed back at me.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t want to fight you, that’s for certain. Which reminds me, miss: shouldn’t I have a sword too?”

  “Have you ever used one?”

  “I’m afraid not, miss.”

  “Then the answer is no.”

  “But miss, what if we run into more of Nightshade’s minions?”

  “Then you stay close to me or keep running. You’ll know what to do when it’s time. Either way, you’ll fare better by using your wits instead of a sword.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The first weapon a shinobi learns to use is the mind,” Kiyoko said with a hand on my shoulder. “Master that first, Grubb, and you have my word that someday I’ll teach you how to use a sword.”

  Kiyoko winked, and despite my disappointment, I smiled back.

  And with that we were off, the two of us dashing back through the maze of weapons the way we had come. Upon reaching the armory door
, Kiyoko cracked it open ever so slightly and listened.

  “There is movement,” she said after a moment. “Breathing in the castle’s old receiving chamber just outside the Great Hall gates.”

  “But that’s on the other side of the hall, miss,” I said, listening too. “How could you possibly hear anything that far away?”

  “The second weapon a shinobi learns to use is the senses,” Kiyoko said, her eyes smiling, and then we slipped through the door and dashed across the Great Hall to its tall wooden gates.

  “Breathing, yes,” Kiyoko whispered with her ear upon the gates. “They’re still sleeping, but we’ll have to be quiet as mice to make it past them.”

  “Who are you talking about, miss?”

  “The Red Dragons,” Kiyoko said, and I gasped. “Remember, stay close, Grubb. But if you feel the need to run, then by all means do so and don’t look back.”

  Kiyoko cracked open the gates, reached back over her shoulder and gripped her sword, and slipped into the next room. She just stood there listening for a moment and then motioned for me to follow. With my heart hammering, I obeyed.

  The receiving chamber was not nearly as large as the Great Hall, but just as high. And in the red light from the ceiling grates, I could see the sleeping dragons hanging by their tails from the rafters—their scaly wings wrapped tightly around their bodies, giving them the appearance of a cluster of crimson caterpillar cocoons.

  Without a sound, Kiyoko headed for the doors at the far end of the chamber. I followed close behind, shadowing her every step—when suddenly I felt a rumbling in my chummy coat.

  “Not now, Mack!” I whispered.

  “Ssh!” Kiyoko said with a finger to her lips, but Mack would not cease shaking. Indeed, he was shaking so violently that I thought at any moment he might leap from my coat and fall on the floor.

  Without thinking, I quickly snatched him from my pocket and tapped him on his XII before he had time to speak. Sighing with relief, I was about to slip him back inside my coat when, much to my surprise, Mack began to shake again!

  “No!” I cried, bobbling him between my hands.

  Mack tumbled to the floor with a loud, echoing clack!