by Joshua Cook
Jasmine, who had been silent up to this point, spoke up. “Focuses are special, Cendan, created by those of us who have the maker talent. They are also rare, so impossibly rare as to be laughable. The last maker lived fifteen hundred years ago… sort of.” She shifted in her seat. “I guess I should say the person who was the last maker the Bridgefinders had lived fifteen hundred years ago.”
Marcus nodded and continued. “His name has been lost to us. Technically, he’s still alive. But a long time ago, he was captured by the forces of the Slyph. The Slyph rules the echo world, creates the creatures that we fight against, and wants to join her echo world with ours. She… perverted him. The only name we know him by now is Oakheart. The creatures who talk use that name. We don’t know why. We do know that somehow, the Slyph has used those maker abilities along with her own to make a few special creatures—chief among these is Grellnot.”
“Grellnot is special because he can track us, find Bridgefinders before they even know what they are and before we can find them. And somehow, he can remove their abilities. He also takes the focus of any Bridgefinder he defeats. We’ve lost a great many focuses and those with the knack to him.” Marcus paused to take a sip of his tea.
“Grellnot found you, but he didn’t harvest you. I’m not sure why. But whatever the reason, you’re known now.” Marcus lifted his head up, locking his gaze once more on Cendan. “If you don’t come with us, and let us help you, you will lose a part of yourself more special and dearer than you know. Grellnot will rip your talent out of you, and you won’t be you anymore.”
Cendan measured Marcus and the others in turn. Mind spinning, Cendan didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t the world he lived in. Logic, linear thinking, and systems were his world. Strange little creatures that fed on people? Foci? Nonsense!
“You people are nuts. Jasmine, I don’t know how or why you’re involved with this, but this is crazy talk. Magic? Strange evil creatures?” Cendan stood. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to made-up stories. If I wanted that I could go buy an eBook and relax on my couch.”
“Cendan, wait, please sit, and listen. Think about this logically. You always did like logic, right? So hear us out. It will make sense at the end.” Jasmine stood, gesturing toward his chair. “Please?”
Cendan weighed his options. There wasn’t much logic in this ordeal, but hearing them out wasn’t going to hurt anything. Besides, if he asked a bunch of questions, he was sure they would trip up and whatever game or façade they were playing at would end. “Okay, I’ll listen.” Cendan sat back into the chair, crossing his arms.
“So if Grellnot feeds on us, why attack the girl across the street?” Cendan asked. “Couldn’t she be the person Grellnot is after?”
Jasmine shook her head. “You have to understand. Grellnot is the Slyph’s creation, but unlike most of its creatures, Grellnot doesn’t always follow the script. Something in its makeup seems to give it the ability to act outside the Slyph’s wishes. I doubt the Slyph wanted the girl attacked. It doesn’t help her cause. But Grellnot seems to also be able to feed on fear and blood. It doesn’t kill those who aren’t us, at least not yet, but it can feed on them.”
Cendan nodded, though the whole thing sounded crazy to him. “So what is this Grellnot thing? And the Slyph? What does it look like?”
Sal answered before Marcus could start talking. “Grellnot is small, about knee-high. It has a large, droopy nose and face with rough, greenish skin, serrated teeth, and large eyes with blood red irises. It’s dirty, usually dressed in rags and skins, and has a long cord with foci that it’s taken from those of us it’s killed.”
Sal continued. “I know this because I’ve seen him. I know this is all crazy to you. I’ve been there. I know. You’re thinking that you really wish you had gotten back in your car and gone and gotten a pizza somewhere and forgotten anything about this. It wouldn’t have worked. That’s what I did. When Marcus here told me all this, when my ability manifested itself, I told him he was a nut job, used a few more colorful expressions and left. Two days later, I woke up to find Grellnot sitting on my bed. If not for the fact that Marcus and Jasmine were watching me and waiting for Grellnot to make its move, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I’ve never felt as disgusted and threatened in my life as when I saw Grellnot sitting there. I really thought I was going to die. Right there, right then. These two drove it off, and I came with them. I don’t regret it for one minute.” Sal glanced at Jasmine, now silent.
Marcus spoke next. “We don’t have a description of the Slyph’s physical appearance, really. It, or I should say she, never leaves the echo world. The only notes we have on her appearances are notes by the Bridgefinder that became Oakheart. All they say are the words white and old.”
Cendan tapped his lip in thought. “You don’t know what the thing you’re fighting against looks like?”
Jasmine answered this time. “No, but that doesn’t matter. We can’t destroy it. It never leaves the echo and we can’t go there. All we can do is keep closing the Bridges and sending the creatures back to the echo world when we find them.” Reaching down to her purse, Jasmine pulled out a wooden flower, painted the same shade of brilliant lacquer red as the color all over the restaurant. “This is my focus. It’s been passed down in my family for generations. We don’t know what Maker made it.”
Sal pulled a small crystal globe from his pocket with what appeared to be small flame inside. “This is my focus. I found mine at our headquarters. No one knows how old it is.”
Marcus held us his ring. “This is mine. It’s also been passed down to me.” He pointed at the key still in Cendan’s hand. “And that is apparently yours. You’re already attuned to it.”
Cendan went to ask what he meant, but Marcus held up a hand. “You need to know one more thing. We need you to join us, Cendan. We need you. It boils down to this—we are losing. We are losing badly.”
Cendan raised an eyebrow. “Losing?”
Marcus nodded. “Every day, the barriers between our world and the echo world get weaker, and we don’t have a clue how to stop it. It’s a fraction of a fraction weaker each time, but when you’re fighting what is apparently an immortal enemy, time doesn’t matter. Each time a Bridge is connected, each time we have to hunt down the Slyph’s creatures, it gets weaker. When we aren’t busy chasing creatures down and closing Bridges, we use our forces to strengthen the barriers. But there aren’t enough of us to do that much anymore.”
“Each focus we lose to Grellnot makes it that much harder.” Marcus absentmindedly stroked his ring with one finger. “The last maker, the one we know as Oakheart, had built a machine. It’s still at the headquarters. It was designed to do the job of thousands of foci. A sentient machine, Cendan. The ultimate expression of the maker talent. A machine that would constantly strengthen the barriers. But when Oakheart was captured, the creatures of the Slyph broke the machine. It hasn’t worked since. None of us can fix it. We’ve all tried, but it takes a Maker.”
Cendan didn’t know what to say to this piece of information, so he backtracked. “You mentioned it being attuned to me?” He held up the key in his hand.
“A focus is attuned to someone, meaning until their death, or loss of ability, that focus can’t be used by anyone else.” Jasmine pointed at the key. “That focus, I have to ask where it came from. When we… dated, I never saw it.”
Marcus started along with Sal. Marcus spoke first “You two dated? I thought she just knew you from somewhere.”
“Wait,” Sal said, “Jasmine dated someone? When did that happen?”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Yes, Cendan and I dated for a few months. I do have a life outside of chasing magical creatures out of our world and closing Bridges to the Echo.”
Cendan held up his hand. “We did date, and I’m as surprised as anyone that she of all people is… whatever this is.” Cendan concentrated on key in his hand. Its weight and solidity was comforting. This day had hit him with a h
undred seeming contradictions and varying degrees of oddness. The key was real, here, now. “As for the key, I found it in a thrift shop. Just thought it was kind of interesting, and with my last name being Key, I thought it might be one of those things to have around if I had a client over to my office.”
Cendan shifted in his seat. “So, let me summarize. It helps me think.” He saw Jasmine give a wry grin—she had heard that many a time from him before. “You’re saying I’m a Bridgefinder. There’s an Echo of our world, where magic is real. A creature, person, thing, called the Slyph runs it. She sends creatures to our world to weaken the barriers between the Echo world and our world. Her goal in doing this is to merge the two and bring magic to this world. These creatures are all the legendary creatures from stories. However, you all perform your own magic to close these Bridges, and banish these creatures.”
Marcus held up a hand now. “Wait, stop. We don’t perform magic.”
Cendan felt his forehead scrunch up. “You don’t? Then how do you close these things? How do you drive these creatures away?”
“It’s not magic. It’s a natural ability. Some people are more flexible, and they can become contortionists, or are really great salesmen. It’s not magic.” Marcus seemed annoyed at Cendan’s suggestion.
“If you say so…” Cendan wasn’t convinced, but decided not to prod further. The subject seemed touchy to them as both Jasmine and Marcus had gone hard-faced when he’d suggested they used magic.
Jasmine held up her focus. “It’s pretty simple, Cendan. When we’re at a Bridge, we use the focus to ground ourselves here. In reality. In this world. If you have the knack, and a focus, it forces the Bridge to close.”
Sal nodded. “Creatures are a bit of the same, but obviously more dangerous. When creature-hunting, we take additional tools with us. Usually ways to immobilize them and keep them still long enough for us to then send them away.”
Cendan was puzzled. “Why don’t you, well, kill them?”
Marcus nodded. “Common enough question with new Bridgefinders. A few reasons, really—one, they leave a corpse. No one wants to deal with a dead gremlin or ogre. What are you going to do with it? Also, killing them doesn’t solve anything. The Slyph can make an infinite number of them. There’s no way killing would reduce the numbers that come through.”
That made sense, actually—one of the few things that did about this whole story. “So… you’re it? For the entire globe, you all are the only Bridgefinders?”
Marcus slowly shook his head. “No. There are a few in other places, but not many. The groups don’t have anything to do with each other. But for various reasons, this is the place where most Bridges form and more creatures come out at.”
“Reasons? And if you all are in such dire straits why don’t the groups work together?” Cendan pushed. “Political differences?”
Marcus didn’t say anything at first. Jasmine glanced at him and started talking. “The main reason is that the others are different from us. It’s a stretch to call them Bridgefinders. They have the knack, they use focuses, but they use them for personal power, or to bargain with the creatures from the Echo World.”
“Idiots, every one of them,” Marcus growled.
Jasmine continued. “All those stories about wizards, witches? Those were people born with the knack who used it for personal gain, not caring that the things they were doing could destroy the world as we know it.”
It made sense. Self-interest was a powerful motivator for people. “So, why do more Bridges and creatures come here?”
“Remember the machine we talked about, the one that the creatures broke that Oakheart made?” Sal asked. “Some small part is still functional. Whatever it’s doing, it makes the lion’s share of the Bridges form here, like a lens condensing sunlight on a spot.”
“Cendan,” Marcus said, “You’re one of us. Come with us, see the headquarters, and help us.”
Jasmine followed up. “We can’t force you, but if you choose not to, you will have to leave town. That we can do. We can’t have someone with the knack and a focus here in town who’s not trying to stop this.” Cendan said nothing. For a second, he wondered if this was all a fevered dream. Maybe he’d slipped and hit his head while running earlier that day, and this was all some comatose-induced hallucination. But the weight of the key in his hand belied that thought. He knew this was real.
Flights of fancy weren’t his area. He’d been sure that he could trip them up when he agreed to stay; however, they had managed to answer everything. And even though the answers had been weak, they did make some kind of sense. He never would have believed it, but he wanted to stay.
“Okay, I’m in. Not quite sure why, but… I’m in.” Excitement and fear twisted in his gut. Cendan wasn’t sure about this, but something had happened at his house, something had made him come here, something had prodded him to stay.
If Jasmine hadn’t been part of this, he never would have stayed. Her being part of this thing, these people, gave it some sort of legitimacy. Regardless of their past, Jasmine was no fool. And she wasn’t one to play elaborate pranks on people, either. So he would go along for now and see what all this was about. He could always leave later… couldn’t he? Smiles cracked the faces of all three people seated across from him. Even Jasmine was happy though traces of surprise still clung to her features.
“Before I become indoctrinated or whatever else needs to happen,” Cendan said, “can we please eat? I’ve never eaten Japanese before, and since today isn’t part of my normal routine, I may as well run with it.”
Jasmine grinned and stood to grab a waiter. Sal leaned back in his chair. “Yep, got to go through some stuff to join us, it’s not hazing per se—”
“Ignore him,” Marcus said. “We do on-the-job training, so to speak, and the fact is, we need you. The only thing we need to do is to get your focus set in place to help strengthen the barrier when we are in the headquarters. Takes a few minutes.”
As they waited for the food to arrive, conversation continued. This time, they didn’t talk about focuses and Echo Worlds, but about their past relationship—with some prodding from Sal. Both Jasmine and Cendan gave non-committal answers to his questions, and soon he got the idea that they didn’t want to talk about what had happened between them.
The food finally arrived, and Cendan was given a large bowl of thick noodles with chicken, some unidentified sauce, and a pair of chopsticks. There were bits of green vegetables were mixed in, too. It smelled delicious. Through the slight steam rising off his bowl, he saw Jasmine watching him with an unreadable expression.
His first taste was surprisingly good. The surprise that must have been on his face made Jasmine laugh out loud, drawing looks from both of the other two. Cendan shook his head. Okay, so she had been right—this was good. Very good, actually. His initial trepidation gone, Cendan dug in. He listed to his three companions make small talk, all the earlier conversation over for the time being.
Although he still had many questions, he filed them away as quickly as they occurred to him. Where was this headquarters? Why was Jasmine’s focus a copy of the orchids in the restaurant? Who was this Oakheart? Why didn’t other people see these creatures that were coming over and damaging the barrier? How did they know when a Bridge between the worlds was forming?
So many questions, and not enough time at the present to get them all answered. Dinner was slowly winding down when Marcus cleared his throat.
“You’ve been quiet, Cendan. I’m sure you’ve come up with more than a few questions.” Marcus pushed his plate to the side. “I can hear you thinking from here.”
Cendan slurped up one last noodle and nodded. “Well the main one—how do you find these Bridges and creatures? What do they look like?”
“The creatures all are different,” Sal answered, “But the plus side is that most people can’t fully perceive them. Every so often someone can, and even rarer, they get caught on a camera. You ever search video sites? Those vid
eos showing crazy sightings of monsters or creatures? Yeah, those are all pretty much real, and they all work for the Slyph.”
“The Bridges themselves are different for each person,” Jasmine said. “We don’t know why. Sal sees them as rings of flame with a bright blue, almost electric blue tint. I happen to see them as blotches of super intense color. When a creature of the Slyph is coming through, it always turns black, the most impossibly pure black. Marcus sees the Bridges as crackling electricity. When you see your first, you’ll just know.”
Cendan turned toward Jasmine. “What is your connection to this restaurant? I mean, your focus is a carved wooden orchid.”
Jasmine smiled. “Two-fold, actually. One, this place is owed by my family. And two, our current headquarters—or lair, as others have called it—the entrance we use for now is here, in the basement.” She paused. “I know that sounds… convenient. But when your focus got awoken today, you would have ended up wherever the headquarters was, one way or another.”
“What do you mean for now? You move it? Or does it move on its own?” Cendan asked. “Just curious. You know how I need information. And yes, that sounds convenient. You said you don’t do magic, yet you say that ‘one way or another’ I’d have ended up here?”
“We move it. It’s… protocol to move it every year or two. Just on the off chance the creatures of the Slyph decide to attack again.” Marcus answered. “We don’t do it more often because a lot of them aren’t very bright. Grellnot is an exception, plus a few other races the Slyph has created. And yes, I know it might seem like magic, but it’s not. Think of it like a magnet. Your focus will pull you here no matter what—speed and timing don’t matter.”
