by Clayton Wood
“Well, that worked,” Piper noted. Bella smiled sweetly.
“You’re speaking to the world’s greatest Painter’s daughter,” she pointed out. “No door is closed to me.”
Gideon rolled his eyes.
“Let’s go,” he prompted. Piper walked up to the door ahead, twisting the knob and pushing it open.
Beyond, there was utter darkness.
Gideon reached into his chest-painting, pulling out his magical lantern and holding it before him. He followed Piper into the darkness, gesturing for Bella and the others to follow. They all went inside, the meager light from the hallway behind them illuminating a small wedge of the floor they were standing on. Gideon lifted his lamp above his head.
“Luminos,” he incanted.
The lantern flared to life, bright rays of light banishing the darkness around them.
Bella heard a sharp intake of breath, and she turned to see Gideon staring wide-eyed at the room around them.
“My god!” he blurted out in horror.
Chapter 46
The Collector limped as quickly as he could down the hallway, Simon and Miss Savage right behind him. He’d left Simon’s room immediately after Miss Savage’s proclamation, making his way toward his office on the other end of the Castle Under. His right hip ached terribly, each step sending a fresh burst of pain down the side of his thigh.
“Who’s attacking us?” he demanded.
“An army of creatures, Collector,” Miss Savage answered.
“Not the Pentad?”
“No,” she confirmed. “They appear to be some sort of dragon-like race.” She hesitated. “General Bowen estimates their numbers in the tens of thousands.” General Bowen was the leader of the Collector’s forces…a disciplined, but not particularly creative, man.
The Collector slowed.
“Tens of thousands?”
“Yes Collector.”
He felt the blood drain from his face, and continued forward, not wanting Miss Savage or Simon to notice. Though, knowing them, it was too late.
“We’ve never seen creatures like this,” she continued. “They came from the Plane of Reflection. We…”
“They’re Dragonkin,” the Collector snapped. His jawline rippled.
Well done, Thaddeus.
The corridor turned right, and the Collector followed it, spotting a row of windows to their right ahead. He stopped by one of them, peering out of it.
A cloud of dragon-like creatures swarmed in mid-air below, just above the mountaintop…and thousands more were on the mountain itself, facing his army of Glargs, various other creatures, and the eight forty-foot tall sword-wielding statues he called his Collosi. The bodies of countless Glargs littered the perimeter of the castle…and a much larger number of dead Dragonkin. But the enemy outnumbered them ten to one. And while the Reapers might be able to take down hundreds of enemies, and would likely be nigh invincible to mere soldiers, they couldn’t stop the rest of the army from storming the castle.
And, having forced the vast majority of his Painters into becoming paintings, what few remained would inevitably fall.
At length, the Collector reached the Demon Gate, striding through its wide-open mouth without hesitation. Simon and Miss Savage followed behind him, and they all went into the waiting room of his office. General Bowen was already there. A tall, well-built man with short gray hair and a smooth-shaven face, his expression was grim.
“I know the nature of our enemy, general. Our status?” the Collector snapped.
“We’ve killed three for every one they have,” Bowen answered. “But they’re still annihilating us. They’re using air superiority to their advantage. Our Painters and the Collosi are causing the most casualties, but it won’t be enough.” He paused. “They’ve breached the castle, sir.”
“And the Reapers?” the Collector pressed.
Just then, long shadows spread across the floor of the waiting room…and the twin Reapers emerged from the floor, rising up from the shadows until they were levitating inches above the floor.
“Protect Simon and Miss Savage,” the Collector told them. “Nothing is to harm them.”
The Reapers inclined their heads in unison.
“There’s…one more thing,” General Bowen stated. The Collector turned to him.
“What?”
“Apparently a small contingent of the enemy was spotted at the base of Castle Over,” Bowen revealed. “We believe that Gideon Myles is among them.”
The Collector’s blood went cold.
He lowered his gaze to his feet, forcing himself to keep his expression neutral. To keep his hands from balling into fists. He glanced to his right, spotting Simon staring at him.
My creator is coming for me.
He took a deep breath in, then let it out, squaring his shoulders.
“Where is he now?” he demanded.
“According to our surveillance, he’s making his way to the Demon Gate in Castle Over,” General Bowen answered. “I doubt he’ll be able to-”
“Do not doubt that man,” the Collector snapped, glaring at Bowen. “If Gideon Myles wants to get through the Demon Gate, he’ll do it.”
General Bowen lowered his gaze, the color draining from his cheeks.
“Yes sir,” he mumbled.
“Evacuate the castle,” the Collector commanded. He turned to Simon then. “We can’t let Gideon get to my collection before we do,” he added, striding up to his office door and yanking it open. He let the obvious go unspoken; if Gideon reached his collection, the man would free as many of the Painters as he could. And their Familiars, which he’d also stowed in the collection. Hundreds of Painters.
They’d have no paintings, and wouldn’t pose much of a threat to him. But if they were freed, all of his work would be for nothing.
“General Bowen, see to it that my orders are carried out. Then evacuate with the rest. Take the Underground.”
“To where, sir?”
“Anywhere,” he answered. “Wait by the Doorway there. If I die, Simon and Miss Savage will succeed me.”
General Bowen glanced at Simon, but didn’t question it. He saluted.
“Yes Collector.”
“That is all,” the Collector stated. But General Bowen hesitated. “Yes?”
“It has been a pleasure serving you, sir,” the man declared, swallowing visibly. To the Collector’s surprise, the man’s eyes were moist.
The Collector strode up to Bowen, putting a hand on his shoulder. The man stiffened in surprise; the Collector touched no one.
Then the Collector turned about, gesturing for Simon and Miss Savage to follow him into his office. He closed the door behind them then, rushing to his desk and pulling open one of the larger bottom drawers. He retrieved a black sphere from it; its surface was smooth and highly polished, and cold to the touch.
The Collector paused to stare at it.
An invention of one of his…promoted Painters, the sphere could be activated with a single word. And once activated, it would glow red, and precisely three minutes later, would unleash an expanding inferno. One that would travel hundreds of yards in any direction it was free to do so, burning with enough heat to melt stone.
And even live canvases.
For once a canvas was activated, it was highly resistant to destruction from any element. Ordinary fire could not destroy it, but a flame specifically designed to do so…
He gripped it tightly, ignoring the pain in his withered hand as he did so. The sphere had always been a contingency plan, nothing more. He’d spent his life amassing his collection. Creating the ultimate gallery. A gallery of gods.
Gods reduced to being the very things they’d created. They’d turned fiction into reality, and he had made their reality a fiction.
He couldn’t destroy it. Not now, when he was so close.
Lifting his gaze, he realized that Miss Savage and Simon were staring at him.
“Come,” he prompted, leaving the sphere in the dr
awer. He closed it, striding toward the door leading to the castle’s highest tower.
There was no point in running from his destiny. He would run toward it. He would face it head-on. Gideon was supposed to be his final painting. Would be his final painting.
But if he failed, Simon and Miss Savage would see to it that his life’s work was not in vain.
Chapter 47
Bella squinted at the sudden bright light that shot outward from Gideon’s lantern, banishing the darkness all around her. Then she blinked, taking a moment to get her bearings.
They were standing at the very bottom of a large, circular room. The floor and walls were made of gray stone, and fine paintings hung in neat rows in a circle all the way around. She took a step forward…and nearly tripped over something. More paintings had been laid on the floor in neat rows, nearly covering its surface. Unlike the paintings on the walls, the ones on the floor weren’t framed. She glanced at Gideon, who was looking upward, his mouth hanging open.
She looked up……and gasped.
For the walls went up…and up, and up. And upon them hung row after row of paintings, as far as the eye could see. Indeed, though the light from Gideon’s lantern went up a good hundred feet, the ceiling was still obscured by darkness beyond its reach.
“They’re people,” Gideon murmured, turning in a slow circle. He was right; most of the paintings were people, set against various backgrounds. All wore identical black robes…and all of them appeared to be either shocked or terrified, or some combination of the two.
“They’re Painters,” Piper corrected, his eyes widening. He turned to Gideon excitedly. “Look at those robes…they’re for the ceremony!”
“What?” Gideon asked.
“The promotion ceremony,” Piper clarified. “The Collector brought each Painter up to this castle when they were promoted!”
“And put them in these paintings,” Gideon realized. “He stripped them of their defenses and forced each of them into a canvas.”
“Along with their Familiars,” Bella guessed. For, beside each Painter, there was a unique creature or object. Gideon nodded.
“Which means…”
“Which means Kendra is still alive!” Piper exclaimed. “Come on, we have to find her!”
“Hold on,” Gideon cautioned, looking down. “I bet these paintings on the floor are live canvases. It’s too dangerous to leave them here like this. We’re wearing paintings, so we won’t fall in, but Piper and our Familiars might.” He squatted down, slipping his fingers under one of the canvases and lifting it up by its unpainted side. “Let’s stack these face-down.”
They got to work, carefully lifting each painting, then rotating them so they were face-down and stacking them in one corner of the room. After a few minutes, the job was done.
“Ok, first we search for Kendra and Grandpa,” Gideon proposed. “Then we free the rest of them.”
“Might get real ugly trying to get that many people outta here,” Piper pointed out.
“How about we store their paintings in your Conclave and draw them out later?” Bella proposed. Gideon nodded.
“Good idea, Bella.”
Bella turned to Nemesis.
“Can you fly Piper up there to find Kendra?” she asked.
Without dropping him? I’m not sure.
Bella rolled her eyes.
“Just do it,” she grumbled.
Nemesis grabbed Piper by the shoulders, beating her wings and lifting him upward.
“Remember how to walk up walls?” Gideon asked. Bella blinked, then remembered their harrowing journey through Devil’s Pass. She nodded, and Gideon walked up the wall, stepping between the narrow spaces between the paintings. Bella followed behind him, putting one foot on the wall, then lifting her other foot. Gravity shifted, and suddenly the wall was the floor. She paused, acclimated to the sudden change in perspective, then followed Gideon as he made his way carefully forward. Or rather, upward.
They walked between the paintings, scanning each of them, then continuing upward a row to repeat the process.
“I recognize some of these Painters,” Gideon stated as they went. But none of them were of Grandpa…or Kendra. They were about two-thirds of the way up when they heard Piper call out. He and Nemesis were a good thirty feet above…and had stopped before one of the paintings. In fact, it was the second-to-last painting that had a person in the foreground.
“I found Kendra!” he cried.
Gideon and Bella made their way to Piper. There was indeed a painting of Kendra there…and beside it, another painting.
“Grandpa!” Bella exclaimed.
Her heart leapt with joy, and she knelt before his painting, reaching down to draw him out.
“Wait,” Gideon said. “If you draw him out now, he’ll fall…and since he’s heavier than you, you’ll fall with him.”
“Oh,” Bella replied. “Right.”
“I’ll draw him out, then we both grab him, and we’ll have Nemesis fly him to that balcony,” Gideon said, pointing up and to the left. Bella turned, seeing a marble balcony above and behind them.
“Okay,” she agreed. Nemesis deposited Piper on the balcony, and Bella and Gideon positioned themselves on either side of Grandpa’s painting. Gideon switched his lamp to his stump to free his hand; they reached in at the same time, and Bella felt the familiar warm pulsing sensation as her hand plunged through the canvas. She gripped Grandpa by the right elbow, remembering his broken wrist.
“On my count,” Gideon prompted. “Three, two, one!”
They both pulled…and drew Grandpa out of the painting.
Bella felt Grandpa’s weight yank her backward, and she braced herself, holding onto his arm as hard as she could. Nemesis grabbed Grandpa by the shoulders, flapping her wings powerfully to maintain altitude.
Got him.
“We can let go,” Bella prompted. They did so, and Nemesis flew a very surprised Grandpa up to the balcony, lowering him next to Piper.
“What…!” Grandpa exclaimed. It took him a moment to realize where he was…but once he spotted Gideon and Bella, he broke into a relieved smile. Gideon and Bella circled around the tower walls, reaching the balcony and leaping down to land upon it.
“Grandpa!” Bella exclaimed, rushing forward and giving him a big bear hug. “You’re okay!”
“It seems so,” Grandpa agreed, giving her a big squeeze with his good arm. He separated from her then, clutching his broken wrist. “I had a feeling you’d come for me,” he added with a smile.
“I thought you were…” Bella began, and then stopped, swallowing past a sudden lump in her throat. Grandpa chuckled.
“A goner?” he asked. “So did I.” He glanced over her shoulder, at the paintings hung on the walls. “Luckily the Collector had a different plan for me. An apt name, don’t you think?”
“Let’s get Kendra out,” Piper prompted. Bella and Gideon wall-walked back to her painting, reaching in and drawing her out as before. As soon as she came out of the painting, she screamed, flailing her arms. Then she froze, staring at Bella, then Gideon.
“Gideon…?” she blurted out.
“You were in a painting,” Gideon informed her. “You’re safe now.”
She stared at him incredulously, then flinched as Nemesis grabbed her by the shoulders.
“It’s okay babe,” Piper called out from the balcony. “They’re with me.”
Kendra looked up, spotting Piper on the balcony…and immediately relaxed.
“Hey baby,” she greeted. “Miss me?”
“Terribly,” Piper replied, breaking out into a big grin. Nemesis flew Kendra up to the balcony, depositing her next to her husband. Piper drew her into his arms, embracing her tightly.
“Love you baby,” he murmured.
She clung to him, burying her head in his chest. Then, after a long moment – long after Bella and Gideon had returned to the balcony – she drew back from him, shaking her head and smiling at him.
“M
y hero,” she said, leaning in and kissing him passionately. Bella looked away, feeling rather awkward. It was hardly a kiss one should have in public, after all. “Told you you’d come and rescue me.”
“Guess you’re always right,” he replied.
“How long have I been gone?” she asked.
“Way too long,” Piper answered. “What happened?”
“The Collector betrayed me,” she replied, her expression darkening. “He shoved me off this balcony. I don’t get it…why would he do that?”
“Because he hates Painters,” Gideon answered. Piper and Kendra turned to face him, and Gideon sighed. “I tried to warn you.”
Kendra lowered her gaze.
“You were right,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, Gideon. For everything.” She shook her head, her jawline rippling. “The things I did for that man…”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Gideon interjected. “Right now we need to get you and Thaddeus out of here.”
“And we still need to save all of these people,” Grandpa pointed out, gesturing at the paintings all around them. Gideon nodded.
“Where’s Nightmare?” Kendra blurted out, her eyes widening in fear. “I can’t feel him!”
“He’s in your painting,” Piper reassured. Nemesis acted without having to be told, flying Kendra to her painting. She drew the golden cube that served as her Familiar, and Nemesis deposited her back on the balcony. Black tentacles sprouted from the cube, and wrapped around Kendra and Piper in a spiraling embrace.
“Okay, let’s get these paintings down,” Gideon prompted…and then froze, looking past her. Bella followed his gaze, seeing a door at the other end of the balcony.
Twin shadows had appeared on the marble balcony, extending from under the door. They grew longer as Bella watched, inching toward them.
“Run!” Gideon cried.
And then black cowls rose from the shadows, the twin Reapers emerging from the balcony.
* * *
Gideon backpedaled to the edge of the marble balcony, tossing his magic lantern off of it. Then he leapt backward as the Reapers finished rising from their shadow-forms. He went right off the edge of the balcony, plummeting toward the floor of the tower hundreds of feet below.
