The Floating Room

by Brian Olsen

  I scramble out from underneath the steaming carcass. I grab the ice stool to help myself up but it’s wet and melting so I slide back into the grass.

  While I was panicking, Zane’s been fighting a horde of little green men, four feet high, with wide pointed ears and sharp teeth, carrying knives and spears. Goblins. Summoned from Mr. Miller’s nightmares, I’m sure. Zane’s holding a shield made of solid shadow and it looks like he’s doing okay against them.

  But Zane’s distraction means he’s let Mom out of her shadow prison. She advances on Alisa, who’s in a stand-off with Mr. Miller. Alisa doesn’t realize my mother’s behind her, raising her hand to attack.

  Mom forms a spear of ice in her hand and prepares to throw it. She passes Kenny, still sprawled on the ground, and he grabs her leg.

  “Mrs. Armstrong, don’t!” Kenny yells. “Alisa’s on our side!”

  The javelin flies wide, landing harmlessly somewhere in the woods. Mom kicks Kenny off and forms another spear.

  “Mom!”

  I’m still on my ass in the grass and I can’t reach her. I toss off another fireball, just to distract her, but she doesn’t so much as flinch.

  Alisa, alerted by Kenny’s intervention, turns away from Mr. Miller. She’s a little off-balance but she throws her hand out and shouts, “Truth!”

  Mom hesitates. The ice javelin drops from her hand. “Alisa? I was going to…my god, what kind of person am I becoming?”

  Mr. Miller whacks Alisa hard across the back of the head with the heavy magical book. She groans and falls to all fours. Miller vanishes.

  “Neve!” My dad reaches through the bars. “Neve, please, make this stop!”

  I get up and run to the cage. It’s easy now to melt the bars, freeing Nate and my dad. Nate runs to Jasmine, dodging around the dead spider.

  Jasmine’s been smiling this whole time, like it’s all a great game she’s enjoying, but at the sight of Nate hurrying towards her, her smile falters.

  “Jaz,” Nate cries. “I love you. Please don’t do this.”

  “You’ll be safe, Natey! I promise!”

  Zane yells in pain. A goblin got past his shield and stabbed him in the thigh. I shoot a fireball at the creature, blasting a hole in its chest, then encircle the rest in a ring of fire. One throws a spear through it, but Zane deflects it with his shield.

  “I’m okay.” Zane limps over to us. His thigh is bleeding.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s not bad. Thanks for the help.”

  Dad gives Alisa a hand up while Mom stands watching, motionless.

  “Stop this, Neve,” Dad says again. “Stop this insanity and come home to us.”

  “I don’t…” Mom backs up. “I can’t, Eric. I’m not Neve Armstrong. Not any more. Look what I almost did to Alisa. To a teenage girl. Would your wife do that?”

  Dad puts his arm around Alisa, who still looks groggy. “But you didn’t. You stopped yourself.”

  “I don’t know.” Mom buries her face in her hands. “I’m so lost, Eric.”

  Jasmine steps towards her, away from Nate. “You’re not lost, Mrs. Armstrong.” She reaches out, as if she wants to comfort my mom. “You’re going to have your son and husband and we’re going to get the real world back! You’ll see!”

  “It’s over, Jasmine,” I say. “Kenny’s awake. Without his power amplifying the fairies, you can’t—”

  The world blinks. We’re in medieval outfits again, and Nate and Dad disappear.

  “What’s happening?” Kenny’s still sprawled out in the center of the clearing. He tugs at the tunic that’s replaced his t-shirt. “Why is this happening?”

  The world comes back. Nate and Dad reappear.

  Jasmine jumps and claps her hands. “It’s working! It’s still working!”

  I run to Kenny and drop down next to him. “Kenny, you’re amplifying the fairies! You have to stop!”

  “I can’t!” He grabs my arm, but his grip is so weak. He’s panting from exertion even though he’s sitting motionless. “They’re draining me, Chris! I can’t stop them!”

  Mr. Miller appears. He’s not in the shabby suit he was just wearing, but instead the robes I’ve seen him wear in my dreams, as Muln. “The fairies have a bargain to fulfill, Chris. And they always keep a bargain. They won’t let go of Kenny’s powers until the world is as it should be.”

  I shoot a fireball at him. I make it more heat than fire, enough to knock him down without killing him. But it passes right through him and hits a tree. Illusion.

  Alisa shouts, “Truth!”

  This Miller vanishes. The real Miller, in his wrinkled brown suit, appears a few feet away.

  “I’ve got him.” Zane gestures and wraps a shadow around him.

  Nate snatches the book from Miller just before the darkness covers his arms. “I’ll take that. Bye-bye, Mr. Miller! Time for lights out!”

  As the shadow stretches over Miller’s face, he smirks and says, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Wait.” I stand and gesture for Zane to stop. “Alisa can keep us safe from him. Just keep him from moving.”

  The shadow retreats from Miller’s head, but keeps his arms pinned to his sides. “There’s no way out, Chris,” the older logomancer says. “You can’t stop fairy magic. The real world will return.”

  “It might, but he won’t! They locked the Common King away good and tight. Even if the Moment ends, I’ll still be Chris Armstrong.”

  He smirks. “We shall see. Jasmine told me about your ‘floating room.’ Now that I know what I’m up against, I’m sure I can break through. Putting the world right first will make it all the easier.”

  Jasmine walks to me, her hands up in a peaceful gesture. “You could stop this, Chris.”

  “You mean you could stop this, Jasmine. Call off your bargain.”

  “Oh, no.” She shakes her head. “You can’t cancel a bargain with a fairy. But they can only fulfill their end of it with Kenny’s power. So…” She runs her fingers through Kenny’s damp hair. “No Kenny, no magic.”

  “Jasmine!” Miller grits his teeth. “I mean, Your Majesty! This wasn’t the plan.”

  She shrugs. “I want my friend back, Muln, and I’ve never been all that impressed with your powers. You think you can break through to the Common King when I couldn’t?” She snorts. “Doubt it. But…” She takes my hand. “Chris, if you do something totally unlike you, like kill someone you care about? I’ll bet that’ll get you a little further up that staircase. Maybe all the way to the top.”

  I pull my hand away. “I won’t.”

  “But you’re so confident.” She walks her fingers up my arm. “You said climbing closer to the floating room wasn’t changing you, right? So if you’re right and I’m wrong, where’s the harm?”

  “I’m not going to murder Kenny!”

  “Then you’d better find another way to stop us.” She giggles. “I’ll bet a little more power would help. Why don’t you climb a few more steps?”

  The clearing is gone. The fairies are gone. We’re in the barren plain. All of us. Alisa, Nate, Zane, my parents, Kenny, Miller. All standing in the same spots, but on cracked brown earth instead of green grass.

  I’m above them all. Up on the fourteenth step. Almost halfway to the floating room. Jasmine hovers in front of me, right above the next step.

  Up past her, the Common King waits. He comes forward, to the side of the room facing us, the side where the wall is open. He looks down, and I see his face clearly. My face.

  He says nothing. He waits.

  I plant my feet. “I won’t.”

  “Just one step.” Jasmine crooks her finger, beckoning me forward. “One or two or three. Seven billion people are about to die, Chris. They’ll fade from reality if you don’t stop us. Isn’t that worth the risk?”

  Is she right? I don’t know how to stop this. I don’t know how to save everyone.

  But I bet he would. The Common King can use his magic in ways I haven’t even t
hought of.

  I don’t have any other options. I have to try, and trust that I’m strong enough to stay me.

  I lift my foot.

  “Chris!”

  I hesitate, my foot hanging in the air. I look down, behind me.

  My father stands at the base of the stairs. “Chris. I don’t know what’s in that room, but I know it’s something bad. And climbing these steps is what’s been taking you away from me. Away from yourself. Am I right?”

  “Dad…”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come down, son.”

  “But I don’t know how to fix this, Dad. I don’t know another way.”

  “I don’t either, Chris, but whatever the solution is, it’s not worth losing you.”

  “All those people…”

  “Chris.” It’s Zane. “Please. I can’t lose you like this.”

  “If she wants you to climb,” Alisa calls up, “then it has to be the wrong choice. Isn’t that obvious, Chris?”

  Jasmine whispers to me, “She’s always so sure of the truth. But right and wrong aren’t so clear cut. You’ve learned that by now, haven’t you, Chris?”

  I don’t want to make this decision. But I’m the only one who can.

  Kenny grabs his head and screams, “It’s getting worse! They’re taking more of me!”

  Jasmine gives out a fake gasp. “Tick tock, Chris! Hurry, before Kenny amplifies himself to death! Climb those steps. Stop us. I know you can keep hold of yourself, just like I did. You know it, too! Prove us both right and save the day!”

  “Jasmine,” Nate yells. “Jasmine, I love you. I love you so much.”

  “Aw!” She puts her hands to her heart. “I love you too, babe!”

  “But you’re wrong. You’ve lost yourself. You’re so far away and you don’t even know it. Chris, don’t do this. Don’t leave us, too. Please.”

  I lower my foot back onto the fourteenth step. “They’re right. Every time I’ve taken a step it’s played right into your plans, Jasmine. I don’t know if I can stop you but bringing the Common King back will only make everything worse.”

  Above, in the floating room, the Common King moves away from the open wall, out of sight.

  The Nightmare Queen glares at me. She’s very much the girl from the dreaming village now, not my friend, but then with a smile and a glint in her eye the mask of Jasmine slides back on. “Okey-dokey! We’ll wait it out right here, then, I guess! I’ll take us out of this dream once the world is fixed and we’ll go from there.” She shrugs. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Chris,” Dad says. “Chris, come down. Come away from her.”

  “I can’t.” My voice breaks. “I can’t, Dad. I’ve tried so many times. I can’t come down. I can only go up.”

  “Then I’m coming to you.”

  “No!” I spin in place on the step. “No, Dad, stop! Nate, stop him!”

  My father places his foot on the first step, but my mother rushes forward and takes his hand.

  “Don’t, Eric. Please. I’m afraid for you.”

  He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. “He’s our son, Neve. He needs us.”

  She looks up at me, then away. Gently, she takes her hand from his. “He’s not our son, Eric.”

  He watches her for a moment, then shakes his head sadly. “You’ll find your way back to us, Neve. I know you will.”

  He climbs a step, then another. On the third, he pauses, as if something resists him.

  “Dad, please! I don’t know what this will do to you!”

  He grunts, forcing himself onto the third step, then the fourth. “It’ll bring me to you, Chris. That’s all that matters.”

  “I’m all right, Dad! You don’t have to…I won’t climb anymore.”

  He grits his teeth and climbs to the fifth step. “You’ve been alone in this too long, son.” He climbs to the sixth. “Whatever’s in that room, we’ll face it together.”

  He climbs to the seventh and stops, frowning. He holds up his hand. It’s translucent.

  “Eric!” My mother tries to follow but can’t. Her foot goes right through the step as if it’s not there, leaving her stranded on the ground. “Eric, come back!”

  Dad takes a breath and continues to climb. With each step, he fades, becoming more and more insubstantial.

  “Dad!” I’m sobbing. “Dad, go back!”

  “I’d go back if I were you, Mr. Armstrong,” Jasmine says. “That’s Chris’s real self you’re climbing towards. And you’re not a part of his world.”

  “I know my son’s real self.” He climbs to the thirteenth step, right below me. “And I’ll always be a part of his world. Move over, Chris.” He steps up next to me. “There.”

  He looks like a dim reflection in a window.

  “You shouldn’t have come up here, Dad.” I swallow back the lump in my throat. “The Common King is my responsibility. Just mine.”

  “Nah.” He brushes back my hair from my forehead. His fingers feel like a breeze. “You’re my son. What kind of a father would I be if I let you face danger like this on your own?”

  “But you’re fading…”

  “I faded out before. I came back.” He smiles. “We’re in this together, hero. Right until the end.”

  That’s right. He did fade out before. Both times the Moment weakened, he and Nate disappeared. But…

  “Jasmine,” I say. “I thought the fairies were protecting Nate and my dad from the Moment breaking?”

  “Of course!” she replies. “I made Mr. Miller promise they’d be okay. Well, just Nate. No offense, Mr. Armstrong. But your wife insisted on the same for you.”

  “Then why did they fade away? When the world before the Moment broke through, and our clothes changed. Why did they disappear?”

  “Because…” She frowns. “Because…um. Mr. Miller?” She cups her hand around her mouth and yells down. “Why did they disappear?”

  “It’s the nature of the spell being undone, Your Majesty,” he calls back. “They don’t have a place yet in the real world, but one will be found for them. They’ll be with us when the spell breaks. That was my bargain with the fairies, and fairies always keep their bargains.”

  Jasmine nods. “That’s true.”

  “Jasmine,” Dad says. “Who made the bargain to keep us safe? You and my wife? Or Mr. Miller?”

  “Mr. Miller did.”

  “And,” I say, “how much do you trust him, exactly?”

  She tilts her head at me, frowning, but then her eyes widen. She curls her lip. “Nightmare.”

  We’re back in the clearing.

  “Dad! You’re solid!”

  He pats his chest. “Hey! What’d I tell you, hero?”

  He grabs me in a tight hug. Above us, the fairies are a whirlwind of lights, flying together so fast and so tight that they’re almost a solid mass.

  Jasmine walks over to the still-imprisoned Miller and puts her hands on her hips. “Muln. Did you really make a bargain to keep Nate and Mr. Armstrong safe?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty. I would never—”

  Alisa snaps her fingers. “Truth.”

  “Of course I didn’t, you petulant child,” he continues. “Why should I give something else away to the fairies for the sake of imaginary people you’re too sentimental to let go of? If I didn’t know it would anger the king, I’d have found a way to erase you from the world, too. Oh.” He sighs and looks at Alisa. “I should have expected that.”

  “You…you…” Jasmine grips her blouse in her hands, twisting it. “You nightmare!”

  Mr. Miller screams and thrashes his head back and forth. He’s trying to escape something only he can see, but Zane’s shadow holds him tight.

  Our clothes change again. Nate and Dad disappear.

  “Eric!” Mom runs to the spot where Dad stood. “Eric!”

  The buzzing of the fairies intensifies. A torrential wind blows, battering us. The flame wall I made around the nightmar
e goblins blows out, but the little green creatures huddle together in terror, pointing up at the glowing sky.

  Our clothes change back. Nate and Dad reappear. Mom throws her arms around Dad, holding him tight, but the world shifts again and he vanishes from her grasp.

  “Jasmine,” Alisa yells. “Jasmine, stop it!”

  “I can’t!” Jasmine reaches for the spot where Nate stood. “You can’t call off a fairy bargain!”

  None of our powers can stop this. And I won’t murder Kenny to save the world. But there has to be something. If only we could…

  If only we could make a bargain.

  “Fairies!” I tilt my head back and shout. “Fairies! Listen to me!”

  I take a deep breath. The sun rises. The sun rises.

  Sun.

  I fly up into the maelstrom of fairy folk. Hundreds of thousands of them, whipping through the air. The wind beats at me but I hold steady and float straight up.

  They part around me, then fill in the space they made. The little beings whip by all around, so fast they’re a blur, blocking the wind and blotting out my view of the rest of the world. I’m surrounded by light and motion and noise, in a calm at the center of a glowing magical storm.

  “Fairies,” I shout. “I am the Common King, and I wish to bargain!”

  Thirty-four

  One of the fairies breaks out of the whirlwind and hovers in front of me. The little elf-like man’s wings beat furiously. His glow is so bright I can barely look at him, but through my shielded eyes I recognize him.

  “Gildglass. I want to bargain.”

  “We’ll be happy to,” the fairy replies. “But we have to fill another bargain first.”

  “But that’s the problem. I want to bargain for you to stop what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, no!” He flies a few agitated loops around my head before settling back into place. “We can’t break an existing bargain! You’ll have to wait. We’re almost done!”

  I bite my lip. “Tell me what the Nightmare Queen promised you.”

  “Free reign!” He pumps his little fist in the air. “Humans don’t like us in their cities. They put up wardings to keep us out. Very rude. She says she’ll make them illegal! And that she’ll pass a law that all humans must bargain with fairies once a year!” He claps. “We like your Human Queen.”