by Ryan Tang
The whole room stared in shock, but Peter just smiled as blood filled tears dripped down his eyes.
He forced the words through his mouth.
They dribbled alongside the blood seeping out between his teeth.
"Like I said, Falo. Our child will be born on Earth."
The boy king just drooled on the floor.
His father had been right.
Falo was supposed to restore his people, but instead, he'd given away their greatest secrets.
He was no Truthspeaker. He had no goddess and no Paragon.
He was just Fred, the useless boy from the Wastes who was worthy of his father's hatred.
He should have just stayed an exile among exiles.
It was just like when he was a boy again.
"Fred! Fred! Fred!"
His father spoke the name like it was a curse, and the tone cut even deeper than the words etched on his skeleton.
"Stay on the ground! Stay on the ground, and let me kick you! Stay on the ground where you belong!"
He'd lost to Peter.
Peter had been able to withstand the light of the tablet.
He'd even used it as a weapon.
"What will our people think when they come back and see you?"
They'd think that he'd given his biggest secrets over to the enemy.
"Don't let me hear that name ever again! The next time I hear 'Fred' you'll learn the rage of the Lost Lords first hand!"
"Fred! Fred! Fred!"
The word echoed through his mind, so loud that his soul began to itch.
He couldn't stop hearing it.
It seemed like it was coming from the walls.
It seemed like the Spire itself was cursing him.
After all, the Spire had been built as a prison for his goddess, a beacon to show that Plenty would never again be the home of Truthspeakers.
"Fred! Fred! Fred!"
"Where is Fred?"
"Have you seen Fred?"
Falo blinked.
Falo listened to the voice again, and this time he knew who was calling for him.
It wasn't his father.
It wasn't the Spire.
It was his friends.
It was his brother.
It was his family.
They'd left The Wastes to find him.
As always, calm and reliable Mr. Chen had taken command of the situation.
"What is going on here?"
Tom was stubbornly trying to help someone.
"Is there anything I can do for you? Please! Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you!"
But there was no response. He must have been talking to a Contracted subject.
Simon's curious voice was twisted by fear.
"Oh my god, what is wrong with these people?"
Even Paul was scared.
"Why can't they move? What happened to them? Why are they staring?"
Peter stirred.
"Fred? Who the hell is Fred?"
Peter could hear them too.
So could his wife. She turned to him, alarmed.
"They're here. A lot of people are here. We need to act fast."
There was no hiding secrets from a Truthspeaker.
"So why exactly is your skin like that?"
Elaine was shouting at the top of her lungs.
"Listen! Listen, everyone! This is where trusting Southern Robotics gets you!"
Other voices were shouting too, voices he didn't recognize.
"We can't rebuild homes? What the hell is this? Look at this fucking stage! They can't rebuild homes, but they can build this stage?"
"My dad! Southern Robotics stole my dad!"
Peter winced. The big man turned and edged the goddess on.
"Quickly. We need to get back quickly."
Jon screamed and screamed.
"Fred! Where are you? We're here to help you! We broke out of The Wastes for you!"
Falo rose again, ignoring the pain screeching in every one of his joints.
He slammed the ground. Golden tendrils twisted through the raw Eternium, retrieving his fallen shield. The purple and gold disk flew back towards him.
He had to fight for his friends.
Blinding pain shot through every cell in his body.
He screamed again, and the Eternium disappeared.
His shield fell back to the floor. It was just two arms' lengths away, but it might as well have been on another colony.
His head tumbled out of his loose fingers.
His bones wailed.
Stock sneered.
"Not this time! Not this time you stupid kid! Don't show an attitude to your god!"
He thought of his friends and tried to rise, but the light seared him again.
Falo pushed harder and harder.
If he lost here, his friends would die too.
They'd kill everyone from The Wastes.
The light grew even brighter.
Stock just laughed.
"No hope! You have no hope!"
He started walking closer and closer.
The light grew brighter and hotter.
Falo's hand was melting - actually melting.
His fingers slowly began to dissolve.
A loose nail clattered to the floor.
And that was when he sensed her.
She was right behind them.
There was no hiding the truth from a Truthspeaker, but somehow she'd followed him into the Spire that night, and today she'd followed him again.
He stared at Peter, his false father with the cooked hand.
He didn't know.
Surely he'd say something if he knew.
He wouldn't be the one to save his friends.
He would die here.
The thought was so horribly sad. He wanted to live. He wanted to see Jon and Elaine and all the others.
But Falo knew, deep in his bones.
There was no hiding the truth from a Truthspeaker.
He couldn't save himself.
He was as good as dead.
But he could still save his friends.
She'd been such a worthy opponent.
CHAPTER 29: GUARDIAN OF THE SPIRE, PART 2
IT WAS SO DARK, SO dark it seemed like she'd fallen out of the colony entirely and into the void of space.
Alex stared at the pipe and prepared to leap.
It'd been strangely easy to follow them, and not just because the Eternium in her hair lighting the way.
It felt like she'd been on this path before.
She didn't know how long she'd followed the four of them - gloating Stock, supplicant Bret, the pregnant woman leading the way, and the big man holding a decapitated little boy in his hands - but they'd eventually arrived at this spread out series of pipes which were all built around a yawning black feeding hole.
She'd known it was a feeding hole even before the big man chuckled and warned them not to fall in.
How had she known?
And what was being fed?
It was the same when they all jumped.
She'd known which pipe they were about to take before they took it.
Her Eternium cloak roared. She could feel the strands in her hair, dancing fervently back and forth.
Normally, the holy metal was merely rippling, but now it surged like water breaking through a dam.
She concentrated, thinking of the friends she'd left behind.
The librarian tore a strip from her cloak.
The Eternium in her hands hardened, and she was soon wearing a set of gloves lined with spikes.
The spikes would help catch her onto the tube, and the Eternium would sink in without making a noise.
The pipe had a smooth floor and caused a nasty echo. She was sure of it.
The librarian gathered her strength and leaped. Her heavy bag thumped a little against her back. She was still carrying Mrs. T's book and the tablet that held her parent's digital copy of The Familiars.
The jump was talle
r than it looked. She knew that for a fact.
But she was a lot stronger now. She knew that too.
The Eternium plunged into the metal.
Alex pulled herself upwards with the mighty arms she'd developed after climbing shelf after shelf inside the book-corridors.
It was completely silent inside the tube.
But soon as she stepped to the other side, she heard them yelling at the top of their lungs. They were shouting over a ghastly chorus, a chorus of thousands screaming at once.
Alex stepped forward and saw a monster.
____
Familiars.
Companions.
Old Gods.
There were many words to describe the creature in front of her, but monster worked better than any of them.
The strange creature-woman floated through the air. At first, Alex thought she was some sort of cecaelia – an octopus woman, a mermaid with tentacles instead of fins.
But then she got a better look at the face and realized the truth.
The human-like thing at the top was a dead shell. The creature's expression never changed. The bright red smile nothing more than an upturned smear of paint. Her eyes were still as a dying lake. The chest never moved, never breathed. When her dress – expensive fabric decorated by grayed and dying coral – shifted, Alex saw her flesh was mottled and ruined. She was marked all over with strange eye-like shapes that first seemed like pockmarks. It was only when Alex looked closer that she realized they were shriveled suction cups.
Her shawl twisted gently in the wind. Whatever lay beneath was far too thick and lively to be hair. The twisting strands were a decaying shade of gray. Alex never could've imagined a more dead color.
Worst of all were the bodies behind her.
Alex only caught a few glimpses of what lay behind the swaying door, but it was enough to make her blood run cold and her limbs grew numb.
Mannequin-like shells swayed back and forth, an infinite variety of expressions, clothing, shapes, and skin colors.
One stood out to her, a woman with a shy smile and a floral dress that trailed down to her knees.
She'd seen it somewhere before.
Did she know her? Had she been a guest at the Spire?
The big man was solemnly reading.
"The First Sacrifice – a Traitor to Knowledge, a man who looked away from the truth because he thought he stood to gain."
Bret stared up as the creature loomed above him, floating high in the air, its strange tentacle limbs wiggling back and forth in ecstasy.
Black ink sprayed haphazardly from every pore, covering the tiny man's froglike face, freezing him in his look of complete terrified detachment.
The black oil flew into his mouth and dribbled back out along with his drool. The liquid stank of salt and rot. It was so foul that Alex could smell it from where she was standing. But the tiny man did not respond. It seemed the fright had already killed him.
The books in their cases turned blacker and blacker. Alex was alarmed to see dead plants and animals sprouting out of the covers, false life born in their death throes.
She should step forward.
She should do something.
She couldn't just let Bret die. She couldn't just let the monster eat him.
The Eternium danced in her hands and reminded her of its presence.
She closed her eyes and tried to push away the fear. She tried to think of her friends and student waiting for her, but she couldn't do it.
The metal in her hands turned limp and wilted as the false woman pirouetted more gracefully than any dancer.
A gentle hand reached up and tore off the shawl. Another undid the knot at the front of the dress. The monster's clothes fell to the floor.
Thick black smoke began drifted slowly towards the ceiling, and the monster's true form was revealed. Just as Alex suspected, the coral dress, the shawl, and the still, unmoving face was only a facade that allowed the creature to pass undetected among its prey.
The false head and still body drifted high in the air, bobbing up and down like the figurehead of a drowning ship. Four massive tentacles lashed forward, black and rotting and fleshy and ancient.
Tucked tightly inside the human-like shell was a writhing mass of tendrils with no real form. They were made not of flesh, but of black ink that dripped onto the floor and smoke that floated endlessly towards the ceiling. The scent of salt and rot infected the whole room. Hungry mouths with infinite teeth and smacking tongues poked out all directions at once from the creature's core.
The monster took Bret with a tender embrace.
The myriad mouths seeped forwards.
There was a sound like shattering glass.
Bret let out a final scream that went on and on.
His voice cracked then recovered, cracked then recovered. High and low. High and low.
The creature chewed and chewed, biting and slurping, taking dozens of bites at once, the teeth munching together in a horrifyingly discordant rhythm that echoed through the chamber. The big man and the pregnant woman looked away, but Stock stared greedily forward, his eyes filled with the same demented intensity he had when he said Alex would work for him forever.
The monster continued eating.
The shell perched on the frog-faced man's chest as the limbless shell stared up at the ceiling, its face silent and unchanging.
The rest of Bret's body was engulfed in smoke and black liquid. The monster chewed from the outside and the inside at the same time. The black had seeped down through the froglike man's eyes. Smoke burrowed its way into his ears. One of the giant tentacles was stuffed down his throat. Soon Bret's arms were gone. Then his legs. His eyes were minced from within.
Black and fleshy tongues angrily spit mangled globs of Bret's brain onto the ground. Red flickered between the black as the creature ate and ate.
Alex stared and stared.
She thought of the simulator cockpit, she thought of her friends, she thought of the Spire.
But nothing helped her overcome the horror in front of her.
The fear had trapped her mind in an impenetrable bubble.
When the creature rose again, all that was left was Bret's head and torso. His hair was all gone, and his scalp had been cracked through, revealing the black hollowness within.
His blank features remained identical to his expression before he'd died.
A thin burnt red tendril of smoke emerged and began to flit across the froglike man's face.
Bret's features hardened as the monster drew. His face became more angular and more handsome than before. The creature did something with Bret's eyes, and then he no longer looked horrified. She closed his jaw, then set his mouth in a way where there was no hint of his once permanent scowl. Satisfied with her work, the creature suddenly dashed forward, entering Bret's body through the holes where his arms and lower half used to be.
The old shell struck the floor and lay there facedown. There was a splintering crack.
Bret rose again, far more beautiful than he'd ever been in life.
Stock haphazardly pulled clothes out of a bag on his back, throwing them onto the floor in front of the creature in Bret's shell. The costume was tiny, tailor-made to suit Bret's body and identical to what he'd worn before.
The creature dressed from behind, the ink and smoke that peered out from the hole in the back of Bret's corpse worked fastidiously to put on the exquisite clothes.
Before long, it was like Bret had never died. Bret looked just like he did before, save for the dead look in his eyes and the handsome grin on his face.
Only the head was different. Black tentacles of ink drifted out in a tangled and unruly mess. Smoke wafted to the ceiling, drifting in a messy line out of the tiny man's newly bald head.
Stock snickered.
"He was never very good at thinking hard."
He pulled out a big gray beanie hat and threw it to the creature, who promptly put it on.
The big man nodded uneasi
ly. Then he turned.
"The Second Sacrifice – the Usurped Hero, the boy whose story was stolen from him by one who was far deceitful."
Stock turned away from the fake Bret and giggled.
"Yes. Yes."
He picked up the bust from the floor.
"Soon, I will be a god."
The goddess turned towards the decapitated boy. Just as Alex had seen in the tunnels, the body was still breathing.
The creature drifted forward.
The head abruptly swiveled towards her.
And then the boy's voice echoed in her ears.
At first, his voice was totally unfamiliar. But by the end of the sentence, Alex knew exactly who he was.
"Alex the Spire Guardian – I hereby dissolve our Contract!"
____
Alex stared at the monster.
She'd beaten it before, and she could beat it again.
It was like a chain over her mind had suddenly unraveled.
It was like stepping into a pool of water – first, she was dry, and then all of a sudden, she was wet.
Before, she'd forgotten.
But now she knew.
The librarian was still scared, but the rush of knowledge and the ecstasy and adrenaline that accompanied it overcame her fear. Alex pulled her tablet from her pack, drawing it just as smoothly as she drew her rifle in the simulator.
Last time, she'd been forced to wait until the monster came into range.
But she'd always been better at shooting.
Her parent's hand-drawn story flared through the air.
The creature screamed.
Bret's face started to melt. The white droplets oozed into neat little puddles on the floor.
The room turned and stared at her.
The goddess wailed. Its voice was still the chorus of tortured thousands, but now Bret's squeal led at the very top.
"Kill her!"
"Burn her book!"
"Give me her body!"
The not-Bret-thing charged toward her.
The boy began to shout.
"No! Not now! You can't win now! The Eternium! Use the Eternium! Forge a Paragon!"
She'd cut his head off, but then he came back to slam her onto the floor.
He was just a boy.
He could have killed her but didn't.
She stared at Stock and the man and woman in white Southern Robotics uniforms.
The boy had been taken in by Southern Robotics, just like the rest of the colony.
