The Nick Of Time (and other abrasions): Shadows Of Polaris chapter five

The Nick Of Time

(and other abrasions)

Shadows Of Polaris

by

Al Bruno III

Chapter Five

Matthew would have fallen flat on his face if not for the pain, it locked his muscles in place; it set his heart struggling to beat. There were dark patches forming under his skin, where blood had oozed between the muscle and flesh to form slowly expanding Rorschach patterns. He said "...You're not even a real sorcerer... just a student..."

"I'm very gifted everyone says so." Fresh light blossomed at her fingertips, it was white like the heart of an inferno.

"...if I'm strong enough... if I can break one of those...things..." Matthew sobbed, "then why am I letting you do this? I've got what I want. I know the way out. Why don't I just kill you?" Matthew knew that when that light touched him his skin would wither and his bones would turn to jelly, but he wouldn't die. Oh no, she'd still have plenty of time for her interrogation. "...why don't I just..."

The light swirling within her hand became more and more swollen, "Because you are- because they- It's-"

The light dwindled to a pinprick. The tension holding Matthew's body locked went with it. He began to pitch forward but when he saw Audra grab for him he recoiled away "...don't... don't..."

"Matt. Matt I'm so sorry." Audra stroked his bruised cheek, catching his tears on the back of her hand. "I thought you were one of them. I'm so sorry."

"Well I'm not." He wanted to pull away but he didn't have the strength. When her fingers whispered through his hair he closed his eyes and shook his head, "I'm not one of them. I'm not one of you. I'm not one of anything."

Audra shushed him.

"I'm nothing." He was shaking all over. It felt like something had broken loose inside him, something that could never be repaired. "I'm nothing. I never stood for anything. I never won anything. I never did anything. I just took what I got and didn't ask questions."

"Calm down. Take a deep breath." She hugged him tight, cradling his head, "You're just shook up that's all. It happens when your guide tries to kill you."

"If I died here what would it matter? One less software developer in the world, so what? I haven't talked to my parents in years. My girlfriend and I don't really love each other, we're just too lazy to break up. I don't have any real friends, the only people that call me are bill collectors." He whispered into the soft crook of her neck, "I'm nothing."

Audra grabbed him by the hair, raised his mouth to hers and kissed him just lightly enough to make him open his eyes. "We are all nothing. That's the beauty of the world."

Matthew loosed a long shuddering breath and sagged into her arms.

They stayed that way for some time; he too drained to move and she content to hold him. Even though she'd just tried to kill him, he felt safe in her arms. More than that, he felt different in her arms. Maybe it was the way she called him Matt; nobody ever called him Matt- even his parents called him Matthew.

And she was so warm, her heat washed over him; the aches in his body subsided before it. Her hands traced lazy circles on his back. The sensation left him feeling blissful and morose all at once.

"We are all nothing." She got that right. We can fly to the moon and make cities out of magic but it doesn't change anything. We still have wars, despots, intolerance and castration. No matter what we accomplish someone will just come along later and tear it down. I should just stay right here in this cave, live like a hermit.

Maybe she would stay with me. Matthew kissed her again, tentatively.
She pushed him away, he wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not.

"Audra, I was thinking that-"

"We need to get moving."

"I need to tell you something, something important."

She kissed him again, "Matt, I like you I really do but let's be honest here, you and I are literally from two different worlds."

He straightened up and pulled himself to his feet, "You're right but I just I wish I'd have met you under different circumstances."

"Wish in one hand, crap in the other, see which fills up faster." Audra put her arm around his waist. They walked out of the mouth of the cave to find themselves standing on the boundary between craggy foothills and a forest of bare trees, their branches heavy with snow. The icy ground crumbled beneath their footsteps.

The walls of Olathoe were nowhere to be seen. Matthew looked back into the cave "How long were we walking for?"

"The City was constructed from an old Trianog design. It warps the distances around itself." Audra paused, trying to gauge her bearings from the positions of the stars.

Matthew nodded "Magic."

"Exactly." She set off down the sloping incline to the woods, "The Tabernacle isn't far now."

For a moment Matthew stared at the sky, wondering which star she had chosen to guide her. The Pole Star winked at him enigmatically. "What is a Harnett's Tabernacle anyway?"

Slipping into the maze of barren sycamore trees Audra made sure he was following before she began speaking, "Almost a century ago, give or take, a man from your world tried to storm Olathoe. Somehow he found a weir and used it to bring an army of well-armed Outlanders through."

Matthew interrupted, "What's a weir?"

"It's like a gateway, a passage between worlds. Boring types call them Apertures."

"Are they named after Jason Magwier?"

"No." She snorted derisively, "Weir is derived from the Old English word for a levee or a dam. Magwier isn't even his real name, he just thinks he's being clever. Trust me, he's not."

"So Harnett brought an army through..."

"Oh yeah. He brought his little war right up to Olathoe's gates. His army littered the area with trenches and machine gun nests. The powers that be in the Cty didn't understand that kind of warfare, their strategy guide was like something out of King Arthur. It was magic versus machinery and there were heavy casualties on both sides."

"I'm surprised he did that much damage." Matthew cast a glance backwards, to the madness he'd escaped from but the night and the clusters of trees obscured his view. At least in the City he'd had the glow of the nearby streetlights to navigate by, here he had nothing.

Anything could be hiding in these woods. You wouldn't even know until you were right on top of it!

That thought made him hurry up, and nearly hurry face first into a tree. Thankfully Audra hadn't seen him, she was too busy talking, "Harnett was a brilliant tactician and a good politician. He somehow managed to recruit support from dissident factions within the City itself. He found supporters everywhere, even within the Council of Mystagogues. A minority of them decided to throw in their lot with Harnett, they broke off from the Council and formed the Great Western Council of Mystagogues. Of course that led to the ones left behind renaming themselves the Greater Eastern Council of Mystagogues."

"What's with the East-West division?"

"Not sure, I think its a cultural thing." She paused, rechecking the stars and then looking this way and that.

The woods here didn't look any different than the woods anyplace else, Matthew wondered what she was looking for. "So did Harnett take the City?"

"No. He came close, very close but in the end his greatest strength became his greatest weakness."

"His fortress."

"Exactly." She patted his chest and set off walking again.

Matthew followed her and then stopped suddenly, he looked down, his eyes widening in horror, "My God!"

"Matt?" Audra spun around.

"What did I step in?" Matthew wrinkled his nose in disgust. Whatever it was it was huge and stank to high heaven. It curled up around the edges if his shoe and oozed into the lace holes.

Cautiously edging forward Audra's worried expression broke, "Looks like a bear turd."

"This is disgusting!" Matthew limped in wild circles, dragging his foot through the snow, trying to clean it. He stopped suddenly, "What a minute did you say bears? Out here? There are bears?"

"Well, we are in the woods and bears do shit in the woods."

"Are we safe?"

"Calm down, bears are more scared of people than we are of them. Don't you read National Geographic?"

Clumps of ice and snow fell from a tree as he scraped and shook his shoe against the rough bark "It's winter. Shouldn't all the bears be hibernating?"

"Maybe this one has insomnia. Maybe it's an old piece of poop. Don't stress out about it." She took his hand and led him forward, he limped after her "Anyway, what did old Harnett in was that Weir. He relied on it too much. As the body count rose and rose and rose he started to loose support within the City. They'd wanted a quick coup, not a meat grinder. Then..."

"Then what?"

"...then the doorway between our world and his stopped working. No more reinforcements, no more supplies."

"Ouch." Memories of playing Risk filled his head. He always seemed to find himself falling back again and again until he was left with a pitiful garrison on Iceland and nothing more.

"Suddenly the tables were turned and he was the one under siege. He held out for almost a year but eventually the rulers of the City toppled the walls of his fortress and slaughtered Harnett's army to the last man."

"Including Harnett?"

"Oh yeah. When the siege was over the only thing left standing of the
fortress was Harnett's Tabernacle and even that was in bad shape."

The trees gave way to a clearing. At first Matthew thought he was looking at a cemetery; a field of worn stones protruding from the snow at crooked angles with a tiny chapel at the center. That must be the Tabernacle. He realized. Drawing closer Matthew could see that the stones were not gravemarkers but slabs of stone that marked where the fortress' foundation had been. The blocks of granite were worn with the passage of time and marked at the corners with thick gouges.

Looks like a scratching post. Matthew thought and then immediately regretted it. A big scratching post.

Audra led him towards the chapel on a route that seemed to take them past every cluster of stones and every outcropping of rubble.

Matthew asked "Why do they call it a Tabernacle anyway?"

"Well Harnett being the messiah complex type built a church around his Weir back to your world. Besides tabernacle sounds a lot more impressive than Hanrett's Church doesn't it?" The building loomed ahead, it's walls and ceiling sagged with age but the heavy iron doors in the front seemed to have withstood the test of time. A heavy silver ring hung in the center of each door. Audra grabbed hold of one of them and pulled. Four tries later she said, "Don't just stand there, give me a hand with this."

"Oh yeah. Sorry." He'd been half expecting her to open the door with a spell or a secret handshake. Blushing at his lack of chivalry Matthew nudged her aside, took hold of the chilly metal ring and gave it a solid yank. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. "I think
it's stuck."

"OK let's both try it." Audra ducked under his arms and took hold of the ring on either side of his hands. She said, "OK on the count of three…"

On the count of three they both pulled. The hinges squealed, the
door inched open. Matthew didn't know which ache was worse, the ache in his arms and shoulders or the aching sensation he felt from her body pressing against his. Maybe they were from two different worlds but that was no reason why she couldn't come over to visit. Was it?

"Almost there." Audra breathed in angry hissing puffs.

"I don't suppose-" he joked, "I don't suppose there's another way
in?"

Audra stopped pulling and just stared at him in disbelief. Matthew offered her an uncertain shrug. She let go of the ring and walked over to the opposite door. It pulled open easily. Audra gave his arm a squeeze, "Matt, I think you're getting the hang of this place. I really do."

The interior of the Tabernacle was lost to darkness and shadows. Matthew said, "Maybe we should have brought a flashlight."

"Maybe you should watch this." Audra said with a smile. She stepped into the building and pressed her hand against the inside of the arch. A flicker of illumination bled out from her fingertips and spread out along the walls. The light traced patterns through the masonry, pouring out from between the bricks. To Matthew it looked like the kind of light he'd find shining through his Venetian blinds on a rainy February morning, but at least it was light.

Of course, this being Olathoe, the Tabernacle looked nothing like a tabernacle on the inside. It was stripped bare, empty floors, empty walls and a roof that seemed to groan under the weight of generations of neglect.

Pretty non-denominational looking.

Off in the distance there was a yawning crash, Matthew spun in place "What was that?"

"Calm down Matt, its just snow and ice falling off the trees. Haven't you ever-"

She stopped, unable to move her hand from the stone archway. "Oh no… Oh shit…"

"This isn't some Goddamn silly scam after all." Jack Diamond stepped out of a shadowed alcove, he looked like he'd been thrown out of a third story window dragged over a gravel road and set on fire. His gun however, was gleaming and unblemished, "You really think this rube is the Pendaroth. You do don't you?"

The light streaming from the walls darkened, its shade matching the trails of blood beginning to trickle from Audra's nose and ears. She spoke through gritted teeth, her expression murderous "Get out of here Matt!"

He grabbed for her, "Not without you."

A single well placed shot from Jack caused a section of the archway to explode into a shower of shrapnel and dust. Audra squealed and fell to her knees. Matthew tumbled backwards into the arms of a trio of Sentries. A Constable stood nearby, her posture rigid, her expression cool.

"There he is?" Matthew half-heartedly pointed at Jack Diamond. The Sentries' only reply was to grab Matthew's arms and wrench them behind his back.

"Not this time." Jack smiled. "Me and Trager go back a ways."

"But they- he just killed a bunch of Constables and Sentries. Your people! Don't you guys have radios?"

Trager's smile was tight-lipped, "From what I understood the massacre at the Prophet's Cul-De-Sac was all your fault. Besides, Jack Diamond's employers will pay handsome compensation fees to the Regent for his part in the disturbance."

Jack spread his arms wide, "See? Money can buy you happiness."

The red light set Jack Diamond's onyx earring glittering, Matthew recognized it, "Chesseni sent you didn't she? You're one of those cannibals aren't you?"

Jack shrugged, "I dabble."

Constable Trager stepped forward and began examining Matthew like he was a horse on the auction block "It was obvious enough where you were going. We had blocked off every other avenue of escape."

"Besides this little bimbo thought that he was the Pendaroth." Jack shook his head, "Him! The Pendaroth would never wear a shirt like that!"

Matt rolled his eyes, "What are you talking about?"

"Don't listen to him." Audra groaned.

"You didn't tell him?" Jack Diamond said, "You didn't did you? I take it back you're not a little bimbo you're a little bitch."

"Takes one to know-" Audra started before Jack silenced her with a viscous backhand.

Matthew lunged forward but the Sentry held him fast. Constable punched Matthew three times in the gut. Trager said, "The man is speaking to you. You better listen."

"Thanks babe." Jack said, "So here's the deal Outlander, sugartits here could have hidden you away and waited for all this to blow over. She could have called in some favors with that family of hers but she brought you here because Harnett's Tabernacle is where the Pendaroth is supposed to be created."

"He's full of shit Matt!" Audra groaned "Don't listen to him."

Jack Diamond slapped her across the face again, "You save that mouth girl."

"...I don't understand." Matthew said.

Constable Trager rolled her eyes "The Aperture that is Harnett's Tabernacle is broken Outlander. It no longer chains our world to yours."

"Where does it go?"

Jack laughed a little, "Nobody knows, all they know is you go through that Wier and you don't come out."

Matthew nodded with realization, "Unless you're the Pendaroth."

Trager sniffed, "The Pendaroth is a myth, a fairy tale."

A hungry leer forming on his face, Jack holstered his pistol, "Damn straight."

Matthew looked back to Audra, she had slumped against the wall, the paleness of he skin making the blood trails on her face stand out all the more. "Let her go." Matthew said, "Everything that happened tonight was my fault not hers."

"Oh do grow up." the Constable chuckled softly, "There is a reason we have pooled our resources here and now. We get what we want- a potential source of sedition expunged, and Jack Diamond gets what he wants- the girl."

"No!"

"Oh yes." Jack pulled the pin from Audra's hair and chortled at the way it flowed down her shoulders. She flailed weakly at him with her free arm. "Oh fuck yes."

The Constable turned to go, "You would be advised to take your carnal pleasures elsewhere Jack Diamond. This place is a locus for insurrectionists and criminals."

"How about having one of your guys stand guard for me then?" Jack said without looking away from his prize.

The Constable smiled thinly, "I think not."

At an unspoken signal the Sentries began to drag Matthew away. He was facing backwards and the thought that the last thing he might ever see was Audra being violated all but drove him mad.

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The Nick Of Time (and other abrasions): Shadows Of Polaris chapter four

The Nick Of Time

(and other abrasions)

Shadows Of Polaris

by

Al Bruno III

Chapter Four

"Ok! Up and at'em! Naptime is over."

Matthew awoke with a gasp. Had he been holding his breath? It certainly felt like it. Audra was nudging him gently. He had half a mind to ignore her and go back to sleep. The dream rambled around in the back of his head. There was something unpleasantly familiar about the way it left him feeling- it was like his college days when he would wake up the morning after a cram session with information stirring disjointedly around inside his skull.

Hangover. That's it. I have a hangover. It must have been the brandy. Matthew thought as he tried to remember how to stand. It came back to him after a few aborted attempts.

"I swear I have never heard such snoring in my life." Audra was already on her way to the door, "You sounded like a rutting Vlodek."

"If you say so." he groaned as he followed her, steadying himself on the pews, "How long was I asleep for?"

"Three maybe four hours. You needed the rest."

“I don't feel rested."

"Stepping between realities can do that to you." She kicked the door open. It was eerily quiet. "Magwier calls it dimension-lag."

He paused in the doorway, even the starlight was too bright for him. His eyes found the Pole Star easily. It bore down on him, mocked him. "Do I get to go home soon?"

"Sure." She led him back along the path to the open gate. He followed her quietly, "Hey Matt."

"Yes?"

"Are you mad at me?"

"For what?"

She shrugged, "For any of this?"

"No. You’ve been-" He stepped out into the street. The lights were on again but the streets were empty. After all the noise and commotion Matthew had expected to find bodies piled like cordwood at every corner. He had expected shell-shocked looking survivors and flaming buildings. The streets however were clean and empty. the houses were all still standing but their doors were torn from their hinges, their every window hollowed out and gaping. "Jesus Audra what did they do?"

"An example was made"

"All this over me?"

"Shhhhh!" She put a finger to her lips.

"Who's going to hear?"

"Just in case."

That quieted him a little, "This was all done because of me?"

"That and the guy in the bear skins." She explained as they hurried from one empty street to another, "He should have known better than to talk about the Pendaroth in a public place."

"What's a Pendaroth?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"Bullshit! The guy in the bear suit said that the Pendaroth would be an Outlander. They're after me because I'm an Outlander. Don't tell me these two things have nothing to do with each other!"

"You're not the Pendaroth. If the Pendaroth comes he will have chiseled abs." The sneer fell from her lips as she rounded the corner to see a Constable walking alone down the middle of a vacant street. She pulled Matthew into one of the naked doorways. They huddled in the shadows, pressed together, trying not to move or breathe. They watched the Constable stride on by, waiting until he had rounded a corner.

A few blocks later they were back among the populated neighborhoods. For the hour there were a lot of people milling about and it was easy to blend in. All the houses were painted in shades of red and pink; every house had large undecorated bay windows facing out into the street. Backlit by neon, men, women and the occasional shaved primate strutted before those windows trying to catch the attention of the pedestrians filing past. When a particular pedestrian did take notice they entered the house and a thick velvet curtain was drawn across the bay window.

"It isn't what I think that's at issue here." Matthew said, "What is the Pendaroth? I think I deserve to know."

"All right. All right. The Pendaroth is the First. He will gather the Valiant Ones to his side and lead them to victory against the Monarchs. If you believe that kind of thing."

"Do you?"

Audra hook her head "No. If the Monarchs are going to be stopped we have to be the ones stopping them instead of just lying low and waiting for some mythical version of the Super Friends to come along and save us."

"Good point."

"Besides you're not the Pendaroth."

"Yeah. You said before. The abs thing."

Leaving the red and pink houses behind them they cut a zigzagging path through slumbering neighborhoods. Soon the opulent looking houses and strange cathedrals gave way to slums and strange-looking doorway shrines. Their goal was in sight, Audra pointed to it, "Here we are."

"Great another wall." And this one was the tallest of all, at least sixty feet of seamless granite. "How are we going to get over that?"

"Easy see that building there?" She pointed to their left, where an entire section of the street had been blocked with a tall chain link fence. A tall square building slouched against the wall.

Matthew didn't like the look of the razor wire at the top of the fence "Yeah."

"There's a tunnel down in the basement. We crawl out and from there its just a hop, skip and a jump to Harnet's Tabernacle." she approached the fence and began breathing heavily. It sounded to Matthew like Lamaze breathing.

"Wh- what are you doing?"

She turned to him, "Give me your hands Matt."

He was going to demand to know why but the look in her eyes told him he was better off just going along with her. Audra's grip was strong and warm, uncomfortably warm. She breathed out one last time then began chanting. Flashes of light began dancing before Matthew's vision, it was as though he was caught in a swarm of fireflies.

My God! We're...we're glowing!

The light became painful, his eyes began to water. He wanted to rub them but Audra refused to let go of his hands, or stop chanting for that matter. All he could do was close his eyes tightly.

"It's Ok. You can open your eyes now."

He did. The glittering lights were gone "We're... we're on the other side of the fence."

"A simple spell of conveyance."

"Then why didn't you just convey us over the wall?"

"That is no ordinary wall. I try and pull a stunt like that and all that will be left of us is a thin gray paste."

"I'll take your word for that but why is there a chain link fence around the whole damn block?"

"The residents here practice anthropophagy, it tends to annoy the neighbors."

Anthropology?

They walked to the house, there was garbage and debris strewn everywhere. A fine coating of greasy cinders seemed to cover everything. There were people everywhere but they seemed more interested in rooting through the ruins than in paying attention to the strangers in their midst. Matthew was being watched however, every few steps he seemed to catch Audra stealing glances at him.

"Is there a problem?" He asked.

"Matt, when we get in there I want you to keep it together. Don't flip out at what you might see going on. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

He slowed his pace, hanging back as she mounted the steps to the building. The place looked to Matthew like your stereotypical crackhouse, run down, boarded up and covered with graffiti, "What am I going to see?"

"Nothing you need to really worry about. They won't bother us as long as we pay the toll."

"You need my wallet again?" Matthew asked as he stepped up behind her.

She laughed a little and led him inside, "No."

By now Matthew had believed that he was used to the fact that the exteriors of Olathoe's buildings had very little to do with their interiors. This place however wasn't bigger on the inside it was cleaner. It wasn't just clean it was sterile, more sterile than some hospitals. The cool smell of antiseptic hung in the air. Every inch of the white linoleum that covered the floors and walls was polished. Large paintings and strange-looking statues adorned every wall and corner. These were real paintings, nothing like the collections of lines and colored blobs that the Dean had used to decorate his study. These were paintings Matthew could understand; paintings of oceans, landscapes and dignified looking people that were probably long dead. Hung on the wall between two of the paintings was a small woodcut in a silver frame. Intricate and faded it depicted to Matthew what looked like a man hard at work, A craftsman perhaps, wearing an apron and bent over his workbench.

The sculptures were all museum quality. The strangest of the lot was the one to his left- a purple trapezohedron set upon a tall marble
pedestal. Matthew couldn't believe that people with a house this nice would leave their front doors unlocked. "Close the door behind you." Audra whispered.

"Shouldn't we have knocked?"

"They know we're here." Audra exhaled, she was shivering slightly. "They probably smelled us from a block away."

"Who?"

A small crowd of people stood at the top of the stairs; there was a striking family resemblance. The women all wore black, some carried sleepy children in their arms. The men wore white, and a look of smug superiority.

Jesus! It's only a few hours until dawn and they look like they're on their way to a fancy dinner party.

Doesn't anyone around here sleep?

"We are not interested in new initiates." One of the women spoke, her hair was streaked with strands of gray. "If that is why you're here than you've made a mistake."

"What is your name?" Audra waited until they had gathered at the foot of the stairs before she spoke.

"I am Chesseni."

"Well Chesseni, we need to get out of the City. The Sentries and the Kuen-Yuin are pursuing us."

The older woman nodded thoughtfully but said nothing.

"So..." Audra started speaking again, "we need to use your tunnel."

"We have no tunnel." The tallest of the men said with a grin. "The tunnel is a lure, sweet smelling honey to catch flies."

Matthew gasped at the sight of his teeth, they had been filed down to sharp points. A quick survey of the greedy smiles bearing down on them showed they all had done this, even the children. "Uh, maybe we should-"

She silenced him with a wave of her hand "Listen to me! I am Audra DiMico of the Seventh Circle of the Greater Eastern Council of Mystagogues. I am sure we can come to some sort of an accommodation."

"Ah a sorceress." Chesseni said icily, "An acolyte really."

The lead man licked his lips "When was the last time we dined on the meat of a wizard?"

"Six years ago my darling Fergus. And he was a true Mystagogue, one of the Third Circle."

The 'anthropophagi' were moving slowly off the landing, insinuating themselves in every doorway, closing off every avenue of escape. Some of the children were drooling in anticipation.

Keep it together she says. How am I supposed to keep it together when they're eyeing me like a box of McNuggets?

"You ate a Preceptor?" Audra laughed a little, "That must have been gamy." She walked up to Fergus, meeting his gaze. Everyone in the room seemed to tense at her approach. "I know you can kill us. I know how easy it would be for you." She brushed up against him, he was a full head taller, "But let me ask you something, are you in the mood for meat or for flesh?"

Chesseni's face mirrored Matthew's expression of disbelief. Fergus just chuckled, "What's to keep us from taking you by force? From taking everything by force?"

"Nothing." Audra reached up and scraped the back of her fingernails against his cheek. "But we all know how much more fun it can be with a willing participant."

"Now I have heard everything." Chesseni said with a flip of her hair, her neck was covered with hickeys. "Haven't we toyed with these two long enough?"

"Maybe the toying has only begun." Audra pressed herself against him.

Matthew stared long and hard at that trail of hickeys, they wove a trail up from her shoulder to the back of her triple pierced ear. The earring that hung from that ear was black and familiar looking.

Fergus's smile became a leer, "What are you proposing girl?"

"What do you think? You help my friend here get to Harnett's Tabernacle-" She flicked her thumb at Chesseni, "And I'll give you something to think about when you're pounding away on the Bride of Frankenstein over there."

There were giggles at that and a few stifled gasps. Matthew saw the knife first, he shouted "Audra!"

Chesseni was on the sorceress in training, the point of the blade dimpling her throat. "You think your spells and your pedigree can protect you? I could kill you a dozen ways before you even began an incantation."

Audra kept her eyes riveted on her target "But Fergus is not going to let that happen. Are you Fergus?"

Matthew raised a finger, "Uhm, can I say something
here?"

"Let her go Chesseni." Fergus said.

"Are you out of your mind? You're going to let this little whore waltz in here and make demands?"

"Killing them would be wasteful. Our larder is more than full. And its a fair trade, we'll both get something we want."

Chesseni shouted, "I forbid this!"

"I second that!" Matthew added but no one seemed to pay attention.

Fergus pulled Audra from Chesseni's grasp. Audra gasped a little with pain, a trickle of red running down her neck. Fergus picked the girl up in his arms and kissed at the trail of blood. He walked up the stairs, a line of young men forming a queue behind him. "Luther." he called back, "Take the Outlander to Harnett's Tabernacle and don't eat him. Not even a taste."

"Just a damn minute here!" Matthew grabbed something expensive
and fragile looking and flung it to the floor. It shattered noisily, sending fragments flying everywhere, "She is not going to party with any of you! Do you hear me?"

They heard him and he sure as Hell had their attention. Audra's eyes were as wide as saucers, "Matt! What did you do?"

Fergus paused on the steps, he spoke without bothering to turn around, "I think perhaps you had better mind your manners. This
sweet girl is making a sacrifice for you. I'd hate for it to be in vain."

"I don't want her to sacrifice anything and I don't need your tunnel! We'll find another way out. Now put her down." He became aware of Chesseni staring at the floor; the knife had slipped from her fingers. Actually most of the anthropophagi were staring at the floor. There were chunks of purplish-red glass around his feet.

"My love." Chesseni cleared her throat uncertainly, "The Outlander has shattered the Amaranthine Crystal."

"What?" Fergus spun around, neatly smacking Audra's head into the banister. "What kind of a trick is this?"

"No trick I saw him do it..." Chesseni paused, it was almost as though she couldn't bring herself to speak the words, "...with his bare hands."

There was a loud slam as several of the finely dressed people scrambled into the drawing room and locked the door behind them. Matthew didn't know what they were so upset about but he pressed his advantage, "If you don't put her down I'll do worse than wreck your pottery. I've had just about enough of you weird-ass people and your weird-ass city."

For a few seconds Matthew just stood there glaring, feeling his pores starting to bead up with nervous sweat. Chesseni kept looking
from him to the shattered crystal at his feet. The boys on the steps waited, poised. "Show them to the tunnels." Scowling with disappointment Fergus let Audra slip from his hands, "And clean up that mess."

Chesseni bowed and gestured deeper into the house. Audra frowned at Matthew as they followed their guide down the main hallway to a slender metal door. There was an ivory key on a chain around Chesseni's neck. She unlocked the door and led them down a twisting stairway.

Tendrils of frost worked their way up the walls, their breaths came out in puffs of mist. Matthew could hear the whir of air conditioners on their highest settings and the delicate scrape of sharp metal sinking into something soft. A gagging sound erupted from Matthew's lips as they reached the bottom landing. Slabs of meat hung from glinting silver hooks, smaller portions were arranged on a long table. A squat figure in a leather apron was hard at work sloughing the flesh from a plump human leg. It was a perfect mirror of the scene from the woodcut. The butcher tensed at the sight of them but a nod from Chesseni was all it took to send the figure back to work.

"Oh my God." Matthew felt his knees go weak, "Oh my God."

With a sharp tug of the hair on the back of his head Audra straightened him up again. She whispered "Cut the dramatics. I'm on to you."

"They're… they're…"

There was a large cabinet at the end of the room; it brimmed with everything an aspiring meat dresser might need. Chesseni pushed it aside to reveal a downward sloping passage. "This will bring you out
beyond the walls. If you try to get back in this way I'll kill you both myself."

"Yeah, yeah whatever." Audra said with a wave of her hand.

Matthew followed her; he could feel Chesseni's smug gaze burning into his back.

Now this is an escape tunnel! He thought. The walls, ceiling and floor were clean and smooth, Matthew felt guilty for not wiping his feet before entering. What looked to be Christmas tree lights lit the way for them, Matthew was grateful they were there when Chesseni pushed the butcher's cabinet back into place. He'd blundered through enough shadows.

Cannibals. He still couldn't believe they were a family of cannibals. Sophisticated cannibals no less- with their satin dresses and silk suits. How could they live with themselves? Didn't they understand what it was they were doing? They were killing people and eating them. Why?

Ultimately all they were doing was turning people into shit. There was nothing noble or edgy about that- it was just sick.

The passage began to widen. They smooth floor and walls gave way to uneven nooks and crannies. Matthew could hear water dripping and bats squealing. The trail of lights ended at the mouth of the cave. He could see starlight just a few yards ahead. "We made it." he laughed a little, "We made it Audra."

The sorceress in training slowly turned around, her hands and her eyes were incandescent "Who are you?"

"Very funny." Matthew took a step backwards. He was savvy enough in the ways of Olathoe to know that shimmering body parts always meant trouble.

Bolts of bluish light arced from Audra's hands to her eyes and back again "Who are you? You're not an Outlander, you blew that cover
back there. You're little trick with the Amaranth Crystal gave it all
away."

"What are you talking about?" Matthew could feel his fillings starting to ache. "What's an Amaranth Crystal anyway?"

"Who do you work for? The Monarchs? The Gray Mandarin? I mean to find out."

"This is crazy. We're almost there!"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I talking about." The light blazed from her, illuminating the cave like a searchlight.

He raised his hands to protect his eyes, "Well I don't. And stop glowing like that it's making me nervous."

"It damn well better be making you nervous." She lashed out with a tendril of energy. Matthew shrieked and fell back against the cave wall. "I should have seen it, I should have suspected! You've been playing dumb all this time. No one could be as lucky as you! No one!"

"Stop! That hurts!"

"It's supposed to hurt fuckwit. It's going to hurt worse before I'm done. I showed you all my escape routes. I showed you everything! What were you going to do with them? Sell them to the Regent?"

"Please Audra, don't do this." Pain skittered spider-like along his nerve endings, "I saved your life."

Audra laughed the scintillation around her darkening, turning bloody. "Bullshit. I didn't see that happen. Besides the day an inbred half-wit like Jack Diamond gets the drop on me will be a cold day in Hell."

"All this because I broke a piece of glass?"

"I can't believe I trusted you! Who do you work for?"

"An... an... Amaranthine is something... what is... Why?"

"Amaranthine Crystal is invulnerable to just about everything and don't pretend you don't know that!"

"But I don't..."

"Who! Do! You! Work! For?" Audra punctuated each word with a fresh burst of agony.

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The Nick Of Time (and other abrasions): Shadows Of Polaris chapter three

The Nick Of Time

(and other abrasions)

Shadows Of Polaris

by

Al Bruno III

Chapter Three

The Sentries and Constables scanned the sea of faces for someone that looked out of place. Audra was glaring at Father DiSorbo, her shimmering hands clenched into fists. She still didn't know there was a gun aimed at her.

There was only one thing for Matthew to do. He pointed at Jack Diamond and shouted "There! There he is!"

And just like that Jack found himself the center of attention.

The Sentries opened fire, spraying bullets into the crowd.

Jack dove behind an altar made from cinderblocks and returned fire.

High school had led Matthew to develop a healthy ducking instinct. He was down on all fours in seconds. The crowd erupted into pandemonium. Shrieks and shouts almost drowned out the gunfire. At least a dozen people stepped on Matthew's hands as he tried to reach Audra.

A few of the more adamant preachers kept right on talking until a second spray of bullets reduced their gospels to screams.

There was a pause in the gunfire. Matthew peered out from behind the toppled frozen custard stand. The Sentries were changing the clips on their assault rifles, their movements perfectly in synch. The Constables held their pistols at ready and surveyed the carnage. To Matthew's eyes they seemed to have hit everything but their target; bodies were splayed about them in a wide arc, some perfectly still, others twitching and moaning. The man in the bearskins was lying on his back, an exit wound in his chest, his eyes staring blankly up at the stars. Jack popped up from behind the cinderblock altar and fired once.

One of the Constables fell, his face reduced to tatters. The Sentries opened fire again ending chips of stone flying everywhere. The surviving Constables crouched behind the Sentries and started chanting in a familiar language. Matthew felt his skin crawl, particularly the skin on his back.

Audra crawled up behind him, "Did you get my custard?"

Matthew's incredulous glare was all the answer she needed.

"Oh well." She pinched his shoulder, "You were brilliant with that 'There he is!' Brilliant!"

"Saw it in a cartoon once." Matthew said, "Where were you?"

"Beating the crap out of a certain loudmouth priest."

The chanting ended. There was a subdued whoomp! And one by one the Sentries burst into flames. The flames however did not consume them, the flames radiated out from them. Glowing like angry stars they advanced on Jack, their footsteps causing the flesh of the fallen to bubble and dissolve and the scattered tracts and leaflets to curl and smolder.

"Ok this is bad." Matthew crouched down low to the ground, "We have to get out of here."

"Right." Audra said, "On the count of three we make a break for the road."

"Ok."

They weren't the only ones with that idea. Anyone that had survived the initial onslaught was running or crawling for the mouth of the dead end street. Jack leapt up from behind the cinderblock altar and fired twice. The first shot sent a Sentry tumbling backwards, the second went wide of its mark and shattered a window across the street. The Constables were firing back, one of their shots caught Jack Diamond in the leg.

"...Three!" Audra shouted.

Matthew was so hypnotized by the carnage, he almost didn't hear her. He crawled for the street, following Audra. Fresh gunfire peppered the air behind them.

They ran for a few moments, Matthew trying not to stumble or collapse. He couldn't believe at least one of those bullets hadn't hit him. He tried to keep track of how many minutes they'd been running, how many intersections they'd passed but the agony building in his lungs made it impossible.

Maybe I'm going to make it through this thing after all.

They were practically alone on this street. Anyone out on their sidewalks or front steps was retreating back inside. Some of the refugees from the massacre were reduced to begging for sanctuary on doorsteps. No one was taken in. There was a heavy drone filling the air, a maddening buzz. Audra led him along a high stone wall, pausing before a locked and chained gate. She slipped a pin from her hair and started working on the padlock. "Oh my." She said grimly, "This is one of the expensive ones."

Matthew looked back to see the streetlights were going out one by one. "What's going on?"

Wails and shouts echoed up the street behind them. Audra didn't even look up from her lockpicking "Retaliation."

"Retaliation? The Sentries are doing this? Why?" Shadows were swallowing the entire neighborhood, the electricity flickered out city block by city block. Soon the only light they had left was the stars.

"Group punishment."

Matthew reeled, he started at the blackened city block "That's inhuman!"

"I am trying to concentrate here!"

"Can't you just cast a spell or something?" The buzzing sound was growing louder, it sounded like a fleet of low-flying helicopters but there was something strangely organic about the reverberation. It made Matthew feel nauseous.

"Can't you shut up?"

Once again his only light came from the stars but their fluttering illumination played tricks on his eyes, twisting the bustling Olathoe skyline out of scale. His gaze traced its way along their confused outline and found its way back to the Pole Star, to its pale, eons old light.

That star, He thought, as he concentrated on it, that star knows secrets. Will it speak to me? Will it taunt me with prophecy?

Dark shapes flitted between the skyline and stars, their motion startling Matthew from his fugue state. What the Hell was that? He thought. What just happened to me?

"I think something's coming." he said.

"I know. I know." Audra dropped her hairpin, it clattered to the sidewalk, "Damn it!"

"Can I help?"

"Can you bend steel with your bare hands?"

"No." He said. The noise was growing closer, Mathew recognized that what he was hearing was a droning chorus. "Of course not."

Audra pulled a fresh hairpin from her hair and started working again. "Then- Ah ha! Got you!" She pulled the padlock free and slipped it into the front pocket of her tuxedo shirt, "Let's get to cover." She pulled the rusty gate open and slipped inside. Matthew followed her.

She led him along an elegantly sculpted path towards a wide domed building. A ring of guttering flambeaux set the dome's brass adornments and stained glass windows shimmering.

"Who's here?" Matthew asked.

"Hopefully no one." Audra shoved the front door open, "Close the door behind us."

Inside the dome everything was different. The interior architecture was broad and arcing. The air was cool and tinged with salt. The floor sloped downwards, like a stage or an amphitheater. With the door closed behind them the maddening buzz dwindled to a whisper. The sound of water burbling echoed through the chamber.

The angles of this place are all wrong. Matthew observed, It's almost like it's bigger on the inside than the outside.

And what's with that fountain?

The fountain was tall, stretching from floor up to ceiling. It was an ornate multi-tiered structure of white marble decorated with jewels and intricate glyphs. Light from the stained glass windows bobbled across the surface of the water.

Audra smiled "We'll be safe here. There's no way the Regent will strike here, I don't care how pissed off he is."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I've only been here a few years but one thing I've learned is the Regent never screws with the Atlanteans."

"You realize of course that I have no idea what you're talking about." They threaded their way between the pews, Matthew admired the flowing scrollwork that decorated them.

"Yeah." Her grin deepened, "Come here. I want to show you something."

"Explain the Atlantis thing first."

"Everything in this building, especially that fountain are all sacred Atlantean artifacts."

"So Olathoe is like Atlantis?"

"No. This place is real but no one is sure if there really was an Atlantis. But the people that come here to worship believe that they are the descendants of the citizens of Atlantis and the inheritors of the great Atlantean birthright."

"Atlantean birthright?"

"Well like all good religions they believe that they are chosen of God to rule the world and be granted eternal life in Heaven."

"You sound like you don't believe them."

She shrugged, "It seems like every religion says they're the only true way to salvation. I can't believe that an omnipotent, all knowing God would make things so that there was only one way to reach his grace. But then again, what the Hell do I know? I'm a lapsed Buddhist."

They stood before the fountain, Matthew ran his hand over the marble it was rough and clammy to the touch. The water reeked of brine. "I thought you were a sorceress."

"The two are not mutually exclusive."

"So what's the story on this Regent and his Constables?"

"Well we have time, I think I can explain. You see this city has always been, it has been the source of so many legends- Fairy Rings, Hy-Breasail, Priester John. This is where the magic lives, where it doesn't have to hide."

"Why would magic have to hide?"

"Because its human nature to lash out at nonconformity. For example, the Spanish Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Salem Witch Trials... need I go on?" She turned and plunked herself down on the nearest bench.

"No I see your point."

"Okay, like I said the City has been around forever but lets just say that its best years are long behind it. The reign of Crowden was followed by almost a half a century of political instability. We're talking revolt followed by coup d'état followed by bloody insurrection."

He sat down beside her, "Your magic kingdom sounds like a banana republic."

"Matt you don't know the half of it." She pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her jeans, "Smoke?"

He stared at the crinkled cellophane, "Uhhhh aren't those mine?"

She struck a match "Want one?"

"Yeah sure."

"So it was about 1950 that the Monarchs came to power."

He took the cigarette she offered him and inhaled gratefully. "Monarchs? You mean like a royal family?"

"Monarchs is what they call themselves but they're more like tapeworms with MBAs if you ask me." She puffed contemplatively on her cigarette, "Until then they had been outsiders looking in, but they promised peace, prosperity and clean streets. Who could refuse a deal like that? They quelled the infighting and rioting. They installed some inoffensive little nobody as their Regent. Things got quiet and predictable. People got fat and happy. Citizens became sheep."

"Look, I've seen the Star Wars Trilogy, so cut to the chase, what went wrong?"

Audra blew smoke from her nose and gave him a withering look. "'The face of tyranny is always mild at first.' The Monarchs started to micro-manage the City to death. They created and enforced codes of conduct and codes of dress. They leveled whole boroughs for their own little pet projects. If the people that lived in those neighborhoods got a day's notice before the Sentries came to 'relocate' them out they were lucky. Slavery was abolished because in the Monarchs eyes all citizens were equal. Problem was if you pissed off the powers that be in any way at all you could be sentenced to decades of community ervice. To speed things along Constables were made the sole judges of an accused citizen's guilt."

"Outlander. Your presence here is a violation of the Jamestown Compact... The penalty for such trespass is conscription." Matthew shuddered at the memory.

"If they're not sure who is guilty of a crime they'll just punish all the suspects, if they have no suspects they'll just punish a whole neighborhood. What do they care?"

"Sounds awful."

"No it gets better. Then they adopted a "mutilate on sight" policy egarding Outlanders. That was real trouble because until recently utlanders were an important part of the City's economy as slaves and livestock."

"That's not very civilized."

"Come on Matt, you've got to suspect by now that some of the people living here only look human. The might share an appearance with you but they certainly don't share the ancestry. You were standing in line for frozen custard with monsters of legend back there. Neat huh?"

"That's not the description I'd use."

"Poor Matt. Anyway the Monarchs have started assigning population limits for some of the City's less than human citizens and they set limits on the number of sorcerers that can live in the City at one time. They're culling the herd."

"Look if just half the people that blundered from the normal world to here ended up as slaves or a deli tray maybe it serves you right."

"What you don't think that the Monarchs have their eye on your world as well? Heck this is just a dry run, just you wait."

The finished their smokes in silence. When Matt had finished his second and she was starting her fourth he asked, "So...

"Sew buttons."

"So we're going to be here a while?" Strange shadows darted across the stained glass windows, Matthew watched them uneasily.

"Oh yeah, they'll keep buzzing the neighborhood until they think everybody is properly terrorized."

"You know Jack Diamond was going to kill you."

That raised an eyebrow "What?"

"Back there at the recruiting station place- he was aiming at the back of your head. That's why I pointed to him."

She nudged him in the ribs, "Are you serious?"

He nudged her back, "I'm serious."

"Well then," She flicked her cigarette into the sacred Atlantean fountain, "I guess this puts us about even."

"Yeah, kinda. I didn't think of it that way really..."

"Of course you didn't. But still, here we are on the run. In hiding. We've saved each other's lives. If this was a movie it would be just bout time for us to do it."

"Do... it?"

She leaned in close, her voice a sexy rasp, "Yeah do it- you know, a little desperate lovemaking to ease the tension."

"Well I am sort of tense." He leaned in closer, his eyes half-lidded.

Audra stood up, "But that's not gonna happen, you're not my type."

"I- what?" Matthew felt dizzy.

"Take a nap, I'll keep watch."

"But-"

"It's not gonna happen."

Matthew was blushing so hard it was almost painful, "I didn't think-"

Lighting a fresh cigarette she crossed to the other side of the church, "Close your eyes and count sheep. Go dream about that chunky broad you keep a picture of in your wallet."

Chunky? Matthew thought and then made a mental note to cancel his credit cards when he got back, If I get back. I don't know how she expects me to take a nap in the midst of all this craziness.

Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps it was the gentle burbling of the fountain but somehow he did fall asleep. And he dreamt-

...the city is splayed out before him, a vision of stretching silhouettes illuminated by a soft flickering miasma of torchlight and chimney smoke. Beyond that he can see the dim outlines of the great swamp and the twin peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek. He paces the roof of the Spire, his torch at ready. The Seers tell that the enemy will come from the west. It is his job to light signal fire when the moment of invasion comes.

Staring scornfully at the tall woodpile he wishes he could be down in the garrison with his fellow soldiers. But his place is here, the Seers and their runes choose him. "You will survive." They vow, "The outcome of the conflict is uncertain but you will live to remember."

The torch sputters as he runs his hand over the irregular planks. He knows his fate was something less than a boon and more than damnation. He had fought beside those men below for so long- to not
stand beside them now...

The thought alone was enough to fill his heart with dread. He turns his attention from the City to the Pole Star. On this damnable night it outshone all the other stars in its brilliance. From the inky depths of space its light coruscated leeringly down at him. With that light there was a voice, a whispering in his mind;

Slumber O watcher, for the past

Crawls to shadows of future cast

Beneath my light will rapture burn

Brute spirit and human mind churn

Ravenous hungers do now rise

Dark intellects from baneful skies

Only in death may you persist

Slumbering while stars turn and twist

Watchman shrouded in evernight

Your fire burns when the time is right

A thundering roar shook him from his lethargy, the tower quakes beneath him, he turns to see the mountains swooning. A cold wind freezes the beads of sweat to his flesh. The city reels beneath him, the torch dropping from his numb fingers. A second roar sends the buildings of the City toppling like dominoes. A dust storm washes over him, dust that had once been the mighty peaks of Noton and Kadiphonek.

Half blind and deaf he falls to his knees. The City is gone now, all that remains is rippling darkness. Something draws closer. He blinks the grime from his eyes to find himself staring at human face.

His face.

It is a reflection of himself, floating in the void just a few yards away.

A short distance above the first reflection a second hovers, a third dangles below, and two more on either side; each of those reflections is bordered by another four. A hundred duplicates stretch across the void until they trace the horizon.

A fresh peal of thunder shatters his eardrums, he begins to perceive that the wall of likenesses before him is not uniform. It curves subtly, leaving the impression of a sphere.

A final roar reduces the tower to ashes. He falls.

In his last moments he comes to a final realization.

It is an eye. He is seeing his reflection in a vast segmented eye...

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