This is Episode 5-14 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story.

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Part 5-14: Shards

We walked along the lawn in a slow arc, following The Minder as he traced the circular nature of the courtyard. All around us, little off-white mounds had sprouted, like mushrooms after a rain. Lobster had hopped after us for a while, then flew up and found a perch on the castle walls above. I could hardly blame him.

“The first lesson was about taming the ward,” said The Minder. “The second was about focusing sensation and easing the bonds within the great bunches of influidity that conventional folks might refer to as, how do you say, stuff. Such a technique is impossible to control when the ward is active. Similarly, you wouldn’t be ready for the forthcoming lesson if you’d not yet understood how to channel your sensations.”

The mushrooms grew further. I soon recognized them as the pearl blob things that typically plagued Clockworld.

“What are they?” I asked.

“We do not rightly know,” said The Minder. “We probably did, once. Shards of a larger mechanic, most likely. When the larger ones combine in numbers, they prove to exhibit increasing utility. Watch the walls now.”

We stopped. As soon as we did, larger, more grotesquely appointed creeps emerged at regular intervals from the walls. Bulbous creatures, teetering atop misshapen legs. Dead, glassy growths that might be eyes. Wiggling appendages that had an overstretched, deflated looked about them, like pathetic old plastic gloves with way too many fingers. They were my old pals, the conga line from hell, initially harmless when Persi and I encountered them stumbling the halls of Fort Ticktock, decidedly weaponizable when The Minder had orchestrated them into a great rolling wheel meant to squash us in a stairwell.

“Gross, man, ugh,” said Fergus. He wiggled the green book side to side at his leg.

“Unsightly, yes,” replied The Minder. “You know the number in our employ, Alena?”

“Fifty-eight, I’d say. You need sixty to get out.”

“Very good. Each is a key, buried within what The Collector calls his locks.”

“Don’t you usually put keys into locks, not take them out?” said Fergus.

The Minder chuckled. “It could be that The Collector is a mite, hm, eccentric with the execution of his metaphors.”

“He keeps them in prison cells below,” I said, putting a hand on Fergus’ shoulder. “The people he murders. The people who die suffering. They’re stuck that way, or at least it seems like it. You see them in their last moment, over and over again.” The weight of the fact reminded me that down there, in the third to last cell, a certain cop was getting torn apart again and again, thanks to a certain careless ghost hunter.

“Suffering,” said The Minder, “is but one intense form of sensation. It, unfortunately, is the most convenient and efficient of the lot to inflict when separating the keys from their locks. If you were to tour the collection—and I’d understand if the notion is unattractive—you’d notice that some of the earlier attempts are more varied in their ultimate conclusions.”

“How long has The Collector been at it?” I asked.

“Time is difficult for us to judge, Alena. The Jailer must’ve impressed that upon you.”

“We could go look at victim number one,” suggested Fergus, who’d paled considerably during our little educational session. “Check out, uh, the garb or style.”

“A terrific idea,” agreed The Minder. “For the moment, however, I ask you to observe. The keys, both large and small, are attracted to and consume incidents of instability, among other things. I control the large ones in here, and deliver them to The Collector when he needs them elsewhere.”

The Minder raised a hand, and a row of three big globs shuddered. The middle one stayed put while its neighbours flew into it like magnets that had moved too close together. They fell over in a sad heap.

“In here, they don’t do much good together, except in special circumstances.” The Minder gave me a small half-smile. “Elsewhere, they align with some breed of alien energy and can manifest as something much more impressive, and useful. Typically we only send them in to assist in separating the locks and keys. Recently, you have complicated the situation. As such, near a third of our population was recruited to deliver an assault vehicle for the farmstead sortie.”

“Tree crab was these things?” I said, swallowing. The lumpy booger near the wall seemed incapable of anything, except inducing nausea.

“It was ‘these things’ interacting with local organic vectors; a veritable cocktail of possibility, if I do say so myself. I wish mightily that I could observe it firsthand.”

“I bet,” I grumbled. “So what, you’re going to show me how to make my own disgusting beasties?”

“Not quite. But close. Harnessing the full power of the large keys requires a symphony between myself and The Collector, and I doubt he’ll be willing to lend you much in the way of knowhow. Regardless, it would be too much too soon. Instead, you’ll learn the next best option.”

The Minder clapped his hands, and the big ones lumbered backwards, melting into the walls until they were gone. The tiny pearls remained, and began to scatter around, zigging and zagging like blind mice. Fergus tried to dodge them, but eventually figured out that it was a fruitless endeavor. Like everywhere else, they seemed incorporeal and passed through our feet, leaving only a slight chill.

“These keyshards, as I’ve taken to calling them, are much simpler entities,” said The Minder. “They do not seem capable of combining, but under the right circumstances, with the right frame of mind, a host of them can be persuaded into basic and intermediate service.”

I nodded, remembering how they’d all been in the vines. How one had been stuck to Tricia Glenscot’s face.

A bird’s caw rang out from above, and I tried to spot what was bothering Lobster. The parrot was nowhere to be seen. Fergus looked too, then looked higher.

“Alena,” he said, pointing.

Four black shapes circled. My veins seemed to seize up, ice jetting through them. After a choked gasp of a breath, I regained enough control to fire up the polearm and rapier, one snapping to life in each hand.

“After you tell me your sketchy washroom stall story,” said Fergus, “you need to teach me how you do that.”

I ignored him, and a pitiless thought wondered how comedic he’d feel after meeting some of The Keeper’s kin. Instead, I whirled toward The Minder, needing to know how the pearl blob magic worked.

But The Minder, true to habit, was gone.

 

Continued in Part 5-15

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