Vestigial Surreality: 18: Dragon Warriors

episode EIGHTEEN

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Dragon Warriors.

Nobody spoke as the close group stood in their tight circle in the dimly lit foyer of some dark mansion, a rustic lord’s mansion of giant timbers with only two lamps that oddly did not flicker. The amber-orange light seemed frozen. In fact, the entire atmosphere seemed unnaturally still. Jack and Wolf looked at each other. Wolf the wolf whined softly. Six stood unmoving, looking uncannily like a mannequin. Wolf the wolf turned in a half circle and paced to the heavy double doors, and stood there, head cocked, listening, whining insistently. Something was coming. Something was on the other side of the doors. Something was out in the night.

“What is it, boy?” Jack said, his voice sounding too heavy and too thick in the frozen room. Breath emitted visibly from the youth’s mouth as he spoke, and he shuddered, realizing for the first time just how cold it was in this weird room.

“Don’t call him boy, he’s not a dog,” Wolf the man said.

“Do I really have to start calling you...Wolf?” Jack said, snorting. “I like Stacey better.”

“In this world, apparently I’ve been brought here to fight, and Wolf is my fighting name,” Stacey, Wolf the man, replied, sinking into his deep cloak, reflected light catching and sparking briefly on his eyes as he looked to the double doors where the great wolf stood listening to something. “Plus, with a name like Stacey, my whole life, I’ve almost been the boy named Sue.”

“Made you tough, though,” Jack said, containing his snicker, almost. “You know, the whole my name is Sue, how do you do!”

“Probably just gave me a lifelong bad attitude,” Wolf said, his cool black shillelagh extending from his hand like a walking stick, its tip delicately touching down on the shiny wood planks of the floor.

“I don’t know, that’s the first thing I noticed about you,” Jack said, grinning, his bow sliding off his shoulder, an arrow nocking almost magically between his nimble fingers. “It’s unusual, your great attitude.”

“Six,” Wolf whispered, cuffing the man on the arm. He glanced at Jack. “What is going on? He’s catatonic.”

The big man stood like a pillar of plastic, mouth slightly open, eyes unfocused, one hand extended for their Three Musketeer salute, the other hand clasping a medallion extended on a chain about his thick neck. Jack thought he looked like some statue they would put out at the entrance to a Renaissance Festival.

“This whole place is catatonic,” Jack replied, shivering, “and cold. I didn’t get a cool Aragorn cloak like you did. In a few moments I’ll be as frozen as him.”

Wolf slipped out of his big cloak, and held it open for the kid.

“Really?” Jack said, “I don’t think that thing is going to fit me.”

“In this place, it will probably size itself to fit you perfectly,” Wolf said, aiding Jack into the warmth of the cloak.

But the cloak did not resize itself to Jack’s slim build. He stood with the garment swimming huge on him.

“I feel like I’m trying on my Dad’s clothes,” Jack laughed, nervously, smiling up at Wolf, tugging back the sleeves.

Wolf hugged him, briefly.

“Whatever happens next,” he said, with gravity, “I want you to stay safe, try and stay behind me. Don’t let the beauty of this world fool you, it’s dangerous. Let me do the rough stuff.”

Wolf the wolf whined softly, and scratched at the door.

“What is it, boy?” Wolf said, moving stealthily to the great beast’s side, and then he realized what he had just said and chuckled. “Sorry, what is it, Wolf?”

The big wolf growled and lapped out with his huge tongue, catching Stacey under the chin.

“You know, I kind of like it, don’t be sorry,” Wolf the wolf said, eyes glowing amber lamps.

Wolf the man ruffled Wolf the wolf’s fur, and scratched up between his ears.

“You be careful out there, too. I don’t want you getting hurt, just be ready to back me up if a six-armed giant punches me in the head,” Wolf the man said.

Wolf the wolf scratched at the door again.

“Do you know what’s out there?” Jack said, joining them at the doors, his bow at the ready, clasped in his left hand.

“Men,” Wolf the wolf growled deeply. “Bad men. And many of them.”

Wolf the man tucked his shillelagh beneath his left arm and seized the heavy beam across the door.

“You sure you should open the door, I mean while Six is in this state?” Jack said, unable to suppress the quaver in his voice.

“Open the door,” Wolf the wolf growled.

Wolf the man easily lifted the beam out of the brackets and propped the beam up on its end beside the door.

“You did that so easily,” Jack said, measuring the beam with his eyes. He doubted he could have moved it, as it must be seven feet in length, and twelve inches by six inches in girth, and it looked solid. Jack felt maybe they should have left the beam in place, because it could probably hold off a battering ram.

“Ready?” Wolf the man said.

Wolf the wolf nodded his big head, once.

Jack swallowed, hard. It sounded like an egg was stuck in his throat.

Wolf the man pulled upon the huge ring on the right-side door and swung the eight-foot-tall door inward, bracing himself. Wolf the wolf immediately shot through the door, his large paws strangely quiet in the night. Wolf the man stood in the open doorway, listening. There was nothing. The strangeness inside the manor extended beyond its door, with the world hushed and resting. Yet there was that sense, that the night crouching outside the door waited, ready to pounce.

“What the hell are you doing!”

Jack and Wolf started, whirling about. Six stood a few paces away, his sword in his hand, crouching.

“Shut the door, you idiots!” he cried.

Wolf ushered Jack back into the manor and gently, quietly closed the door, and remained with his shoulder against the monstrously heavy door, leaving a crack which he could peer through, as Six came forward.

“Glad to see you’re okay,” Jack said, “but you almost gave us a heart attack sneaking up like that.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Six said, “you don’t know what’s coming. Close the door! Lock it, put the beam back in place.”

“The lamp,” Wolf said.

They turned to the lamp upon the table. The amber flame flickered in the rippled, smoky glass. And everything felt different. While they focused on the door, the whole world came back into existence.

“Oh no, we’re not ready, but it’s happening, now, they’re here, right now, outside the door,” Six said, his sword lowering until the tip rested upon the floor, and his left hand clutched at his heart as if he were suffering an attack.

“Calm down,” Wolf commanded, his voice low, almost a growl. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Yuh-yes,” Six stammered, “buh-but I’m not ready. This is our very last chance, and you don’t even know—”

Rough voices sounded outside. Wolf tensed at the door, crouching. Jack scrambled back, raising his bow, an arrow ready, and Six finally steadied himself and flanked Wolf to the right.

Six felt frozen throughout his bones, because he had lived this moment, too many times, it seemed countless times, and here it was again, the two giants outside the door. The seven-foot tall brute with the ax—Six had felt that ax, right here, in his breast—and the squat brute with the spear, and Six had experienced that particular delight, as well.

Except now this incredible Stacey guy was here, taking charge, that was decidedly different. And the wisp of a kid, he was here too, with his bow up and an arrow sighted.

Okay, Six thought, this time we’re all in. I’m fighting, and even if I have to die, I’m doing it, I’m going for it, I don’t care anymore.

Loud boots sounded on the porch outside, the dragon warriors not even attempting stealth.

The first crash would strike the door in moments, and Stacey was just standing there, the blow would drive the door into him and he’d fall backward, but when the giant went to kill Stacey, Six would take him, oh yes, this time he would pay back some of the torment these raiders delighted in so much. This time.

Then Wolf pulled the door inward.

Six cried out and scrambled backward as the two hulking figures appeared in the doorway, the seven-foot giant swinging his ax.

Wolf twirled his shillelagh in his left hand and caught the downward swing of the ax crosswise, smashing the giant’s fingers and driving the mighty ax swing to the side, and with one continuing fluid movement he stepped in close and drove his right fist (garbed in the ludicrous thorny snakeskin MMA glove) directly upward into the giant’s chin. The gloved fist cracked upon the tip of the big chin, and the giant’s head snapped backward, tilting almost comically upward, and suddenly the monstrous attacker was doing little mincing ballerina steps, backward, crashing over.

The spear! Six was about to shout out in warning, the squat brute, the one with the long spear, he was already driving forward, and Six meant to cry out, he intended to warn his new friend, but there just was no time, everything was happening sickeningly fast, and yet everything seemed to be moving slowly, dreamlike, and it was too late to issue any kind of warning.

Wolf snapped his shillelagh around and knocked the head of the spear, deflecting the very deadly tip, if only the fragment of an inch to the side, and impossibly Wolf was moving forward, his shillelagh never ceasing, snapping up between the squat warrior’s splayed legs, and it whumped loudly, but Wolf did not pause, but rocked a right elbow forward and smashed the bracer on his arm into the squat warrior’s face.

Six swallowed hard and glanced to Jack. The kid was moving forward, the same arrow nocked at ready, his face grim and resolute. Six moved in close behind the kid. He’d watch their backs, make sure nobody snuck up on them.

The squat warrior did not fall, but staggered backward, and it looked like Wolf was giving him little love taps with the end of his black stick, just a rapid tap-a-tap tapping, all about the warriors head, but still the massively wide warrior did not fall. He tried to bring his spear back into play but Wolf stomped down on the staff of the weapon, smashing it from the warrior’s grasp.

The fallen giant was scrambling to his feet, growling. With an almost leisure consideration Wolf swung his black shillelagh to the right and tapped the giant on the head, knocking him back down.

Torches appeared all about the porch as a multitude of warriors rushed forward.

Wolf drove in again and smashed the wide end of the black fighting club into the squat warrior’s face, driving him end-over-end backward, tumbling down the steps that lead from the porch.

Wolf turned his attention again to the fallen giant, who had flipped over and was crawling away, and Wolf could not resist the cheap shot and swung his boot up between the giant’s scrambling legs. Yes, it was a dirty shot, but who did these creeps think they were, invading a man’s home and castle by night, sneaking in like thieves. Wolf thought better of it and drove his shillelagh into the same tender place where his boot had just struck. The giant groaned loudly and collapsed face down. Wolf strode over his back and stood on his neck, his shillelagh ever twirling.

For a moment everything went still, with Wolf astride the giant’s neck, the wide warrior sprawled flat on his back at the base of the stairs, a ring of perhaps twenty invaders encircling the front of the manor, torches lifted high and wielding massive battleaxes.

Jack stood behind Wolf, his first arrow still nocked, ready to fly, sighting from warrior to warrior. Thank goodness there did not appear to be any bowmen present.

“This is my manor!” Six cried, raising his sword, moving around Jack. He wanted to cut off the giant’s head, because he clearly remembered all the many times before. All the repetitious attacks, played over and over, always with the same result of death, rape, and destruction (not necessarily in that order). This giant, this squat warrior, they were the rapists.

“Wait!” cried the squat warrior, pushing himself into a crouch, appearing remarkably undamaged—undiminished—despite the brutal caning the man with the black shillelagh had just delivered.

Wolf leaped from the top of the stairs, a full ten steps, and crashed down into the squat warrior, flattening him again. He tapped the warrior on the back of the head with the end of his stick.

Six howled and rushed at the giant, slashing down, his sword striking at the prone warrior’s neck, but impossibly the giant rolled over and batted away the sword strike with a bracer on his arm. The giant kicked up with both legs and struck Six at the knees, buckling him over. Grinning despite his bloodied face, the giant rolled at Six with a wicked dagger.

Jack tracked the knife and with hardly a thought, loosed the arrow. The dagger fell from the giant’s pierced hand.

The giant howled and snapped the arrow in his wounded hand, and with jutting teeth he came at Jack, who stepped back a quick shuffling dance, and smashed the widest part of his bow across the man’s snarling face. But the giant was hardly deterred and swung his arms to seize Jack, but Jack surprised himself and leapt to the bannister along the porch and balanced there, another arrow nocked and sighted on the giant’s chest.

Six swung and punched the giant squarely in the eye and the brute came back upon him and they grappled. Six was a big man, six-foot-four and more than two hundred fifty pounds, but the giant dwarfed him, and they snarled and twisted at each other.

A torch-bearing axman rushed across the grounds at Wolf but Jack placed an arrow through his ax hand. The raider dropped his torch and fell to his knees, grasping his wounded hand. Yes, Jack nodded, he could do this. He had Stacey’s back.

“Wait! Wait!” the squat spearman hollered, scrambling away from Wolf on his back and elbows, his legs kicking frantically.

“What, you want to talk?” Wolf growled, tapping at the scrambling feet with the shillelagh.

“The Pugilist!” one of the raiders cried, waving his torch.

“It’s the Pugilist!” another raider cried, stumbling backward, and surprisingly, the ring of raiders drew back, still in violent postures, but undecided in their next actions. All along the line of raiders, like crickets beginning a chorus, they began to say that word, pugilist, over and over again.

“Maybe we should hear what he has to say?” Jack said, easily striding the length of the bannister, his boots sure upon the narrow railing, another arrow nocked.

Six continued to struggle with the giant. He had his hands on the brute’s throat, but despite his savagely twisting fingers, he was unable to effectively throttle the monster, who had him in a bear hug and was squeezing for all he was worth. Six groaned and dug deep his fingers. This was his first chance to get in a few licks of his own, and he was taking some delight in the life-and-death struggle. The bastards! Finally, he would show them how it felt. He squeezed harder with all his considerable strength and felt some slackening in the giant’s deadly embrace.

“I think I might enjoy knocking you down again,” Wolf growled at the squat warrior who continued to scramble away. “Get up.”

The squat warrior complied, rising to a crouch. His face was bloodied and swollen, but he still seemed to have a lot of spite ready, glowering at his shillelagh-wielding tormentor.

The giant lifted Six off his feet and slammed him into a wooden pillar, cracking the mighty wood. But Six did not release his hold. Think pitbull, he commanded himself.

“We did not know you were present, Pugilist,” the squat warrior snarled. “We raided the rich lords, as is our right. They are our enemies, and killing them is our right. Raping their women and children is our right.”

“No, it’s not your right,” Wolf said, going still, the shillelagh for the first time frozen, held parallel along his left arm. He was going to kill this self-righteous savage. For the first time in his life, he felt the killer instinct, deep down. The killer instinct always missing when he was a boxer. And he was almost ashamed to acknowledge that it felt pretty...good.

“I don’t look kindly on rapers.”

“Rapists,” Jack corrected.

Wolf sighed. That kid.

Six and the giant came crashing down the stairs, Six with his fingers buried in the giant’s throat, the giant yet squeezing the smaller man in a bear hug.

Stacey glanced to watch the savage encounter but made certain to maintain the squat warrior clearly in his peripheral vision.

Six gritted his teeth and got up close to stare into the giant’s eyes.

“Not this time,” Six whispered, and clamped his hands, not looking away, watching the giant’s bulging eyes glaze and finally roll up into his head, but still he squeezed, trying to make his palms meet. He wanted to interlock his fingers with the giant’s throat between his hands. The giant legs and arms spasmed, then fell limp.

Six collapsed across the giant’s chest.

“He killed the Krogurr,” many of the raiders muttered, aghast, disbelief evident in their voices. But the truth was, they didn’t sound very outraged, not at all.

“Plant your torches!” the squat warrior thundered, raising his fists at his ears in the classic muscleman pose. Without pause, the raiders obeyed, slamming the ends of their long torches into the loamy soil. Even the raider with the arrow through his hand managed to retrieve his torch and plant it in the soil.

“Now you fight me, and prove if you are the Pugilist of legend,” the squat warrior snarled, stripping off his shaggy armor and dashing each piece to the ground.

Wolf spun his shillelagh and planted it in the soil. He’d keep his cool MMA gloves.

The warrior stripped down to a loincloth, and his body proved tattooed on every inch of flesh, tattoos that glowed iridescent in the torchlight. He had a barrel of a chest, a big man’s body, like a powerlifter, ripe with jiggling fatty muscle, with quite a pair of breasts, to boot.

“Be careful, Stacey,” Jack called, “you know he’s going to cheat.”

“Wolf,” Wolf the man called back.

Jack sighed. “Yes, I know, I know, Wolf.”

“I love fighting a cheater,” Wolf said.

Six pushed himself to a sitting position, gasping, his head whirling.

“Get him,” he croaked.

Wolf marched toward the squat tattooed warrior.

The squat warrior snarled and hurled himself upon Wolf, who sidestepped and tripped the rushing warrior. But to his credit, the squat warrior did not fall, but merely stumbled, and swung back around and lashed out with a fist, which Wolf ducked. The squat warrior kept his fists up as if he were flexing his biceps, and from this stance threw punch after punch in swiping motions, like a cat.

“You’ve been watching too much Chuck Liddell,” Wolf muttered and stepped in close and snapped a machinegun jab into the warrior’s face, peppering him three times, even breaking his nose.

The warrior sat back with a grunt and landed on his butt. Dazed for a moment, he stared up at his tormentor and then flinched, thinking Wolf would kick him while he was down.

Wolf almost did kick him, right in the face, but held himself back. He motioned with his fingers, come on, get back up—let’s play.

The watching raiders murmured.

Jack noticed more raiders slinking in from the darkness, joining the outer ring. These too had torches, which they lit from the flaming stakes planted about the clearing. They waved their torches and began to call out encouragingly to their leader. Jack couldn’t count how many raiders were present, but he figured thirty to forty to be a good ballpark figure. Perhaps, fifty. He kept his bow half-drawn, an arrow nocked. He figured he had perhaps twenty arrows, at best, but he also had his nifty dagger on his belt. He danced nervously on the railing.

Out in the darkness Jack caught sight of a large shape moving quickly around the ring, just on the very edge of the light. It must be Wolf the wolf, he thought.

The squat warrior surged to his feet and attacked, throwing punch after monstrous haymaker punch, all of which Wolf slipped and dodged, ducked and eluded.

Wolf considered. He had certainly never fought anyone like this in the ring, neither in sparring or professionally. The guy was a brute, a big, strong, meaty warrior, even dangerous, but he certainly didn’t know how to fight. Heck, with this new body, he could fight like this for hours. He wasn’t even winded, not a bit, with nary a sign of asthma. He danced in close and planted a fist deep in the squat warrior’s body, just beneath the ribs. The warrior woofed. It was like hitting the heavy bag, with only a little more gush from inside. Wolf half-blocked another powerful blow, and then he snapped down his right fist in a short, driving blow, catching the warrior in the mouth.

The leader of the raiders tumbled over backward.

Surprisingly, many of the raiders cheered.

The warrior rolled onto his hands and knees and glowered up at Wolf. Sheesh, Wolf thought, the guy is just full of piss and vinegar. He had certainly never meant an opponent like this. The guy was scary.

Wolf tittered his fingertips at the warrior, come on, get up again.

The warrior got up again. Wolf knocked him down again.

The raiders cheered again, only now more were cheering.

The warrior, enraged threw himself on Wolf, and they grappled. The warrior stomped down on Wolf’s foot, but Wolf was watching for that and moved his foot, and when the warrior attempted to seize him by the nuts, Wolf hurled himself upward, seized the warrior around the neck, and when his feet touched down he launched himself up and around the man’s broad back, but didn’t release his hold on the man’s neck—he flipped up and over, to land on his feet—the warrior gurgled, strangled, and Wolf applied all his vast strength and pulled the heavy man up and around onto his own back, so that they were back to back, with Wolf’s stranglehold sinking in deeper.

Utterly helpless, balanced on Wolf’s back, the warrior’s neck stretched and twisted about, his feet up in the air, kicking, arms flailing.

The watching raiders roared, and now there were even more of them gathered, perhaps more than a hundred, and they were cheering, watching their chief strangled. Many were chanting.

Pugilist! Pugilist!

In a second or two, the warrior’s neck would snap. The fact that it hadn’t snapped already was a testament to the warrior’s powerful body, but the dynamics of this unheard stranglehold would not allow even the strongest neck to survive such pressures, all of Wolf’s strength, all of the huge squat warrior’s weight, and Wolf felt it, what he always felt in his boxing career.

He felt sorry for the other guy.

Wolf flipped the warrior over and slammed him into the ground. He stood away from the fallen warrior, breathing hard. He looked at the roaring, cheering raiders. They shook their axes and spears above their heads, many of them clashing their weapons together with whoever stood closest to them.

“Anyone else?” Wolf thundered, planting his fists upon his hips.

As one, the encircling raiders quieted and dropped to their knees, placing their weapons reverently upon the ground.

The squat warrior, the once leader of this group, lay gasping and coughing.

Six appeared at Wolf’s side, woozy and gasping.

“You did it, you actually did it, you turned the whole raid aside!” Six said with wonder, placing his arm about Wolf’s shoulders.

“Was this your chief?” Wolf called about the unnaturally quiet glade. For so many violent men to be so silent, it was weird.

Jack leapt lightly from the deck bannister and landed gracefully upon his feet, and quickly trotted to Wolf’s side.

They looked and were surprised to see the leader of the raiders kneeling, placing his forehead in the dirt, taking handfuls of the soil and rubbing it into his head. It appeared to be some form of symbolic gesture of humiliation.

“That’s incredible,” Six said, shaking his head. “Never heard of anything like this, not with dragon warriors.”

“They’re your guys now,” Wolf said, shaking out his muscles. He was exhausted, utterly drained. It truly had been a long couple of days. He thought of the six-armed monstrosity. The vast serpent and their duel under the sacred fruit tree. The sky falling like shards of crystal. The bug-eyed Martians in the alley.

“I don’t think so,” Six said doubtfully, certain any one of the raiders would cease their prostrations and leap for his throat at any moment.

“I do not care what your mission in life was before,” Wolf boomed. “I do not care what you thought your rights were. There will be no more raping. The dragon warriors will from hereon be a people of honor, and your primary goal in life is to protect the lands and life and peoples of...”

He glanced to Six and whispered: “What in the world is your name, here? Your full name?”

“Lord Meren Dulance of High Vale,” Six said, feeling a little self-conscious. It was a good name, right? He could have picked any name he desired, and he’d gone with Lord Meren Dulance, of course that was years ago, and in those days he was just playing a very cool game.

“Your mission in life is to protect the lands and life and people of Lord Meren Dulance of High Vale, this good man standing here beside me,” he boomed.

The raiders bowed and scraped, murmuring like a wave: “Pugilist. Pugilist. Pugilist.”

“You are the protectors of this land and its people. Any harm you have caused here, you will repay,” Stacey boomed, to cries of Pugilist! Pugilist! Pugilist!

“Can you think of anything else?” Wolf whispered to Six.

Six shook his head, feeling dizzy, and liberated, and free.

“How about tributes?” Jack whispered in Wolf’s ear.

“Yes, you will make tributes to Lord Meren Dulance, every year!”

“Twice a year,” Six said, automatically, blinking his eyes.

“Yes, you will make tributes to Lord Meren Dulance twice a year! Tributes of ten percent of your profits, twice a year!”

“Twenty percent, no, twenty-five percent!” Six said, getting into it.

“Don’t be greedy,” Wolf snapped.

“Oh look,” Jack said with glee, “the moons are coming out, one on either side!”

And sure enough, there on their left (Wolf didn’t know the directions here) was the big swollen moon, and right on cue was the smaller moon emerging on the right.

Hours later Wolf reclined in a plush wingchair that fitted his body suspiciously like a La-Z-Boy recliner, a tall tankard of Dark (what Six called it) in his fist. His eyes were drowsy, and he could see the first light of dawn illuminating the windows.

“I couldn’t do without my Guinness Stout,” Six said, sipping appreciatively at his own tankard. “I actually brought some Stout over here and had my brewmeisters work to get it as close as possible. “We’ve just called it Dark, but from hereon, it’s Wolf Dark!”

“How about Dark Wolf?” Jack contributed.

“I’d prefer White Wolf, but then that would be an odd stout, wouldn’t it?” Wolf said, sleepily.

“Dark Wolf it is!” Six laughed.

“A stout named after me, it’s always been one of my highest aspirations,” Wolf said. He usually would not drink anything this strong in the morning, but he really needed it now.

“In about half an hour my cook will be up and I’ll have him rustle up some breakfast, you have to try the bison bacon, it is really good, much better than pork,” Six said.

“Vegetarian,” Jack and Wolf said as one, and laughed.

“We’re still doing that,” Jack said.

“I’m glad one thing is still solid from the old world,” Wolf said.

“I like your goatee,” Jack said.

Wolf felt at his chin. “Funny, I haven’t seen myself in this new world. You’ve got one too, you know?”

“I do?” Jack said, delighted, feeling at his own chin. “I have a real moustache! I’ve always wanted a goatee! Awesome!”

“Yeah,” Wolf said, yawning, “don’t worry, it’ll fill in, give yourself a couple of years.”

Jack looked crestfallen.

“No, I’m kidding, you look like Errol Flynn,” Wolf said, chuckling. “Very dashing.”

“Yeah, Robin Hood, that’s me,” Jack laughed.

“Well come on,” Six burst, “you guys don’t have to be vegetarian any more, come on, live a little. It’s not like you’ll be eating real meat, not in High Vale.”

“I think for us,” Wolf said, glancing at Jack, “the rules probably don’t change too much, as the animals here are as real as the animals back where we came from.”

“Where I come from,” Six said, “everyone is vegetarian; it’s literally a crime to eat any kind of animal—there just aren’t that many of the critters left—so here, I cut loose. Everyone thinks that eating animals is barbaric, and disgusting, but I think we are all pretty much animals, so we just love to rip into other animals. It’s the blood that is so good. When you live with the animals, live like the animals, am I right?”

“I think I just need to conk out,” Wolf said, blinking his eyes.

“Me too,” Jack said, stifling a yawn.

“Conk out? What’s that, some kind of vegetarian thing?” Six said.

“No, it means we’re pooped. We need to keel over and sleep the sleep of the dead,” Jack explained.

“Coma, it’s calling, I’m about to meet a coma,” Wolf said.

“We have two or three guestrooms; you can take your pick. Stacey, you take the room right over there, and Jack there’s one right at the top of the stairs on the second level.”

“Not to be weird or anything, but you don’t have a room with two beds, do you? I don’t want to let Stacey out of my sight,” Jack said.

Wolf did not correct them. He supposed his name would follow him, wherever he went. He was Stacey the Wolf and Wolf the Stacey. But his former self seemed far away. He was in a whole new world, after all.

In their room Wolf did not even remove his boots. He fell face down on one of the small beds, and was instantly asleep.

Jack grinned and removed the older man’s boots. Then he fell onto the other bed and was snoring before his head hit the fluffy pillow.

Six paced in the great hall. He felt overjoyed. Finally, they had done it. Thanks to Old Ben, with a little of the hoped-for luck, they had done it.

He wished the guys could have remained awake long enough to meet Varra, who should be waking soon. Ah, Varra, love of my life, our future is open to us! I gave up everything from my old world, for you, Varra. He slammed his right fist into his left palm. Ah, but he felt good.

Six heard a tiny wind chime on the periphery of his hearing. He called up a window and received a notification of an incoming visitor. He opened the notice. Hey! Great! Seven was coming! This would be truly epic! She should be arriving in the High Vale visitor center on the morrow. Lovely. He couldn’t wait to see her.

Seven could meet his two new friends, Jack and Wolf.

Next Episode.

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29 30 31 32 33 34 35
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Vestigial Surreality: 16: Bully

episode SIXTEEN

01 02 03 04 05 06 07

08 09 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49

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Bully.

Jack had an arrow nocked, his bow half drawn, but he trusted Six, and did not take action, but the smell of blood made him woozy, and he feared he might faint. Other than the perpetual television violence of his former life, he had experienced very little violence in the flesh, at least of any substance, until yesterday, or the day before, or whenever this part-nightmare, part-wonderland had begun, first in the alley behind the Coffee Dump, with the Martians, and then his run-in with the colossal snake, and finally, this brutal encounter with the giant.

It did not seem to matter, the surreal nature of each violent encounter, because they were real, visceral, palpable, and ugly. You did not care that Humpty Dumpty was an adorable fairytale being, when he appeared in your home, in the middle of the night, with a bloody ax in his adorable fairytale hands.

But there was nothing adorable about the giant before them, all nine feet of height, with its too vast skull, leering green eyes beneath a Neanderthal brow, a domed head the size of a small refrigerator, and that jutting lower jaw with too many, too big teeth, in a sneering smile. The thing had introduced itself by snapping the neck of the great white horse, the steed belonging to Lord Meren Dulance of High Vale.

Jack stood numbly, not moving, watching the towering brute as it ripped the beautiful white head off the dead horse. The giant lifted the head in his hands. As big as the horse had been—much larger than a Budweiser Clydesdale—the head looked small, like that of a miniature pony, clasped in the massive hands of the giant. The giant crammed his square, pink tongue into the gory hole of the horse’s neck, and sighed loudly, but its staring gaze of murder never departed from Jack and Six.

“Just stand still,” Six said, his left hand locked upon his sword scabbard, his right hand on the hilt of his great sword. “This is just a High Vale mugging, meant to terrorize us. If we leave the crooden giant alone, it shouldn’t come after us. If it does, don’t fight it, or wound it, but run. Get into the cottage, it’s a safe zone. Hell, all of this is a safe zone.”

Jack counted six fingers on the giant’s hands, but that wasn’t what was so strangely fascinating about the giant, because the six fingers matched the six hands, which matched the six muscular arms. This was some nightmarish interpretation of Kali, only decidedly too male, and without any touch of beauty. There was something almost insect-like to the nightmare being, for six appendages protruding from a VW-bug-sized torso just didn’t look human. Most everything else was apparently human to the giant, however, except for the hooves at the ends of its massive goat legs. It wore a filthy loincloth, but no other clothing.

If you counted the bizarre legs, it was more of a spider, with a total of eight appendages.

“I think I could put an arrow in each of its eyes, while it’s standing over there,” Jack said, voice quavering, “because whatever else happens, I just don’t want the thing standing over here.”

“Don’t do it, these things are incredibly fast. They are warriors, to the max, and I’ve heard tales of crooden taking out six fully armed knights. Not even a full party of adventurers led by a wizard with a healer want to go toe-to-toe with a crooden.”

“So what, we just stand here, after he killed your horse?” Jack said, feeling a rising anger that matched his terror. He was sick and tired of getting pushed around. He was sick and tired of running from big things.

“No, we don’t just stand here,” Six said, “we run, and we run like we’ve never run before.”

“You two alive,” the giant snorted, in an almost reasonable tone, sounding like a grizzly bear, holding the gory head in one hand, like an ice cream cone, still licking at it, “cuz I got treat. Delish. But run, I eat all.”

“That doesn’t sound too promising,” Jack whispered.

“Guess we’ve been talking too loudly,” Six whispered in return. “I didn’t think it could understand us.”

The giant grinned at them, with blood-stained teeth. The two rows of teeth were almost nicely laid out, as if the brute had worn braces when it was a brutish teenage six-armed giant. In fact, the giant’s smile reminded Jack of Julia Robert’s too big, too perfect teeth.

“Me understand. Crood like pretty talk. Crood like pretty fairies,” the giant said, but Jack didn’t know if it was talking directly to them, or to itself.

“We are not fairies, but men,” Six declared in a surprisingly confident shout.

“Men. Fairies. Same, Crood. Din’t tink wuz real,” Crood growl-laughed. The giant stood from its crouch to its full height.

Jack blinked, recalculating his earlier visual measurement, the giant’s head would probably go right up through a basketball net and wear the hoop as a crown.

“Tuh-Ten fuh-feet tuh-tall?” Jack stuttered.

“Yeah, this a big boy, even for crooden,” Six answered, drawing closer to Jack. The two men huddled together, trembling.

The crooden showed them the palms of five hands (one hand still held the gory head), and these looked like normal hands (other than the six fingers, and the incredible size) as if the monster were being utterly reasonable with them, and took two impossibly long strides toward Jack and Six on its weird backward goat legs. Jack thought that must be the strangest thing about the giant, its legs, which looked like human legs, only twisted, with the elbow in the rear—knees, whatever—however the logic of this twisting of animal and human worked, because it seemed to be albino-white human skin, terminating in human-looking ankles into what could be viewed as beautiful hooves, hooves the size of boulders, hooves that made loud clopping noises when they struck and shuddered the ground.

How in the world had the thing snuck up on them? One second everything was right with the world, everything was beautiful, they’d had such a lovely night in the little cottage, and the morning had begun so beautifully, and then without warning, the giant was there, and the horse was struggling in its grasp, but only for the briefest moment, and then the horse’s neck was twisted, and now they stood facing an approaching behemoth on boulder-sized hooves.

“No fraid,” the crooden growled. “Me nice, Crood nice.”

Suddenly Six grabbed his own crotch and squeezed.

“Whatever you do, don’t pee!” Six whisper-shouted to Jack. “The smell will drive it crazy.”

Jack clamped down, because it was close, when something like this monster strode toward you and the ground boomed beneath its hooves, you could easily lose control of your bladder.

The crooden boomed laughter.

“So funny,” Crood snickered. “Funny fairy. Go pee-pee, Crood no care. All good.”

“This is a safe zone, newby zone, you shouldn’t be here!” Six shouted, seizing Jack in a hug and moving them backward, away from the monster, toward the cottage. It was only two strides away from them. Two strides of those legs, and those hands would have them, and the men would tear as easily in those hands as had the neck of the majestic horse.

“Why fraid?” the crooden snickered, obviously enjoying their terror, crouching down, reaching out one arm across the distance, its finger pointing at them, as if it meant to tickle them. Its finger actually tickled the air, just five feet away from the two huddling men. “Crood play fairies. No fraid.”

Six clenched his eyes shut and squeezed Jack, but the younger man could not look away from the approaching doom, Jack could never close his eyes to whatever bad was coming. Then a black stick came crashing down on the wrist and the crooden stumbled up and away from them, and a figure in a black hooded cape stood between them and the monster.

“You’re just another bully, aren’t you?” the man in the black hood said, twirling a black club in his hand.

The crooden stared down with incredulous eyes, one of its hands cradling the wounded wrist. The giant’s too big, too perfect teeth jutted out in what appeared to be a smile of rage. The bulging eyes slitted.

The man in the hood turned and looked back at Jack.

“Stacey!” Jack cried, and then: “Watch out!”

Because even as Jack recognized Stacey’s smiling face, the crooden giant leapt forward, swinging one of its massive fists.

The man in the black hood reacted while turning back to the giant, swinging his black club up to block the approaching blow, and it was fast, everything was fast, but horribly, the fist connected with Stacey’s head, even as Stacey rolled with the blow and the black club seemed to absorb at least part of the force of the monster punch, but Stacey was lifted up and thrown, end over end, to crumple ten feet away on the ground, twisted and broken, face-down in the grass.

“Struck Crood! Fairy struck Crood!” the giant bellowed, its head opening up in a vast crack as its great mouth lifted to the sky. How could a mouth open so wide? The giant dropped the gory head and all its hands formed into fists that looked like knobbed wrecking balls. Except for the hand that Stacey had struck, which flopped impotently.

Jack, still hugging Six, looked from the giant to Stacey, and was amazed to see the man in the black hood pushing himself up from the ground, shrugging out of his hood and cloak, the left side of his face appearing torn and bloody. Stacey wasn’t dead! How was that even possible? He’d been thrown ten feet by that blow, and now he stood there, shaking his head, smiling, leaning upon his black walking stick.

“Ah, Pugilist,” Crood snarled, great lips drawn back in a rictus leer. “Fight Crood! Fight Pugilist!”

“You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been sucker-punched,” Wolf said, shaking his head. His left eye was swollen shut, and the cheek below the eye hung in a bloody flap of ripped skin. “Ernie always said I was too cocky. When you look away from the bully, that’s when he strikes. I just never seem to learn, do I?”

The crooden took a half step forward, its massive hoof crushing the severed horse head.

“This is Stacey, your friend?” Six said, pushing away from Jack, drawing his sword.

“Yes, it’s Stacey,” Jack said, drawing his bow and sighting down the arrow at the giant’s teeth. Just open that mouth again, I dare you, crack it open like you did before, come on open that mouth, Jack mentally commanded, concentrating. Just one perfect shot. Come on, open wide, Humpty Dumpty.

“Stacey, you can’t fight it!” Six shouted. “Don’t try to fight it! You have to stay alive, I need you, that’s why you’re here! Don’t waste yourself on this crooden!”

“I am Wolf. Let me handle this bully,” Wolf said, his black stick suddenly up from the ground and twirling. He snapped his hand and the shillelagh danced away, skipping end-over-end toward the giant, who barely had time to glance down, and the black club bobbed up and punched squarely between the giant’s thighs, smacking into its great groin. The stick came skipping back end-over-end into Stacey Wolf’s hand.

The giant’s giant eyes bugged out.

“Ooiiip!” Crood croaked in an uncharacteristically high-pitched bleat.

Then Wolf strode forward, tall, his black shillelagh twirling. The giant flailed at Wolf in an ungainly punch, but Wolf ducked the blow and tapped the sweeping fist with his stick. There was a loud crack and the giant winced and stumbled backward.

“Hurt Crood! Hurt Crood!” the giant bellowed.

“That’s the idea,” Wolf said, in close now, doing a double crack on each of the giant’s ankles.

The giant roared, in pain, in frustration, but mostly in fury, its eyes livid, its great smile more prominent than ever, as it stumbled away from the comparatively small attacker’s onslaught. It was in pain, it was hurt, but the giant was certainly not retreating, as its fists aligned into a fighter’s stance, and the giant crouched and honed in upon Wolf.

“Crood...crush!” it sneered, and its smile now took on the form of enjoyment, as it poised on its own attack. It would make short work of this meddling fairy, and then it would enjoy pulling the creature to pieces—tiny, tasty pieces.

“Crood read too many Hulk comics,” Wolf laughed, beginning to dance, his boots trotting gracefully, waltzing to the left, and then tap-dance snapping to the right, but he stayed right there, in the giant’s kill zone, the black shillelagh twirling and spinning, the stick moving like a helicopter propeller blade, moving from left hand to right, from right hand to left hand. He looked powerful in his renaissance garb, breeches and vest glowing burgundy in the morning sunlight.

There was a loud crunching noise.

“Ooiiip!” Crood gasped, going very still. It stood there, like a statue, as if it were turned into stone, and briefly Jack thought of Tolkien’s Hobbit, and wondered if perhaps the rays of the morning sun had magically done its work. The giant’s eyes rolled and stared at Stacey Wolf, at Six, and then at Jack. Its eyes seemed to swell bigger, literally bulging out of the great egg of its head.

Then the giant turned his head, very slowly, and looked over his shoulder. The monster did an almost comical double-take, and then threw back his head and roared. Jack, sighting down the length of his arrow, cursed, because the giant’s head was turned in profile, and he just didn’t have the shot he most desired. He did not wish to waste a single arrow.

The giant’s six arms writhed in the air, fingers clasping, gripping at the air, and again Jack thought the giant looked like some bizarre insect, its arms looking like grasshopper legs, flexing. The giant spun about, and only then did they see the truly huge animal attached to the giant’s body, a great wolf, its teeth sunk deep into the giant’s meaty right buttock. The giant continued to turn, bellowing in fury, and the great wolf was lifted off its feet, spun about, swinging through the air.

Stacey Wolf dodged back as the wolf came around, and Jack was amazed to take in the wolf’s size, it was as big as a small horse! But still, in comparison to the giant, it looked like a poodle dangling from the giant’s butt.

“Damn it all!” shouted Six, “you’re just pissing it off!”

The giant crooden kept attempting to turn around, to get one of its many hands back to free itself from the wolf, but the big animal had its paws dug into the soil, and it was yanking backward, its jaws locked in flesh.

And then Stacey Wolf danced in and cracked it on one of its elbows. And the giant roared and came at Stacey, who danced to the side, cracking out again at another reaching hand.

There! Jack, concentrating, had his shot. The tip of his arrow was aligned with the giant’s open mouth, facing full on, and all he had to do was release the grip of his right hand, there, now, do it, do it! But then the moment passed and the giant went still again, his mouth closed, lips pulled over the vast teeth. Jack closed his eyes. You missed it. You had it right there, you could have shot him right through his open mouth, right up there into his brain, you had it and you blew it. Jack sighed. Why hadn’t he fired?

Then Stacey Wolf went right up the middle, right between the giant’s six arms, and he actually ran up the giant’s belly in a dazzling Parkour move, his boots striking the giant just above the waist, and with both arms he brought the black shillelagh down upon the giant’s forehead, just above and between its eyes.

Curr-ACK! It sounded like Mark McGwire hitting one far out of the park.

Stacey Wolf fell back, landing on his feet, dancing back away from the giant.

The crooden giant, vast even among crooden, stood still a few moments. Then its eyes came together, crossing, and then rolled up into its head, and the giant went over backward. There was a loud scrambling as the great wolf behind the giant released his hold, and danced away from the falling behemoth. The ground shook as the giant struck the soil.

Jack ran forward and seized Stacey in his arms, actually lifting the large man off his feet.

“It’s you!” Jack cried, holding onto Stacey, and weeping. “I thought you didn’t make it through.”

“I’m here, it’s me,” Stacey Wolf said, woozily, and then he saw the world spinning, and his own eyes rolled up into head, much the way the giant’s had a few seconds before, but Six was there, and they caught him, and lowered him to the grasses.

And then the giant wolf was there, licking Wolf the man’s face.

“Please stand back,” Wolf the wolf said between licks.

 She stood at the railing of the observation deck, leaning on the cool aluminum bannister, sipping at her hot cocoa. She did not know what she was going to do. She didn’t know if she could go back to Vestigial Surreality, because she was right there, huddled beneath a blanket when they removed Toby Winnur from his chamber, and they tried to keep the mess of what had been him hidden from her, but she had seen, just enough. Poor Toby was gone, only vestiges of him were in that black body bag upon the stretcher. She had seen the outlines of what could have been interpreted as a hand, a human hand, in the remains of the flesh, or not flesh, but bubbles. What they carted out had not been human, not anymore. At least the bundle she had carried across the floor had been somewhat substantial, although foamy, and light. Molecularly, he had become something else. Toby Winnur, Number Six, had become slime.

That could still happen to Seven.

But what bothered Seven even more than the fact that Toby Winnur was gone—she had at least expected that—but what was worse than his inevitable death, was the fact that no one had come to question her. None of the EMTs had even glanced at her. None of the security men in their uniforms had come to talk to Seven. Worse, no one had tried to comfort her.

What kind of company handled things this way?

She had to go back, she knew that, regardless of her eventual fate, because she had to go to her Inner Sanctum. She couldn’t leave herself there. She understood Six, if only now, because Seven was truly Seven, only there, in that world.

Seven toyed with the locket beneath her shirt, tracing its heart shape with a finger. She sipped at her cocoa and frowned. There was something...?

Something bothered her. It was right there, on the edge of her mind, circling her, and if she could only reach out, and grasp it, but she couldn’t quite get a mental hand out there, far enough. But something was bothering her.

She clasped the chain around her neck and drew out the locket. She smiled at the silver charm, a heart, tracing the intricate carvings with her fingertip. She loved the feel of the cool silver, with the aged deep lines, the silver was polished bright by the constant movement beneath her clothes, but the grime of ages had worked its way into the etchings, the tracings, the veins. It calmed her to work the locket in her fingers.

But something troubled her. Something. What was it?

She studied the heirloom locket. What was the shape in the center? Funny, she thought there had been initials engraved deep, but no, it was a shape. It looked like a ball, a globe, with a circle going around it. Was it supposed to be a figurative representation of the world, spinning? Or, was that supposed to be an airplane flying around the Earth? No, it looked like a ring, kind of like an iconic depiction of the planet Saturn.

But it was so old, this locket, the engraving so worn down after time, that it was almost impossible to figure out what the engraving was supposed to be.

Her mother gave her this locket, and her mother before her, going all the way back to the ancestor, him, the mythical one, their patron saint, their beloved forefather. Supposedly this locket had belonged to Jack Messenger. She didn’t know if it were true, what her mother told her, because there were a lot of things about her mother that she couldn’t quite trust, but her mother supposedly knew Old Jack, the Patriarch, when he was more than two hundred twenty years old, when her mother was just a little girl.

Seven’s eyes filled with tears. She wondered where Six was, had he made it, as he planned, was some part of him even now alive, in some utopian world?

“Right on time,” a voice said at her elbow.

Seven turned and smiled at a little girl. A funny little girl, dressed in an old-fashioned frilly dress, all shades of pink, hair up with bunches of golden curls. Seven set her cup of cocoa on the railing and turned to face the little girl.

“Hello,” she said, smiling, wiping at her eyes.

She heard an alarm sound somewhere in the platform and noticed people rushing toward the back of the observation deck, and the ceiling suddenly closed in, sealing off the atmosphere. The air immediately felt warmer in the confines of the deck.

“I’m Manda,” the little girl said, putting out a hand to shake.

“I’m...” Seven began, taking the little hand in her own, and she hesitated, because she was almost going to introduce herself as Seven, it’s how she identified with herself, but this little girl—something about her, something familiar—she smiled and squeezed the girl’s hand, “I’m Sandy.”

“We had best catch a taxi,” Manda said, not releasing Seven’s hand, but transferring it to her other hand, and walking, pulling Seven along with her, so that they were strolling and holding hands.

Seven laughed, wow, what a little controller, but she had to admit, the little girl was charming. Seven thought she had caught sight of the little girl earlier, in the food court, as she was rising on the crystal escalator with her cocoa. She glanced back. Great, she left her beverage sitting back there on the railing, she almost paused, but the little girl drew her inexorably onward.

“Didn’t I see you earlier, with a handsome man?” Seven asked as they entered a stairwell and began the spiraling descent to the taxi platform.

“A very handsome man, oh yes,” Manda answered, smiling sadly, “but handsome is, as handsome does.”

Seven chuckled. She might have said, never trust a pretty face. And she thought of Stacey, and without thought her hand grasped at her locket, which she had tucked back into her shirt at the little girl’s approach. And there was that troubling...feeling, again, as if she had left the stove on, or the door unlocked. Something gamboled off in the darkness, playfully tickling at her conscious mind, like a moth batting at an electric light, so close it burned, but still, it couldn’t get in.

They were on the taxi level and the little girl hustled her over to an open portal, and that was weird, because you always had to wait in lines for a taxi, despite the seven portals. Even with seven portal on either side of the platform—fourteen portals in all—you still had to wait for a taxi, always. As they walked into the waiting taxi, Seven glanced along the portals and saw at least five people in each line.

“You’re not a queen, are you?” Seven asked, chuckling a bit as she seated herself close to the little girl.

“I used to think of myself as a princess, but I was only pretending,” Manda said, smiling at Seven.

“Dada is dada,” Seven whispered, troubled, her eyes widening.

“You remember me,” Manda said, nodding.

“That was you,” Seven breathed. “Dada is dada. Data is data.”

“Could be a coincidence?” Manda said, giggling. She was playing with something in her hands. Seven leaned in close as the taxi pulled away. Distantly she considered that she did not know where they were going, and they hadn’t said anything to the driver silhouette up front. She felt the craft lurch and her tummy dipped when the vehicle sped away from the platform.

“This is beautiful, an heirloom, your mother gave it to you?” Manda said, holding up her hand and dangling the chain, the heart-shaped locket swinging, a pendulum.

“How?” Seven breathes, her hand clasping at her heart, but wait, that was in the Inner Sanctum, not here, she distinctly remembers crafting the locket, placing the crystal cube—the size of a vitamin pill, yes she distinctly remembers—she places the crystal cube into the heart-shaped locket, a smooth locket without engraving—yet she distinctly remembers Mother, a High Jackian Priestess, giving her this locket, on her thirteenth birthday, a token from Old Jack himself, before he died at the age of two hundred thirty, she remembers all this.

“Keep it safe,” Manda says, handing the chain and locket to Seven. “Don’t pull it out in public like that. Trust Old Ben, though you never know what he will do next. And talk to Mr. Kronoss, don’t be afraid of him, but never, absolutely never trust him. Especially if you’re a pigeon!”

Seven placed the chain over her head and dropped the locket inside the top of her shirt. She did not wish to look at the little girl, not anymore, and she could barely breathe. She realized the taxi was stopped, settled, the door opening. As she went to flee the taxi the little girl, Manda, seized her arm.

“Tell me, Sandra Newbury, Seven,” Manda said, and despite herself, Seven looked into her eyes. “Are people worth it? Do you think people are evil, or good?”

“People?” Seven said, unable to look away from the blue eyes of the little girl.

“I know there are good ones, I especially like Jack, and Stacey too. In fact, I think Stacey is my favorite, of all the people that have ever lived. But mostly, aren’t people just...crazy, little universes inside coconut skulls, scrambled like eggs, always turning to evil?”

Seven tried to snatch her arm away but the little girl’s grip was a vise of steel. Coconuts. Eggs. Her own brain seemed scrambled. Images of snakes and Humpty Dumpty swirled about for a few moments, and she thought she must be suffering a stroke. She witnessed dead pigeons suddenly take flight. Angry eyes glanced at her from a cell phone video. She was behind Stacey, Jack’s hand on the big man’s spine, and the Martian were approaching. Old Ben stood in the corner, leafing through a book. And Saturn glowed behind her eyes.

“I can’t figure it out, truthfully,” Manda said. “I love people. And I hate them, desperately. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Seven said, and when the hand released her, she shot from the back of the taxi onto a deserted sidewalk.

“Bye-bye!” Manda cried as the taxi doors shut and the craft lifted up into the sky

Seven turned and looked up at the vast building before her, the steps leading up to the rear entrance mere paces away. She saw the red glow of the giant VS logo, even though she couldn’t see the letters, which were too high up and just around the corner of the building The little girl, Manda, had dropped her right at the steps of Vestigial Surreality.

Slowly, she climbed the steps. She had two minds, for just these moments, she could cling tenuously to both of them, both of her minds, both of her collection of memories, for she remembers creating the locket and she remembered her mother’s gift. The same locket. Different lockets, of different worlds, of different realities.

And Seven remembers the little girl, Manda, too, for it was her own face, the face of Sandra Newbury, when she was seven years of age. Manda was a perfect reproduction of seven-year-old Sandy.

Next Episode.

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