Was there a second half to this worm amid the rubble? Could Menagerie be restored if we could join the two halves? I turned to find Relic to share my theory, but was distracted as the glass pyramid flashed past me.
Unlike the straight paths the sphere and cube had followed, the pyramid moved chaotically through the air, darting a few yards in one direction, then shooting off at a crisp angle without losing speed in defiance of all logic and physics. Its glass faces were cycling through colors, pale blues, bloody reds, banana-yellows. It rang with a sound like off-key chimes as it jerked through the air. No-Face chased after it, trying to shatter it with his ball and chain, but the pyramid would tumble aside before his blows connected, shooting off in some new random direction.
Aurora, meanwhile, was grabbing the fog that surrounded her, shaping and pressing the mist into her palm until she’d packed a ball of ice the size of a grapefruit. She hung back, studying the pyramid’s lurching flight path, her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she figured out a pattern, or perhaps it was only luck, but when she reared back and flung the ice-ball, aiming to the left of the pyramid, her target obliged by darting left. The ice-ball hit the triangle face dead center, passing through the glass as if it wasn’t even there. Instantly, the neighboring face flashed green as the ice-ball shot out. No-Face, still chasing the dancing pyramid, wound up getting punched right in the gut by the projectile. He stumbled, off balance, clutching his belly.
“Sorry!” shouted Aurora. She turned her eyes away from the pyramid for only a second, but in that second all the faces turned black as it charged her. She looked up, raising an ice-covered fist as the pyramid overtook her. Instead of the crash of glass hitting ice, the collision unfolded with eerie silence as Aurora simply sank into the ebony surface. The pyramid tumbled as it passed over her, kissing the floor where she stood before shooting straight up, once more flashing through a spectrum of bright shades.
Aurora was gone.
Meanwhile, Lord Tower had finally won his contest of momentum against the cube. He now held it motionless in mid-air, with a single hand holding the Gloryhammer across the cube face while his free hand popped open the compartment on his belt that held his magic notebook. The visor of his helmet lifted on its own as he awkwardly flipped through the book with one hand. Finding the page he wanted, he brought the book to his face and bit down on the edge, trapping a page open as he let go with his hand and brought his fingers to the long, skinny item sketched on the page. He drew his hand back, tugging a loop of leather from the paper, followed by a long shaft of narwhale tusk that he kept working out a few feet at a time, continually adjusting his grip. The bone-white shaft proved to be eighteen feet long, tipped with a gleaming heart-shaped blade of pinkish ice.
If this wasn’t the Jagged Heart, it’s hard to imagine what was.
Tower let the book tumble from his mouth. With a grunt, he pushed the iron cube away from him, tapping it with the Gloryhammer so that it flew back a half dozen yards. The iron block whined as it shot toward the knight once more. Tower brought the tip of the harpoon down, dropping the Gloryhammer to grasp the shaft with both hands.
The iron cube ground to a halt as the ice tip burrowed into its solid face, sinking nearly a foot. Cracks spread across the iron as the whining noise within changed to a growling grind. Tower twisted the shaft and the entire cube shattered. Fragments of springs and gears bounced all around him.
The knight didn’t waste any time savoring his victory. Instead, he charged back across the room, his spiked iron boots shooting out sparks as he ran, the harpoon held like a lance. The glass pyramid flashed white on all faces as Tower neared, a bright, burning light nearly impossible to look at.
I turned away just as the light suddenly dimmed and a cacophony of breaking glass reached my ears. I looked back and saw that the pyramid was gone; all that remained was glassy dust scattered across the floor like snowflakes.
“Uhrurruh!” No-Face shouted, dropping to his hands and knees. He ran his fingers through the glass dust. “Uhrurruh!” he cried again.
Tower surveyed the scene. “Is everyone okay?” he asked.
“Aurora was inside the pyramid when you broke it,” said Zetetic, now back on his feet. He nudged his boot around in the glassy remains, until he found a splinter the size of a man’s thumb. He picked it up and looked at it closely. “She’s gone forever, I fear.”
“Nuh!” cried No-Face.
Tower, his faceplate still open, turned pale. “I didn’t know,” he said.
“What could you have done differently if you had known?” said Father Ver, still sitting on the floor. “You couldn’t let the thing keep tumbling until it had swallowed us all.”
No-Face stood up, his whole body trembling. He stared at Lord Tower with his single, misshapen eye, his fists clenched. He screamed at the knight, “Yuh guhdum muhfugguh! Yuh kuh uhrurruh!”
“It was an accident,” said Tower, lowering his faceplate.
Relic was back on his feet, wandering through the rubble that covered the floor. He pushed aside bits of shattered jade and chewed up gold with the tip of his staff. At last he leaned over and picked up a small, moist, wriggling bit of meat, then moved to the other half of the worm I’d spotted on the silk.
“Is this going to work?” I asked. “Can you read Menagerie’s thoughts?”
Relic didn’t answer me as he placed the two halves together, letting the bisected worms touch at their shared wound.
There was a rapid blur of motion, as the thin, squiggling worms gained mass and muscle. In the span of a heartbeat, the worm was gone and Menagerie sat before us, restored once more. The speed of the recovery left me seeing double.
Only, I wasn’t seeing double.
There were two Menageries, sitting facing each other, both the size of pygmies.
“What the hell?” they both asked in unison. Their voices were high-pitched squeaks as they asked, “How did… It wasn’t supposed to work like…” They each reached out to touch the other, their fingertips tapping together in mirror symmetry.
Both reached for tattoos on their shins and suddenly two small bears were staring at one another. “Terrific,” both bears said, in a resigned tone.
Father Ver walked toward the twin bears and looked down, his eyes narrowed. “You’re to blame for this! You were ordered to ignore the treasure. You’ve cost us the ogress and the War Doll by your disobedience.”
Relic shook his head. “The War Doll is still functioning.”
Infidel punctuated his sentence by tearing free of her stony outline, staggering onto the floor, still looking dazed.
The Truthspeaker continued to glare down at the small bears. “Disobey again and your contract will be terminated.”
The Menageries shifted back into their twin, pint-sized human forms. They both placed their hands across their knees and sighed. They said in their stereo voices, “You don’t need to threaten me. No one feels worse about this than I do. The sight of all that gold made me stupid.”
“Muh fuh,” said No-Face, looming over his fellow Goon. “Nuh whoowa smuh guh?”
“Yeah, you’re the smart Goon now,” the Menageries said, shaking their heads.
The faceless giant held out his hands. Menagerie took them, and let himselves be pulled back to their feet.
While this was happening, I’m certain that I’m the only one who noticed that the Deceiver had pulled out a piece of cloth and wrapped the largest shard of glass within it, stuffing it into his bag.
“Let’s take an hour to rest,” said Tower, sliding the harpoon back into the book. “There are prayers of penance I need to perform for having allowed a book to touch the ground. No-Face, you’re bleeding; let Father Ver stitch you up.” The big man’s hands and knees were red with blood from where he dug through the glass fragments searching for Aurora. Finally, Tower turned to Relic and said, “Make certain your War Doll is still functioning. If you need more time for repairs, let me know.”