15.04
Be careful, Green Eyes had told me.
Had she suspected? Known? She’d been around the Abyss long enough to see how it operated, the gears turning, certain individuals raised up, certain individuals dashed against the metaphorical rocks below.
The Ink Man had told me that he wanted to get in position, or something along those lines. He too had known. He’d wanted this role. Or one of them. I could imagine other exits, each one guarded.
I was aware of the presence of others, of the murmured conversations, laced with anxiety and emotion. They wanted out, much like someone who was drowning wanted air. They’d faced a share of what the Abyss could dish out, they were in pain, wounded, or suffering from the loss of friends and family.
I wasn’t sure how much sympathy they’d have for my dilemma.
My thumb traced the side of the throne. Anyone else might find it uncomfortable, but I was largely made of wood. Minor discomforts didn’t tend to come up anymore.
“That’s all for you, Blake?” Evan asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t bring myself to look back at them.
“The shards of the sword. We left them on the street. They got washed away. Now they’re here,” Rose said.
I nodded again.
“The locket… I barely remember the locket,” she said. “I figured that the locket being this weird force, just coming and going as it pleased, it was a Faerie thing.”
“No,” I said, and my voice was a little raw, as if I’d been screaming for a long time and hurt something. “Not a Faerie thing. A me thing. It wants me to guard the door.”
“If you guard the door, you can open the door, right?” Nick asked.
“Or would you have to fight us before you could let us through?” the High Priest asked.
The noise in my head was getting worse. It felt like all the noise and chaos of the Library, at its very worst, had seeped in through the cracks the Barber had made in my skull, and now it played at the periphery, crackling at the edges.
“The Abyss has a way of thinking,” I said. “It gives, then it takes, and it generally takes more than it gives.”
“That doesn’t answer the question,” the High Priest said. “Does it?”
It does, I thought.
“Do you think it’s going to make you fight us, as part of the price for letting us out?” the High Priest guessed.
“I think,” I replied, bristling just a little, “that letting you guys go is part of the give. But this, this whole setup, it’s the take.”
“It’s…” Rose started, but she left the sentence hanging. I had my back to her, so I couldn’t see her facial expressions. “…Not as bad as other parts of the Abyss.”
“Cushy gig, as these things go,” Alister said.
I shook my head.
I knew I was making enemies here. The words were soft, gentle, but only barely. I could sense the tension that drove them. Not much different than if they were all spoken between grit teeth. It might have been a skewed opinion, maybe nudged by the influences of the Abyss, but I could sense their fear, a weight pressing on me from behind.
“I don’t think you get it,” Evan said. “All you guys who were telling Blake he should sign up for the Seal of Solomon deal, you never got it.”
“Got what?” Tiff asked.
“Blake’s meant to fly,” Evan said, as if that explanation made any sense to them. “I was his familiar, even if I don’t remember, and I got the wings, and Blake got to be the magician, and then Blake was the monster, and I remember that. Or this, I mean. But if there was any justice in the world, then I’d be the wizard or the monster and Blake would have the wings. Because I’d be a great monster, and Blake… he’s meant to fly.”
“I can almost understand what you’re getting at,” Ty said.
“I can’t,” the High Priest said. “I’m afraid you’re speaking bird, little one. Your perspective isn’t one we’re in a position to grasp.”
Jeremy sounded tired. The oldest person here, and he wasn’t that old.
Evan, by contrast, was the youngest.
It explained the vaguely condescending tone, but it, at least in Evan’s eyes, didn’t justify it.
He snapped. “You jerks! Just listen to me. It’s a trap! A very obvious trap!”
“For the Bogeyman,” the High Priest said. “Who is at the center of this, with all of the rest of us as collateral damage.”
“For Blake, yeah,” Evan said. “So let’s treat this like we would any other trap and take a hike! Literally! We can go, we find another exit. We fight the guy waiting for us there, and then we leave.”
I was already shaking my head.
“No?” Evan asked.
“We can,” I said. “But it wouldn’t work. The Abyss is smart. It’s doing what it does for a reason. I’m not sure, but I think we’d be starting over from scratch. Have to fight through the gauntlet, the head games, find our way through, and at the end, there’s no guarantee the Abyss wouldn’t have something like this waiting at the next exit.”
“We knocked down one barrier,” Rose said. “Jeremy, can you use your god, knock down this one?”
“I’ve asked a lot of my god in the last little while,” the High Priest said. “I’m concerned that he’s too fond of lose-lose dilemmas to simply hand us a solution to this one.”
There was a bit of noise. Someone had dropped to a sitting position with a crunch and a few snapping branches.
“Blake, you made a deal with Rose,” Alister said. “That you’d step down, let her win the struggle between you two. What were the terms? Does this qualify?”
“The idea was that I’d destroy him,” Rose said.
“This would count,” I said.
“No!” Evan said. “Damn you! This is- no! You don’t get to jump straight to that! Do you know how hard I’ve had to work to keep Blake alive while he’s throwing himself into danger and fighting dragons and demons for your sakes?”
“I’m aware, Evan,” Rose said. “But we need to discuss the options here.”
“No we don’t! We can pretend this isn’t an option because it really isn’t, or it shouldn’t be! If we start talking about this like it’s an option then Blake’s going to decide it is and if it’s talking it’s not something I’m good at! I can push him out of the way of dragons or demons or whatever but I can’t push him out of the way of being an idiot! The last time I let you guys talk he talked himself into letting you kill him!”