Oshitoshitoshitoshit! was the mantra that flew smoothly through his mind. It was probably just a play of light, or maybe the adrenaline, or possibly the feeling of absolute horror, but it felt less like falling to Robert and more like the world was rushing toward him to smash him into little pieces. So this is how it ends. He fondly hoped that Lily was okay, and then, in a glimmer of hope, he thought that maybe his Demon would come and retrieve him. That same balloon of hope was quickly popped when he saw his Screech Demon falling unconscious out of the sky not far away from him. Thoughts, questions, and memories jumbled quickly through his mind as the world rushed to meet him: Who is my father? Am I dating a werewolf? A Dwarf in his bathtub. Lily’s eyes. A hippopotamus in a tutu. Buried in a coffin. The halfway house burning around him and the kitten appearing in the fireplace. Shit! And then he hit the ground.
The courtyard was decorated with intricate symbols that looked like they’d been drawn in blood. The air crackled like arcing electricity as the magical field began to stir and the spell was woven. It was a complex spell with no room for mistakes. The Dwarf knew that such a powerful spell posed a danger when performed in such a large magical field, but it was the magical field that powered the spell. As it turned out, magic had a strong sense of irony.
Rumpelstiltskin was reading incantations from the scraps of paper he’d stolen from the Wizards’ Council library when Crushnut grunted in surprise.
“Wotz that?” said Blarfunder, and Ian skidded to a stop next to him.
“Looks like a couple of dragons,” said Ian.
Rumpelstiltskin finished the incantation he was reading and looked up into the sky where his idiot henchmen were staring.
“Those are too small for dragons,” said the Dwarf, squinting. A sense of panic kicked him in the frontal lobe. “Those are Agents!”
“That’s silly,” said Blarfunder, “Agents don’t have wings.”
“They’re riding Screech Demons!” screamed the Dwarf, jumping up and down. “Kill them!”
“Now, where’s your manners?” said Blarfunder, wagging his finger.
“What?” sputtered the Dwarf.
“What’s the magic word?”
The Dwarf made a quick mental note to kill his henchmen at the first available opportunity.
“Please kill them!” he shrieked.
“Yes, sir!” said Blarfunder and picked up a massive piece of masonry and threw it at the approaching pair of Demons as if it were a pebble. Crushnut began searching through the rubble to find his own rock to throw.
Blarfunder’s throw hit one of the Demon’s wings and it plummeted toward the ground over a hundred feet away. Crushnut found a piece of rock he liked and with one hand threw it with the dexterity of an Olympian at the second Demon, which dodged it, but lost its rider in the process. Blarfunder’s second chunk of masonry hit the creature square in the chest and it fell to the ground.
Not bad. Maybe he wouldn’t kill them after all. Maybe I’ll just maim them a little.
“You, with the legs,” said Rumpelstiltskin to Ian, “run off and make sure they’re both dead.”
Ian nodded and ran off.
The Dwarf returned to his incantations. Thanks to the greenish glow of the emerald stones and the forceful magical field, the ruins were never completely black, even as twilight began to slip away and the sky turned dark. Everything shone with a luminescent green.
As he read the incantations, the symbols he’d drawn on the courtyard began to glow. The dragon’s tooth, the other items he’d procured before being incarcerated in the Tower, and the remains of the last Bastinda sat in the middle of the courtyard.
The air began to feel heavy and the wind began to pick up. Rumpelstiltskin danced around the symbols as he continued reading. Something snapped at the edge of the courtyard, and the Dwarf looked up to see a doorway appear. It shimmered and floated and represented everything about Thiside that the Dwarf hated. He was about to dismiss it with a sneer when Jack stepped out the door. He looked angry.
Chapter Twenty
The Cheshire Cat
So this is what it’s like to be dead,” said Robert as he floated in an infinite sea of nothingness. “I’m actually disappointed.”
“It’s phenomenal, really,” said the voice in his head.
“How is this phenomenal?”
“Well, you’re floating around in your own subconscious; you’re actually inside your own head. That’s not something that happens every day, you know?”
“You’ve lost me,” said Robert, floating upside down. At least he assumed it was upside down. As everything was nothing but an inky blackness, it was impossible to tell which way was up and which way was down.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Would I look this confused if it was obvious to me?”
“I don’t know, I can’t see you, it’s too dark.”
Although he was dead and floating in infinite space, Robert suddenly felt as if he wasn’t alone. It was a creepy feeling and he’d feel better if he had something to look at, but he couldn’t even make out his own hand in front of his face.
“So you’re here with me?”
“Of course,” said the voice.
Robert suddenly realized that the voice was no longer in his head. He could actually hear it.
“Who are you?”
“I go by many names.”
“Am I dead?”
“Not in the slightest. But like I said, you’re in your own subconscious, which is amazing when you think about it. It’s like you’re a person inside a person inside a person inside a person inside a person inside a person inside a person inside a per―”
“All right, all right I get it! I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but are you mad?”
“Probably. It’s hard to make it through life without being thoroughly mad, which is why you’re so good at it.”
“And I’m in my own brain?”
“Your subconscious. Where all your deep dark memories are sitting. Your only memory of your father is in here somewhere.”
Robert was beginning to think that death would be a better option than being trapped in the dark with the voice that had been speaking to him in his brain and was now telling him that he was actually in his mind somewhere.
“Why didn’t I die?”
“You fell through a door just before you hit the ground. I saved you.”
“Why?”
“Some people are worth saving. And being that I recently took up residence in your subconscious I thought it was a better option that you lived.”
“Who are you?” Robert asked again.
“I’m the Cat,” said the Cat.
“The kitten I found?”
“Yes, that was me, too.”
Robert thought about it for a moment. “Then you are the Cheshire Cat?”
“That’s ridiculous, I’ve never even been to Cheshire.”
“But you are the Cat. The Cat? The one that was powerful and then vanished.”
“Self-important wizards thought they should control me. Ridiculous. They tried to bind me and hold me and failed miserably. The fun had gone out of this world and everything was so strict and orderly. Everything that your writers in Othaside had seen that made this place magical was slowly slipping away. And so I slipped away, too.”
“Where did you go?” asked Robert.