Montparnasse spoke before anyone else had chance to.
‘Right,’ he said, making a beeline for the bones of the architect. ‘We should destroy this right now, while the Demon’s been muzzled, yeah?’
Nora, Merlin, and Ursa all moved to intercept him. Ursa wore an expression of mild discomfort; in the ‘muzzle’ metaphor, she was the one holding the leash.
‘I literally just got off the phone to request backup before we deal with this,’ said Merlin, with a more generous scoop of contempt in his tone than usual.
‘Yeah, but there’s not a lot of time, is there?’ Montparnasse’s advance had pivoted, almost as if he was circling them. ‘I have a specific job to do, and I’d rather do it in a polite and friendly manner, if at all possible.’
Alkahest’s fingers were curling softly around the hilts of his swords. He shot a glance to Ursa for approval. ‘We gettin’ violent, then?’
‘No!‘ she hissed. But even as she did, there was already a palpable tension in the staff room.
There was a click as the safety on Nora’s pistol was disengaged. Merlin’s breathing gained the depth it often did when he was about to recite a spell.
The others present all certainly viewed Montparnasse as a coward. One didn’t need the ability to read minds to have noticed this. And yes, it was true that he preferred not to get his hands dirty, believing discretion the better part of valour. That if it weren’t for the designs of a certain Goblin in the Caliber Institute’s R&D department, Montparnasse would be somewhere far away from here, probably with his feet up and a glass of something strong while the others dealt with the architect’s bones on his behalf.
But an oft-forgotten thing about cowardice is that it really does sharpen one’s ability to read the room.
There was a flash of turquoise power from Montparnasse’s command. ‘Alkahest,’ he said. ‘Kill them.’
The Demon’s hands tightened around the swords at his hip, and if his grin had been any wider the top of his head would have fallen off.
‘No,’ he said.
A green glint marked Montparnasse’s face. His mouth had dropped open. ‘Shit,’ he said, looking from Alkahest to Ursa. ‘He’s already charmed; shit! Ursa… no, the headphones. Same with Merlin.’
Nora had her gun already in hand. He’d been avoiding her mind because of the thing it was connected to, but… desperate times, and all that.
‘Nora,’ he said, with that same flash of power. ‘Kill your friends.’
Nora felt his presence in her head immediately, and steeled herself against the influence. She didn’t want to hurt the others, and not just because she was fairly sure they’d fight back. There had to be a way to evict him.
She thought back to when he’d last attempted to get in her head, and focused on the thing that had excised him then.
She’d been casually hacking into networks and servers for years; not even for any real reason other than boredom by now. That day, she was in the system of some Institute of Technology or something in Massachusetts. She didn’t remember why. But there was this pop-up.
It had pulled her name from her hard drive, had it? Very funny.
She rubbed her hands together, and with mock ceremony clicked ‘Yes’.
‘Augh!’ Montparnasse recoiled, staggering backwards. He clutched at his head, Psionic influence like a shattered wine glass. ‘Fine then,’ he said, marching off towards the sleeping humans. ‘It’s a hostage situation.’
If he wanted to, he could simply switch their brains off. Or telekinetically crush them. Or have them forget how to breathe. Or any other manner of bargaining-chip-demise.
Ursa slid out of the room behind him, and plucked a somber lullaby from her kalimba. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said in her best ASMR voice, as Alkahest stood once more by her shoulder, and her Sleep spell drifted through the air like a soft perfume of lavender and Horlicks and chloroform.
The spell had just enough power to affect a creature of Montparnasse’s fortitude. Unfortunately, Montparnasse was Fae.
‘Sleeping isn’t something I do, love,’ he said, and continued his advance.
‘You were asleep before we went in the labyrinth!’ said Ursa.
‘Yeah, funny, that, isn’t it?’ said Montparnasse. And then he froze mid-step.
Ursa’s arm was outstretched toward the Fae’s back. Her other hand was twister-ed on the Midi Fighter on her belt, holding down a complicated chord. ‘Making me use two spell slots,’ she grumbled.
Montparnasse didn’t respond. Ursa’s Hold Person had his jaw wired shut.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We–‘
Her shoulder demon strode up to the frozen Montparnasse and casually pushed a sword into the Fae’s shoulder.
Ursa could only concentrate on one spell at a time, and while she was Holding one threat, that meant she wasn’t Charming the other. ‘Shit,’ she said.
Montparnasse’s scream was somewhat muted by the fact that his mouth was sealed shut, but it still carried.
Alkahest couldn’t stop grinning. ‘Try to control me, would you?’ He shoved his other sword into the other shoulder. Montparnasse’s second scream was much less vigorous than his first.
‘That was the plan all along, was it?’ said Alkahest, circling to stare directly into the Fae’s eyes. ‘Sit back while I kill these fine folks, and then I lose the very thing I came here for? I thought you were supposed to be a hero.’
Montparnasse looked like he wanted to shake his head.
‘Well, I do have one more question.’ Alkahest’s grin had fallen away. ‘And answer carefully. Were you sent here to destroy the bones, like you said? Or were you sent here specifically to deal with me?’
Montparnasse’s terror seemed to grant him some measure of resistance to the Hold upon him, but by now Alkahest had an event horizon grip on his shoulders.
‘I was just following orders!’ said Montparnasse. ‘You know how it is!’
‘Yeah, I suppose I do.’
Alkahest’s mouth opened. And opened. And opened.
And then it closed, and Montparnasse no longer had a head.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Nora, bile rushing up to witness what had happened. She’d wanted to get some answers on whether Montparnasse really had intended to actually destroy the bones, or if he wanted them for something else. Said answers probably wouldn’t be forthcoming now.
Alkahest’s mouth was back to regular proportions when he turned back toward Ursa. Her legs took a step in retreat without her permission, but she steeled herself and locked them in place.
’Right. I need to apologise,’ she said, after taking a dramatically long breath. ‘I shouldn’t have Charmed you. That was shitty of me. I just didn’t want you to go and kill those people.’ She stood with her arms wide. ‘But I know it was a sucky thing to do and so I’m wide open. Take a free shot.’ And she shut her eyes.
‘What?’ said the Demon, ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Ursa.’
Ursa risked opening her eyes again. ‘Uh… you aren’t mad about the Charm Person? “Try to control me, would you”, like you said before?’
‘What you did wasn’t control; you just had me think of you a little more fondly. I might have been mad if your spell didn’t shield me from Montparnasse’s worse one.’ His head tilted to the side. ‘But as it stands, I’m thinking of it sorta like a flu jab? So… thank you.’
‘Oh,’ said Ursa. ‘I was worried you were going to, uh… well, anything would kill me right now. I’ve still got this hole in my side.’
‘You do?’ Alkahest’s eyebrows went up. ‘Well, I can start to pay you back a bit.’
He made a gesture and a thread of fluid crimson snaked from Montparnasse’s remains. Alkahest wound it around his finger, stretching it out like donut batter, before flicking it towards Ursa.
The macabre halo floated above her head for a second, then dropped over her shoulders. By the time it reached the floor, her wound had healed completely.
Alkahest breezed past as she visibly sagged with relief, and hopped onto the table with the locker. His fingers waggled in the air before reaching down to open its door. ‘Glad that actually worked this time. Now, let’s see what we…’
He trailed off as the door wouldn’t budge.
Unbeknownst to the others, while the standoff with Montparnasse was going down, Merlin had been focusing his attention on the bones. The ribs were covered in little runes, each the size of a thumbnail, laid out across the ribcage in regular intervals.
He’d also spotted what was ostensibly a USB port on the back of the skull, which had him thinking of The Matrix. That might be a way to connect to it? But there wasn’t time to do that without being noticed. Ursa had glanced at him a few times already.
So, Merlin closed the locker and whispered an Arcane Lock to it, sealing it with magic. Moments later, Alkahest had proved his actions necessary.
‘Urrrrrsaaaaaaa,’ said the Demon. ‘What did you do to the locker, Ursa?’
‘Nothing!’
‘Are you lying?’
Ursa shrugged. ‘Why don’t you come over here and ask me that?’
‘Are you flirting with the Demon?’ said Merlin, hair and hackles rising like a Ghibli animation.
‘No!’ said Ursa, very quickly, ‘I’m trying to draw his attention from the spell you cast!’
There was a pause.
‘Merrrrrrlinnnnnn,’ said the Demon.
Merlin folded his arms. ‘I’m obviously not going to open it.’
⁂
Off to the side, Nora had been keeping out of things. Not in an ‘impartial observer’ way, but in an ‘ooh, they’re about to kick off’ way. Her money was on the Fiend.
There was a tap on her wrist – a message on the watch her ‘patron’ had provided. It read:
‘Nora, don’t react. I’ve got something I want you to do. Similar to our previous… shenanigans in the Institute’s computers.
‘There’s a USB in your pocket. Yes, I know it wasn’t there a moment ago; don’t worry about it.
‘I need you to plug it into Merlin’s computer. It should only take me about 15 seconds to find what I’m looking for if I have a direct connection.
‘And then once you’ve done that, I need you to plug it into the port on the back of the skull. We probably won’t see a payoff on this one for a while, but it’ll be good, trust me!’
It was followed by an emoji: (｀∀´)Ψ
Nora scoffed, but surveyed the scene. Merlin was swearing at Alkahest in some guttural language – if she’d spoken Infernal she’d know he was calling the Fiend a ‘Demonic scumbag’ – and Ursa was trying and failing to mediate between the two.
Merlin kept his laptop in a satchel whenever he wasn’t using it. And he already didn’t trust her very much, which was the correct choice, to be fair. She sincerely hoped whatever her patron had in mind would be worth it.
There came that vrrrr sound of a text on silent. ‘It’s Cepheus,’ said Merlin, checking his phone. ‘He’s outside.’ He left to let the Institute backup in, taking his computer with him.
When he reappeared, he was flanked by six nondescript Caliber Institute employees with black suits and swords at the hip, as well as the towering frame of Cepheus like a God behind a prophet. The difference in scale was almost comical.
Alkahest raised his hands as the Institute backup moved through the scene – two kept him marked, two went to the sleeping humans, and two moved to the remains of Montparnasse.
Merlin talked Cepheus through the situation as they did. With Alkahest covered, he felt it safe enough to open the locker, and soon he’d connected the skull to his laptop via a USB cable. He struck at the keys like a concerto pianist, but stopped after just a few seconds.
‘Can we huddle over here a moment?’ he asked, leaving his experiment running. ‘Out of earshot of the demon, I mean?’
He was joined outside the room by Cepheus, Ursa, and after a moment, Nora too.
Her patron had been right. It had only taken about 15 seconds.
‘I can’t gain access to whatever the bones are connected to,’ Merlin was saying as she entered the huddle with the USB back in her pocket. ‘I believe we need a key.’
‘Oh… oh.’ said Ursa, a little guiltily. ‘Look, throwing it to the Minotaur saved us at the time.’
‘Nobody doubts that,’ said Merlin. ‘But regardless, we need to go back in to retrieve it.’
Cepheus’ usually gregarious tone was subdued. ‘If that’s the case, I can’t come with you on this. It’s a Labyrinth.’
‘Would that be a problem?’ asked Ursa.
‘It’d be bad for my, uh, mental health. It’s a Minotaur thing.’
Merlin shook his head. ‘That’s not a problem, Cepheus. We need you to get those two humans somewhere safe, anyway.’
‘Oh, yeah!’ said Cepheus, brightening. ‘I wanted to mention that! Nora, good job! She normally never bothers saving people! This is really good progress.’ He noticed Nora’s glare. ‘Uh, but yeah, we’ll do the usual hot chocolate, Modify Memory combo. No problem.’
‘Um, what about Alkahest?’ asked Ursa.
‘What about him?’ said Nora. ‘Leave him out here. We’re not looking for trouble.’
‘He could be helpful.’
‘The Demon?’ spat Merlin. ‘I doubt that. Though… it would probably be best to keep an eye on him.’
‘I’ll ask if he wants to join us then,’ said Ursa. ‘Uh, not that he has a choice,’ she added, after realising they were all looking at her.
⁂
Alkahest seemed to be in extremely high spirits as the four of them headed back into the labyrinth. The corridor they followed was the one they’d exited by, and as such should lead them right back to the centre.
‘I’m just sayin’, I still think it’s possible that we could all get what we want here,’ he was just saying. ‘You get a nice, un-haunted Ikea and I get the bones.’
‘What do you even want them for?’ asked Ursa.
‘Eh, I got plans. Like I told your trigger-happy colleague earlier – you still owe me two meatballs, by the way Nora – on the Fiendish side of things right now, there’s lots of people trying to claw their way upwards.’
Merlin snorted. ‘And you’re one of them, are you?’
‘Not exactly. I don’t want to climb the ranks so much as level the playing field. For everyone, I mean. There’s too much of the Archdevil seated atop a throne literally made of his underlings. Thing is, if those underlings stopped acting like crabs in a bucket for a minute, they’d realise that together they’d be more than a match for any Orcus or Demogorgon.’
‘What are you, some sort of Union rep?’ Nora laughed as she said it.
Alkahest didn’t. ‘Actually, yeah, that’s a pretty good way to put it. I’m trying to convince my contemporaries of the power of collective bargaining, you know? Learned a lot in Manchester back in the 80’s. Though, Thatcher’s response,’ he spat the name, ‘goes to show if you’re going to strike, it should be at the neck of whoever’s on top.’
The concept of a united force of Fiends was perhaps less utopian than Alkahest was making it out to be, but it was obvious he believed in what he was talking about.
‘I’d make a lot of speeches and stuff,’ he said, barely pausing for breath. ‘Used to think I could use the Importance Taste thing as a rhetoric device – like, “I can tell how important each and every one of you is” – but for that to work I’d have to lick everybody’s face. And you do not want to be doing that in a room full of Fiends.’
‘Wait…’ said Ursa. ‘You said the 80’s. How old are you?’
‘Few centuries. Why?’
‘…No reason.’
The Labyrinth’s central courtyard looked the same as before, with the same curated gravel and statues of the Muses.
Could Muses be involved in whatever was going on here? Outsiders, when arriving in the Earth at the centre of the axis, would sometimes take on the shapes of old stories like clothing. Or some said it was the other way around – the old stories came from the influence of Outside, even before the Trinity Test opened the gates proper.
Still, these were just statues. Not even necessarily meaningful ones, right? The chains binding the redacted one at the centre, for example, wouldn’t have bound her at all, had they been real. If she’d tried to stand, they’d simply fall away.
Under Merlin’s inspection, it turned out this statue wasn’t quite as censored out as they’d initially thought. What had looked like the first mark of the chisel was actually a letter L.
‘Maybe I should be making a vlog of all this,’ Ursa wondered aloud.
‘Oh, are you Youtube or something?’ asked Alkahest. ‘Gimme your handle, I’ll click the bell.’
Ursa was embarrassed, but could not in any way ignore the prospect of a new subscriber.
Merlin had scaled one of the walls on the edge of the courtyard, after much effort. He was surveying the labyrinth – from these walls, he could see the whole span of the place. ‘It’s… it’s a circuit board,’ he breathed. He could see clusters of shelves laid out like capacitors. The courtyard where they’d found Ethan and Alice was an isolation gap.
He could also see the route the Minotaur was travelling. He began to consider a plan.
Below, while the others were otherwise occupied, Nora hissed a message to her watch. ‘So, when is this payoff you’ve promised? While we’re here, or later?’
‘Later,’ was the reponse.
‘So do I need to be doing all this now?’
‘The sooner the better.’
Merlin had climbed down and was gesturing for another huddle. ‘Okay, I can track the Minotaur. We’ll need to not get gored, and find the USB key. Any ideas?’
‘Well, if you know where it’s going to be, you could lie down in front of it and grab onto its leg,’ suggested Nora.
‘And get trampled to death?’
‘Only if you’re slow.’
Ursa made as if to put a hand on Nora’s shoulder, then thought better of it. ‘I’m starting to see why you have that reputation of yours,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ nodded Merlin, ‘And no friends.’
Ursa nearly clouted him. ‘We’re her friends, Merlin.’
‘Meh,’ said Nora.
‘…I don’t care what either of you say; we’re friends,’ said Ursa, ignoring Merlin’s smirk.
They’d figured out something close to a plan by the time they arrived in the Minotaur’s path. Based on his previous success, Alkahest would run and distract it, trying to keep it on longer and less turbulent corridors so the others would have an easier time on its back.
Nora planned to use a Lightning Lure to lasso onto the beast. Ursa and Merlin began to climb the shelves on either side, preparing to leap onto the Minotaur’s back when it came close enough.
And that would be soon.
A cloud of dust was coming towards them, kicked up by the runners heralding the bull’s approach. Alkahest had just about finished his stretches. Ursa was fairly high up – based on her past attempt at climbing over the Minotaur’s approach, she was probably just high enough.
Merlin, though, was having trouble. He just didn’t have a long enough reach to make his way upwards with any speed, and now the Minotaur was upon him.
Nora watched with interest, weighing up her options. Yes, she could probably give Merlin some assistance – a literal leg up. But in doing so, she’d miss her opportunity to properly aim her spell. And as Merlin had noticed, the Minotaur was upon them.
She elected to ignore him. Her Lure was more important.
Merlin, realising the predicament he now found himself in, decided to go with Plan B: he would lie down flat and try to grab a leg. He would be the first to admit Plan B was not a very good plan.
Alkahest took off running. Nora loosed her spell but missed completely, and the Minotaur and runners crashed over her like a wave of boots and hooves.
Merlin, knowing he wasn’t dexterous enough to roll his way through the oncoming tide, elected instead to simply grab onto the first thing that tried to crush him underfoot.
Above, Ursa leapt from her vantage, digging her fingers in the Minotaur’s fur to prevent herself bouncing straight off it. It was wet with something that reeked of oil, but she held on regardless.
Nora clambered to her feet, wincing at the pain. It was incredibly tempting for her to just sit down for a while. Maybe she could assemble one of the flat-pack chairs?
After a moment, she set off to follow in the Minotaur’s wake, partly because she had a job to do, and partly because the chair she’d picked was missing too many screws.
Atop the Minotaur’s oil-slick shoulders, Ursa managed to open her eyes. The shelves towered up on either side, and she could just about see Alkahest ahead at a fork in the path. He turned left, and the Minotaur barrelled after him, with Ursa clinging on for dear life.
A new burst of ash blew up at her as another of the runners was crushed underfoot. The prospect of Alkahest was apparently driving the Minotaur into a frenzy, like a carrot on a stick. But Ursa didn’t know anything about what that was like.
Still, if the Minotaur was running fast enough to catch its runners now, maybe that was a good thing? She looked down to check how many were left.
What she saw was less than ideal, though more in terms of quality than quantity.
There were about four runners remaining; the others having been crushed to powder by the Minotaur’s need to catch Alkahest. One of them, though, had a recognisable uniform and build.
It was Brian – or Brian’s body, at any rate – animated as another runner, after being left behind in the Labyrinth. Ursa probably would have felt quite guilty, had it not been for the more pressing fact that Merlin was clinging to his back.
Merlin had grabbed onto the first leg that had stamped down on him, and clawed his way upwards like a cat on curtains. When he realised what he’d done, it was far too late to switch to a less perilous course of action.
Perhaps it was the extra weight, but Brian was slowing down. The Minotaur would absolutely catch him, probably in just a few seconds, and when it did both Brian and Merlin would be combined into a sort of chalky paste.
This would be bad.
Ursa needed to slow her mount. She crawled closer to the thing’s head, Shadow-of-the-Colossus style, and struggled out of her jacket. She whipped the thing over the Minotaur’s eyes and heaved.
There was a thunk, as if a Gnome had leapt from the back of an undead runner and landed on a nearby shelf. Ursa looked back to see Merlin’s head poking out from behind a boxed ÄPPLARÖ. In a glowing Mage Hand he held a small, silver key he’d lifted from Brian’s belt.
That was a relief. All Ursa needed to do now was get down.
Merlin hopped to the floor with the USB safely in his pocket. It wouldn’t take very long to reach the centre again, now that he knew the general layout. Before that, though, he’d need to reunite with Ursa and Nora.
The latter turned out to be quite simple, as Nora came trotting down the corridor just moments after he’d dusted himself off.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Got the key. I suspect Ursa will be rejoining us shortly, as well – she’s only got to retrace the Minotaur’s steps. Then the three of us can be out of here.’
‘The four of us, you mean.’
Merlin blinked at her. ‘Ugh, don’t tell me you’re enamoured of the Demon too?’
‘Fuck off. We came in with four, we’re leaving with four. Send him a Message.’
‘Nora, he’s a Fiend. I don’t think you realise how treacherous they are.’
‘Treacherous like the kind of people that leave their allies behind?’
‘He isn’t our ally.’
Nora had a knife in her hand. ‘Message him, Merlin. I won’t ask you again.’
‘No. And I’m glad you’re agreeing to stop giving orders.’
The knife moved. Merlin lowered his arms from their defensive positions, and saw a fresh, cardinal cut on his forearm before he felt the pain of it.
His teeth clenched. Heat sparked from his fingers as the trickle of blood reached them, and he sent a point-blank Firebolt straight toward Nora’s face.
Somewhere else, lurking below the axis of worlds with our story at the centre, the Alignment Death took notice. The two were in a place firmly under its influence, and as such, their actions had further-reaching consequences than either intended. On a purely Cosmic scale, both Merlin and Nora drifted just a little further into Death‘s field of vision.
‘Hey guys, what the fuck?!’
Ursa had indeed rejoined them. She’d turned the corner just in time to see Merlin’s Firebolt erupt in Nora’s face.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Nora, with a stream of blood coming from one nostril.
‘Yeah,’ said Merlin. ‘…I’m going to message Alkahest. Tell him we got the key.’
A feature of the Message spell is that only the recipient can hear what’s been sent. A feature of Merlin is that he can speak Draconic. This feature is one that Alkahest lacks.
Alkahest’s reply to the consonent-heavy Draconic sounded out of breath. ‘Uh, I don’t know who this is, but, does this mean I can stop leading the Minotaur around?’
Merlin replied. In Draconic again.
‘I hope he’s doing okay,’ fretted Ursa. ‘What if he’s gotten stranded? Merlin, can you try another Message?’
Merlin considered. He really did think it’d be best if they left the Demon here, but seeing Ursa shift her weight from foot to foot… well, there was no accounting for taste.
‘Alkahest, it’s Merlin. We’re back at the centre. If you duck into a shelf…’
After a few minutes, a tired and ash-coated Alkahest emerged from the labyrinth, feet crunching on the gravel in the central garden.
He marched straight up to Merlin and dropped into a deep bow. ‘I have to apologise,’ he said, still bent double. ‘I was absolutely certain you were going to leave me in there. I misjudged you.’
They returned to the Staff Room, key in hand. Cepheus and the others from the Institute had gotten Ethan and Alice out without them going all Auditor, which was a blessing. All that was left was getting answers.
Merlin reopened the locker and mentally prepared himself. Chances were, there’d be defenses on whatever system was built into this.
Nora stood tense at his side. Ursa was back beside Alkahest, who had sat himself down and begun extracting clouds of dust from his clothing. Cepheus blocked the doorway like a stone before a tomb.
Merlin plugged the USB into the back of the skull. The runes on the ribcage began to glow with a soft, sickly luminescence. The sockets of the skull came alight with the same. Merlin held it Yorick, and stared into its lambent eyes.
⁂
In computing, a firewall is a security system that monitors and controls traffic based on predetermined security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted network and an untrusted network, such as the Internet.
In Technomancy, there’s a similar concept called a Conjurewall. A Conjurewall is a security system that establishes a barrier between Technomantic yeggs and the arcane systems they attempt to breach.
It takes a high degree of magical fortitude and years of study to even properly visualise a Conjurewall, let alone attempt to breach one. Were a mundane hacker to encounter a system under such protection, they wouldn’t even know what it was that kept them at bay.
Merlin, though, did.
In the skull’s eyes, he could see a virtual copy of the labyrinth’s zen garden, much larger in scale; the statues alone were 15-20 feet tall in this facsimile.
He took a step, felt the gravel under his boots. He wasn’t alone.
‘I take it this is your work?’ he asked.
The architect – or some vestige of him – stepped from behind the massive chained statue. ‘Well, I did have some…’ and here he looked up at the statue, ‘…Inspiration. This was all for her, after all.’
‘What’s the purpose of this system?’
The architect smiled. ‘Now if I could tell you that, it wouldn’t be a very good security system, would it?’
‘Fair,’ said Merlin, and blasted a Witch Bolt through the architect’s chest.
‘Lopodite…’ coughed the architect, as the Conjurewall collapsed.
⁂
Merlin’s fingers tapped away at the ribs. They were a keyboard. The skull was the display. He could see everything.
He’d been right, back in the labyrinth – the whole thing was a computer. The Minotaur was a side effect of the labyrinth being made, but an intended one – the labyrinth itself was designed to lure or pull people in, and when the Minotaur killed them, that was the fuel it ran on.
The bones were the heart of this process as well as its interface, and if they were to be taken to a new location, they’d convert it into a labyrinth over the course of nine months.
And the machine was predicting the future. Running calculations with so many branching data points as to seem like an itemised list of each individual atom in all of creation.
But Merlin couldn’t see the outputs. They were being sent somewhere else, somewhere he couldn’t see. The same went for the inputs – someone was using this machine to plot their course, but… towards what?
‘I don’t think it’d be wise to destroy this,’ he said, gradually rising from the trance of data. ‘If we remove it from this location it’ll be dormant for a few months; that should give us enough time to–‘
There was a different USB in the back of the skull. He blinked as Nora snatched it back, and once he recovered from his astonishment his face went bright red.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?!’ he exploded. ‘Do you even understand what the hell it is you’re playing with here?! What are you doing?!’
Nora seemed to have frozen up. Her hand had already secreted the USB in a pocket though, which also served to hide the message on her watch that read ‘Now, Nora’.
‘She’s trying to help, isn’t she?’ said Ursa. ‘Nora?’
Nora’s mouth was suddenly dry. She needed to say something. Anything. She lied to people all the time. Why was she having so much trouble responding?
‘I need info too. You were just staring at it, and I know you don’t like to share.’
Merlin looked ready to hit her with another Firebolt. ‘I don’t share things if they aren’t important. This is. What did you think you’d gain by messing with this?!’
‘I told you, information. You really expect me to sit back from something like this when my prophecised death is about a “malfunction”?’
‘Yes! I would expect precisely that!’
There was a tense moment where neither of them spoke. Instead, Alkahest rose to his feet and said, unheeding, ‘Damn. It’s as powerful as I thought it’d be, then?’
Nora scowled at him. ‘You knew what it was, and didn’t tell us?’
‘I had my suspicions,’ said the Demon. ‘But it wasn’t important to inform you all just yet.’
‘Well we know what it is now,’ said Merlin, turning the irradiance of his anger to this interruption. ‘And you are not taking it.’
‘Is that so?’ said Alkahest, reaching for his weapons, maw growing wide and sharp.
And then he smiled, with a normal mouth. ‘Okay. I can respect that.’ He bowed again, not just to Merlin but to Nora and Ursa. ‘I don’t have to lick your faces to tell the three of you are going to be a big deal.’
Ursa blew up in a sudden fit of coughing.
Alkahest stopped before the Minotaur-covered exit. ‘Cepheus,’ he said.
Cepheus nodded, and slowly stepped to one side. ‘Demon.’
‘So what’s the plan with the, er, bones?’ asked Ursa, in an attempt to smooth things over.
‘We take it to the Institute,’ said Merlin. ‘Cepheus should hold it until then; some people might be after it for their own ends.’ He didn’t move his eyes from Nora as he spoke. ‘Even if they don’t know why.’
Nora held his gaze, and didn’t move.
Cepheus took the locker to the 4×4 he and the Institute employees arrived in. When it crossed the threshold into the store’s car park, the multiple doors into the labyrinth all slammed shut.
⁂
Merlin bumped into Nora as they were leaving. His hand went for the pocket with the USB in, but she’d been expecting such an attempt and moved it to an inside pocket.
Neither of them acknowledged this.
‘Hey, where ya going?’ called Ursa, as the others stepped into the cold morning and made to head off in separate directions. ‘We could ride in the 4×4?’
‘I’d rather walk,’ said Merlin. ‘I want to have a think.’
Nora whispered a message to her watch before responding. ‘I’ve got my bike,’ she said, without looking at Ursa.
‘Oh,’ said Ursa. She got into the car alone.
‘Sooo you got caught,’ read the message on Nora’s wrist. ‘But this was still a success!’
‘Fancy next time giving me something a little easier to execute?’ said Nora. ‘What am I meant to say to stop the others being suspicious of these things?!’
The message she got back read: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
‘Bellend,’ she said to it. Why should she go along with its ideas, if this was the result?
With his beanie pulled down over his ears in the cold, Merlin walked home in a roundabout sort of fashion. He avoided the main roads. By the time he’d reached home, he’d made up his mind – he needed to look into Nora, and whatever it was that had her ear.
He made himself some coffee.
Roll History 