Chapter 3

  Kaitlyn Carter

  Kaitlyn Carter marveled at the lorn, the false stars, the surfboard, and Bahamut. She questioned every strange new creature she saw until they became uncomfortable and excused themselves. She recoiled in horror at the sight of Vyrix, and at hearing what Heidi knew about the bale thorn that grew on her. She hugged Heidi tight when Heidi spoke of the disastrous expedition, the giant and malevolent Queen of the Rue, the memories of despair, and being poisoned by Vyrix. She clutched at her bass, eyes wide, when Heidi told about how she met Abraham Black, different from the one Heidi and Eric had seen before.

  Eric, meanwhile, displayed the emotional spectrum of a brick. He looked at everything impassively, too cool to comment on Heidi’s black eye or her being poisoned, but apparently not too cool to teach Bahamut how to fist bump. (It was adorable.)

  They wound up sitting side-by-side on the rough metallic surface of Heidi’s surfboard as it drifted weightless in the middle of space outside the prison. The terrifying monster called Ruth had given Kate a beverage with a spicy citrus kick, and it helped clear away her headache. Kate sat between Heidi and Eric, which was good because that meant they couldn’t hit each other, and they watched, feet swinging in the empty air, as the abstract chaos of lorn shards drifted and collided in slow motion, sometimes dozens of miles away, lit by a dim galaxy of rose and lavender thorn-stars. It was kind of beautiful, until Kate remembered that every star out there signified a dead body, and the crystallization of that person’s regret. And the noise! The ambient sound was not beautiful at all.

  Frisby and Navi flew about in the darkness, but Bahamut, who could not fly, stayed with them on the board. According to Heidi, he was keeping watch for rue. It would be odd for rue to come this close to the prison, but Heidi had learned not to assume such things. She had learned a lot already, maybe more than any of them, but she had learned it at the price of getting hurt, and Kate did not like that at all. She leaned against Heidi and put an arm around her. Heidi stiffened. Kate could feel all her muscle even under the metal-plated coat.

  “So we need this key that the Dark Ruler has,” Heidi said, “to open the door at Skywater City. Then what?”

  “Something about ‘stepping into a world of our own making’ or some bullshit. Isaac thinks it means we get like a wish or something.”

  “If you could have a wish,” said Heidi after a moment of silence, relative silence because of the clamorous ringing of the distant lorn, “what would it be?”

  “Leah,” he said at once. “Safe. My family. My friends. Everyone safe. No sinister organization, no maniac with some fucking guns running around killing people.” He barked a wry laugh. “Not asking for much, right? What about you, Kate?”

  Kate wondered for a moment. What did she want? Really, really want, more than anything else? It was obvious. “I w-want a ha- a happy ending,” she said. “F-for everyone.”

  “I think we all want the same thing,” said Heidi. “But those are easy answers. If you could have a…a selfish wish. Something just for you. What would it be?”

  Kate frowned at the Metal Moon. This question was harder. Beautiful butterfly people she could talk to seemed pretty high on the list, but she already had that. And if Isaac were here, he’d say ‘clams’ or something because shellfish wish har har get it? But the difference between her and Isaac was that they both thought of stupid jokes, but only Isaac said them out loud!

  “How ‘bout some skills?” said Eric. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be actually good at something? Just skip all that tedious ‘practice’ bullshit. I’d wish for instant mastery of anything I tried to do.”

  “I’d w-wa-w-want to b-be able to g-go w-wh-wherever I want!” said Kate. “Or m-maybe I’d w-wish to be able t-to t-ta-talk to animals! And f-for them t-to all love me!”

  Heidi laughed. “You have more imagination than me. I just want to go home. With Bahamut.”

  “Which brings us back to that key,” said Eric, annoyed as usual by the whole setup.

  Heidi continued with another question. “So this Arcadelt…”

  Kate sat up in her excitement to explain. “H-he p-pu-puts d-data d-directly into your br-brain!”

  “It’s freaky,” Eric added.

  Kate nodded. “H-he calls himself the angel of S-s-skywater C-cit-c-citadel!”

  “Yeah, I guess he’s like the boss angel or whatever,” said Eric. “He taught our angels how to talk to us, and I guess also they can bond to something?”

  “Y-y-yes! B-but it’s irr-irrev-i-irre-i- it can’t be undone!”

  “Hm,” said Heidi. “Hey. Want to see something cool?”

  “Yeah.” Kate and Eric said it together, but with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

  Heidi reached into her coat and came out with a handgun. She aimed it off into the darkness, away from the prison. “Bahamut,” she said. “Fetch.” She fired.

  Everything flickered to darkness for a second as though Kate had blinked. It happened again, almost as soon as she registered that Bahamut was no longer with them. He was back on the surfboard next to Heidi. The other angels swooped closer excitedly. Heidi put the gun away and held out her hand. Bahamut’s head slithered over her shoulder. He opened his mouth and dropped the crumpled bullet into Heidi’s open palm.

  Kate hesitated only a moment before clapping. “Wow!” She was even more impressed when she considered how the bullet’s trajectory must have been very difficult to predict, what with all the changes in gravity. Eric gave one of Bahamut’s eight legs a congratulatory fist bump.

  “So can we see this big machine?” asked Eric. “The one with your door floating around it?”

  “I’m not sure you want to see it,” said Heidi. “It’s…”

  “Bleak?” Kate suggested.

  Heidi smiled at her, but it looked a little forced. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  Kate’s phone vibrated. A message! But from who?

  CG: Greetings.

  “H-hey!” Eric and Heidi looked at her. She showed them her phone. “Wh-who’s ‘CG’?” Eric shrugged. Heidi shook her head.

  “But I just got a weird text too,” said Eric. “I don’t know who it was, but they were being a dick so I’m ignoring them for now.”

  “I was talking to someone suspicious before you arrived,” said Heidi. “They called themself the Burning God.’”

  “W-well d-do you mind if I ta-take this? It m-might be imp-portant!”

  Heidi made a glowing spherical compass in the air and began guiding them back down to the prison while Eric texted someone on his own phone. Kate received another message.

  CG: Importance is relative.

  KC: and subjective!

  CG: Indeed.

  KC: wait can you hear me?!

  CG: In a sense.

  KC: can you SEE me!?

  CG: Not exactly.

  KC: ?:\

  KC: what does ‘CG’ stand for? Who are you?

  CG: Interesting. On my end, my abbreviation is AC, a shortening of my name. For you, it must be CG because you know me as the Chained God.

  KC: wow! So CHIME automatically adjusts the abbreviations subjectively depending on what the recipient knows!

  AC: It appears to be so.

  KC: AHA! You just changed to AC :)

  KC: so what is my abbreviation for you?

  AC: I already know your name, Kaitlyn Carter.

  KC: what’s YOUR name?

  AC: It is not material.

  KC: are you in some kind of rush?

  AC: To an extent.

  KC: well hang on a sec

  They were landing, sliding easily back down to the same loading bay at which they had arrived. Activity had ceased; the Almost Victorious had been unloaded but now stood still and empty.

  “So I just talked to Isaac,” said Eric. “He said not to trust these new people texting us, calling themselves gods.”

  “I think they might actually be the gods of this world,” said Heidi. “At least I think mine’s really the Burning God.”

  “Well anyway, Isaac was pretty serious about not trusting them. He sounds like he’s in the middle of some shit right now.”

  “W-well I’ve g-got the Chained God on the l-line,” said Kate, “s-so give me a m-minute.” She waltzed over to an empty metallic box nearby and took a seat.

  KC: did you hear that, mister?

  KC: wait are you male or female?

  KC: or do gods not even HAVE genders? 8o

  AC: I heard.

  AC: And I am a male.

  KC: WELL?

  AC: Your trust in me is not relevant.

  KC: fine!

  KC: so why are you talking to me anyway?

  AC: I have questions.

  KC: we are alike, sir, in that regard!

  KC: let’s trade!

  AC: Trade questions?

  KC: :D

  AC: Very well.

  AC: You are a human, correct?

  KC: yep!

  KC: that one was easy!

  KC: my turn: if you’re the ‘gods of this narrative,’ why haven’t you contacted us until now?

  AC: A relay system had to be activated by another hero.

  KC: relay system? Was it Isaac?

  AC: Isaac Milton, yes.

  AC: My turn. Is your race entirely biological?

  KC: uh...yes?

  AC: Therefore, you reproduce sexually? The population of your species is under your own control?

  KC: that’s three questions!

  KC: weird questions

  KC: of course we reproduce sexually! And...I guess our population is under our control? I never thought of it like that

  KC: you must be so strange!

  KC: but I guess you ARE gods, right?

  AC: Was that your question?

  KC: no!

  KC: I have instead a series of DEDUCTIONS!

  AC: Go on.

  KC: There are ten gods, which I know because of that book Liz was reading, and because there are ten Ladies who each represent a god. You, Mr. Chained God, are obviously affiliated with Lady Chains!

  KC: Isaac was talking about his station being haunted, and the others had similar stories, but that was you! You just couldn’t talk directly!

  KC: but now you can, and now Isaac says not to trust you, and now we’re all receiving suspicious messages!

  AC: Suspicious?

  KC: I’m not done >:(

  KC: yes, SUSPICIOUS, because you won’t tell me your name and you don’t care if I trust you, and you have supposedly been watching us, ‘haunting’ Isaac’s station in order to get him to turn on the machine, yet you don’t even know the fact that we’re humans!

  KC: and finally! I have confirmed throughout this conversation that you can’t really “see” me at all! I’ve been writing things to you on pieces of paper and showing them around and you haven’t responded to any of it!

  KC: this means that either you can’t read, or you can see me but not make out small details, or you can’t see me at all!

  AC: Perhaps I have been ignoring it.

  KC: I see through your lies, Chained God!

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  KC: I’m pretty sure you would have responded to them ;)

  AC: I am impressed.

  AC: And surprised.

  KC: heh heh!

  KC: give me a day and I will unravel your secrets!

  KC: I’ll be Sherlock Holmes!

  AC: You will be what?

  KC: Sherlock Holmes! He is a great detective with surpassing powers of observation and deduction, who always outsmarts the criminals!

  KC: hey! Still there?

  KC: I didn’t mean to be rude!

  KC: I just don’t want to be lied to >:|

  KC: but I’m really curious about you!

  KC: we should keep asking questions!

  KC: are you gods all the same species?

  KC: what do you look like?

  KC: why did you imply that you can’t control your own population?

  KC: where are you?

  KC: why can’t you come here in person?

  AC: AC stands for Acarnus.

  AC: That is my name.

  AC: And now it is my turn for a deduction.

  AC: You have spoken to Princess Zayana of Meszria, have you not?

  KC: !!!

  KC: You know her?!

  KC: Is she well?

  AC: Her wellness may be in question. But she is safe. For the moment.

  KC: <:(

  AC: This is more difficult than I expected.

  KC: ?

  AC: I am sorry, Kaitlyn Carter. I wish there was another way.

  AC: But we need to open that door.

  KC: What do you mean?

  KC: hey!

  But he did not respond. She growled at her phone and hopped off the crate. The loading bay was livening up again as another ship hove into view—a smaller one, its lights blinking grey out in the dark.

  She brushed off her painted lab coat and marched over to where Eric and Heidi were talking.

  “Any news?” asked Heidi when Kate arrived.

  “W-w-well! H-he was p-polite, I guess. A-and he knows Z-zayana! But he’s keeping s-se-secrets! And he ap-a-apologized for s-something!”

  “Yeah,” said Eric, “the Burning God over there wants Heidi to talk to Black.” He gestured at Heidi. “Meanwhile I got the so-called Changing God over here, just losing his shit and shouting some bullshit about the rue.”

  “Hmm!” They needed to get to the bottom of this!

  A short man wrapped in blue bandages, with a terrible cough, approached Heidi. “A new…” (pause for lung-rending hack) “…vessel approaches. Bearing a…guest. A Lady of Skywater.”

  “A Lady?” said Heidi. She turned to Eric. “They’re on our side, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Them and the Lords. I think they’re probably high-level badasses, too.”

  Heidi smiled. “We could use some of those around here.”

  Kate’s phone buzzed again. The Chained God? No, this time it was green text. But not Jim! Goodness, she thought, with ten gods, maybe she would be spending all her time talking to them now.

  ??: psst!

  ??: hey!

  KC: hi!

  “Kate are you gonna be a typical youngster, just on your damn phone all the time?”

  She shushed him. “These g-gods might be imp-important, Eric!”

  ??: listen!

  KC: wait, what’s your name?

  ??: my name?

  KC: yeah! What god are you?

  KC: are you the Thunder God, or...

  KC: I don’t actually know what they all are

  ??: hee hee!

  ??: I am not the Thunder God! I am not!

  ??: HE TALKS LIKE THIS

  ??: and his name is Rasmus, anyway!

  ??: he does not really like being called his god name, and neither do I!

  KC: so what’s your other name then?

  ??: I am Fiora!

  KC: hi Fiora! I’m Kate!

  FI: oh no i almost forgot!

  FI: you are in danger Kate!

  FI: you need to run away!

  FI: hurry!

  KC: what?! Why?

  FI: no time!

  FI: istoleyourbooksandiamrunningawayandAcarnusisgoingtonoticeanysecondnow!

  KC: hang on

  “G-guys!” Eric and Heidi were hitting each other again, which for some reason flustered Kate. Why didn’t they ever hit her?

  “I j-just got a message from an-a-another one, and it said we need to r-run!”

  Eric and Heidi glanced at each other, Eric with his shades and Heidi with her dark, intense eyes peering out from under her bushy eyebrows and red headband. “From what?” said Heidi.

  “Yeah, Isaac said we shouldn’t trust them, so I’m thinking not,” Eric added.

  “Y-yeah, but…” Kate bit her lip and adjusted her glasses. Fiora had sounded sincere. And she said she was running from Acarnus, the Chained God? With a book? And it didn’t seem likely that an instruction as nonspecific as ‘run away’ could be a trap.

  “Listen,” said Eric, “the Ladies are creepy as hell, but I’m pretty sure they’ll help us. We’ll ask whoever this is, all right?”

  The new spacecraft decelerated for a landing. It was far smaller and sleeker than the Almost Victorious, but the tiny docking area barely had room for it. Not much traffic on the Metal Moon, apparently.

  Kate’s phone vibrated again.

  FI: look at your friend, Kate!

  Something was happening to Heidi. She had a hand to her face, her mouth open slightly in shock, as a haze of tiny green sparkles glittered around her like dust in a shaft of sunlight. It lasted only a moment. Eric exclaimed in surprise, but Kate saw what had happened as soon as Heidi moved her hand. The black eye was gone. Not entirely erased, but faded as though it had been healing for days.

  Green.

  FI: trust me Kate!

  FI: it is Lady Chains! It is! She works for—ack!

  Heidi and Eric were trying to figure out what had just happened to Heidi. Kate watched the incoming ship, a cold knot of dread forming in her gut. It had already landed, and now the hatch was sliding open. Faintly, because she was listening for it against the background clamor of the crashing lorn, she heard the almost-musical rattling of chains.

  Kate slid the phone into her pocket and seized Heidi and Eric by the shoulders. “G-guys!” she shouted. “Let’s go!” She tried to drag them away from the new ship, but they were both a lot stronger than her, and they hardly budged.

  “Kate, just chi…” Eric looked at her, and it seemed to Kate that they locked eyes despite the intervening pair of totally unnecessary sunglasses. “Yeah, okay, let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Heidi, still confused and feeling at her face and torso, followed them in a daze toward the edge of the docking bay.

  Kate looked back as a figure emerged from the new vessel. Kate had seen it before, though she didn’t remember that very well. She remembered Lord Fool mentioning something about blood on those chains, though.

  Lady Chains seemed more imposing than ever—a seven-foot mound of darkness and mystery swathed in layers of clinking, rattling chains. Some chains were as thin as necklaces, others were hefty, and at least one loop looked like it could moor an ocean-liner. A dark opening in the front signified the face. Chains rattled and dragged on the metal flooring panels as the figure slid toward them.

  Workers in the docking bay approached Lady Chains, including the bronchitic dwarf mummy, but she ignored them. The Lady of Skywater glided straight for the three heroes.

  “Where are you going, Heroes?” Lady Chains rasped, her voice dry and deep.

  They reached the edge of the bay, whence they could step off, if they so desired, into the glittering dark abyss of crashing, grinding metal. Lady Chains had already closed a third of the distance.

  “Fuck it,” Eric muttered. He drew his sword. “Stay back!” he shouted at the Lady.

  She did not stay back. Her chains slithered out, dug into irregularities in the metal floor, and she shot toward them like a diving falcon, trailing chains.

  She crashed into Eric almost before Kate could react, barreling both of them right off the edge of the landing bay. Eric, shades lost again and eyes wide from the shock of impact, had kept the sword between himself and the Lady. Chains wrapped around the sword and broke it to pieces like it was made of potato chips. Chains wrapped around Eric like snakes, and—

  Heidi fired her gun. Bahamut was there, biting down on the chains, breaking Eric free. Frisby was there, strobing with light, darting with panicked cries. All in a moment. Then the three of them—Heidi and Kate and Eric—were falling sideways at high velocity, away from Lady Chains and back to the center of the docking bay. Heidi was holding a glowing sphere of golden light, which was spinning, spinning.

  Their fall stopped and Kate tumble to a halt against a sack of grain. She scrambled back to her feet and tried to orient herself. Heidi had a weird gun out now, not one from Earth, and Eric was making another sword from mist. Their angels were all nearby, and for the first time Kate had known them, they looked afraid. Kate didn’t know what to do, what to think. Why was Lady Chains attacking them?

  Lady Chains came roaring back to meet them, stunningly fast on wings of linked metal. She wasn’t really flying; she supported herself in the air with great lengths of chain fastened to things all over the docking bay, like a spider at the center of a great metallic web. And still Kate could make out nothing of her physiology beyond the shroud of writhing metal. There must be something to her besides chains…right?

  No time for such questions. Lady Chains came in for the kill, and nothing was safe—not the floor panels ripped up by chains and flung like enormous shuriken; not the crates and cargo similarly upheaved and used as projectiles; not Heidi’s frightful assortment of guards who could do little more than scramble to survive; not even the Almost Victorious, which the chains flung with terrific strength against the doors to the storage bay to stem the reinforcements that rushed out from the prison.

  Kate was clutching her bass, crouching in the middle of it all, unable to move, able only to stare with dismay at the sudden violence, the carnage. She thought with a sick horror: and we would have let her walk right up to us…

  A massive length of chain crushed Bahamut against the floor, where he writhed in pain like a worm on a hook. Chain as fine as guitar strings wrapped up Frisby Wiser, who could not fly, could not teleport. Eric moved around weirdly, quickly, slowing up and speeding down, but all he could do was try to dodge the deadly lengths of cold metal. Heidi ran to help Bahamut, evading chains that lashed, moving herself with rapid bursts of gravity. Elsewhere, the creatures Heidi called guards attacked Lady Chains. No weapon seemed to do much to harm her, but they were a distraction—if distraction meant that Lady Chains had to take time from killing the Heroes to kill prison guards instead.

  A heavy chain skipped across the floor straight for Kate. It cut the air with a faint whistling sound, and it looked big enough that Kate’s body wouldn’t even slow it down when it passed through her. Something large and dark appeared in front of her; dozens of jointed legs scrabbled for purchase against the force of the chain as it collided against the figure with a thick crunch, and the dark carapace of the creature’s back slammed into her as the force of the chain shoved it back.

  It was Ruth, and he might have been shouting something at her, or he might have just been screaming. Either way, it was a terrible, awful, nauseating sound that made Kate whimper involuntarily. Ruth had the chain between his huge pincers. It was as thick as Kate’s leg, but it snapped into pieces under the power of Ruth’s chelae.

  That seemed to make Lady Chains mad, though it was hard to tell because there were now so many chains, and they were everywhere, and Lady Chains was in the midst of them, and now it was a three-dimensional web that she could move at will, catching them like flies, tearing apart a prison guard that might have been just a robot, maybe, except that robots don’t scream.

  More chains swarmed in. Heidi, arms outstretched, held glowing spheres, struggling to repel chains that tried to squirm toward her. And where was Eric? Kate didn’t see him.

  A butterfly appeared, white and pure, just behind Ruth. A tiny little butterfly voice whispered into Kate’s mind. Would Rebecca Carter stand by while her friends were in danger?

  Kate gritted her teeth. Wrong question, Carter! The question was: would Kaitlyn Carter do that? And the answer was hell no.

  So without really knowing what she was doing, Kate cranked the volume knob on her bass and strummed a chord. This one was light. Sunlight, pure golden sunlight from a clear summertime noon on Earth, flooded the docking bay.

  Another chord, up a fifth (V^9). This one was blue. Blue sky filled everything, like a blue paint made of light, like everything here was a snowglobe.

  Another chord (vi7), a rippling arpeggio. This one was: get the hell away from my friends. And everything was a snowglobe for sure, full of sky instead of water, and it was in her hands and she was the one shaking it. She shook it hard.

  Wind, not of air but of moving sky, like the churning of the fabric of reality, swirled in a tempestuous torrent through the area. Everything moved, everything changed, and nobody, including Kate, understood what was happening.

  Everything came back together with Kate on the floor, gazing up at the distant lorn. From here she could see the stars—the real stars—peeking through the cracks in the lorn directly overhead, like she was looking out past the teeth of a monster from inside its mouth. She also saw Lady Chains, still up there, dazed, adrift amid a twitching mass of chains like lost, evil jellyfish.

  Heidi, nearby, stood up. She raised her hands as though in praise. A huge compass made of spinning circles of golden light appeared between her hands. The arrows all turned up, and Lady Chains dropped up into the void before she jerked to a halt at the end of her chains, many of which still grabbed on to things around the docking bay. The gravitational force compelling the Lady upward must have been immense, for several chains ripped free of their moorings and some of the rest began to stretch and break under the strain. Kate felt light and dizzy; small pieces of debris around her rose into the air, rapidly accelerating as they rose until they shot past Lady Chains like bullets into the dark.

  “Eric!” Heidi shouted, her voice weirdly distorted by the gravitic flux.

  Some of the guards tried to shoot Lady Chains; their projectiles all missed, caught in the new gravity. Some of the clever ones tried to figure out the curvature and predict their shots. The really clever ones, like Eric, attacked the mooring chains.

  More chains slithered down from above, defying the gravity of a now-trembling Heidi, to find new purchase. Lady Chains began to drag herself back down.

  “ERIC!”

  Kate’s heartbeat, which she retroactively identified as a beat, a pulse, a tempo she had been following her whole life, thumped suddenly to a halt. Everything stopped; everything paused.

  And when everything started again, Kate had no notion of how long everything had stopped. Had it stopped at all?

  Every chain shattered, cut through somehow in that timeless interval. Lady Chains, unmoored, spun with dizzy speed up and away into the fathomless dark.