Revelations Cycle Eighth Iteration: Who Gathers All Things Mortal
Jesus fucking Christ, I don't know how to Jadetroll properly. That's really all there is to say on this matter. Also astute readers might have noticed that I finally got around to tagging this stuff with Dave/Terezi which, uh. Spoiler alert, is going to become very important. There are probably going to be other minor pairings in this, but I've been tagging the ones that are important/plot relevant, so there you go. I apologize to the anon who originally requested this prompt; this is turning out to be much bigger and more involved than what you requested, and I just. Can't. Stop.
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AG: EGBERT, YOU FUCKER, ANSWER ME.
AG: LOOK I KNOW YOU'RE BUSY BUT
AG: FUCK
AG: YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'VE JUST BEEN THROUGH
AG: OR HELL, MAYBE YOU DO. I DON'T CARE.
AG: JUST ANSWER ME.
AG: PLEASE.
---
GC: D43V1D? WH3R3 4R3 W3?
TG: its a dream bubble tz
TG: i shouldnt be able to do this but aradias helping
TG: so im going to be totally fucking serious here for a minute okay and you have to listen
TG: this kind of opportunity only comes once in a lifetime bro
TG: you know you want to hop on board the sincerity train with me
TG: riding first class down memory lane and shit
TG: i dont know how much youll remember when you wake up but theres not much time
TG: fuck i dont even know how much ill remember
TG: and i've got so much stuff to show you
TG: but youve got to open your eyes
She trusts him. She hates that she trusts him, but she does, and she opens her eyes as he reaches up and carefully, nearly reverently, slides her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and off her face. There is light, brighter than she can remember it being, but it doesn't sting, only lights and caresses and plays over his face, soft and human, and isn't that a strange thing to think of it as? But she can see, and that's all that matters, and if she weren't so busy trying to impress him with her coolness she might have hugged him.
"Hot damn," she whispers instead, her voice feeling choked, hoarse. "You really are my magical fairy godfather."
"Yeah," he tells her, his voice smooth but almost breaking; it's a small fissure, but there, and she can hear it if she tries, because suddenly she feels like she's spent lifetimes listening for it. "I'm pretty much just the best there is." He is wearing sunglasses too, and it doesn't seem fair that he should keep his; she reaches up to take them in turn but he backs away, one giant step backwards that takes him well out of her range, the hint of a smile disappearing. "Hey, come on, you know the rules. No one touches the glasses."
They were his brother's, she thinks, erroneously. He's wearing them again now, what does that mean? Says, "You let me touch them once before, coolkid. Don't pretend like you don't remember."
"Yeah, but that was a long time ago," he says, voice flat and devoid of emotion again, apathetic. "And it never really happened. It's hard to explain."
She frowns, displeased, and sets her hands balled to fists on her hips; long black nails dig into palms that are suddenly gray as stone, as though she's been dusted with ash. Somehow this is neither surprising nor alarming, only natural. The way it should be. "Try me," Terezi demands.
And as time unwinds around them, he begins to tell her.
---
Night fell, and darkness came. In the forest there was only blackness everywhere, surrounding, and quiet punctuated by the soft whisper of the wind through the trees, swaying their branches. Through gaps in the leaves and twigs shafts of silver moonlight streamed down, lighting the loamy forest floor in a patchwork of drab, washed-out color. Gone was the burning sun that had hung in the sky, so warm and welcoming; now Karl looked up and saw nothing but darkness and foreign stars.
Once he'd been able to name all the constellations, but now no more. The stars were but pinpricks of light a thousand miles above him, twinkling down mockingly as they shivered in their cold sky, threatening to fall. Karl didn't know if that was true or if it was the pain in his throbbing ankle speaking, but it didn't matter much when he was dragging himself through breaks in the close-packed trees, feverish, leaning heavily against a branch he'd snapped from the trunk of a rotting log.
He had to find Teri. It was the only thing left that he knew for sure, the only real goal he had. He had to find her, because if she was gone, then his mind was fit to break. She wasn't answering her phone, and pesterchum was likewise failing to rouse her, so he'd gone looking, picking a random direction and setting off. It was slow going because of his injury, and there wasn't a sprite about to heal him, but he pressed on, determined.
Until, of course, he ran out of steam and tossed the stick away, leaning heavily against a tree to catch his breath. He'd been walking for hours, maybe in circles, and his side was beginning to ache as much as his ankle was. As he was gasping for air his phone buzzed insistently in his pocket and he scrambled to answer it, nearly dropping it in a pile of leaves in his haste to answer. "Please be Teri," he muttered to the universe at large, and scowled at the unfamiliar text, disappointment and worry crushing him.
-- ghastlyGentry [GG] began trolling abysmalGuardian [AG] at ??? --
GG: hey, fuckass!
GG: guess you went and fucked everything up already, huh?
GG: not that that's unusual.
GG: :)
AG: OH MY FUCKING GOD, ANOTHER ONE.
AG: GREAT. FANTASTIC. JUST WHAT I FUCKING NEEDED RIGHT NOW.
AG: I AM NOT PUTTING UP WITH YOUR PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE BULLSHIT, WHOEVER YOU ARE.
GG: aw, calm down, karl!
GG: i just thought you might need some help while jawwhn is off helping tt with her super secret project.
GG: anyway, i found a great captcha code in his stack!
GG: i think he was going to give it to you.
AG: HEY, YOU CAN SEE ME TOO, RIGHT?
GG: of course, silly!
AG: OKAY, THEN YOU CAN PROBABLY SEE THAT I AM NOT IN ANY FUCKING CONDITION TO BE ALCHEMIZING SHIT RIGHT NOW, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.
GG: oh, it's not for now! you wouldn't be able to wield it yet, anyway.
GG: i don't think jawwhn can wield it either, and he's at the top of his echeladder!
GG: not to mention he's mostly been using sickles this session.
AG: OKAY, FINE, SEND IT OVER. LIKE I EVEN GIVE A FUCK.
GG: it's an investment for the future, karl, geez. :|
AG: ALRIGHT, ASSHOLE, I HAVE A QUESTION.
AG: AND IF YOU TELL ME I HAVE TO DO YOU A FAVOR FIRST I AM GOING TO REACH THROUGH THE INTERNET, AND ACROSS SPACE AND TIME IF I HAVE TO, AND SLAP YOU INTO NEXT WEEK.
GG: time is a meaningless construct when it comes to our interactions, but okay.
GG: what do you want to know?
AG: IF YOU CAN SEE ME, YOU CAN SEE TERI, RIGHT?
GG: i guess.
AG: COULD YOU TELL ME IF SHE'S OKAY?
GG: awww, are you worried, karl?
AG: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK?
GG: i think that's so sweet!
GG: jawwhn will be disappointed, though. :(
AG: YEAH HE TOLD ME ALL ABOUT HIS RETARDED MANCRUSH.
AG: WHEN YOU SEE HIM, TELL HIM I'M NOT A HOMOSEXUAL, ALRIGHT?
GG: ...we're going for the irony angle, are we?
GG: i wouldn't, if i were you. that's tg and gc's territory!
GG: and i don't think you'd be very good at throwing down super cool sick beats, no offense.
AG: OH MY GOD SHUT UP.
AG: WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT ROMANCE WITH YOU TROLLS, ANYWAY?
GG: it's important, karl!
GG: you don't even know.
AG: YEAH, YOU'RE RIGHT, I DON'T. AND I DON'T NEED IT FUCKING EXPLAINED TO ME, BEFORE YOU OFFER.
GG: i don't need to explain it!
GG: i could just show you~ ;)
AG: FUCK.
AG: MY.
AG: LIFE.
AG: I KNOW I HAVE NOT JUST BEEN PROPOSITIONED BY TWO INTERNET TROLLS IN ONE DAY. THAT IS NOT A THING THAT IS HAPPENING.
GG: geeeeez, get the stick out of your ass, why don't you.
GG: it was a joke!
AG: YEAH, SURE, HILARIOUS.
AG: HAHAHA. CAN YOU SEE ME OVER HERE LAUGHING?
GG: why are you making that hand gesture? what does it--
GG: oh.
GG: well, fuck you too! >:|
AG: CAN WE JUST GET BACK TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF MY FRIEND?
GG: fiiiiiine.
GG: i promised him i'd help you, so i guess i have to, even if you are a jerk.
AG: YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING TASTELESS JOKES!
GG: whatever. anyway, gc is fine.
GG: she's sleeping, actually.
GG: okay? can you stop freaking out now?
AG: NO.
AG: ARE YOU SURE SHE'S NOT HURT? "DEAD" AND "SLEEPING" LOOK PRETTY FUCKING SIMILAR.
GG: i can see her breathing.
GG: there's kind of a lot of blood, though, let me zoom in...
GG: oh ow. she's got a pretty bad scrape down her arm.
GG: doesn't look like anything's broken, though!
GG: no bones poking out of skin, or anything.
GG: you should really go find her, though. you need to get moving.
AG: YEAH, I'M FUCKING AWARE OF THAT.
GG: you're running on limited time here, karl!
GG: tt says you need to get through the last gate exactly when ta enters the medium, or there's going to be trouble.
GG: the horrorterrors have been speaking to her again, i think.
GG: which is a good sign!
GG: but also really worrying on a personal level.
AG: LOOK, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THIS STUPID GAME RIGHT NOW, OKAY?
AG: I'M GOING TO GO MAKE SURE THAT TERI'S ALRIGHT AND NOT IN SHOCK OR SOMETHING, AND THEN MAYBE WE CAN CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION LATER AND YOU CAN EXPLAIN, I DON'T KNOW, WHAT FUCKING ANY OF THAT MEANS.
GG: okay. i'll be waiting!
Karl closed his phone with a snap and staggered forward again, his stick lost in the darkness. It didn't matter, though, because before he'd gone more than a hundred feet, stumbling and tripping over roots and rocks as he went, a beam of moonlight fell upon something long and white, and his mouth went dry. Teri's cane, he thought, picking it up and leaning on it; her original cane had been thin, for feeling out the world around her rather than traveling through it, but this one was sturdy, a weapon, and he could use it adequately as a walking aid.
"Teri?" he called, half desperate, trudging diligently through the forest, feeling crippled and slow. If something attacked him just then, if the shadows stopped writhing and detached themselves from where they were draped over rocks and trees and came for him, then he would be helpless-- but regardless of the danger, he couldn't stop himself from crying out for her, trying to wake her, find her, keep her safe. He had no idea what happened to the dragon, but maybe it was hurt too, maybe it was dead. Egbert's friend with the radioactive green text hadn't said, maybe because she hadn't thought it noteworthy or for... other reasons.
In the distance, high above, a dragon shrieked furiously, and a shadow passed over the moon, plunging the world into complete darkness for a few brief, utterly terrifying seconds. Karl crouched in on himself instinctively, trying to make himself small, and then the moment passed and his heart started again. One by one, the other dragons answered the first, their far-off voices running into a cacophony of pure terror. Trembling despite himself, because no one he physically knew could see, Karl advanced slowly, gripping the dragon head of Teri's cane so hard that his hand would bruise.
And then he froze still as a statue again, pushing past some foliage to arrive in a clearing. Between the rocks stood a dragon, proud and stern, its scales like plates of shining iron in the moonlight. It took Karl a moment of studying it while it watched him with impassive red eyes to realize that it was Lemonsnout, still wearing his reins and harness and he relaxed by inches, moving awkwardly towards it. "Where's Teri?" he demanded, confident that the dragon wouldn't hurt him; it'd had plenty of opportunities to before and hadn't bitten his head off yet, so now probably wasn't the time either. And indeed, it didn't, only turning away from him and stalking off into the woods. Karl noticed that it was limping too, just a little, and that it was holding one of its wings out from its body a bit, the leathery skin lightly torn and scraped. Karl followed it through the woods a bit and down a hill, into a gorge with high stone walls, slipping on the skree. It looked man-made, cut from the bedrock, and there Teri lay, curled up in a ball, looking small and vulnerable, like a broken toy. Her black hair fell in waves over her face, and her sunglasses had fallen off, one of the lenses popped out.
Karl picked up the frames and knelt down beside her, carefully brushing the hair out of her eyes. Yes, she was breathing, if shallowly, and other than a wet spot on the back of her head and a cut down her left arm that had mostly healed, she seemed fine. He put his hand on her side and squeezed, checking for broken ribs and attempting to rouse her, and she moaned quietly in her sleep; a sore spot, perhaps, and Karl yanked his hand away immediately, trying not to panic. "Teri?" he repeated, shaking her shoulder, instead. "Hey, come on, wake up. We have to get out of here. The dragons..." he allowed his sentence to trail off and die as above him the dragons squalled again; Lemonsnout glared up at the sky, snorting clouds of angry smoke. Karl swallowed, shaking her a little harder. "The dragons will figure out that they can just burn down the fucking trees eventually. Teri, please we have to leave." And I don't want you to die, Karl added, in the privacy of his own head. She might have left him, might have broken his heart once, but that didn't matter. Christ, it didn't matter, she was one of his best friends and if she died here, not like Alice had but here where there was no magic to lift her up and save her, then Karl didn't know what he would do.
At last she stirred, moaning again, and opened her eyes, still milky white. "Karl?" she asked, sounding disappointed. "Are you there? I can't see you."
"Fuck, how hard did you hit your head?" Karl asked, worried, pressing her glasses back into unresisting hands and helping her sit up, cross-legged on the floor of the ravine. "Of course you can't see me, Teri, you're..."
"Blind," she spat, sounding disgusted as she slid her sunglasses back on, scowling. "Yeah, yeah, I know, don't remind me. I must have been dreaming."
"Well, nap time is over, okay?" Karl told her, getting to his feet again with some effort. "It's time to get the fuck out of here before one of these scaly freaks makes us into a midnight snack." With his help Teri struggled to her feet and onto the dragon, who had crouched again in preparation; Karl climbed on after with some difficulty, his ankle nearly buckling under his weight for one frightening second, and the instant he'd seated himself the dragon was rearing up again, spreading its wings and tensing the muscles of its powerful back legs. It tipped back its head and roared, a jet of oily red and orange flames gushing towards the canopy; sparks flew and caught, and the leaves were ablaze within moments, scouring away a hole for them to pass through.
The dragon leapt. Karl clung tightly to Teri, who pressed herself down nearly flat against the dragon's neck silent and serious. Strong wingbeats bore them slowly upward as above the conflagration other, more monstrous dragons howled their anger and premature triumph. Darkness was rescinded, gradually, and then they burst through the ring of fire, the dragon's scales glowing a crackling, primordial yellow. This was fire, true and pure. This was what the first men had looked upon in awe and fear at the dawn of time, staring into the heart of the blaze. It lived in this dragon, it was this dragon and the dragon was it, was the fire, sacred and fierce, burning forever in the secret hearts of men, lurking in their lizard brains, ready to be recognized and acknowledged once more.
Into the deep navy black of the sky they shot, climbing upward still, and then the dragon let itself fall, spreading its wings at last to catch the warm updrafts from the fire. Karl nearly fell three times, unseated and jostled and bumped, but he did not care, he couldn't care. He was alive, and everything was amazing, and the magic of it made him tremble. The other dragons crowded around them like bats, their wings flapping in a way that would have been silent individually but was magnified by the multitude, and Lemonsnout rose again by feet and inches, rolling and swerving to avoid teeth and claws. "Can we even take this thing through the gate?" Karkat shouted over the din and the gale, wind tearing at his clothes and hair.
"I damn well hope so," Teri yelled back as the dragon edged closer to the aforementioned gate, now clearly visible against the blackness. A spark hurtled by overhead, like a shooting star, towards the rainbow gate and through it, and Karl was convinced he'd seen it before, that it was an entity of its own right. "Nell didn't bother building any stairs!"
The largest of the dragons snapped at Lemonsnout's flank and a scale was ripped away, a chink in the armor revealed as golden ichor spilled from the wound like precious raindrops. His pained scream echoed for miles, for the whole of the planet, and Karl regretted not being able to cover his now ringing ears. The dragon bit again, tearing, and this time a chunk of hallowed flesh ripped away, but still Lemonsnout flew on, approaching the gate. "I guess we'll find out," Karl muttered darkly, and closed his eyes.
There was a final shriek, a final scream, and then his senses were filled yet again with glorious nothingness.
---
When you wake up, it is too soon. You lay flat on your back on your human style bed, which doesn't seem as uncomfortable as it once did, and your hands ball to fists as a directive drops straight in your mind, seemingly out of nowhere-- you are wanted. You must come.
So you do, obeying without complaint because she is the highblood after all, and you are lowblood mutant scum, and these things still mean something to you, even though you wish they didn't. You cannot stop it. Your body is not your own. There is a package laying beside you that you are sure was not there when you went to sleep, bound in maroon fabric. You do not want to touch it; instinctively, you push it away from you and it goes, never really there in the first place.
You find her in the ectobiology laboratory, and she frowns at you, all serious, lines creasing her brows where stress has prematurely taken its toll. She's still beautiful, like a black widow spider; powerful and dangerous, destructive force that could lash out at any moment, delicate and deliberate and cruel. "Did you get it?" she demands, and one of those damn wands is in her hand, tapping against the palm of the other, smack, smack, smack, like a metronome, keeping time you don't have. "The last piece-- did you find it?"
"Yeah, she gave it to me," you grunt, taking the thing out from thin air. Wrapped in cloth, you can feel it beating softly still, and shudders run down your spine. This, this is the tumor that has poisoned their session so many times before, given to the wrong person, the one who couldn't resist the siren call of death and destruction. It is warm and heavy in your hand, and you feel slightly sick despite all you know and all you've seen; the girl who was once your sister takes it quickly, fortunately, snapping it up as though you can't be trusted not to drop it in the dust, her hand brushing yours warmly for the mere flicker of a second-- you did good. "What are you going to do with it, anyway?" you ask, glancing towards the half-assembled hunk of metal in the back of the lab. "Don't tell me it's going to go in that... thing."
You don't approve of the thing. Neither does Aradia. You both know that it is essential, however. She can cross into your session only in dreams, and you cannot cross into hers at all unless she expends a great and grave amount of power; letting you see Terezi again, for the first time in many cycles, was a selfish danger you can all barely afford. Nevertheless, the thing is wrong. Its wrongness is so profound and fundamental that even without god tier powers you can feel the scream of the universe as it tears, reverberating in the heart of every atom just by being near it. When it is complete, you won't be able to be in the same room with it without breaking down with a massive headache, which is just the epitome of uncool.
"Yes, Daevid," she snaps primly, dismissing you with a small wave as she turns back towards the machine, where Egbert is waiting, wrench in hand. "And also no. I'm going to forge a weapon."
"Oh yeah?" you ask, suddenly interested. "What kind?"
Her smile raises more questions than it answers as she turns her head towards you over her shoulder and says, "I'm making our third wish."
---
"Karl?" Teri asked hesitantly, disentangling herself from him and slipping down off the dragon's back, leaving Karl to fall forward onto the space she'd vacated between its shoulders. "What did you see?"
"Nothing," he answered, voice hollow, speaking into Lemonsnout's back. The dragon sat down heavily with a huff and a whine, injured, but bent its head back nevertheless to huff its hot breath on Karl's hair and give his forehead a lick. It was like being licked by sandpaper. "Absolutely fucking nothing." And for some reason, that felt... wrong. Like something else had left him, deserted him. He badly wanted, he realized, to speak with Egbert, but he pushed that thought from his mind as he propelled himself off the dragon as well, landing in the dust and opening his eyes only under duress.
Nell's land was... not what he'd expected. "Welcome to the Land of Low Cliffs and Tombs," Teri intoned imperiously, presenting the gloomy landscape to him with a sweeping gesture, and then broke down cackling, leaning hard on her cane. "Nell's gone already, but she said she'd leave us a map to where we need to go."
Above them, thunder rolled and cracked luxuriously, purple thunderheads laying like a thick blanket over the world. Lightning cracked and flashed, and any moment there would be rain drops, but that was alright; the dry, wind-blasted cliff-face they stood on was facing a building with a tower in the center, and in the top of the tower he could just barely make out the next gate. "Fuck maps, it's right fucking there," he growled, tossing his head towards it for his own benefit. Let's get back on the dragon and go."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Karl," Teri told him, frowning slightly. "Nell said it was important, and anyway, Lemonsnout is hurt. I don't think he'll be up for any more flights for awhile." The dragon gave a pained whimper in confirmation, its eyes doleful and pleading.
The wind kicked up, and chanced to blow a piece of paper straight into Karl's face; swearing, he brushed it off, crumpling it up and beginning to throw it aside before he noticed the things hastily scribbled on it in red crayon. It was definitely from Nell, as the sloppy drawing attested, though it looked less like a map and more like a beginner's attempt at drawing one of those maze puzzles you got on the backs of restaurant placemats for children sometimes. "Karl," the note began, and he read it aloud if under his breath, Teri leaning in close to catch his words. "this is the labyrinth. You and Teri can purrobably skip it if you want, but just because you can doesn't mean you should! I think that's something you never really understood, Karkitty. You and a lot of our furiends. I feel like you really need to, like it might be impurrtant for the future. And like the game wants you to. Just think about it!" Nell had signed it with a little heart, and Karl would have felt guilty about throwing it away, so he folded it and pocketed it roughly, scowling. "Well, what do you make of that?"
Teri shrugged. "I think we should do it. It can't hurt anything."
"Can your dragon make it, you think?" he asked next, warily. "Or, I don't know, should we put it out of its misery?" Karl eyed the dragon, whose gaze had turned suddenly malevolent once more, and shuddered, discounting that idea before it had even properly had time to settle in. "I guess not, then," he muttered, and took its reins in one hand, his hammer in the other as he began to walk towards the building of the labyrinth, the only thing on the cracked and dry plain besides the occasional stunted, long-dead skeleton of a tree. Teri hesitated for but a heartbeat and then followed, still uncharacteristically quiet. Karl leaned on the dragon and it leaned on him, as much as it could, and the trip seemed to take forever, desolation surrounding them.
At last the labyrinth loomed ahead, its cracking facade covered with runes in a strange and distant language, looking almost Celtic in origin; Karl sure as fuck couldn't have placed them, if pressed. The mouth of the building was open, a hole seemingly cut jaggedly in the stone, emptying into a wide and darkened hallway. He dropped the dragon's leads and advanced alone, footsteps crunching loudly in the gravel, the only noise in the world for a brief moment, and stood staring into the darkness, waiting to be consumed. Then with a whoosh of burning air a row of torches lit, coming to life and showing that the hallway branched off into three possibilities soon enough, each leading to a different section of the labyrinth. "We stick together," he commanded, and Teri nodded, resting a hand on Lemonsnout's shoulder; this time they walked in unison, as Karl marched on ahead.
Stepping into the labyrinth was like stepping into another world. Everything here was cold and crystal sharp, like the stars hanging distant in the unseen sky, and the floor was solid beneath him; Karl had the unsettling feeling of realizing that he'd feared falling when he'd been standing outside, and only coming to that conclusion after the imagined danger had passed. There was little sound other than the echo of his footsteps and a sudden wind whistling through the corridor; only one set of footsteps, even after Teri and the dragon had entered.
"We go this way," he declared, choosing the middle path, but as soon as he had entered, the world lurched sickeningly to the left, and the floor rumbled as a wall rose up behind him, sealing him in and Teri out. Flushed with a new wave of nausea and fear, Karl banged on the wall with his fists until they were bloody and raw, and then with the hammer, calling out to her, fighting the urge to sob-- but the wall did not fall, and only silence answered him. Silence, and the wind.
Karl sunk to the floor on his knees, a wash of despair taking him. She was gone, gone, and how would he find her again, it was his fault, they were doomed--
Do not, a voice whispered, clear and present, and a ghostly hand pushed the hair from his face. Do not, dear Heir. Follow me. And now there was another pair of footsteps, receding down the hall; Karl bolted to his feet and charged after them, heedless of the protesting pain in his ankle. That voice, that damn voice, it was still calling him, beckoning. That voice that had called him Heir, that had saved him from darkness, brought him out of the ashes before he could truly crumble.
That voice had been Alice's voice.
"Alice!" he shouted, hoarsely, charging down the hall, turning corners where his mind directed, fevered but following the truth. "Alice, where are you? Are you here? Oh, god, did I really kill you? Please, please don't be a ghost." He panted harshly, tripping over nothing but his own ineptitude as the path sloped gradually downward, and turned the last corner, the stitch in his side pronounced. Karl leaned heavily against the wall and looked out ahead of him. The corridor Alice had lead him through terminated in a round room, with nine different entrances and exits arranged equidistant from each other. In the center was a raised dais, an alter, upon which was perched a huge cat with wings and the face of a beautiful woman. She looked a little like his mother, Karl thought, and a little like Teri.
"Welcome, dear child," she said in a voice like the thunder, smooth and crashing. Her claws came out with a little snick noise, digging into the soft sandstone she stood upon, and she smiled, pouring poison into Karl's ears with every word. "Do you know me?"
"Yeah," he told her weakly, standing as straight as he could again. "You're the sphinx, aren't you? 'What walks on four legs in the morning', etc. etc. etc. I already know the answer, so let's cut the shit-- it's man, alright? Do I win a prize?"
The sphinx shook her head in mock sadness, still grinning but now showing some teeth, her wings fluttering. "Perhaps once, dear child, but not here. The rules have changed, I am afraid."
"How?" Karl demanded, and she growled slightly, sending a tremor of fear down Karl's spine again. Suddenly his feet were rooted to the ground as terror took him, holding him in its iron grasp; this was a real and immediate danger. The sphinx was a monster, a consort, ready to kill him if he made a wrong move-- which it looked as though he already had.
"There is one question, for which you will have three attempts to answer. If you get it wrong twice, you will be sent back into the labyrinth to ponder it and wander back here. A third incorrect response is grounds for... termination." Her claws flicked again, and her pink cat's tongue darted out to lick her lips; Karl shivered again, feeling betrayed. Why had Alice deserted him? She had lead him here to die, but why?
"What happens if I get it right?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Then I will show you the door that leads to salvation," she replied, simply, and spoke again before Karl could continue to debase himself. "Are you ready to begin?"
"Yes," he said quietly, and punctuated it with a nod, clutching the handle of his hammer hard. "What's the question?"
"That's simple," the sphinx informed him, its broad grin turning wolfish, predatory. "As riddles go, it is a paradox; it is the one thing you have known all of your life, and the one thing that has always slipped through your fingers like sand. Boy, who are you?"
"I'm Karl Vates," he said without thinking, and felt a sword materialize above his neck; it was wrong. It could not be wrong, but it was, the chill in his belly told him, and the sphinx was shaking her head sadly now, gesturing towards a door with her paw as the other doorways slammed shut, closed off to him.
"Please do try harder next time," she implored him as he trudged off, his legs like lead. "I would be so sad to eat a sweet boy like you."
This time the corridor was empty, and remained empty. Karl walked in it for what seemed like a century, pondering what the sphinx had meant. He was Karl Vates, of course he was. That was all he was and all he ever had been, contained in that name. It was his identity. It was what everyone called him other than Nell, who was crazy, and the man from his dreams, who never quite managed to get out the name he desired to call Karl.
So Karl was Karl. But was he also something else? Or had the sphinx meant something other than a name, something that ran deeper? Perhaps it had to do with his title, he thought, but what was that? The Heir of something, perhaps of blood. On the second pass by he tried that, standing tall and proud this time, equally as confident. "Boy, who are you?" the sphinx asked.
And Karl replied, "I am the Heir of Blood."
But again the sphinx shook her broad, flat head in sorrow, clicking her tongue at him. "Incorrect," she informed him simply, and ushered him through another door; this time, into darkness.
Karl wandered through shadows and twisting tunnels, alone. There was no presence that walked beside him, only hollowness. In the darkness he felt as though he were walking through the fabric of his dreams, where he had met the strange man so many times before, the man he somehow knew was the key to his whole life. He'd not thought of him in awhile, but the memory was returning; that voice, young like his own but sure and confident, his skin beneath Karl's fingers, his arms wrapped comfortingly around Karl's shoulders. What had that man called him? Friend, confidant, lover perhaps. Never his name. Never his full name. Never the name his soul answered to.
He sobbed, desolate and broken, and then something was with him; a horrible presence, not the comforting aura of his imaginary friend. We are not Karl Vates, it hissed, and Karl's insides froze with the ice and hate that poured in. He loathed this voice more than all others because it loathed him, and because it was him, speaking from the darkest recesses of his mind. We are strong. We are many. But the many are one and the one is not you. It is me.
Something in Karl broke and so did the darkness as his phone buzzed; shaking off the bad thoughts he opened it, hoping to see Egbert's familiar blue text. Instead, what he got was radioactive waste green.
GG: gog, karl, haven't you gotten it yet?
GG: really, it's so simple, and you already know the answer!
AG: THEN WHY DON'T YOU FUCKING TELL ME WHAT IT IS?
GG: oh, i can't do that! only jawwhn is allowed to tell you. it's a rule.
Karl shut his phone again, snarling, and continued on, the throbbing in his ankle returning.
And then he approached the dais, for the third and final time. There was no panic now, no fear, not even as the sphinx opened its jaw to deliver the question a third time. Calm overtook him, and he felt almost drugged, like his body was not his own; lethargic, a stupor seizing him.
"Wait!" Karl commanded, and the sphinx paused. "Before I answer, tell me-- did a girl come through here with a dragon?"
"Yes," the sphinx replied, bowing its head. "She did."
"And did she get it right? Is she alive?"
Another nod. "Yes, she did." After a pause, she added, "And on the first try."
Karl took a long, harsh, rattling breath and closed his eyes. "Then I'm ready."
For the third and final time, the sphinx spoke. "Boy, who are you?"
And Karl answered, "You were wrong. I am Karl Vates. But I'm other things too. I can remember them sometimes, when I sleep or when things feel wrong, and I know that they're there, inside of me. But right now? Right now, I'm Karl Vates. And I'd like to stay that way a little longer, if that's perfectly fucking alright with you."
The sphinx was silent for a long moment, watching him, her lion's tail thrashing wildly-- and then she bowed to him and stepped aside, revealing the tenth door that had waited behind her, unseen. "One day, you will awaken," she told him, sounding unfathomably sad. "I pray that when that day comes, Karl Vates dies a swift and just death." Then no more was said and Karl glared at her as he stomped past. Through the last door was another circular room, but one whose diameter was much wider and whose height was much more spectacular; the tower he'd seen before, rising up towards the gate. There were stairs around the circumference, cracking and crumbling but that would bear their weight to the top, and windows near the summit that let in the howling wind and cold, bitter rain.
Teri was sitting on a fallen slab of stone, her chin in her hands and a bored look on her face, but she looked up towards him when Lemonsnout did, scornful. "What took you so long?"
"Finding myself," Karl sighed, and without a backward glance he started climbing. Outside, it began to rain.
---
"Who am I?" you ask, blinking, and then your smile grows to split your face in half, wide and powerful as a river. "Why, that's a silly question! Who else would I be but me?"
The sphinx smiles back, warmly, and gives your forehead a motherly lick, ushering you towards the door with one paw. "Good enough."
==>
<==
~~~
AG: EGBERT, YOU FUCKER, ANSWER ME.
AG: LOOK I KNOW YOU'RE BUSY BUT
AG: FUCK
AG: YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'VE JUST BEEN THROUGH
AG: OR HELL, MAYBE YOU DO. I DON'T CARE.
AG: JUST ANSWER ME.
AG: PLEASE.
---
GC: D43V1D? WH3R3 4R3 W3?
TG: its a dream bubble tz
TG: i shouldnt be able to do this but aradias helping
TG: so im going to be totally fucking serious here for a minute okay and you have to listen
TG: this kind of opportunity only comes once in a lifetime bro
TG: you know you want to hop on board the sincerity train with me
TG: riding first class down memory lane and shit
TG: i dont know how much youll remember when you wake up but theres not much time
TG: fuck i dont even know how much ill remember
TG: and i've got so much stuff to show you
TG: but youve got to open your eyes
She trusts him. She hates that she trusts him, but she does, and she opens her eyes as he reaches up and carefully, nearly reverently, slides her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and off her face. There is light, brighter than she can remember it being, but it doesn't sting, only lights and caresses and plays over his face, soft and human, and isn't that a strange thing to think of it as? But she can see, and that's all that matters, and if she weren't so busy trying to impress him with her coolness she might have hugged him.
"Hot damn," she whispers instead, her voice feeling choked, hoarse. "You really are my magical fairy godfather."
"Yeah," he tells her, his voice smooth but almost breaking; it's a small fissure, but there, and she can hear it if she tries, because suddenly she feels like she's spent lifetimes listening for it. "I'm pretty much just the best there is." He is wearing sunglasses too, and it doesn't seem fair that he should keep his; she reaches up to take them in turn but he backs away, one giant step backwards that takes him well out of her range, the hint of a smile disappearing. "Hey, come on, you know the rules. No one touches the glasses."
They were his brother's, she thinks, erroneously. He's wearing them again now, what does that mean? Says, "You let me touch them once before, coolkid. Don't pretend like you don't remember."
"Yeah, but that was a long time ago," he says, voice flat and devoid of emotion again, apathetic. "And it never really happened. It's hard to explain."
She frowns, displeased, and sets her hands balled to fists on her hips; long black nails dig into palms that are suddenly gray as stone, as though she's been dusted with ash. Somehow this is neither surprising nor alarming, only natural. The way it should be. "Try me," Terezi demands.
And as time unwinds around them, he begins to tell her.
---
Night fell, and darkness came. In the forest there was only blackness everywhere, surrounding, and quiet punctuated by the soft whisper of the wind through the trees, swaying their branches. Through gaps in the leaves and twigs shafts of silver moonlight streamed down, lighting the loamy forest floor in a patchwork of drab, washed-out color. Gone was the burning sun that had hung in the sky, so warm and welcoming; now Karl looked up and saw nothing but darkness and foreign stars.
Once he'd been able to name all the constellations, but now no more. The stars were but pinpricks of light a thousand miles above him, twinkling down mockingly as they shivered in their cold sky, threatening to fall. Karl didn't know if that was true or if it was the pain in his throbbing ankle speaking, but it didn't matter much when he was dragging himself through breaks in the close-packed trees, feverish, leaning heavily against a branch he'd snapped from the trunk of a rotting log.
He had to find Teri. It was the only thing left that he knew for sure, the only real goal he had. He had to find her, because if she was gone, then his mind was fit to break. She wasn't answering her phone, and pesterchum was likewise failing to rouse her, so he'd gone looking, picking a random direction and setting off. It was slow going because of his injury, and there wasn't a sprite about to heal him, but he pressed on, determined.
Until, of course, he ran out of steam and tossed the stick away, leaning heavily against a tree to catch his breath. He'd been walking for hours, maybe in circles, and his side was beginning to ache as much as his ankle was. As he was gasping for air his phone buzzed insistently in his pocket and he scrambled to answer it, nearly dropping it in a pile of leaves in his haste to answer. "Please be Teri," he muttered to the universe at large, and scowled at the unfamiliar text, disappointment and worry crushing him.
-- ghastlyGentry [GG] began trolling abysmalGuardian [AG] at ??? --
GG: hey, fuckass!
GG: guess you went and fucked everything up already, huh?
GG: not that that's unusual.
GG: :)
AG: OH MY FUCKING GOD, ANOTHER ONE.
AG: GREAT. FANTASTIC. JUST WHAT I FUCKING NEEDED RIGHT NOW.
AG: I AM NOT PUTTING UP WITH YOUR PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE BULLSHIT, WHOEVER YOU ARE.
GG: aw, calm down, karl!
GG: i just thought you might need some help while jawwhn is off helping tt with her super secret project.
GG: anyway, i found a great captcha code in his stack!
GG: i think he was going to give it to you.
AG: HEY, YOU CAN SEE ME TOO, RIGHT?
GG: of course, silly!
AG: OKAY, THEN YOU CAN PROBABLY SEE THAT I AM NOT IN ANY FUCKING CONDITION TO BE ALCHEMIZING SHIT RIGHT NOW, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU.
GG: oh, it's not for now! you wouldn't be able to wield it yet, anyway.
GG: i don't think jawwhn can wield it either, and he's at the top of his echeladder!
GG: not to mention he's mostly been using sickles this session.
AG: OKAY, FINE, SEND IT OVER. LIKE I EVEN GIVE A FUCK.
GG: it's an investment for the future, karl, geez. :|
AG: ALRIGHT, ASSHOLE, I HAVE A QUESTION.
AG: AND IF YOU TELL ME I HAVE TO DO YOU A FAVOR FIRST I AM GOING TO REACH THROUGH THE INTERNET, AND ACROSS SPACE AND TIME IF I HAVE TO, AND SLAP YOU INTO NEXT WEEK.
GG: time is a meaningless construct when it comes to our interactions, but okay.
GG: what do you want to know?
AG: IF YOU CAN SEE ME, YOU CAN SEE TERI, RIGHT?
GG: i guess.
AG: COULD YOU TELL ME IF SHE'S OKAY?
GG: awww, are you worried, karl?
AG: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK?
GG: i think that's so sweet!
GG: jawwhn will be disappointed, though. :(
AG: YEAH HE TOLD ME ALL ABOUT HIS RETARDED MANCRUSH.
AG: WHEN YOU SEE HIM, TELL HIM I'M NOT A HOMOSEXUAL, ALRIGHT?
GG: ...we're going for the irony angle, are we?
GG: i wouldn't, if i were you. that's tg and gc's territory!
GG: and i don't think you'd be very good at throwing down super cool sick beats, no offense.
AG: OH MY GOD SHUT UP.
AG: WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT ROMANCE WITH YOU TROLLS, ANYWAY?
GG: it's important, karl!
GG: you don't even know.
AG: YEAH, YOU'RE RIGHT, I DON'T. AND I DON'T NEED IT FUCKING EXPLAINED TO ME, BEFORE YOU OFFER.
GG: i don't need to explain it!
GG: i could just show you~ ;)
AG: FUCK.
AG: MY.
AG: LIFE.
AG: I KNOW I HAVE NOT JUST BEEN PROPOSITIONED BY TWO INTERNET TROLLS IN ONE DAY. THAT IS NOT A THING THAT IS HAPPENING.
GG: geeeeez, get the stick out of your ass, why don't you.
GG: it was a joke!
AG: YEAH, SURE, HILARIOUS.
AG: HAHAHA. CAN YOU SEE ME OVER HERE LAUGHING?
GG: why are you making that hand gesture? what does it--
GG: oh.
GG: well, fuck you too! >:|
AG: CAN WE JUST GET BACK TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF MY FRIEND?
GG: fiiiiiine.
GG: i promised him i'd help you, so i guess i have to, even if you are a jerk.
AG: YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING TASTELESS JOKES!
GG: whatever. anyway, gc is fine.
GG: she's sleeping, actually.
GG: okay? can you stop freaking out now?
AG: NO.
AG: ARE YOU SURE SHE'S NOT HURT? "DEAD" AND "SLEEPING" LOOK PRETTY FUCKING SIMILAR.
GG: i can see her breathing.
GG: there's kind of a lot of blood, though, let me zoom in...
GG: oh ow. she's got a pretty bad scrape down her arm.
GG: doesn't look like anything's broken, though!
GG: no bones poking out of skin, or anything.
GG: you should really go find her, though. you need to get moving.
AG: YEAH, I'M FUCKING AWARE OF THAT.
GG: you're running on limited time here, karl!
GG: tt says you need to get through the last gate exactly when ta enters the medium, or there's going to be trouble.
GG: the horrorterrors have been speaking to her again, i think.
GG: which is a good sign!
GG: but also really worrying on a personal level.
AG: LOOK, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THIS STUPID GAME RIGHT NOW, OKAY?
AG: I'M GOING TO GO MAKE SURE THAT TERI'S ALRIGHT AND NOT IN SHOCK OR SOMETHING, AND THEN MAYBE WE CAN CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION LATER AND YOU CAN EXPLAIN, I DON'T KNOW, WHAT FUCKING ANY OF THAT MEANS.
GG: okay. i'll be waiting!
Karl closed his phone with a snap and staggered forward again, his stick lost in the darkness. It didn't matter, though, because before he'd gone more than a hundred feet, stumbling and tripping over roots and rocks as he went, a beam of moonlight fell upon something long and white, and his mouth went dry. Teri's cane, he thought, picking it up and leaning on it; her original cane had been thin, for feeling out the world around her rather than traveling through it, but this one was sturdy, a weapon, and he could use it adequately as a walking aid.
"Teri?" he called, half desperate, trudging diligently through the forest, feeling crippled and slow. If something attacked him just then, if the shadows stopped writhing and detached themselves from where they were draped over rocks and trees and came for him, then he would be helpless-- but regardless of the danger, he couldn't stop himself from crying out for her, trying to wake her, find her, keep her safe. He had no idea what happened to the dragon, but maybe it was hurt too, maybe it was dead. Egbert's friend with the radioactive green text hadn't said, maybe because she hadn't thought it noteworthy or for... other reasons.
In the distance, high above, a dragon shrieked furiously, and a shadow passed over the moon, plunging the world into complete darkness for a few brief, utterly terrifying seconds. Karl crouched in on himself instinctively, trying to make himself small, and then the moment passed and his heart started again. One by one, the other dragons answered the first, their far-off voices running into a cacophony of pure terror. Trembling despite himself, because no one he physically knew could see, Karl advanced slowly, gripping the dragon head of Teri's cane so hard that his hand would bruise.
And then he froze still as a statue again, pushing past some foliage to arrive in a clearing. Between the rocks stood a dragon, proud and stern, its scales like plates of shining iron in the moonlight. It took Karl a moment of studying it while it watched him with impassive red eyes to realize that it was Lemonsnout, still wearing his reins and harness and he relaxed by inches, moving awkwardly towards it. "Where's Teri?" he demanded, confident that the dragon wouldn't hurt him; it'd had plenty of opportunities to before and hadn't bitten his head off yet, so now probably wasn't the time either. And indeed, it didn't, only turning away from him and stalking off into the woods. Karl noticed that it was limping too, just a little, and that it was holding one of its wings out from its body a bit, the leathery skin lightly torn and scraped. Karl followed it through the woods a bit and down a hill, into a gorge with high stone walls, slipping on the skree. It looked man-made, cut from the bedrock, and there Teri lay, curled up in a ball, looking small and vulnerable, like a broken toy. Her black hair fell in waves over her face, and her sunglasses had fallen off, one of the lenses popped out.
Karl picked up the frames and knelt down beside her, carefully brushing the hair out of her eyes. Yes, she was breathing, if shallowly, and other than a wet spot on the back of her head and a cut down her left arm that had mostly healed, she seemed fine. He put his hand on her side and squeezed, checking for broken ribs and attempting to rouse her, and she moaned quietly in her sleep; a sore spot, perhaps, and Karl yanked his hand away immediately, trying not to panic. "Teri?" he repeated, shaking her shoulder, instead. "Hey, come on, wake up. We have to get out of here. The dragons..." he allowed his sentence to trail off and die as above him the dragons squalled again; Lemonsnout glared up at the sky, snorting clouds of angry smoke. Karl swallowed, shaking her a little harder. "The dragons will figure out that they can just burn down the fucking trees eventually. Teri, please we have to leave." And I don't want you to die, Karl added, in the privacy of his own head. She might have left him, might have broken his heart once, but that didn't matter. Christ, it didn't matter, she was one of his best friends and if she died here, not like Alice had but here where there was no magic to lift her up and save her, then Karl didn't know what he would do.
At last she stirred, moaning again, and opened her eyes, still milky white. "Karl?" she asked, sounding disappointed. "Are you there? I can't see you."
"Fuck, how hard did you hit your head?" Karl asked, worried, pressing her glasses back into unresisting hands and helping her sit up, cross-legged on the floor of the ravine. "Of course you can't see me, Teri, you're..."
"Blind," she spat, sounding disgusted as she slid her sunglasses back on, scowling. "Yeah, yeah, I know, don't remind me. I must have been dreaming."
"Well, nap time is over, okay?" Karl told her, getting to his feet again with some effort. "It's time to get the fuck out of here before one of these scaly freaks makes us into a midnight snack." With his help Teri struggled to her feet and onto the dragon, who had crouched again in preparation; Karl climbed on after with some difficulty, his ankle nearly buckling under his weight for one frightening second, and the instant he'd seated himself the dragon was rearing up again, spreading its wings and tensing the muscles of its powerful back legs. It tipped back its head and roared, a jet of oily red and orange flames gushing towards the canopy; sparks flew and caught, and the leaves were ablaze within moments, scouring away a hole for them to pass through.
The dragon leapt. Karl clung tightly to Teri, who pressed herself down nearly flat against the dragon's neck silent and serious. Strong wingbeats bore them slowly upward as above the conflagration other, more monstrous dragons howled their anger and premature triumph. Darkness was rescinded, gradually, and then they burst through the ring of fire, the dragon's scales glowing a crackling, primordial yellow. This was fire, true and pure. This was what the first men had looked upon in awe and fear at the dawn of time, staring into the heart of the blaze. It lived in this dragon, it was this dragon and the dragon was it, was the fire, sacred and fierce, burning forever in the secret hearts of men, lurking in their lizard brains, ready to be recognized and acknowledged once more.
Into the deep navy black of the sky they shot, climbing upward still, and then the dragon let itself fall, spreading its wings at last to catch the warm updrafts from the fire. Karl nearly fell three times, unseated and jostled and bumped, but he did not care, he couldn't care. He was alive, and everything was amazing, and the magic of it made him tremble. The other dragons crowded around them like bats, their wings flapping in a way that would have been silent individually but was magnified by the multitude, and Lemonsnout rose again by feet and inches, rolling and swerving to avoid teeth and claws. "Can we even take this thing through the gate?" Karkat shouted over the din and the gale, wind tearing at his clothes and hair.
"I damn well hope so," Teri yelled back as the dragon edged closer to the aforementioned gate, now clearly visible against the blackness. A spark hurtled by overhead, like a shooting star, towards the rainbow gate and through it, and Karl was convinced he'd seen it before, that it was an entity of its own right. "Nell didn't bother building any stairs!"
The largest of the dragons snapped at Lemonsnout's flank and a scale was ripped away, a chink in the armor revealed as golden ichor spilled from the wound like precious raindrops. His pained scream echoed for miles, for the whole of the planet, and Karl regretted not being able to cover his now ringing ears. The dragon bit again, tearing, and this time a chunk of hallowed flesh ripped away, but still Lemonsnout flew on, approaching the gate. "I guess we'll find out," Karl muttered darkly, and closed his eyes.
There was a final shriek, a final scream, and then his senses were filled yet again with glorious nothingness.
---
When you wake up, it is too soon. You lay flat on your back on your human style bed, which doesn't seem as uncomfortable as it once did, and your hands ball to fists as a directive drops straight in your mind, seemingly out of nowhere-- you are wanted. You must come.
So you do, obeying without complaint because she is the highblood after all, and you are lowblood mutant scum, and these things still mean something to you, even though you wish they didn't. You cannot stop it. Your body is not your own. There is a package laying beside you that you are sure was not there when you went to sleep, bound in maroon fabric. You do not want to touch it; instinctively, you push it away from you and it goes, never really there in the first place.
You find her in the ectobiology laboratory, and she frowns at you, all serious, lines creasing her brows where stress has prematurely taken its toll. She's still beautiful, like a black widow spider; powerful and dangerous, destructive force that could lash out at any moment, delicate and deliberate and cruel. "Did you get it?" she demands, and one of those damn wands is in her hand, tapping against the palm of the other, smack, smack, smack, like a metronome, keeping time you don't have. "The last piece-- did you find it?"
"Yeah, she gave it to me," you grunt, taking the thing out from thin air. Wrapped in cloth, you can feel it beating softly still, and shudders run down your spine. This, this is the tumor that has poisoned their session so many times before, given to the wrong person, the one who couldn't resist the siren call of death and destruction. It is warm and heavy in your hand, and you feel slightly sick despite all you know and all you've seen; the girl who was once your sister takes it quickly, fortunately, snapping it up as though you can't be trusted not to drop it in the dust, her hand brushing yours warmly for the mere flicker of a second-- you did good. "What are you going to do with it, anyway?" you ask, glancing towards the half-assembled hunk of metal in the back of the lab. "Don't tell me it's going to go in that... thing."
You don't approve of the thing. Neither does Aradia. You both know that it is essential, however. She can cross into your session only in dreams, and you cannot cross into hers at all unless she expends a great and grave amount of power; letting you see Terezi again, for the first time in many cycles, was a selfish danger you can all barely afford. Nevertheless, the thing is wrong. Its wrongness is so profound and fundamental that even without god tier powers you can feel the scream of the universe as it tears, reverberating in the heart of every atom just by being near it. When it is complete, you won't be able to be in the same room with it without breaking down with a massive headache, which is just the epitome of uncool.
"Yes, Daevid," she snaps primly, dismissing you with a small wave as she turns back towards the machine, where Egbert is waiting, wrench in hand. "And also no. I'm going to forge a weapon."
"Oh yeah?" you ask, suddenly interested. "What kind?"
Her smile raises more questions than it answers as she turns her head towards you over her shoulder and says, "I'm making our third wish."
---
"Karl?" Teri asked hesitantly, disentangling herself from him and slipping down off the dragon's back, leaving Karl to fall forward onto the space she'd vacated between its shoulders. "What did you see?"
"Nothing," he answered, voice hollow, speaking into Lemonsnout's back. The dragon sat down heavily with a huff and a whine, injured, but bent its head back nevertheless to huff its hot breath on Karl's hair and give his forehead a lick. It was like being licked by sandpaper. "Absolutely fucking nothing." And for some reason, that felt... wrong. Like something else had left him, deserted him. He badly wanted, he realized, to speak with Egbert, but he pushed that thought from his mind as he propelled himself off the dragon as well, landing in the dust and opening his eyes only under duress.
Nell's land was... not what he'd expected. "Welcome to the Land of Low Cliffs and Tombs," Teri intoned imperiously, presenting the gloomy landscape to him with a sweeping gesture, and then broke down cackling, leaning hard on her cane. "Nell's gone already, but she said she'd leave us a map to where we need to go."
Above them, thunder rolled and cracked luxuriously, purple thunderheads laying like a thick blanket over the world. Lightning cracked and flashed, and any moment there would be rain drops, but that was alright; the dry, wind-blasted cliff-face they stood on was facing a building with a tower in the center, and in the top of the tower he could just barely make out the next gate. "Fuck maps, it's right fucking there," he growled, tossing his head towards it for his own benefit. Let's get back on the dragon and go."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Karl," Teri told him, frowning slightly. "Nell said it was important, and anyway, Lemonsnout is hurt. I don't think he'll be up for any more flights for awhile." The dragon gave a pained whimper in confirmation, its eyes doleful and pleading.
The wind kicked up, and chanced to blow a piece of paper straight into Karl's face; swearing, he brushed it off, crumpling it up and beginning to throw it aside before he noticed the things hastily scribbled on it in red crayon. It was definitely from Nell, as the sloppy drawing attested, though it looked less like a map and more like a beginner's attempt at drawing one of those maze puzzles you got on the backs of restaurant placemats for children sometimes. "Karl," the note began, and he read it aloud if under his breath, Teri leaning in close to catch his words. "this is the labyrinth. You and Teri can purrobably skip it if you want, but just because you can doesn't mean you should! I think that's something you never really understood, Karkitty. You and a lot of our furiends. I feel like you really need to, like it might be impurrtant for the future. And like the game wants you to. Just think about it!" Nell had signed it with a little heart, and Karl would have felt guilty about throwing it away, so he folded it and pocketed it roughly, scowling. "Well, what do you make of that?"
Teri shrugged. "I think we should do it. It can't hurt anything."
"Can your dragon make it, you think?" he asked next, warily. "Or, I don't know, should we put it out of its misery?" Karl eyed the dragon, whose gaze had turned suddenly malevolent once more, and shuddered, discounting that idea before it had even properly had time to settle in. "I guess not, then," he muttered, and took its reins in one hand, his hammer in the other as he began to walk towards the building of the labyrinth, the only thing on the cracked and dry plain besides the occasional stunted, long-dead skeleton of a tree. Teri hesitated for but a heartbeat and then followed, still uncharacteristically quiet. Karl leaned on the dragon and it leaned on him, as much as it could, and the trip seemed to take forever, desolation surrounding them.
At last the labyrinth loomed ahead, its cracking facade covered with runes in a strange and distant language, looking almost Celtic in origin; Karl sure as fuck couldn't have placed them, if pressed. The mouth of the building was open, a hole seemingly cut jaggedly in the stone, emptying into a wide and darkened hallway. He dropped the dragon's leads and advanced alone, footsteps crunching loudly in the gravel, the only noise in the world for a brief moment, and stood staring into the darkness, waiting to be consumed. Then with a whoosh of burning air a row of torches lit, coming to life and showing that the hallway branched off into three possibilities soon enough, each leading to a different section of the labyrinth. "We stick together," he commanded, and Teri nodded, resting a hand on Lemonsnout's shoulder; this time they walked in unison, as Karl marched on ahead.
Stepping into the labyrinth was like stepping into another world. Everything here was cold and crystal sharp, like the stars hanging distant in the unseen sky, and the floor was solid beneath him; Karl had the unsettling feeling of realizing that he'd feared falling when he'd been standing outside, and only coming to that conclusion after the imagined danger had passed. There was little sound other than the echo of his footsteps and a sudden wind whistling through the corridor; only one set of footsteps, even after Teri and the dragon had entered.
"We go this way," he declared, choosing the middle path, but as soon as he had entered, the world lurched sickeningly to the left, and the floor rumbled as a wall rose up behind him, sealing him in and Teri out. Flushed with a new wave of nausea and fear, Karl banged on the wall with his fists until they were bloody and raw, and then with the hammer, calling out to her, fighting the urge to sob-- but the wall did not fall, and only silence answered him. Silence, and the wind.
Karl sunk to the floor on his knees, a wash of despair taking him. She was gone, gone, and how would he find her again, it was his fault, they were doomed--
Do not, a voice whispered, clear and present, and a ghostly hand pushed the hair from his face. Do not, dear Heir. Follow me. And now there was another pair of footsteps, receding down the hall; Karl bolted to his feet and charged after them, heedless of the protesting pain in his ankle. That voice, that damn voice, it was still calling him, beckoning. That voice that had called him Heir, that had saved him from darkness, brought him out of the ashes before he could truly crumble.
That voice had been Alice's voice.
"Alice!" he shouted, hoarsely, charging down the hall, turning corners where his mind directed, fevered but following the truth. "Alice, where are you? Are you here? Oh, god, did I really kill you? Please, please don't be a ghost." He panted harshly, tripping over nothing but his own ineptitude as the path sloped gradually downward, and turned the last corner, the stitch in his side pronounced. Karl leaned heavily against the wall and looked out ahead of him. The corridor Alice had lead him through terminated in a round room, with nine different entrances and exits arranged equidistant from each other. In the center was a raised dais, an alter, upon which was perched a huge cat with wings and the face of a beautiful woman. She looked a little like his mother, Karl thought, and a little like Teri.
"Welcome, dear child," she said in a voice like the thunder, smooth and crashing. Her claws came out with a little snick noise, digging into the soft sandstone she stood upon, and she smiled, pouring poison into Karl's ears with every word. "Do you know me?"
"Yeah," he told her weakly, standing as straight as he could again. "You're the sphinx, aren't you? 'What walks on four legs in the morning', etc. etc. etc. I already know the answer, so let's cut the shit-- it's man, alright? Do I win a prize?"
The sphinx shook her head in mock sadness, still grinning but now showing some teeth, her wings fluttering. "Perhaps once, dear child, but not here. The rules have changed, I am afraid."
"How?" Karl demanded, and she growled slightly, sending a tremor of fear down Karl's spine again. Suddenly his feet were rooted to the ground as terror took him, holding him in its iron grasp; this was a real and immediate danger. The sphinx was a monster, a consort, ready to kill him if he made a wrong move-- which it looked as though he already had.
"There is one question, for which you will have three attempts to answer. If you get it wrong twice, you will be sent back into the labyrinth to ponder it and wander back here. A third incorrect response is grounds for... termination." Her claws flicked again, and her pink cat's tongue darted out to lick her lips; Karl shivered again, feeling betrayed. Why had Alice deserted him? She had lead him here to die, but why?
"What happens if I get it right?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Then I will show you the door that leads to salvation," she replied, simply, and spoke again before Karl could continue to debase himself. "Are you ready to begin?"
"Yes," he said quietly, and punctuated it with a nod, clutching the handle of his hammer hard. "What's the question?"
"That's simple," the sphinx informed him, its broad grin turning wolfish, predatory. "As riddles go, it is a paradox; it is the one thing you have known all of your life, and the one thing that has always slipped through your fingers like sand. Boy, who are you?"
"I'm Karl Vates," he said without thinking, and felt a sword materialize above his neck; it was wrong. It could not be wrong, but it was, the chill in his belly told him, and the sphinx was shaking her head sadly now, gesturing towards a door with her paw as the other doorways slammed shut, closed off to him.
"Please do try harder next time," she implored him as he trudged off, his legs like lead. "I would be so sad to eat a sweet boy like you."
This time the corridor was empty, and remained empty. Karl walked in it for what seemed like a century, pondering what the sphinx had meant. He was Karl Vates, of course he was. That was all he was and all he ever had been, contained in that name. It was his identity. It was what everyone called him other than Nell, who was crazy, and the man from his dreams, who never quite managed to get out the name he desired to call Karl.
So Karl was Karl. But was he also something else? Or had the sphinx meant something other than a name, something that ran deeper? Perhaps it had to do with his title, he thought, but what was that? The Heir of something, perhaps of blood. On the second pass by he tried that, standing tall and proud this time, equally as confident. "Boy, who are you?" the sphinx asked.
And Karl replied, "I am the Heir of Blood."
But again the sphinx shook her broad, flat head in sorrow, clicking her tongue at him. "Incorrect," she informed him simply, and ushered him through another door; this time, into darkness.
Karl wandered through shadows and twisting tunnels, alone. There was no presence that walked beside him, only hollowness. In the darkness he felt as though he were walking through the fabric of his dreams, where he had met the strange man so many times before, the man he somehow knew was the key to his whole life. He'd not thought of him in awhile, but the memory was returning; that voice, young like his own but sure and confident, his skin beneath Karl's fingers, his arms wrapped comfortingly around Karl's shoulders. What had that man called him? Friend, confidant, lover perhaps. Never his name. Never his full name. Never the name his soul answered to.
He sobbed, desolate and broken, and then something was with him; a horrible presence, not the comforting aura of his imaginary friend. We are not Karl Vates, it hissed, and Karl's insides froze with the ice and hate that poured in. He loathed this voice more than all others because it loathed him, and because it was him, speaking from the darkest recesses of his mind. We are strong. We are many. But the many are one and the one is not you. It is me.
Something in Karl broke and so did the darkness as his phone buzzed; shaking off the bad thoughts he opened it, hoping to see Egbert's familiar blue text. Instead, what he got was radioactive waste green.
GG: gog, karl, haven't you gotten it yet?
GG: really, it's so simple, and you already know the answer!
AG: THEN WHY DON'T YOU FUCKING TELL ME WHAT IT IS?
GG: oh, i can't do that! only jawwhn is allowed to tell you. it's a rule.
Karl shut his phone again, snarling, and continued on, the throbbing in his ankle returning.
And then he approached the dais, for the third and final time. There was no panic now, no fear, not even as the sphinx opened its jaw to deliver the question a third time. Calm overtook him, and he felt almost drugged, like his body was not his own; lethargic, a stupor seizing him.
"Wait!" Karl commanded, and the sphinx paused. "Before I answer, tell me-- did a girl come through here with a dragon?"
"Yes," the sphinx replied, bowing its head. "She did."
"And did she get it right? Is she alive?"
Another nod. "Yes, she did." After a pause, she added, "And on the first try."
Karl took a long, harsh, rattling breath and closed his eyes. "Then I'm ready."
For the third and final time, the sphinx spoke. "Boy, who are you?"
And Karl answered, "You were wrong. I am Karl Vates. But I'm other things too. I can remember them sometimes, when I sleep or when things feel wrong, and I know that they're there, inside of me. But right now? Right now, I'm Karl Vates. And I'd like to stay that way a little longer, if that's perfectly fucking alright with you."
The sphinx was silent for a long moment, watching him, her lion's tail thrashing wildly-- and then she bowed to him and stepped aside, revealing the tenth door that had waited behind her, unseen. "One day, you will awaken," she told him, sounding unfathomably sad. "I pray that when that day comes, Karl Vates dies a swift and just death." Then no more was said and Karl glared at her as he stomped past. Through the last door was another circular room, but one whose diameter was much wider and whose height was much more spectacular; the tower he'd seen before, rising up towards the gate. There were stairs around the circumference, cracking and crumbling but that would bear their weight to the top, and windows near the summit that let in the howling wind and cold, bitter rain.
Teri was sitting on a fallen slab of stone, her chin in her hands and a bored look on her face, but she looked up towards him when Lemonsnout did, scornful. "What took you so long?"
"Finding myself," Karl sighed, and without a backward glance he started climbing. Outside, it began to rain.
---
"Who am I?" you ask, blinking, and then your smile grows to split your face in half, wide and powerful as a river. "Why, that's a silly question! Who else would I be but me?"
The sphinx smiles back, warmly, and gives your forehead a motherly lick, ushering you towards the door with one paw. "Good enough."
==>