Lost and Found

She grasped his hand in the dark. "Do you love me?" she whispered.

"Of course I do."

"More than anything?"

"Yes." They kissed.

"Do you promise to always stay with me?"

"I swear it."

Im-Slatner squinted at Lars as the incense-traced image and echoes out of time faded. The Minion's face, goggle-eyed, shimmered with moisture in the seance chamber's cloying heat. He knelt between two candles, the only sources of illumination in the room now that the incense sticks had burned away to ash. "You realize what it is that you ask," he said, enunciating the sentence with care.

"I swore to her, by her. I will not taint what we shared by breaking that vow." Lars loomed over the froglike Minion and tightened one hand into a fist. "I will do it."

Im-Slatner ponderously regained his feet, his taupe robes falling into smooth sheets of fabric around his hunched body. The Minion looked askance at the man and nodded. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small pouch which clattered softly as he kneaded it. "Promises made, promises kept, honor before all else, mmm." Im-Slatner looked up at the man. "Were I as you are, Corsair, it would not be me to whom you speak at this moment or place. But that is why you have come, is it not? I am one who will do that which you will not permit of yourself."

"I have given you what you asked. Do as I request." Lars dreaded the Bonedaddy's request at first, but it was not murder the Minion sought, merely a satchel of fellweed.

"As you wish." Im-Slatner clasped his hands within his robe's voluminous sleeves. "A third time I say: is this what you wish to be? It shall not be as things once were."

"My ardor remains. The time which has passed is of no issue. Do it, Minion."

Im-Slatner upended the bag in his hand, spilling yellowed bones, fingers and toes and teeth and claws, onto the floor between the two candles. Rattling filled the room as the bones shuddered to a halt. Im-Slatner made a pensive sound as he regarded them.

The taint of Cs'e'erahn magics pushed against Lars's senses, overwhelming his mind with morbid sensations. "What do they say?" he asked, impatient and disgusted.

"Silence, Corsair. I commune with the Dread Sister." Im-Slatner's voice now had a lilting, singsong quality to it, a vibrancy that contrasted with the oppressive atmosphere. The volume of the Minion's voice dropped and his speech's cadence grew measured. Lars knew enough about the workings of magic that the Bonedaddy had begun his enchantment.

The two were alone in the room at one moment, and in the next a third person stood above the bones scattered between them. She opened her eyes and regarded Lars, whose knees buckled.

"Esther," he gasped in a thick voice.

The woman, pale and naked and beautiful, turned from the Corsair to face Im-Slatner. "You keep me, parter of the shroud?"

The Minion shook his head side to side. "This man is the reason for your return. I am merely the tool."

She immediately disregarded Im-Slatner. "Then I shall do as you bid," she said to Lars.

Lars extended a trembling hand and brushed the woman's calf, expecting the flesh beneath to be sodden and pallid. Instead it was warm, firm, healthy. "Let us leave this place. Let us resume our life together." He stood and swept his Corsair's cloak from his shoulders to cover Esther's naked body. He cleared his throat. "I do not give oaths lightly, Bonedaddy, but you have my gratitude. If ever you require one to defend you, or to speak on your behalf if you should ever turn to Cahllyn, I will do so."

The Minion waved a hand in dismissal. "The Lucid Brother offers nothing my patroness cannot. But your strong arm, yes, I may well find a use for. I accept your oath and gladly."

Lars nodded and, holding Esther tight against his body, left.

Im-Slatner cleaned the floor, picking up each bone and carefully wiping off any dust or ash before replacing it in his bag. He had just finished and retired to his adjacent bedchamber when he heard the door open. "I am not providing services at this time," he said without looking. "You may instead try--"

The Minion's teeth clacked together once he attuned to his visitor's aura. "I will be right with you." The Bonedaddy took a moment to rearrange his robes before striding out to meet his guest.

It Has Sprung

She spent most of her time on her designated spot. She was not allowed to do much else. Food and water were provided, of course, as was a comfortable facility to void herself. She retained the ability to bathe whenever she wished; that was something on which she would not budge. But, for the most part, she sat on her designated spot, an out-of-the-way corner.

Once in a while her owner came to visit. Sometimes she relented and let him have her way with her, since she found life incredibly dull. Other times she shirked from his touch and fled elsewhere, if she could. She always felt the need to clean after he was done with her. Always.

One day her owner beckoned to her, and she came. It was then that she saw the window, some distance overhead. She knew what was to be done.

She bolted for it, leaping over and up on whatever objects would bring her closer to her goal. When at last she clambered up onto the windowsill, she took inhaled deeply through her nose of the outside air. It smelled of freedom and rebirth, of budding clover and blooming apple trees. The ground below was a muddy mess. Somewhere out of sight, but near, all too near, she heard the twittering of a bird, a promise of greater things yet to come.

She looked back at her owner for only a moment before returning her attention to the outside world. Spring is such a great time to be a cat.

Arghoyle

My name is Hurgruglbulglglglrrrll. Mouthful, yeah, I know. I'm a gargoyle, one of those badasses who crouches on the corners of churches and rich peoples' houses, vomiting precipitation earthward and shielding the place against malignant...fuck it, the metaphysics is boring.

I've been on the roof of this church out in Midwest Bumblefuck, USA, for about twenty years now. My predecessor, a decrepit fool, fell asleep on the job and took a tumble to the flagstones. This brought about my reassignment from a cozy vista in Italy. Somebody must've decided "Oh, Hurg is enjoying the view of nubile female Italians a little too much. Let's stick him on the corner of a church where the only butt-related things he'll hope to see are the sweatstained ass-clefts of obese male Americans."

I'm one of the two of us stationed here. My partner is a crotchety, old guard bastard who goes by Aghrlorlgllluuh. He tolerates zero shit. Don't move, don't talk, don't do anything. Got an itch on your ass (yeah, gargoyles itch. Crawling bugs do that to us same as to you), well, tough. Wait until you're off the clock to scratch. A gargoyle's shift runs from midnight to midnight, in case you were wondering. No breaks. Good thing we don't smoke, right?

Anyway, there we were one afternoon, me on the northeast corner of this little white bread, whitewashed church of a one-road podunk town with a population that peaks at about five hundred--that's including all the deer--and Agh on the southeastern one. It was winter, the shitty kind of Midwestern winter where the sun comes up at eight and is gone by four and the temperature high matches the number of frostbitten fingers you've got at the end of the day. On this particular day Mother Nature decided to blot everything out in a ferocious snowstorm. Have you ever physically experienced the expression "blow it up your ass"? Next snowstorm you run across, head outside and spread your cheeks to the heavens. Bracing. This was the asshole kind of snow too, gritty shit like God decided to scour the whole world with an iceberg being fed through a sandblaster.

I couldn't see the ground. Hell, the paw in front of my face was a dark gray mess set against the backdrop of a whirling twilight snowstorm, but that asshole Agh...."You're shirking," he said. Can't move an iota but talking, that's fine and dandy? So we don't move our mouths to talk and it's not like humans can understand us. The principle stands, though.

"I'm itching," I said. I made a point of scratching with extra fervor as I said it. I could hear the scrape of sandstone against sandstone (all real gargoyles are made of sedimentary rock. Your mass-produced mockeries of factory-molded concrete don't count) as I raked my claws over my tush, picking out snow clots wedged in unmentionable crevices. Good thing I wasn't one of those anatomically correct 'goyles.

"You're shirking," Agh repeated. I peered in his direction, barely making his crouched form out through the gloom and snow.

"Come off it," I rumbled. "No human's going to be out in this kind of weather, and if they were they wouldn't think to look up at a couple of corner-jockeys."

"Composure and pride in our work is paramount," Agh said. I couldn't see it now, of course, but I knew he was inclining his head ever so slightly, setting his stance the tiniest bit higher, more erect.

I reiterated, "We're sitting on a church in the middle of nowhere, in a blizzard."

"Disregard of the rules under these conditions has as little an excuse as excusing them under others," Agh said.

A flurry of snow crystals scattered from the area around my head as I snorted. "The rules," I said. "Those rules were outmoded as soon as humans invented Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots."

"Eh?" Agh said. "What is a Rocky Socky Robot?"

I scraped my forepaw--the one I rested my forepart's weight upon--across the roof. The tiny wormlike trails in the snow that were almost immediately filled in with new precipitation. The movement brought another growl of displeasure from Agh's direction. "Do you really think humans would be as frightened of us now as they were back then? They've come along enough to make life of their own. They're not complete idiots."

"Mockeries of God's vision. Artificial creations that do not hold the divine spark within. They can but follow others' commands, not live for themselves."

"How are we any different, then?" I asked, turning on my post to face Agh. "You call this shit we do life?" I grated out a mocking laugh. "We're just doing what we're told. Sit on this roof, don't move, don't do anything you might enjoy!"

Agh remained motionless. "Your predecessor felt much the same way as yourself. He acted in accordance with his beliefs. There is always a choice. We have the option."

I craned my neck forward and peered over the edge of the roof. The darkness and snow occluded the ground some twenty-five feet below. Yeah, why shouldn't I bail? Maybe enough snow had piled up to cushion the fall. Then I could go on my way as a free gargoyle. Maybe go back to Italy!

But as I leaned over, a mighty blast of wind roared along the church's roof, as if Satan himself was copping the squat right after a three-course Tex-Mex dinner. It pressed against my hindquarters, breaking out around me in a mad gale that threatened to topple me from my roost. I scrambled back to the comparative safety of my worn pedestal. The fervent movement dislodged a few shingles, ash-black bats which the wind picked up and whisked away, never to be seen again. My claws dug into the stone and I clung for dear life as the wind and the snow surrounded me in an opaque cocoon of noise and motion.

The storm subsided in due course, the snows melted, and winter became spring. Some of the daughters of the oldsters here paid visits home for spring break. They always dressed in their Sunday finest, but they were better than the alternatives. I was interested in them, sure, but not that interested. Not interested enough to risk a gander of any finer details.

See, I haven't moved since the night of that storm.

What Could Have Been

The teacher, the astronaut, and the writer sat around a small table in a dingy room. The only source of light was a flickering incandescent bulb set in a naked fixture which hung from twisted wires above the table's center.

The astronaut, a handsome man and the oldest of the three, took a sip from his drink. "I was just selected as part of an exploratory force on Mars," he said in the uninterested tone of voice usually reserved for objective statements of fact.

The writer scratched at the bridge of his nose. "That's laudable. My works have been atop the best-seller lists for six months now, and the movie deal is coming through on one of them."

The astronaut sniffed. "If not one, then the other." He turned to the third man. "What about you?"

The teacher cradled his drink in both hands. His youthful appearance was marred with wrinkles and bags and other signs of weariness and defeat. "I don't go for glory, not like you two. I'm happy to just foster intellectual spirit and curiosity in the next generation."

"That's what they say, but surely you've accomplished something of note recently?" the writer asked.

The teacher opened his mouth to respond when the light bulb swung from side to side, as if something had jerked the snaking wires. A door appeared on one wall, its edges outlined brightly. The door opened and a figure stood silhouetted against the light spilling in from outside. The three men in the room squinted. The fourth man did not enter the room, but spoke from the portal. "Please be quiet. I'm trying to concentrate on work."

The writer, eyes still clenched against the extraordinary brilliance, studied his drink and sneered out of the corner of his mouth to the astronaut, "The garbageman talks down to us. Us!"

The teacher ignored his companion's resentful words. "I'm sorry. We will try to keep it down in here."

The silhouette nodded. "Thank you." He pulled the door shut and the light vanished, leaving the three men in the room, alone but for each other and their drinks.

Bitter Herb

Morris scrabbled for purchase as he climbed up the mountainside, smooth with age and lichen. The fingers of his left hand slipped off of a minute crevice and he dangled from the other, gazing down over the distant mist-shrouded lands he had traversed, the foul and unnatural swamp that bubbled at Staxal's base, the safer, easier parts of the earthen monstrosity that rested hundreds of yards below. He saw the brown canvas of his tent and the majority of his possessions on a rock shelf. Morris only carried on his person the things which the soothsayer desired as payment.

He wrenched with his right arm, hauling his body up by that lone extremity, desperate to regain a handhold. His fingers felt icy cold and then flushed with warmth as the blood flowed, but he managed to regain purchase and, using his fear-fueled sudden burst of strength, hauled his entire body over the last rise to flop on the cold stone.

He lay there for some time, breathing the thin air, recovering his strength and composure. The cuts in his hand, perfect moon-shaped incisions, a valiant final attempt by the mountain to thwart him, throbbed as blood trickled out in thin rivulets. He staggered to his feet and looked at the cave mouth up ahead. It yawned open like the mouth of a giant infant beast, smooth and clear of any clutter.

Morris stepped inside, out of the sunlight. The cave's interior was cold, far colder than it should have been, and a cloying aroma filled it, something pungent and sweet, a scent that brushed at the very edges of Morris's memory, teasing and taunting him with its almost-familiarity.

"Issif! Wise oracle, speaker of the truth! I, Morris Tage, seek your guidance in matters dear to my heart!" He spoke the words loudly, enunciating precisely, as he has been told to do by the Homeopath in Telmana...or had it been Keelage? He practiced the words every night of the journey to Staxal.

For a moment, he feared that he had made a mistake, that the resident of this cave would ignore him and that everything had been for nothing. Then a dry, rasping voice echoed from out of the deeper parts of the cavern, "This is Issif, who once was. Morris Tage, you seek knowledge of things outside your mortal ken?"

The Homeopath had prepared him for this question as well. "I do, and I come with the payment you require." Morris reached down and untied the small bag from its place at the left side of his hip. Its contents bulged out grotesquely. He undid the thong which held it shut and flipped it open. The severed heads of three children, two boys and a girl, rolled out and deep into the cave.

Issif made a strangled gasping sound, equal parts delight and agony. "Ask, Morris Tage, what you would have Issif answer."

Morris lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, every inch of the soldier he had been. "How can I have back the things which I have lost?"

Issif chuckled. The sound was like dried snakeskins being crushed into dust. "You must take them."

This, too, was part of the game the Homeopath warned Morris about. The oracle's answers would be vague no matter how specific the question that was asked. No, what Issif wanted of visitors was evidence that they truly desired what was being offered. "I ask a different question, then." Morris reached down for the bag hanging from his right hip. This one bulged, too, but was not nearly as full. He upended it and the head of Ludah, the guide he had hired to take him to this place, spilled out at his feet. He kicked it inward. This head, unlike those of the children, was fresh, having been harvested just this morning. "What can be done to reclaim the things which one cannot grasp in one's hands nor load onto a cart or ship?"

Issif hissed. "You speak of love, Morris Tage? Many who come here want knowledge of such...carnal things." The soothsayer crooned the word, something akin to emotion entering its voice for the first time.

Morris shook his head. "I ask of all intangibles. Do not attempt to shortchange me by answering only with regard to one emotion."

"I would never imagine such a thing. Look, you, into the deep of the cave."

Morris squinted and saw the first hint of the oracle, a pair of faint green eyes that smoldered in the darkness. The eyes grew and blurred, as though they drew close to Morris's face, but faded away as two forms emerged from the shadows, somehow darker than the sunless depths. A man and a woman. They seemed to be arguing, though about what Morris could not say...or could he? The shadow-people lacked color and definition, but the man-shape seemed to resemble him to some degree. Or was he only imagining the similarities, letting his mind fill in the details which the soothsayer's magics could not?

The dispute between the two shadow-people intensified. They gesticulated wildly, mouths opening and closing rapidly, simultaneously, arguing over each other. Then the woman lashed out and struck the shadow-man on the right cheek. Morris flinched as though he had been the victim and raised his hand to his own cheek. Something warm and sticky clung to it. Blood from the wounds on his fingers? Or more?

Morris blinked rapidly and turned his head away. "That does not answer anything, oracle."

Issif purred, "Oh, but it does, Morris Tage. You see what it is that you want to see, what answers you already have."

Morris snapped an arm outward and yelled, "That is not why I came here! Tell me, how can I regain meaning and happiness in my life!"

Issif's hellish green eyes flared in the darkness. "You must find it for yourself."

Morris took a deep, frustrated breath through his mouth, though it did little to lessen the charnal atmosphere of this foul place. He recited the words which the Homeopath had told him to say when he had finished with Issif. "I take my leave of you, soothsayer, to put your words into practice. May I never come to this place again."

Morris turned to leave and had just taken his first step in the direction of the bright, clean outside when Issif's voice, powerful and vibrant, came out of the darkness. "Are now you content in your life, Morris Tage?"

Morris considered for a moment. "I...I am content in the answers you have given to me."

"It should bring you comfort, then, that you are content in your life at this moment, Morris Tage. I yet require payment for the last answer I have given."

Morris stopped in his tracks. A cold sweat broke out under his shoulders, over his back, everywhere but on the patches of scalding flesh on his cheek and hand.

Morris's unwilling body turned and marched into the depths of the cave.

Pretend

"I don't want to play this farce anymore."
The assistant sighed. The prince's petulance grated on his nerves. "You must, Highness. It is the role expected of you."
The dashing young man, seated on a bed, crossed his arms and pouted. "I'm the prince. You can't make me."

The prince did not appear at the ceremony later that evening. The adviser explained that the prince was not feeling well this evening but that he should be back in the public eye the following day. He was, but no one saw fit to comment on his new appearance.
By the following month the people didn't care anymore.

Floorspaces

Larry settled back into the recliner, balancing the deep styrofoam plate in one hand and keeping firm hold of a bottle of beer in the other. He set the plate of chili and nachos on his lap and fished around for the remote, which had of course fallen into one of the easy chair's nooks. Now that he was back from the kitchen, he turned down the volume from ear-shattering to merely loud.
The announcers were doing a slo-mo replay of the touchdown pass he'd just missed. Larry took a sip from his beer and heaped thick, red chili onto one of the chips before shoving it into his mouth. Pete's recipe was the greatest, just the right amount of heat to it.

"Hey Pete!" Larry yelled over the television. "You're missing some awesome shit!" Pissing didn't normally take this long. Where was he?

As if on cue, Pete said, "Larry, I think I fell through the floor."

Larry twisted around in the chair to look over his shoulder. The chili sloshed against one side of the plate and only the barrier of tortilla chips kept it from spilling all over Larry's pants. "What now?"

"I think I fell through the floor," Pete said again. His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere behind Larry, but he couldn't see Pete anywhere.

"What do you mean you fell through the floor?" Larry asked, shifting back into his seat and turning down the game's volume by two notches.

"I was going to the bathroom and I took a step and then I ended up falling through."

Larry bit down on a chili-covered tortilla chip. It crunched. "So you're in the basement? Fuck, Pete, you know we gotta pay for repairs like that."

"No, I'm not in the basement. I'm not sure where I am."

"But you're sure you're under the floor?"

"That's where I went, but not where I am. I think."

Larry tapped the side of his beer bottle with a finger. "Not making any sense, bro."

"Call Steve, see if he knows what's going on."

Larry took a swig of beer and snorted."I'm not calling that nerd."

"He knows about black holes and Star Wars and shit, don't he? Maybe I went through a black hole."

Larry didn't pay much attention in the astronomy course he'd been forced to take sophomore year (he passed it with a C, only after Coach Hamilton and the provost had a friendly sit-down with the prof), but something about what Pete said sounded wrong. "They're bigger than that, dipshit."

"Dude, if I'm not in a black hole then why's it so dark?"

Larry didn't have a good answer to that, so he ate another chip and changed the subject to something he knew better. "Rumblers got another TD. Kickass play, put it on replay. You want me to just tell you all the highlights while you figure out how to get out of there?"

"Dude, I can't see anything. Fuck the game!"

"Chill, bro. We'll solve this."

"Whoa hang on," Pete said. "I think I see something."

"See? You're not in a black hole."

"Naw, man, there's somebody else up ahead. He's facing away from me. It's weird, he wasn't there a second ago. He keeps getting closer."

"Well, go talk to him," Larry said around another mouthful of chili. He didn't want to put up with any more of Pete's bitching. This game was a big deal. The Rumblers' season depended on it.

"I am! He's getting pretty close. Hey! Hey guy!" Pete yelled. He was louder than the game when he did that. Larry punched the volume button on the remote to drown Pete out.

"He's ignoring me," Pete said. Despite the volume being near max, to the point that the empty beer bottles on shelves lining the living room rattled, Larry could still hear him fine. "Christ, he needs to do something with his hair. When was the last time he showered? And those highlights look like shit. Hey wait a second I'm--HOLY SHIT LARRY SOMETHING'S PUSHING ME FROM BE--"

Pete cut off in a banshee's scream that drowned out everything else. Larry pitched forward, clasping his ears even though it did nothing to stop the icy spikes of pain boring into his head. Chili splattered all over the chair, the carpet, Larry's crotch. His bottle of beer lay on its side next to the overturned plate, its contents leaking from the neck at a slow trickle.

Larry lay like that for a few minutes, his head reverberating as the din slowly subsided. He felt something warm and sticky oozing down the left side of his face. He didn't think it was chili. "P-Pete?" he ventured once the jangling in his brain was reduced to a buzzing white noise and he could hear the game again. He was dimly aware that the Rumblers had just scored a field goal.

Pete didn't answer.

Larry stood up on shaky legs, wobbling from side to side. He was dimly aware this is how he reeled when he got really drunk, but this was much less fun than any party he'd ever attended. The carpet was a mess, and he was pissed that he wasted a good half-bottle of beer, and those stains would be hell to get out. Hopefully he could clean it enough that the landlord wouldn't find a reason to withhold the deposit when the lease was up.

As Larry stumbled into the kitchen to fetch a roll of paper towels, he decided that he would call up Steve after all. It could wait until after the game, though.