18

Walking up to the murky, brick building Marith figured she was arriving last, having visited her father in the clinic previous to this, until she noticed William and Lisa in her wake. They had just parked Lisa’s car and now walked hand in hand some 60 feet behind her. They spoke animated, but in hushed tones. Lisa occasionally burst out in giggles.

Seeing loving couples didn’t hurt or bother Marith anymore, not as much as it did before, she had recently noticed to her own surprise. She had Nate now and even though they couldn’t be together as much as they wanted to she felt calm and safe, knowing he was out there, having the assurance that there was a man providing her with warmth and compassion. She finally had a partner she could call her own.

Marith waited in front of the glass sliding doors, so Lisa and Will could catch up. She couldn’t see past the beige coloured doorbell panel and the brown carpets, but Jonathan soon appeared in the hallway, undoubtedly tipped off by Brad.

Inside, on the other side of the double glazing, he stuck his key in a slot in the side wall and the doors glided open. He was still wearing his work shirt and name tag from the convenience store. He had probably come straight from work, having to close the business early for this.

“Lisa, you’re joining us?” He wondered surprised.

“Yes, I’ve never been down there. I wouldn’t want to miss this for the world.” She sounded dreamily and smiled her angelic smile at them.

The rest of the Chain was draped over the brown and olive green furniture in the lobby, entertaining themselves with outdated books and magazines they had snatched from the shelves of a Scandinavian looking bookcase, stored with discarded dead trees.

“What’s acid rain?” Kyle informed, frowning at a National Geographic.

“A hoax from the nineties,” Brad muttered, leaving through an old atlas. “Just like those holes in the ozone layer.”

“We’ve got farting cows and starving polar bears now,” Vanessa educated him cheerfully.

“Oh, goodie!” Kyle chuckled, with a sly smile and a skewed look at his Mage.

“Let’s go,” Juliette encouraged, when the group was complete, tossing the Guinness Book of World Records back at the rack with a sigh. No human could ever beat her running, but she would never be able to become a professional athlete without outing her Chain or the existence of their whole supernatural, parallel world for that matter.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Keymaker?” James asked.

“He’s already down there,” Will informed.

They strode up the stairs, to give the elderly residents the opportunity to ride the one working elevator. The other one was still adorned with an out of order notification and two plastic banners, crossing each other in the middle of the electronic doors.

They got out of the stairwell on the third floor, where Jonathan’s grandmother was awaiting their arrival.

“Wow, neat CGI!” Marith heard Kyle utter behind her.

She smirked. He was right. It was a sight straight out of an animated movie.

“I knew it all along! We’re in a fairy-tale,” James added.

Lucille smiled a patient smile, clenching her walker. She was wearing a bright blue, knitted sweater and pearl jewels, but nothing was as bright as the birds that graced the passage. Chickadees and meadowlarks sat on the railings that traced the walls into the hallways, parrots perched on the backs of plastic chairs, placed on the landing, a young hawk flew under the lights, casting moving shadows.

A pair of budgerigars landed on her walker, as a befuddled great grey owl marched towards them over the dark carpet, the hallways being too narrow for him to completely spread his wings.

“That one is new,” Lucille mumbled as the Pupils eyed the avian exposition with lots of unanswered questions.

The smell in the hallways was worse now that Marith possessed enhanced senses. This had very likely something to do with the growing bird population in the Bellevue complex as well.

“Keymaker is expecting you. I am merely here to oversee the secrecy of your journey to the Corridors,” she explained.

“How do we get there?” Anton inquired, suspiciously eyeing the elevator that appeared to not be functioning.

“Watchmaker will inform Keymaker when you are ready to descend.”

“Aren’t we ready?” Kyle wondered.

“I’m ready,” Amber shared as redundant as ever.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Jonathan informed, having to actively refrain from rolling his eyes.

His grandmother took her clockwork out of a purse, placed in the basket of her walker, and flipped the back open. Marith was fairly sure hers couldn’t do that, without any intervention of Watchmaker and his little tools. Lucille pulled the tiniest of all screwdrivers from a pocket in her long skirt, aimed it at what could only be a tiny screw and turned the tool precisely halfway to the right.

Then she placed everything on the plateau of her walking aid and closed her eyes, clasping the handles. A light atmosphere dawned on them and travelled over the third floor of the sombre apartment building. Miss Parker reached out to her birds in the same way the strings in Marith’s mind could to human hearts.

A cacophony of hushed chirping, whistling and twittering travelled through the halls of the third floor, spreading the word. First quietly and from far away, flowing through the passages like a stream of water would through a valley, later arriving at their landing confirming to the Elder and the Pupils that the hallways were in fact deserted. None of the senior residents were currently out and about shuffling towards the elevators or the staircase.

The great grey owl, new to this diverse, but well-adjusted group of peers, seemingly turned its head several times around in astonishment, like the arms of a very quick clock. The black pupils in his bright, yellow eyes looked like two buttons missing from someone’s jacket.

Behind the red and white banners the elevator door of the third floor whizzed open. The owl fluttered its wings, lifting himself several feet off the ground and yelled a horrendous, flabbergasted scream at this alien technology.

“Shhhj,” miss Parker told him, to which he stomped off, visibly displeased, to join a falcon with equally yellow eyes, who sat on the rim of a plastic pot with fake ferns, in the corner of the overflow.

“I’ll re-attach the banners,” miss Parker promised, ignoring the newcomer, as Anton and Juliette hesitantly and carefully tried to peel off the tape without damaging the plastic.

The group entered the artificially lit, beige, linoleum covered, floating box and crammed themselves in there. Marith stood perched up against the cold back wall. They were packed so tight together she could smell everybody’s perfume and aftershave.

“The capacity is 8 people,” she felt the need to educate the group.

“Yeah.” Kyle frowned, after a glance at the panel, hanging left of the door.

“Don’t worry,” Juliette started, “elevators can always hold more weight than they indicate and we’re not that heavy.”

She winked. Marith smiled.

Brad entered the tiny cubicle last. They waved at miss Parker as the doors automatically closed with a slight sigh. She waved back. The owl stared at the group intently, with a curiously stretched neck, from his place next to the plastic plant.

“How do we go down now?” Anton asked, peering at the panel, as puzzled as the others that stood up front.

“Allow me!” Brad triumphantly pulled a key from an inside pocket of his coat and put it to use, almost elbowing Vanessa.

He shoved the single key into a lock in the steel control panel, that was usually meant for the maintenance man, and turned it right as it didn’t seem to be able to shift to the left.

The elevator shuddered briefly and ominously, before remembering its only job. It reluctantly stuttered downward.

Marith looked at the lights above the door that indicated which floor the elevator was struggling by.

“So, your grandmother…” James started, turning his head around, straining his neck, addressing Jonathan, who stood behind him.

“She communicates with birds. I guess that is her talent.”

“She’s a Mage as well?”

Jonathan nodded and repeated what he had explained to Marith before. About how his grandparents didn’t have regular access to a Prophet, how his grandfather couldn’t run anymore after the Great War and that the birds would bring the messages from Oracle to her, like supersonic postal pigeons.

As soon as the red light that addressed the first floor went out the elevator soughed smoothly down, into darkness. It accelerated to a worrisome speed, which led to alarmed glances inside, until it reduced its own speed again to soundly deliver its cargo.

After a metallic ring the elevator opened its doors, but nobody felt inclined to step outside. Marith peered between the heads and shoulders of the others, but nothing, except darkness, stared back at them. A dreadful draught mocked them and provoked a universal shiver amongst the group.

They could only see as far as the pale elevator lights allowed them and it didn’t look tempting. The Corridors that laid before them were not exactly inviting them in.

“I think we have to step outside,” William shared timidly, not sure whether or not he was allowed to share insider knowledge.

Vanessa had been there before and wasn’t playing that game again. She stood her ground, while Juliette bravely pushed Brad into the eerie tunnels. Tiny spots in the walls around them jumped on, as if instructed by a higher power, and brought some perspective. An impossibly straight tunnel would stretch out before them, if it wasn’t for the fact that Keymaker was blocking their view.

His plump and sturdy figure stood in the dimly lit, ice cold passage they had been dropped in. Marith was the last one to set foot in the hallways. Behind her the elevator doors closed and it hurried up to continue to perpetually linger between floors, refusing to work when an ordinary human would tempt it to fulfil its duty as a vertical way of transportation, until magically crafted keys would be turned.

“Follow me,” Will’s father commanded with authority and a weak arm-gesture. He yanked a key, attached to a keyring, carrying a whole family of keys, out of a slot in the right wall.

The Pupils marched through the dimly lit underground passages, while Keymaker led the way by stomping forward, clanking sounds arising from his pants.

Marith realised that the Corridors were the same, uninspiring dull grey as the walkway to the Watchmaker during her Rebirth, with an almost indiscernible green hue to them.

She noticed that above the spots the walls were blackened by streaks of soot. There had previously been torches in those openings, she thought. It was clearly all very old.

“Okay, kiddo’s, listen up.” Keymaker turned around, after a walk that took about as long as hiking from Nick’s house to the clinic.

The concierge tried to hoist his pants up his waist and failed pitifully. His outfit did jingle and jangle pleasantly.

They had arrived in a large, obscure room, that was very likely square in shape, but Marith wasn’t able to tell yet, because the dimness prevented her from setting eyes on the walls on the other ends.

Halfway across the space there appeared to be a bed with a square and fluctuating source of light above it, about the size of the bed. That moment Marith learned something about herself. Which was that she couldn’t be surprised by oddly placed furniture anymore.

“We are right now standing in the atrium of the Corridors. Every hallway eventually leads to this overflow, but don’t let that simplicity fool you. The atrium is like Medusa’s head and the Corridors are like the snakes,” Keymaker continued, visibly proud of his analogy, “running wild in every direction, occasionally changing course.” He smirked. “I would strongly advise against entering on your own. It could be a long, lonely and hungry exercise, before I find you again.”

The Corridors didn’t carry sound, they swallowed vibrations like they could people. His words were digested and didn’t echo against the walls.

When he stepped further inside the chamber the lights on the walls all around them jumped on and Marith was confirmed in her suspicions about the shape and size of the room.

Keymaker moved along the atrium as he spoke and the group followed him closely, increasingly worried about the possibility of going astray and starving.

“The only ways out are back the way we just came from, via the elevator that leads up to the Bellevue complex, or the plateau up to Sweet Lake’s hospital… and apparently the atrium, if you don’t mind the cold and the wetness.”

He nodded to the opening in the ceiling. Most Pupils glanced up.

Marith froze at the sight of the plafond, or better, the lack of a substantial one. She took a few steps closer to the bed, glanced up and noticed the substance moved and sinuated.

“What is this?” Marith whispered as their location slowly started to dawn on her.

“The lower waters of the lake,” Will informed dryly.

“We are UNDER Sweet Lake right now?” The only logical explanation finally hit her and she panicked at the thought of all that water above them.

“That must be quite the structure to keep the water out,” Amber commented.

“Yes, I have to admit that Watchmaker helped out with that one… and he’s still doing so,” Keymaker answered.

“It sounds like you’ve got aquafobia, a fear of water, or more precisely, a fear of the dangers of water,” Will told Marith.

“Thanks, how enlightening,” Marith answered curtly, “but it’s more the depth of the water that scares me, not so much the water itself.”

“Ah, that would be bathofobia.”

“You sure know a lot,” Marith noted tersely, still ill at ease.

Keymaker ignored their quibbling and went on to explain how his clockwork functions as a navigation system, because the Corridors and the chambers down there had this peculiar habit of moving, multiplying and merging every once in a while.

Vanessa absentmindedly realized Keymaker wasn’t paying attention to the Conference room, the door of which appeared to have moved to the other side of their passageway into the atrium.

She figured they were going to have to skip more than one door that day. There were simply too many and not all of the contents were that interesting or relevant.

The openings of the multitude of passages that disappeared into darkness had different shapes and sizes. The hallway they had come from and one on the opposite side of the atrium had quite large openings.

Keymaker noticed that some of the Pupils had detected this as well.

“The largest Corridors will eventually lead you to the exits,” he clarified. “So, if you do find yourself here at some point, try to stay in the wide lanes, it’s harder to get lost that way.”

“I bet my truck would fit through,” Brad noticed with a frown.

Keymaker nodded. “I can confirm it will!” He answered enthused. “There are three major entrances and exits. The one in the Bellevue complex, the one in the clinic and the one in the lake house.”

“So there is another exit?” Brad inquired, intrigued.

“Well,” Keymaker hesitated. “It’s more of an entrance. Technically you could go both ways, but if you go up you’d find yourself in someone else’s garage… unable to leave,” he added.

“Does my family know about this?” Marith asked, her eyes as wide as saucers, her mind racing with possible scenario’s and explanations.

“Eh, not sure they do,” Keymaker admitted. “It is the oldest entrance, together with this one,” he pointed at the opening to the lake. “The other two were added after the clinic and the apartment block were built. The one that leads up to your family home is actually closest to the atrium, if you don’t want to get wet,” he continued, as if any of that was relevant information or explained Marith’s questions.

He went on to explain about the differences of the platforms in the garage of the lake house and in the garage of the clinic. In order to be able to reach the apartment complex with a car that hallway is wide as well, even though leaving with a vehicle would be impossible.

“The Corridors are basically a storage facility,” Keymaker went on, as he jingled into the dimness and entered the first hallway. “Not much is made here, but a lot is kept here.”

Marith lingered behind, sauntering around the atrium. It wasn’t so much the ridiculousness of the fact she had grown up in a house on top of a direct gangway to the resting place of the creature that had haunted her for most of her life, as the impression that a hallway on her right seemed to have taken a special interest in her.

Ahead of the Chain the spots in the next hallway jumped on, but Marith was frozen, her feet glued to the floor, her movements interrupted by a gaze into nothingness.

The impenetrable cold and the absolute unknown made Marith’s skin crawl. The little hairs on her arms and neck were standing up, despite the fact that she was wearing her winter gear.

As she faced the darkness in the corridor ahead the rest of the group wandered further away, following Keymaker.

Maaarith. Something spoke, or rather, hissed.

The only ‘t’ in her name was pronounced in an off-putting wet way, as if it was about to be replaced by an ‘s’.

The unfolding blackness toyed with her, reminding her about her vulnerability, her puny existence, her nullity as a human being.

While the void whispered at her - first her name, then obscenities, jumping straight into nightmares, reminding her of the visions that had plagued her childhood - Vanessa marched back to yank her away from the draughty opening.

“W-what’s over there?” Marith stammered, unable to form a correct sentence in English, her heart hammering in her chest.

“That is not the right question to ask,” Vanessa answered softly, while they hastily trotted to the rest of the group, desperate not to get lost.

“Then what is?”

“The real question is ‘who was over there?’ And the answer is that the specific corridor you were staring at is leading to the Kid’s tomb.”

“Oh,” Marith exhaled, “that explains it.”

Vanessa wasn’t sure what she was babbling about, but she figured her talent could have made her susceptible to such energies. They all were as vulnerable as a wind vane to the storm that was their natural adversary in one way or another.

They followed the lights and soon caught up with the tour.

“Why is Keymaker so much younger than the other Elders?” Marith whispered to Vanessa. “I mean, Will is our age. Keymaker is his dad, right?”

“He’s no Elder. Watchmaker expressed a need for a new Keymaker at some point. Will’s dad was Rebirthed to fulfil a duty.”

“Based on what? How did you guys know who needed the Push?”

“Well, you and I were learning how to walk and talk back then, but I imagine it was based on a prediction by Oracle and probably a covert assessment by Pavan. Ultimately you could say it was a hunch or a lucky guess.”

“A very luck guess,” Keymaker interrupted, when they halted in front of a ceiling high door, wide enough to give access to an elephant, or two. It looked like a supersized entrance to a bank vault.

“You are from the same generation as our parents, but they didn’t form a Chain. Yet you seem to be Rebirthed, like us?” Jonathan joined the conversation about their guide’s origins.

“That’s correct. Because the Kid is…. was sealed in his tomb in Sweet Lake this village needs a Keymaker at all times. I would have been a Runner, if there had been a Chain for me to join, now my only function is Keymaker in these Corridors.”

Marith had to suppress a giggle at his un-athletic figure. Even putting her imagination under duress she couldn’t picture this blob of a man a Runner.

Keymaker grabbed the metal ring, filled with keys from one of the straps attached to his pants. He let them flow smoothly through his hands, like a wave rolling over a beach.

He trailed his fingers past the notched and grooved metal implements and stopped when he had found the right one. He shoved it in the shining keyhole, situated above the vault wheel.

“Are those keys all the same?” Amber asked with fake, playful interest.

“No,” Keymaker answered dryly.

“How do you know which key is the right one then?”

“I made them. I can find them back.”

“Does each chamber have its own key?” Amber continued, pushing for something.

“Yes,” muttered Keymaker, withholding a sigh, turning the key in its lock.

“Shouldn’t Brad have those too then?” Vanessa brought in, raising her eyebrows. What was the use of being able to enter the Corridors if he couldn’t reach the Mist either way?

“There is a time and place for everything,” Keymaker promised, with a vague wave of his hand. He didn’t make eye-contact with Vanessa as he said it.

They could hear the pins that travelled into the walls around the door retract, sliding back, when he pulled out the key and spun the wheel.

Either due to magic, or to mechanical ingenuity, the door slightly moved towards them, into the hallway. Keymaker pulled it to the right, throwing his weight in. With a barely audible whooshing sound the heavy door slid aside, baring a room as hoar as the rest of the underground fortress.

To Marith the whole stronghold had a very industrial, almost communist look to it, which probably served a purpose, like not wasting resources, while keeping the water of the lake out of the Corridors.

They stepped inside. Hanging on the walls and placed on display, on mismatched wooden dressers and under glass caskets, were enough spears, bows, arrows, axes, shields and blades to arm a small town of doomsday preppers for the apocalypse. If catastrophe would strike in the Viking Age that was.

An uncomfortable silence washed over the group, after Keymaker had guided them inside. There was a leaden mixture of dismay and awe hovering in the stale air between them.

“Why are these arms sooo old?” Brad was the first one to comment. He looked and sounded genuinely worried.

“We have to fight the Kid and the Birdman with this?” Jonathan gestured around.

“No, most of these arms are not for you to use. So, don’t worry…” Keymaker realized that these kids had yet to fully comprehend that they weren’t supposed to fight with tools, but with their minds and talents.

“Oh, I think we’re worried already,” Jonathan went on.

“Armsmaker died a long, long time ago and she left…”

“SHE?” Jonathan and Brad cried out in unison.

James and Anton just grinned. They already knew the story, but that didn’t make the reactions of their fellow Chain-members any less amusing.

“Oh, excuse us!” Vanessa crossed her arms and threw her hip out to make a feminine statement.

“None taken!” Amber scoffed.

Amber who, as usual, glanced more than occasionally at Brad wisely decided to stand by her fellow women. Apparently, her infatuation had limits.

Juliette reacted by throwing them a look that was a mix of disbelief and contempt.

Lisa just glanced around in silence, holding William’s hand without getting involved. Her air was so moony Marith often wondered if she was even aware of half the things going on. Was she continuously that distracted by the visions the Web provided for her she couldn’t pay attention to what happened in the here and now? Or did the present tense just not interest her?

Marith decided that she wasn’t going to remain passive in this matter. If there was any moment to let herself be heard, now was the time.

“Women have always had essential roles, even in ancient societies. In the age of the Vikings women were just as skilled and capable as their husbands in providing for the tribe and they would also help prepare for battle by crafting arms,” she spat factually.

“Didn’t they have other duties? Like home making and child rearing and such?”

“Yes, but on top of doing that and running the finances they had numerous other responsible tasks. They even travelled with their men to new worlds. They didn’t just sit around with a bunch of children in their laps.”

Marith was briefly taken aback by her own bluntness, as was the rest.

“Are you some sort of walking Wikipedia page?” James asked with a smirk.

“Maybe tapping into the internet is my talent,” Marith provoked.

“Is it?”

“No, I just open a book on occasion,” Marith retorted, rolling her eyes.

Keymaker attempted to regain control over the conversation and the tour. “What’s important is that she left us the tools we need.”

“What age did the Armsmaker live in?” Brad inquired.

“She was actually a Slavic woman from a tribe that was alive…” he thought about it for a few moments, before continuing, “I guess around the ninth century. She lived in a time when Vikings would conquer the Nordic half of Europe and the Slavic empire expanded in Eastern Europe. The Roman Empire had already collapsed and they were trying to fill the vacuum, just like the Germanic and Frankish tribes. There was a lot of fighting going on and most of the weapons you can see here were used back then.”

“Awesome,” Brad answered to make up for his earlier slip.

He strolled about the room with his thumbs hooked behind his leather belt. Marith could see in his eyes now that he was in fact starting to get impressed. Competence wasn’t limited by gender and it had never been.

“I guess this one looks cool,” Jonathan brought in, looking at a giant, but elegant looking bow, hanging in the centre of the back wall, accompanied by one accessory arrow.

“Yes, that one indeed looks cool. It is called the Perpetual Arrow and it was especially forged to take out the anchor. The arrow is a three bladed broad head, like the Slavs would use.”

Keymaker went on to explain that the fact that a new Armsmaker had not come forth in the meantime insinuated that these arms were still useable.

Most pieces of weaponry in that armoury had been used in actual fights and battles. For the past few hundred years various Runners from different Chains had been trusted with the task to search for and collect the original pieces, forged by the hands of Armsmaker.

Elements from the impact crater in Russia had surely been used in the melting and moulding process. The weapons, consisting of some kind of indestructible wood, iron and other various, lesser known materials, had been awaiting the awakening of evil, since their conception.

“The ones we have been able to identify are here, but logic dictates there must be many more arms from her hand lingering across Europe. Hopefully on display in glass caskets in museums and not still in use.”

“Do they have special powers?” Brad wondered.

“They probably all have magical traits to them, but we’re not clear on the side effects of each and every piece yet, so don’t target anything that’s alive and keep them to yourselves.”

“What about this Eternal Arrow?” Jonathan inquired.

“The Perpetual Arrow,” Keymaker corrected. “It’s to take out the… eh, Birdman.”

“So you said,” Jonathan hastily continued, “but shouldn’t we be carrying it with us then? Like, at all times?”

“We shouldn’t be killing the Birdman,” Vanessa punctuated.

“Right,” Keymaker glanced at her, before continuing, “you are supposed to kill the Kid and the general consensus is that his anchor will die off with him.”

“Then how do we kill the Kid with these?” Jonathan gestured frustrated at the walls and the display cases again.

“You are the weapon that will ultimately send the Kid away. You are the arrow, you are the axe, you are the blade. The fight with the Kid is a mental game, your battle with the Birdman is a physical one.”

“We are not supposed to kill it,” Vanessa reminded the group once more of what was discussed with the delegates from the other continents, more tersely this time.

“We know,” Keymaker confirmed. “This exists just in case. Back up plans are nice… And because we need to be prepared at all times, for about anything,” he segued nicely into his next point of order, “I bestow upon you,” he suddenly spoke ceremonial, “various means of self-defence, for practice purposes only.” He put a warning and pejorative finger in the air, which annoyed Vanessa infinitely.

He opened a drawer in a walnut dresser, on which various glass caskets had been placed and handed each Runner a blade with a solemn gesture. They took them respectfully.

Vanessa looked over Juliette’s shoulder as she inspected her gift. The knifes came in bone scabbards. Juliette pulled the blade out of it and held it against the light. It was unreasonably shiny and, just as the bow and arrow that Anton had stolen from Hungary and smuggled to Sweet Lake, etched with Glagolitic symbols.

“It’s quite big,” Vanessa whispered, as not to ruin the moment, with these seemingly sacred weapons.

“The blade is about a foot long,” Keymaker commented.

“Can I feel it?” Vanessa dared to ask.

“Sure.”

Juliette handed it to her. The handle had a wooden grip, that felt as soft as silk, with a deep brown, almost blackened colour, as if it had been burned before.

Armsmaker had been ahead of her time when she had forged and etched her weapons.

“Be mindful using them. As far as we know no creature stops bleeding after being cut or stabbed with one of these,” Keymaker informed, looking at James and Jonathan re-enacting a lethal battle scene from some movie or television show – Marith wouldn’t know, because she barely watched any television - that was apparently set in the middle ages.

Jonathan had just faux-stabbed James, who was descending dramatically to the ground, staring up as if he was about to travel to the light. Anton, Kyle and Amber applauded them weakly. James crawled up and took a humble bow.

“Thank you, thank you, I took drama classes in boarding school.”

“We could totally tell,” Amber answered, with an amused smile playing around her mouth.

“Then,” Keymaker closed the display and turned around to the back wall again, “I’ve got one more thing to give you, before we move on.”

He handed them four smaller bows and several sets of arrows, so each triangle would have one bow and plenty of arrows to practice with and train their currently non-existent archery skills.