Marching Orders

The observatory entrance was a small, wooden gate, more of a side door than a main entrance. It struck me that we were entering the building from the topmost floor, though I didn’t dare look over the side of the bridge again for fear of hearing Charybdis’ voice again.

Priscilla walked up to the door and carefully placed her hand against its wooden frame. She shot me a sideways glance.

“Get ready,” she said.

“For what?” I asked.

There was a loud click, and the gate swung inward.

Priscilla nimbly stepped to the side of the entrance, pushing the gate the rest of the way open with her outstretched wing. Electricity gathered around her lightning sleeve as she prepared a lightning strike. I raised the Mocles Saber instinctively in front of me, uncertain of what was about to happen.

After a tense few moments of watching the entrance and nothing happening, both Priscilla and Gordon exhaled deeply.

“Good,” she sighed, relief rife in her voice. “No welcoming party this time.”

Priscilla lowered her lightning sleeve, releasing any magic she had gathered for the attack. I kept my weapon raised at the door.

“On our last visit, every vampire ghoul on this floor came screeching for our blood the moment we opened the front door,” Gordon explained. “Hence our relief.”

“There could have been some waiting for us, but Fraysser probably cleared them out,” Priscilla added thoughtfully.

“Less work for us,” I said, lowering my blade.

Priscilla must have had high confidence in my abilities as a cheon-sa because she didn’t so much as flinch when she opened the door knowing very well that blood-thirsty monsters could have been waiting for us on the other side. I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or concerned.

“Now, before we barge into the most dangerous place this side of the nightmare,” Priscilla said, “A few reminders. One, don’t get bitten. That's a given. Gordon is fresh out of antidotes and I need to save my magic for a real emergency.”

“Noted."

“Two, as soon as we find Fraysser, take the darn key from him," she continued. "Even if you have to pummel him."

"I thought he was your friend."

"I honestly don't know what he is at this point," she replied. "Either way, we’re leaving as soon as the key is ours. Fraysser can decide if he wants to follow us or not.”

I wasn't too thrilled about potentially having to beat up another dreamer to secure our escape, but I reasoned that I could just use my time dilation to swipe the key from him if he wasn't open to cooperating.

“And if we run into Esther?” I asked.

Priscilla bit her lip.

“Take her out quickly,” she said after a moment. “But, if she’s become some kind of monster we can’t kill, just leave her and help the rest of us escape. There’s probably another guardian waiting for us behind the temple, so we need you in top shape until then. Got it?”

I remembered the hundreds of giant teeth sitting just a few hundred feet beneath the very ground we stood on. If those were the kinds of monsters dreamers could become, there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to deal with her without endangering the others even with my time magic. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Esther behind to end her days as a mindless monster, but that probably didn’t sit well with the others either. If both of them were willing to leave her out of necessity, it probably wasn’t my place to say otherwise.

“Understood,” I said. “But if I get a clear shot, I’m going to take it.”

I looked to Gordon, wondering how he felt about the instructions we had been given. His ears laid flat against his head.

“Thank you,” he said. “We’ve just met, yet here you are risking life and limb for us. ”

“Of course, Backpack Cat,” I replied, reaching over me to scratch him behind his ears. “I’m obligated to help anyway because of my oath.”

Gordon purred in response.

“I will support you from the safety of my pocket dimension,” he said. “I can see and hear everything around you, so holler if you're in trouble. I will nail them with a holy bolt from my Vulcan Crossbow.”

And with that, I felt Gordon shimmy his way back down the backpack. I turned my head around again and saw that he had disappeared completely inside of his pocket dimension.

“A cat with a crossbow,” I said.

Gordon poked his head out of the backpack.

"The Vulcan Crossbow is an interdimensional crossbow,” he said, "a high precision weapon transcending space and time that only a marksman of my caliber could operate. I assure you, you are in good hands.”

He disappeared down the hatch again, but not before he gave me a smug, self-assured smile.

“He's quite good," Priscilla admitted. "And don't worry about him if you need to go crazy with your magic. Our little scaredy-cat will be safe inside his hideout while we risk our lives to keep him safe.

Gordon poked his head out again, clearly irate.

"As I said," he said. "I can hear everything you two angelfish say. I stay inside the backpack because it gives me tactical superiority against these monsters of the night."

Gordon vanished once again into the backpack.

"Okay, Cat Commander," I said.

Gordon showed himself a third time, looking like he was going to object to his new nickname, but he thought about the name for a moment.

"You know what, I actually like Cat Commander," he said. "From now on, you will only refer to me as Cat Commander and never again as Backpack Cat."

Priscilla and I shared a laugh as Gordon slowly slipped back inside the pocket dimension like a jack-in-the-box reaching the end of its cycle. Once he was gone, however, we stopped laughing and turned reluctantly toward the observatory entrance. We lingered for a moment, neither of us wanting to take the first step into the dark observatory.

“Your hair,” I said.

“I know! I know,” she cried.

“I think it’s amazing.”

She smiled ever so slightly.

“Thank you!” she said. “I had to dye it pastel pink because it is white now, Titus. White! Like old people white hair! And it's an ugly white, too! Ugh! It’s not fair! I’m not even thirty yet.”

“Well, technically-”

“Don’t you dare, Titus Ko!”

Electricity crackled between Priscilla’s fingertips. I noticed that the arcs of deadly energy were fainter than usual.

This caught my attention.

“You’ve been overdrafting your magic, haven’t you?” I said slowly.

Her face fell.

Overdrafting was simply using more magic than was safe to do so in a short period of time. Overdrafting was helpful when one was low in magic, but to do so again and again for prolonged periods of time was flirting with death. The cost of frequent overdrafting varied drastically from person to person. Someone like me risked dying from hypertension or something similar. A Seraph like Priscilla, seemed to merely lose the color in their hair. It was a chilling reminder of just how much magic a Seraph wielded.

“I had no choice,” she said in a small voice. “It was overdraft or die. Or let someone I care about die. Do you know how hard it is to fight with 5% of your magic?”

“Not at all. I wouldn’t be able to do really anything 5%, maybe push a paperclip or two off the table. How did you survive with just 5% of your magic?”

“Like you said, I overdrafted, again and again. It was just enough to scrape by, most of the time. But, as a result for my actions, I will have white hair until the end of this stupid Nightmare.”

She twisted the ends of her hair.

“Hence the pastel pink.”

“I think that’s a heroic reason to have white hair,” I said.

Priscilla's smile widened.

“I know we haven’t had a proper chance to talk,” she said. “We're going to talk once we reach the city.”

She said city with such relish that I knew that she wanted it more than anything else in the world.

“Sounds like paradise,” I said.

Priscilla stared mournfully at the healing stone mounted on her right palm. I noticed a prominent gash on the stone that ran across its entire length as if it had been used to stop a knife blade.

“It better be,” she said, “because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it’s just another hellhole like out here.”

I remembered the scar on the left side of her neck, how she had survived what ought to have been a fatal wound to an ordinary human. Our close call with the invisible assassin on the Rosen Bridge was still fresh in my mind as well as the fact that we were still falling to our deaths in the outside world. I assumed we had yet to hit the ground given that we were still alive in the nightmare, but the thought that everything could end at a moment's notice did not sit well with me. The fact that we experienced time at a slower rate in the dream only made me feel marginally better.

Priscilla pointed at the door in front of us, motioning for me to go first.

"If you see an idiot running around inside with an axe in his hand, that's probably Frassyer," she said. "He'll be wearing the key around his neck on an iron chain, so don't be afraid to yank the thing from his neck."

"Got it," I replied. "Strawberry blonde?"

"And infuriatingly good-looking," she said dreamily. "Too bad he's taken. Or was."

If the rugged man pushing mid-twenties I remember seeing in the photos posted on the dining room wall was Fraysser, then he was a good-looking man indeed. He stood an entire head taller than everyone else in the group and was built like a bull. His emerald green eyes and his long, strawberry blonde hair alone were probably enough to win the affection of any woman he met. It was a good thing he was a committed man because I don't think I would be able to put up with any ogling between him and Priscilla.

"Who's his wife?" I asked.

Priscilla sighed.

"Sometimes I forget that we've just met."