2.15 Misericordia

“I knew it. Right was the right way to go!” I said.

“We went left, then right, my fellow servant,” the cat replied hotly.

“Same difference!”

“Quite the contrary. The forge is located down the golden path relative to your dorm, not above it. So going left was the correct path after all.”

“We still had to make a right turn along the path, so we were both right, in a way.”

“No, no, no, you’re absolutely impossible, good sir! All you have been trying to do since you rescued me back at the observatory is to prove how much more valuable you are to our Host than me.”

“What? Where in the world did that come from?”

“I can see the look of contempt on your face. It is as plain as a manuscript written by a scribe with poor eyesight.”

“No, it’s nothing like that at all!”

It really wasn’t, but it seemed like I had struck a nerve with the cat. Seeing how invested he was in this conversation, I continued my point, just to see where things would go.

“Well, I’m clearly her favorite,” I said. “Look at all the trouble she went through to keep me alive.”

“That is nothing to boast about.”

“Of course it is! She spent her oh so priceless Divine Favor just to save me. Clearly, I’m of some value to her.”

“Not in the way you would think,” he said darkly.

I paused. The way he spoke was so ominous I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. Since I couldn’t turn around to see his facial expression, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and continued to grill him.

“You’re just jealous,” I teased.

But Gordon was not having any more of it. He took a swipe at the back of my neck but only managed to graze the skin.

“Woah, there, cowboy!" I cried. "Keep it up and you’re walking like the rest of us.”

Gordon stopped fidgeting immediately.

That’s what I thought, silly cat.

“Well, there it is, the forge,” Gordon huffed. “Well along the path we took to our left.”

“Right.”

I chuckled as I heard disgruntled meowing emanate from within the pocket dimension.

I had gotten under his skin, therefore, I was the clear victor.

As I turned my attention to the forge, the first thing that struck me was how brightly the building was lit. A single beam of sunlight shone down upon the building and the garden in front like limelight on a stage. Where the light came from was beyond me given that the rest of the sky was still the dead of night. Whoever worked at the forge must have really liked the day, since there was no indication the ray of sunshine ever disappeared.

The exterior of forge was fashioned in the manner of your typical wattle and daub cottage found in a small Gideonite village. It sported a humble thatched roof and walls made of woven sticks plastered with clay. In front, a sturdy fence encircled a garden of tomatoes, cucumbers, and what I believed were potato plants. I thought I heard the furious clucking of chickens nearby, though I didn’t see any out front.

“Gordon, Iris can make any kind of structure within the palace, right?”

“Correct.”

“I wonder why our blacksmith would choose to live in so humble a home.”

“Perhaps this home holds particular sentimental value to our blacksmith.”

“Makes sense.”

I walked down the path located between the garden up to the front door of the cottage. I raised my hand to knock on the door when the door swung outward abruptly.

The door to the forge opened abruptly. And who was standing at the door but the Night Terror herself!

I backpedaled in alarm.

For a moment, I thought I heard her humming that accursed lullaby once again, the one I heard in Eleanor’s voice. A sinking feeling filled my chest as all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. But the moment passed and the humming faded, and it was clear that Esther hadn’t uttered a sound.

The Night Terror stepped out onto the porch, pushing the door open wider. A ghost of a smile flickered across her face like a small candle being lit on a windy night. But the smile was genuine, as if she was seeing old friends.

"You made it!" she said.

She quietly pointed to her wrist, then at mine.

The watch, I thought.

I looked down and saw, to my relief, that the Shi-gan was still secured around my wrist, its bizarre lapis lazuli dial still displaying its 50-orb array in a hexagonal shape.

I raised my arm to show her the watch only to remember Iris’s stern warning to not let anyone know of its existence. I immediately lowered my arm and covered the watch, but the cat had caught the movement.

"Fear not," he said. "I believe I am in the inner circle of people aware of the Shi-gan's existence."

"That's right!" I said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Iris seemed pretty serious about keeping it a secret."

"It is the key to escaping the Nightmare," Esther said. "Or rather, a key."

"Do you know what it does?"

"I will let Iris be the one tell you," Esther said cryptically.

I nodded, knowing better than to press her for answers now.

"About your husband," I started, trying to change the subject.

"We haven't retrieved him yet," she replied, gritting her teeth. "But I know where he is."

"He's alive!"

"Yes. You'll be helping us retrieve him."

I nodded.

“I’m here to pick up some gear,” I said.

Esther examined me with steady eyes. I noticed that her eyes were now the color of warm amber instead of the murderous glowing orange they were when she attacked us. Gone was her old, charred duster. In its place, she wore a simple linen shirt covered by a thick leather apron reaching mid-shin. Despite the sweltering heat emanating from within the forge, she wore a pair of black trousers and a pair of heavy leather boots. Her long black hair was tied back into a neat bun. Both her hands were uncovered. In her right was a giant steel hammer that could easily crush a skull. She raised said hammer and let it rest in her left hand. I flinched before I could catch myself.

Esther caught my reaction and immediately lowered her hammer to the side.

"There's no need to be afraid, friend," she laughed. “Come in! We can discuss matters over nectar and biscuits."

She opened the door wide open before disappearing back inside of the cottage.

She seemed like a completely different person now, not at all like the monster who did not hesitate to attack us the moment it saw us. Even the very manner in which she spoke exuded warmth and hospitality, nothing like the cold hostility she exhibited earlier.

I remembered Priscilla's warning that Esther was sick. It struck me that the Night Terror's previously violent tendencies could very well be the result of one of the nightmare's many curses.

Curses were powerful and could easily coerce someone to do the unthinkable depending on the conditions attached to them. For example, a curse could require a dreamer to do something as arbitrary as drink a glass of water every thirty minutes or risk suffering from a terrible migraine. The migraine would disappear as soon as they drank that glass of water, but not until then. The dreamer with the curse would ensure that they always had a glass of water nearby for fear of suffering from the migraine. And as long as they drank that glass of water every thirty minutes, the curse remained more of an inconvenience than a true problem.

But say the dreamer was stuck in a desert within the nightmare where water was scarce and could only be obtained by fighting your way through a dark dungeon guarded by terrible monsters. A seemingly manageable curse suddenly becomes a true problem, an impossible problem if the dreamer lacked the proper means to obtain that glass of water.

Esther seemed like a genuinely kind soul. I did not know what curses she bore, but it made me sick to the stomach to think that something outside of her control might have been the sole reason she attacked us.

I moved to enter the forge when something inexplicably nipped me in the back of my neck.

I swatted instinctively at the back of my neck, fearing the worst, only to catch a fuzzy cat’s paw.

Gordon.

I ripped the pocket dimension off of my back and held it in front of me. Gordon poked his head out of his refuge and proceeded to cackle in my face, his paws flopping around like a pair of broken windmills.

“You should have seen the look on your face!” he snorted. "Oh! Fool you once, shame on me. Fool you twice, shame on-"

“-that’s it! You’re walking!”

“No!”

I flipped the pocket dimension upside down and dumped its contents, cat and all, onto the golden road. Gordon tumbled out of his castle with a disgruntled meow but managed to land on his feet. I half expected his litter box and a three-course meal to tumble out as well, but Gordon remained the only casualty of the shakedown.

When the cat had reoriented himself, he let out a hiss before trotting toward the forge.

“I was merely prompting you to enter the forge,” he said grumpily. “Esther is a trusted friend, and you’re acting like she’s about to kill you! Need I remind you we are short on time?”

“You could have just said that!” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “That actually hurt! Wait, is that blood? Gordon!”

The cat hissed again before disappearing inside.

The blood was minimal, but the last thing I wanted now was to be scratched up by a cat I thought was friendly.

“Now I remember why I like dogs,” I muttered as I stepped into the forge. “Dogs don't do stupid things like this.”

The interior looked very much like a typical forge you would find in a small village or city on Nivandor. A clean-swept clay floor, a brick furnace installed into the side of the wall. Beside it, a large metal anvil worn from use. Metal tables stacked with metal boxes filled with metal tools for shaping molten metal lined the wall opposite the furnace. One of the metal tables stood off to the side away from the forge. As promised, there was a pair of teacups sitting beside a towering platter of chocolate biscuits.

As I approached the table, eager to try nectar for the first time when something slammed into my chest.

I looked down to see a ghostly arrow protruding from my heart.

My first thought was to wonder why my automatic barrier didn’t activate, again.

My second thought was that the arrow didn’t hurt at all, not one bit. I wasn’t even upset, just a bit confused as to why I had been shot in what I believed to be a safe area.

I looked up and saw that the one who shot me was none other than the Night Terror herself. She was smiling, still, though I did see sorrow in her eyes, the eyes of someone about to put a dog down.

“Am I going to die?” I asked calmly.

“That,” she replied, walking up to me and poking me where the arrow had landed, “depends on you."