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In the chamber beneath the Archives, in the green pallor of Uumuu’s acid-lit lair, a deadly dance unfolded before Quirrel’s watchful eyes. The first dancer, quick and nimble, was his own small friend—Ghost, Quirrel called them, for the silent bug had not volunteered any other name. The other, slow but relentless, like some horrific inevitability out of a long-forgotten nightmare, was the great beast Uumuu. From his vantage point on a high ledge, Quirrel watched the ebb and flow of the duet as Ghost dashed from one ledge to another, darting away from clouds of electricity, occasionally lashing out with their nail as they passed. Their blows ricocheted harmlessly off Uumuu’s thick mucus membrane… but of course, that was his cue. Quirrel bowed his head, almost as if in a gesture of respect, and leapt from his position into the chamber below.
“KASAAAAA!”
He plunged towards the plague-ridden monster, nail angled straight for its pulsating orange core. The edge caught, and Quirrel felt Uumuu’s viscid flesh shudder as he tore through the other side, releasing a spray of noxious orange mucus. He twisted in the air just in time to skid to a halt on an opposite platform. Looking back, he heard Uumuu let out a wail of pain and saw it contract reflexively in an attempt to staunch the flow of transparent viscera oozing from the long laceration left by his nail.
“Now, little Ghost! While it is vulnerable!” Quirrel called to his companion. The knight nodded curtly and lept towards their wounded prey. Once, twice, thrice, they slashed with their nail, and each time Uumuu recoiled further from the furious hail of blows. Quirrel couldn’t help but grin—other bugs tended to underestimate his small friend, but he knew better. Uumuu’s wail crescendoed under the furious assault. The jellyfish was now leaking Infection-tinged mucus from nearly a dozen wounds. Ghost alighted briefly on a suspended platform and crouched for a lunge to deliver the final blow.
Sparks flashed in the corner of Quirrel’s eye and he flinched. Uumuu ought to be too hurt now to summon its electric defenses, he reassured himself. But when a wounded animal is cornered….
“Ghost, look out!”
The warning cry came a fraction of a second too late. The knight launched themself airborne just as Uumuu let loose a surge of electricity, fueled by the desperation known only to the dying. Its mucilaginous body ballooned outwards, catching the knight full in the face and hurling them backwards, blue sparks running up and down their body. They collided with the chamber wall, mask fracturing with a nasty crack! before their limp body tumbled into the acid pool below.
“No!” Quirrel rushed to the edge just in time to see the fragments of his friend’s shell sinking below the surface of the caustic liquid. “No…” His breath came in quick, panicked bursts. He couldn’t lose the little knight. Not after all they had been through together. Not now, when they were so close to… to… He couldn’t lose them, not like he had lost everyone else, not like he had lost her...
Who?
The primary threat neutralized, Uumuu floated lazily back down towards the bottom of the chamber. Tissue hung in long ribbons from its tattered body, but Quirrel knew that the creature’s wounds would heal quickly in the acid bath. Within the hour, it would be like they had never attacked it. (How he knew this he wasn’t sure, but as soon as the thought occurred to him it clicked into his brain as if it had always been there. It did make sense though—Uumuu was a formidable guardian for the Teacher’s Archives.) To be this close to victory, and have it all snatched away… Quirrel gripped the hilt of his nail tightly in his hand, thoughts of vengeance flashing hot and angry across his mind. But no, killing Uumuu now wouldn’t bring back his friend, and he wasn’t even sure he could take down the beast on his own.
...he wasn’t sure he wanted to, either.
Quirrel let the nail slip from his fingers and buried his face in his hands. Assisting the small knight had been one thing—they had a mission, and Quirrel knew it was his duty to help them achieve it, even if he did not know how he knew this. (And hadn’t he always done what was asked of him, no matter the cost?) Besides, the thrill of fighting alongside a friend had made him feel younger than he had in… well, in a long time.
Ghost had been strong and brave and everything a hero should be. If anyone would have been able to fix what was wrong with this alluring, haunted ruin of a kingdom—and for all its magnificence, Quirrel could feel deep in his bones that there was something deeply wrong with it with the it stood frozen, apart from time—it should have been them. But the Infection took young and old alike, and those it did not smother in its noxious pus, it struck down with violence instead. And now Ghost, the one bug Quirrel had thought strong enough to withstand the beautiful cruelties of this world, was dead…
Quirrel chuckled bitterly. A dead Ghost. Truly, the wonders of this world never ceased.
He sighed and heaved himself to his feet. There was little he could do for his friend now, but if he acted fast he may be able to retrieve the remnants of their mask before the acid dissolved it completely and give them something approximating a proper burial. Assuming he could find a way out of the Archives again… Quirrel grimaced as he remembered the decisive clunk of the trap door retracting into the ceiling after he and Ghost had entered Uumuu’s chamber. He wasn’t sure he would be able to open it again from the inside.
Not a problem for right now, he reminded himself. An orderly mind must address things in their proper sequence. First he must recover what he could of his friend.
He began to make his way carefully down towards the acid pool. Fortunately, the knight had fallen far from Uumuu’s resting spot, and a quick glance confirmed that the bloated jellyfish was burbling contentedly to itself and paying him no mind. “I suppose we both have our wounds to lick,” Quirrel muttered. “Would that mine could heal as quickly.”
He pulled out his nail—pale ore could withstand worse than a quick acid bath—and began to prod beneath the surface, hoping to find some fragments of the little ghost’s mask or perhaps their weapon. Its blade formed hypnotic eddies as he swished it back and forth glumly, tiny swirls of green light dancing as if they had a life of their own. He felt his nail tap against something unseen and gingerly raised it up. When it broke the surface, the knight’s mask came with it, the tip of his nail through one empty eye socket, acid dripping from the vicious crack running down its face.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Quirrel said to it. His chest felt tight with grief. “I have failed you… I have failed them all, I’m afraid. And I don’t even know who ‘they’ are.”
Some movement caught his eye, and Quirrel looked closer. Something more than just acid was oozing through the crack in the mask. It looked dark and liquid, yet when it hit the air, the black particles drifted up of their own accord, seeming to drink in the surrounding light as they rose. Quirrel rubbed his eyes. Had the fog in his mind begun to affect his senses as well? But, no, the phenomenon persisted. Inky motes rose before him, becoming more solid as they gathered, coalescing first into the shape of a cloaked body, then a round mask, and finally two curving horns…
Quirrel had never thought he would see those horns again.
“Little Ghost…?” he asked tentatively, his voice catching. Not just a ghost, he thought. The ghost of Ghost. It seemed that truly, the wonders of this world never ceased.
The strange shadow seemed to take no notice. It revolved slowly on the spot, taking in its surroundings, and its eerily illuminated eyes slid over Quirrel as if he were merely a part of the architecture. It hovered a short way above Quirrel, and he noticed that, rather than the short legs of his friend, the bottom half of this phantom ended in a mass of writhing tendrils.
“Is that you, my friend?” he called, but once again it took no notice. It had completed its survey of the room and now hung motionless in the air, staring into the middle distance. Was this truly some remnant of the little knight? Quirrel had heard tales of those who died with regrets and left black stains upon the world, but he had never thought to take the expression quite so literally.
Well, thought Quirrel, nothing for it. He sheathed his nail, tucked his friend’s mask under his arm, and crept forward, one hand extended towards the strange phantom. “Whatever sort of spirit you may be—” he began to say, but was cut off by a sudden hiss. As if he had crossed some invisible line, the shadow whirled to face him and bristled menacingly, its tendrils lashing the air.
“Peace, phantom!” he cried, shying back. “I do not know your nature, but I mean you no harm.” He scrambled back and the hissing subsided, though it still watched him warily. “Do you not know me? Or perhaps… perhaps you are merely an echo, and thus have no mind of your own.” Still, it gave no response.
Fate is cruel, Quirrel thought bitterly. It lets us keep a shadow of those we love, but only as hollow shells with nothing of their hearts or souls.
Still, the shade could not help what it was and, though it did not seem to hear him, Quirrel felt better talking to it than to himself. Besides, he still needed to find a way out of this chamber. “Fellow… creature,” he addressed it, “if you do not mind, I wish to climb up and inspect that hatch in the ceiling, but you are rather in my way. I don’t suppose you’ll let me pass?”
There was no response, but at this point he expected none, and he started forward anyway. The phantom was directly in the path he needed to reach the top of the chamber, but by hugging one wall he was able to shuffle past while still giving it a decent berth. At one point it began to hiss at him again, but he pressed himself closer to the wall, and eventually the shade subsided and watched him in silence. Once he had passed it, to Quirrel’s surprise, it began to drift along behind him at a slight distance.
After a little more climbing, he reached the hatch. It had indeed slammed shut, and the mechanism had locked in place. That must have been part of the Archives’ security system, now long defunct… something tickled at his memory, but slipped away as he tried to grasp it. Sighing, he heaved his weight against the hatch, hoping but not expecting it to budge. It didn’t.
“I don’t suppose you can help with this, my taciturn associate?” he called back to the dark phantom, which was now floating just to the side of the balcony he was standing on. It continued to stare silently. “No, I didn’t think so.” He sighed again, and considered his options.
They didn’t look promising, all things considered. He could keep attempting to force the hatch open—most likely a futile endeavor. He could attempt to exit the chamber through its lower entrance—which was squarely blocked by the recovering Uumuu. Or he could wait, and hoped that help would come—and based on the fact the dust in these Archives looked undisturbed for many years, that didn’t seem very likely either.
Quirrel settled himself cross legged on the floor, facing the dark ghost. “It’s quite a pickle we’ve gotten ourselves into, isn’t it? Just you, me, and that gelatinous beast in the pool.” He held out the knight’s cracked mask in front of him so that it lined up with the head of the shade in his vision. “You really are the spitting image of them, you know? Such a handsome little fellow, my friend was. And fierce. You have that angry spark too.” He chuckled mirthlessly. The shade continued to watch him impassively.
“I suppose one might call me mad for talking to a thing that does not talk back. But if I can make a confession to you—and I trust you shall keep it in confidence, for you do not seem the type to blab about—I fear that I have been going mad for a long time. There are holes in my mind… so many holes, and voices seem to rush through their hollows and tell me what I must do. Cross the wastes, they said to me. Seek the hallowed kingdom… For the longest time I thought it was simply my wanderlust driving me here, but as I have gotten closer to this kingdom’s heart they have become clearer, louder… Now I am here, in the heart of the Archives and they roar in my ears, driving me forward, but something in my heart holds me back. I do not know what, but it tells me that if I continue…”
He felt wetness on his face and rubbed away a stray tear. As he did so, his hand grazed the edge of the mask he wore on the crown of his head. He pulled it off and stroked its surface, smooth as bone. “If I continue, I will lose something incredibly precious… and I can’t even remember what it is, only mourn the gaping hole it will leave in my heart.” He looked up at the shade, it’s outline blurred by his tears. “And then I met your progenitor, and I had hope. So much ferocity in such a tiny shell, and a spirit that looked at the way things were and instead saw what they could be. When they moved through this old kingdom, they changed it around them, in a way that I suspect these ruins have not done so in centuries. If my mission is to end in tragedy, they made me dare to hope that it could be in service of some sort of restoration, that perhaps my tears could water the seeds of a new garden… And all that hope, struck down by a careless blow.”
He held out the fractured mask of his friend and gazed into its empty sockets, looking for answers he knew he wouldn’t find there. “Who were you, my friend? Who am I? ”
The shade wasn’t looking at him anymore. Quirrel wiped his face again. “I’m sorry, you’ve been a more patient audience than I deserve. I shall endeavor to pull myself together, and not to put on such a maudlin display of self-pity.” He returned his borrowed ( borrowed? from whom? ) mask to his head and followed the specter's gaze.
It was staring up at the ceiling. Quirrel frowned. Then he heard it—a soft taptaptap of footsteps coming from the chamber above. But who…? Quirrel glanced at the shade and saw that its tendrils were once again whipping, agitated. Surely it couldn’t be…
The hatch clunked open and a small cloaked figure dropped through it, landing in a crouch. Without pausing, they lunged at the shade and slashed once, twice, thrice, their battered nail leaving streaks of darkness in the air behind them. The shade melted into an amorphous cloud then streamed toward its attacker, cloaking them in an inky haze.
“Ghost…?” Quirrel was dumbfounded. The newcomer turned towards him and yes, there were those familiar horns, though they seemed to waver slightly, as if made from mist. The knight marched up to him, plucked the cracked mask from his limp arms, and lifted it over their head. As it settled on their shoulder, they seemed to become more solid, more real. A glimmer of pure white light danced over the broken shell, and when it dissipated no trace of the crack remained.
And there was Ghost, alive and whole once more.
Truly, the wonders of this world never ceased.
Before he knew what he was doing, Quirrel swept them up into a tight embrace, his arms completely encircling the smaller bug. The knight froze in surprise, then patted Quirrel tentatively on the back.
“Ah, forgive me.” Quirrel put them back on the ground and wiped the sudden wetness from his eyes. “I must have surprised you. Thank you for not skewering me for the sudden movement. I just… well you see, I thought you were dead.”
The little knight nodded, as if this were an easy mistake to make.
“But you’re not.”
The knight nodded again, a little impatiently this time. They tapped their nail on the side of the balcony, pointing towards Uumuu.
Quirrel chuckled. It was just like his friend to want to resume the fight as soon as possible. Still, if this tiny bug could return from beyond death, could stitch themself back together from shell and shade and soul… Well, then maybe there was still hope that a broken, half-mad bug like Quirrel could put himself back together too.
Quirrel readied his nail, drawing strength and comfort from the familiar way the hilt settled in his palm. “Little one, you never cease to amaze me. You wish to face Uumuu again? Then very well—let us begin the dance.”