Work Text:
A revenant has walked into your home. He smiles pleasantly just inside the threshold, unruffled by the mountain air, amused by the distant clanging of golems. You suspect he likes the sound, the fear of the universe woven into material meaning, solidity pulled out of terror. You’d wish the same sort of protector for yourself, but you think he would only raise his eyebrows, turn the edge of his blade in lyrical counterpoint to reality’s cries. You have a shoddy imitation nestled somewhere amid the streaks of andesite and torn grass of your territory, but Pumpkin Jack hasn’t shown his face to you in some time.
— Where have you been? you ask him.
You feel half-awake, shunted out of one language and into another, although you and the revenant speak the same way. You understand one thing and one thing only, with the kind of clarity constructed of dreamwork, of rabbit’s-paw instinct: the last time you saw this man should’ve been the last time he was seen at all.
— The Ancient Capital, the revenant replies.
There is no reason to believe someone dead would never be seen again. You have heard tell of worlds without respawn — mostly from the others who drop shulkers on your doorstep and leave kindly signed notes regarding recompense — but this is not such a world.
— I mean, I’ve been roaming a little, but usually I am where I always am. I’m sorry if I missed a note or something, I didn’t see it when I stopped in at the catacombs and I’ve mostly been working on builds, things like that.
You don’t think this is the way this was supposed to happen. Reason drifts away in wisps, so you speak nothing of your reservations. He is the kind of creature that plays games with truth. He has access to something you don’t. You nod mutely along to the explanation for his visit, which rings as adamant melody over reality’s jangling bassline. Something about a danger, primarily to the self but possibly to the universe. An existential threat, if allowed to proceed unfettered.
— Like the end of the world? you inquire. That seems really soon.
— It wouldn’t be an apocalypse we control. At least, I don’t think that’s what this is. I think most of us are tired of apocalypses. We’re not finished with our work yet.
He explains it poorly, but you are a thing in reality too. He hooks agreement from your mouth and you find your turncoat tongue telling him that yes, you will help him. You will help him discover who has gone so far as to kill the archaeologist and make him forget.
You, of course, are a murderer. It is difficult to forget these things, despite how your memory trends toward riddled, full up with ink blots. You are forever finding evidence of it. It is in your chests, nestled among your valuables like split eggs. It is on your land, spilled gore too fresh to be a relic of anyone’s life but your own. It is, on rare occasions, under your fingernails, which is how you know it’s time to clip them again. It has broken you quite handily of the habit of chewing, which is nice.
You very rarely get to find out why.
The apparition, the archaeologist, Pixlriffs, asks to meet you on the Greatbridge. You enjoy flight. You enjoy the excuse. You see him there on the gaping expanse of terrible stone with a companion, and you nearly crash, catching gravity’s return volley with a clumsy skip. You wince from the hand Pix extends toward you.
— So how do you know it even happened, says his companion, the bard, Oli OrionSound. We could all have been killed a million times just now and not noticed because of plot-convenient amnesia? That’s what you’re telling me?
— Yes. I noticed because I’ve been reviewing the footage.
— What? you say.
— I keep extensive records, Pix explains, and though he doesn’t turn his head all the way to meet your gaze (which you are glad of; his pale eyes unnerve you), it is obvious this framing is intended for you. Here is something translated, the original slipping through your fingers. Pix continues, There was an obvious gap in those records around the time of the suspected murder, and I had… lost something. My records showed that I lost something fundamental.
— Your items? says Oli.
— My levels, says Pix.
— Levels. Are they that important? Don’t you have crazy gear already?
— I think it’s mostly about the principle of the thing.
Oli laughs and Pix’s smile is vaguely embarrassed. These two, you have witnessed mostly in larger groups, or as sole performer, speaking soliloquies. Oli doffs his hat, evidently continuing this little orchestration for your benefit.
— I won’t be able to help at all, then, Oli says. I don’t record much of anything.
— I figured that might be the case.
— I can ask around, you offer. See if anyone’s noticed anything off.
— Great idea. I’ve split the map in half; we can each take half the list and go. Meet back here? Or at yours? You’ll be going a fair distance to get to Sanctuary.
You are struck again by fear, immaculate and glistening gruesomely. The whole world is a plaything, though not your plaything. You wonder who will be upset with you for breaking their toys. You wonder at power enough to split a world in half on a whim.
— Here is fine, you say.
You don’t know what he intends with your home. Best not to let him near it. You share your space with enough peculiar phenomena. The stairs and balconies overflow with motions you can’t track and certainties you can neither recall nor avoid. You worry about what he sees when he looks at you.
— It’s been a while, says Princess Gem, Ruler of Dawn, Sunrise Over Orchid Skies, She Who Is Monarch-Crowned.
— Oh, you stutter. Has it?
It is the middle of the day. Gem takes meetings at no other time. You learned this because you arrived in time for the sun’s funeral, the hours slaughtered under your uncaring wings as you tracked thermals over the hills and waters. When you landed, your marrow gone to iron, you were given a room in an inn, and you passed the night with your ear to the wooden floor. They kept a beautiful grandfather clock downstairs, opposite the fireplace.
— I think so. Maybe I’m confused. We were going to work on something, I think. Together, between our two kingdoms.
— I must have forgotten, you say. It happens a lot. Leave me a note, I’ll get back to you.
— I’m sorry, says the princess.
— Sorry?
— That’s not what we’re doing right now. You said you had questions for me?
You nod once, uncertain, then again. You describe the murder, or the murders. You are only sure of one. You ask Princess Gem a lot of questions.
— Can a living person have a ghost?
Gem’s brow furrows. The purse of her lips is delicate, her silk shawl orange and pink like dew-touched flower petals. She wears butterflies’ wings, layers on layers, so it is hard to tell where her flesh gives way to bone, to knife. Perhaps you’ve heard tell that she is a pacifist.
— Do you think it’s a ghost amnesia-murdering people?
Perhaps she does not touch violence in languages this world recognizes, and so she slips away from unwanted sorts of attention. Perhaps when she touches her hand to the corner of her mouth in shock or concern, it is really to hide a dribble of the universe’s ichor, its meat torn and clotted behind her teeth.
— Who else would want to kill an archaeologist? One of— One of the others?
Gem pours more tea for herself. The cups are shiny from lack of use, which is for the best, you suspect. They look easy to break.
— One of us… We might. If it would be funny, or exciting. You remember the Rift Festival. Shelby killed for Katherine. Joey would have done the same if he had the chance.
— Pix didn’t seem very happy about it. Or excited, I suppose.
— Someone else might be, says Gem. Did this… person get you too?
— I wouldn’t know, you confess.
Your shoulders twitch, wanting to shrug. Gem lifts the teapot in your direction. She sees that you haven’t touched your cup. Her head is tilted just slightly, as if assessing you, or— You get the uncanny sense you are not being watched. You are being seen clear through. Gem sets the teapot back down.
— This seems very important to you, says Gem.
— I’d prefer if it didn’t happen to anyone else. I don’t think… I don’t think people usually like that happening. I think it would be nice if we could all go back to what we were doing.
You suppose she’s probably upset with you. Her frown is pretty too.
The witch is not home. Nor is the pirate. Nor is the strange man who claims guardianship of Sanctuary. You imagine a home that is a many-layered shell, no sooner cracked along its outermost wall than repaired, reinforced, smoothed over again.
In each place, you hit mud with both heels and splayed wings, and all around you the buildings creak hollowly with no one to inhabit them. It’s a sad greeting. You can feel the world moving under your feet, not as though the dirt breathes, but as though you walk upon a stretch of tarp, and something is down there beneath it, clawing, clawing, clawing its way out.
You sleep on Sanctuary’s beach, nestled among leaves that you are certain have never bent under any hands but your own. You wake up to a long parade of washed-up fish, which must have died under the moon’s watch, and you feel rebuked somehow.
— What did you find? says the monster.
You solved it on the flight back home, where you collected weapons and potions. This world’s had enough. It clatters impotently against you, all of you. You are simply faster and smarter than any invective it may spit. Or you were. The others still are. You don’t know what you did that lured it in, that let it wedge needles into the gaps of you, but now you will have to fight until no more air remains in the coffin.
— Most of them weren’t home, you tell him.
— That’s unfortunate, but unsurprising. I didn’t get anything useful either. People already know the source of all the strange things happening in their empires.
The monster — which he is, as they all are — uses the back of his hand to tip his hat up. He gazes at the sky, where clouds flow smoothly.
— I hope you weren’t waiting long, you say. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your work.
— I only just arrived when you showed up. Perfect timing, actually.
That’s convenient.
— I’m kind of out of leads at this point, says the monster ruefully. Usually, asking around is enough. I can— I can normally see how everything fits together so clearly.
He looks sad too. Like the buildings. Like the squid ink sacs strewn across stretches of soft, cream-coloured seaside.
You lift your hand. The monster looks at you strangely. He reminds you of someone kind, made of fuller and more pleasing shapes, and you understand that another reason you call this man the monster is because warped reflections only bring trouble. You decide, eventually, not to touch him after all.
After a long silence, he draws himself up, fitting himself into a new skin through posture alone.
— I think the game is broken. Maybe it has been broken for some time now.
— Is murder a game now? you ask.
— I don’t have any other explanation. There is nothing left for us to do.
You are profoundly alarmed by the unfamiliar, resonant surety of his tone. You are further alarmed that he seems off-balance.
— Hang on. Those people, they’re— I mean, what’s going to happen to us, then? Will it be all right, that things are broken?
— Maybe it was my fault for interfering. Maybe something just went wrong. But I suppose we’re going to have to keep living with it.
Here’s a memory you have, though you couldn’t confirm to anyone whether you dreamt it or lived it or if there is a difference between those things with you: you hold a feather, pinched between your thumb and forefinger. It is tiny and downy, so small you imagine it must have come from a baby bird. Even recalling it now your heart thuds with the hope that its remaining feathers kept it hovering above a closing jawful of teeth, soothed it against the winds careening around the unloving bulk of the mountains. You can read nothing on the grass and dirt by your boots, and the wind flutters the feather’s edges.
— Will you leave it alone, then? you ask.
— Leave what alone? I don’t intend to interfere again, if that’s what you mean. I shouldn’t have, really, I got too caught up in the excitement.
— Everything, I mean. The whole world.
The monster, the archaeologist, the mournful collection of outlaw mechanisms wearing a person’s face, looks surprised.
— How?
You did, later, in a different dream, find the body. You were satisfied with this ending. You hadn’t known before then that you liked sad stories, but the knowing slotted into you as if returning home.
Your sword, your potions. Will they teach him anything? Are you learning something now?
Perhaps on the flight to your home, which is done perfunctorily, in almost single file, he puts the pieces together. You don’t like that idea, but you must live with it. You don’t like the sense that you are being escorted somewhere so that someone can keep an eye on you, but you must live with that too. You resolve to create better hiding places for yourself. You resolve to rely on your own belief and attention and reality, which are sturdier than anything the universe could offer you.
Pix lands first, a tight turn to collapse his wings neatly on your front porch. You land next. You nod to each other, perhaps dissatisfied with your answers but having and seeking no others.
And so the investigation ends on an entirely forgettable conversation:
— If this had gone differently, says the archaeologist, I would have liked helping you. I’m sorry I couldn’t.
— We all get busy, you say. It happens. This didn’t really affect me that much, anyway. It’s not so different from the usual way things go.
— I’ll— I’ll be at the Ancient Capital. Like I always am. Please, come visit if you need anything.