Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
Chapter SEVENTY-EIGHT
At the tubs, Toby leapt off before George had time to stop. He hopped into the nearest porcelain transporter, said one word, "Rhinolith!", and vanished.
The mouse had been looking right at him as he spoke, so the word was a command to follow. George glanced at the startled citizens surrounding him, then at the bathtub. With considerable effort, he was able to squeeze all four hooves inside and duck his neck beneath the shower head. He thought of Rhinolith as well: the colosseum-shaped city on the hill.
He felt his bones liquefy down the drain. Then he was traveling. Then Sire Toby was screaming again.
George thought at first it was from fear, or more anger. The red-lit palms were absent now and the land around them was nearly pitch black. Bare starlight here. George's eyes adjusted quickly and he could see shapes moving in the darkness. Fellow constructs. The ground itself moved. An endless carpet of writhing plantlife.
Tendrils curled up and over rocks, entombed trees, even snatched birds out of the sky and absorbed them. But they weren't the only wildlife. Rhinolith was mostly open, with low, rolling hills. Even in this low light, George could see for miles. Nocturnal nightmares were at play all around him. Herds of cowlike beasts with hollow steam shovel faces. Huge snails that pulled themselves along via masculine arms emerging from their shells. Small things that hopped among the green; things that seemed all teeth and eyeholes.
Sire Toby continued screaming, and George began to think instead that the cause was regret. They had been quite hard on Sir L'roon. Perhaps his master wished they could return and offer apologies?
But then George became unsure again when the mouse's vocalizations resolved from feral noises into bottomlessly anguished swearing.
"FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!!!!! Goddamn shitting hell motherfuck! Helldamn! A shit, a cock, a piss, a fuck, A BASTARD!!" Toby was not well-practiced at swearing, so he simply threw out everything he knew in a throat-shredding word salad. "Cocksucking ass dammit!!! Fuck hell!! SHIT!!!"
The mouse was in no danger of being swallowed by the ground vines, as he was stomping around in a circle and inadvertently murdering them. George had arrived in a different tub from Toby's, part of a sparse rest area just outside the city's huge iron doorway. Two benches, three tubs, that was it. George extricated himself as quickly as he could and walked over to comfort his squalling master. "Sire, please! My heart aches as well that Sir L'roon will not be joining us, but this outburst is unlike you!"
Toby turned and fell against the horse's ribs. Tears streamed from his eyes. The whites had turned as pink as the irises. "George, NO! It's more than that! LOOK! Look at the WALLS!!!"
The mouse sounded insane, like his voice was about to tear his small body apart. But George hadn't been focused on the city, he was focused on his friend. He raised his head, scanning the countryside first for anything that might have been approaching. And some things certainly were. He would need to fight in about twenty seconds. Until then, that left time to turn his attention to Rhinolith proper.
George remembered passing it on their way to the maze. The whole structure rose from the hill like a giant's tooth. From outside, nothing could be seen of the inner city. Everything was surrounded by a mammoth wall of skulls. The uncountable ivory domes reflected starlight. And when George's gaze reached the top of the wall, he nearly screamed too.
Toby stared, unable to take his eyes away. Of course she had. Of course she had. This place was so much closer to the mountain than Marasmus.
And it was the perfect target. Like it had been built just for her ease. Rhinolith had no upper lid like Coryza. Its walls protected it on every side, but not from the air. Presumably, none of the nightmares around here could climb or fly that high. But for a sloshing tidal wave of liquefied dollflesh, it was child's play. Just reach up and dive in. The wave of Scaphis had rolled in from a plastic carpet that stretched back towards Anasarca as far as Toby could see. A hundred times thicker than the single finger she'd sent after Gilla-Gilla. Her skin had charged at the city, then flooded over the top like milk in a cereal bowl. And Rhinolith had two city walls. They'd left the inner one up when they built the second, Zinc had said. So Scaphis had undoubtedly filled the gap entirely, surrounding the city's populace in seconds. Blocking off all exits. Trapping them like bugs in a jar. She could then pick them off at her leisure.
Another wave of anguish punched Toby in the guts. He shut his eyes tight and weakly punched George's ribs in frustration. He felt the vines growing around his feet and didn't care. His words were blurred by sobs and sniffling. "They were my backup plan, George. After Gilla, I was going to come here and try to talk them into joining us. I knew it was a long shot. Zinc said they didn't like shrimps. But I thought maybe I had a chance. Maybe they'd listen and help us fight. But she knew about them too. She took them first. I'm all out of ideas now..."
George did not feel Toby's feeble hits. His attention was on the ever-narrowing circle of constructs. They were held at bay by the confusion of smelling one of their own, but knew the scent of a frightened soul alongside it. "I can fully appreciate what you must be feeling now, Sire. But we have immediate concerns. Shall I place you on my back so that I may take us out of danger?"
Toby had no idea what George was talking about. He looked up, smeared the tears away from his eyes, and saw only shadowed shapes. But then he remembered why the people of Rhinolith had built their walls in the first place.
There was a fluster of panic. Then his hammer seemed to heat up inside his arm, itching to do more than just what it had unleashed in Outerspace Eats. It would have felt good to let the steel loose and thrash some skulls. But even so close to the edge of frenzy, Toby still retained an ounce of sense. He counted at least three hypenas. Other things too. Things he'd never fought before. And his guts felt like they were floating around weightless. His nerves felt like they'd been sanded down to strings. He was in the mood to fight, but in no shape to win.
Toby yanked his feet away from the vines, grateful that his shoes didn't get swallowed off, and started scrambling up onto George's back.
George felt his master mounting and nodded approval that he was not so far gone as to forego self-preservation. The snarling, salivating beasts pawed nearer. Most constructs cared more about fear than food. This slow approach was usually meant to intimidate a lone soul into fits of blubbering panic. This time though, it gave the horse and rider a sizable window of escape. George hauled ass as soon as he felt Toby get a good grip.
The lead hypena was more than a little startled as George took off like a bullet straight at it. Then jumped and used its back as a springboard to sail over the others.
Then George was tearing across the green in the starlight.
Toby was nearly torn out of the saddle by George's acceleration, but his scrawny fingers managed to hold on. Once he was hunkered down at a safer angle, he glanced behind him at Rhinolith. He could see the light reflecting off the frozen surge of Scaphis. 'She really did just pour herself in like a can of paint,' he marveled. How many people were inside? How many of them were now entombed in plastic like Gilla-Gilla was? Toby imagined the citizens waking up to frenzied cries, seeing tentacles of flesh invading their town from every entrance. Nowhere to run. They would have stood and fought. Completely doomed, but they would have fought anyway. Toby imagined torches, arrows, and cannons firing at the invader, all having no effect. How can you fight a fluid? And one that can paralyze with a touch? They'd never had a chance. He wondered how many had sunk into her clutch realizing this, and how many had kept on fighting until the last beat of their hearts.
His eyes stung and his throat hurt from yelling. He was ashamed of himself for cursing. 'I must have looked like an idiot. But, then again, having every single chance of rescuing your friends taken away from you... I guess that would make anyone lose it.'
"Stop, George. Please," he said hoarsely.
The stallion ignored the order. "We are not out of danger yet. I see enemies all around."
"This'll only take a second, trust me. I never got around to giving you your present."
George skidded to a halt, shredding the plant tendrils beneath him to coleslaw. "Sire Toby, I am constantly confused!!" he snorted. He tried to keep his tone civil, but he had to protest. "I understand you are under an immense strain from recent events, and in my opinion you are bearing it with remarkable fortitude. But your mood changes like the weather! I cannot keep up unless I have access to your thoughts!"
Toby fumbled himself down to the ground. "I agree," he said simply. He walked around to George's front, quickly sizing up the number of constructs around. Too many. He unzipped the backpack and rumbled inside. "George, I paid L'roon for a potion for you. Something for both of us. Take it right now and that'll give us time to talk." Again, he added, "Trust me."
George nodded. "I always do."
Toby held up an aluminum-coated capsule the size of a sniper's bullet. "Swallow this. Or chew it. Or however it is you eat." He held it out and George took it between his teeth.
It pulsed. George could feel its contents trying to get out and react with him. "I hope I will not become an item of clothing again," he said, then bit into it.
There was a loud bang as the magic was released. Toby watched a glittering clear jelly burst from George's mouth like a popped gum bubble. It moved quick. The substance separated into sluglike dollops that sped around George's face and neck, squirming into him through whatever cracks they found. George looked mildly concerned at first, then suddenly doubled over in a violent clench. "GAAAHH!!" he screamed. He felt like a puppeteer had just yanked all his strings taut.
Toby looked around. This potion's effect was not instantaneous like others he'd seen. Some of the shadowy creatures might reach them if it took much longer. Toby kept his eyes wide, turning in a circle, gauging which nightmares were closest. He reached back to fumble with the zipper on his backpack's side pocket. He reached in and found two exploding grapes. He zipped back up, momentarily terrified at spilling them all over the place and losing them.
As George grunted and protrusions of calcium began to emerge from between his shoulders, Toby rolled the little ivory spheres in his hand. Now was as good a time as any to see what they did. He squeezed one hard, then flicked it at the nearest construct.
It was an armsnail. Its slimy, heavily-muscled hands grasped the grass to pull itself forward. The knuckles and tendons flexed visibly. An arm like that could crush bone easily. But then the little white dot sailed towards it and, in a flash, did its job.
Toby was temporarily blinded. He'd seen a single bright arc of lightning leap from the tiny bomb, slashing through the snail like a cleaver. The construct fell over on its side, dead as hell.
Toby turned to throw the other one and realized he didn't have to. A snake-legged spider was already fleeing from the flash. He remembered seeing those on the highway, partnered up with arachnopuses. Maybe both kinds were close to smart.
He turned to George, and his mouth involuntarily opened in awe.
The blackened stallion was panting from the exertion of having seemingly grown two trees right out of his withers. Branches of bone as long as his whole body rose into the air, creaking and flaking off soot. They twitched, finger-like. They weren't as heavy as he would have expected for their size.
George had not felt pain, but rather an intensity that had knocked the wind out of him. He managed to turn his head to look. "Good heavens!! What ARE they!? Immense superfluous hands!?"
"No, George," Toby said, and was able to find a weak smile. At least one thing had gone right today. "They're wings. You just have to fill them in."
The construct gasped. For a moment he was too overwhelmed with joy and gratitude to speak. This was his heart's desire come true. He remembered his Ectopia disguise. The thrilling freedom of being unbound by gravity. Free to travel in any direction he chose. If there was anything George loved more than his companions, it was movement.
While Toby kept his eyes peeled for more nightmares, George concentrated and grew membranes between his new fingers of bone. He had seen enough bats to know how they looked. When finished, his wings were like sails woven of sinew. Lumpy and unpleasant looking, yet with the slightest flap he could feel the air push against them. They would work beautifully. He gave them a strong experimental sweep and sent tendrils squirming in a hundred foot radius. The gust nearly toppled Toby.
George was quick to dart forward and snag his master's collar in his teeth. "Sire!! I cannot possibly express the full extent of my happiness! You have given me flight!! Not even being merged with the Fearsleigher could bring me such rapture! My heart bursts with the need to repay you immediately!!"
George's explosive enthusiasm helped to cure some of Toby's black mood. "All I want right now is just for you to take us out of here."
"DONE!" George boomed. He flicked his head back and tossed Toby into the air, catching him gracefully in the space behind his wings. Toby did not have to be told to grab hold immediately. George whinnied like a sprightly colt and slammed his new appendages against the air. The downdraft knocked a cactusyote clean off its paws. George flapped again and again, tasting the wind until he was ready to begin taming it. When the time felt right, he pushed off. It was almost effortless. He shot up towards the stars with the swift agility of a fish through water.
Toby felt his heart skip. Gravity turned sideways. The wind whipped his eyelids open. The stars came closer.
Then George was laughing, loud as a steam train's whistle. He cut the sky with ease, graceful as a dancer. His new wings felt like they'd always belonged to him. "This is a marvelous gift, Sire Toby! I am delirious with joy! Quickly! Give me a direction or I will lose my mind trying to choose for myself!"
Toby had both hands white-knuckle grasping a big knobby vertebrae. He hadn't foreseen George reacting with this much zeal. "B-back to Rhinolith!" he sputtered out. "I want to see it from above!"
"Immediately!" George shouted. He changed his flight angle so fast, Toby nearly threw up horizontally.
The mouse was freezing up here, terrified of falling off, terrified George might try a loop-de-loop, and still in just as much of a hopeless predicament as ever. But George was radiating joy like the sun radiates light. It would have been impossible not to be affected. And while Toby's sense of loss and despair didn't leave him entirely, he was able to find a place of neutrality away from his emotions.
George swooped low over Rhinolith's perimeter. He tilted inward to begin a slow circle.
Toby was relieved. George was flying more smoothly now, giving his own guts time to un-knot. And he had a perfect view of the city from up here.
His predictions were near-perfect. Everything he'd imagined Scaphis had done, she had. The gap between Rhinolith's inner and outer walls was filled up to the brim. From above it looked like a massive ring of pancake batter. Scaphis had used herself to block all the inner exits, and there was visible evidence of a titanic battle below. Scorched walls. Bullet holes. Everywhere, people were webbed in place by strands of vinyl skin. Some were bundled up in piles together, limbs and heads poking out like a massive mutated creature. Others were paralyzed singly. Their faces showed their last expressions. Screams of fear, or cries to battle.
Toby turned away. "I actually thought I could fight this..."
The words had been a whisper, but George's ears were sharp. "There is always a chance," he said encouragingly. "Have you forgotten the time that, against all odds, we tipped a mall to stop the rampage of Gyre Two?"
"Yeah, well... I didn't really do much then."
George spoke quite firmly. "If you had not spurred the rest of us to action, we would have done nothing at all."
That made Toby quiet for a moment.
George could not reach his neck back far enough to nuzzle his friend, but he wanted to. "I am with you, Sire. The scene below fills me with a need for justice to be seen. We are witness to an act of unspeakable cruelty. It must not stand."
"But just look at it!" Toby whined. "These were the toughest guys in the whole world! Zinc said so! If anyone could have kicked Scaphis' ass, it would have been them. But she got ALL of them! The whole bunch! Wiped out! It doesn't look like it took her more than a few minutes!"
George could plainly hear that his master was flirting with giving up. "Sire Toby, it is an important fact to note that these people- The Bargeld if I remember correctly- were taken by surprise. Few do well in an ambush. Especially with all routes of escape removed. They were unprepared. That is the difference between them and us. We have time to think."
"George..." Toby sank low, lying down between the two huge flapping wings. "I already have been thinking. I busted my brain on the way to find you. I thought about everything. And my best plan was to get the potion from L'roon, get Gilla's help, or the Bargeld's, or both, and then we could plan from there. That was it, really. Now I'm out of friends and the problem's as big as it ever was."
George flew silently for a short while, pondering. "That is true, but it may be possible to change the problem by changing our angle of observation. In Ectopia Cordis, I faced the problem of how to stop a runaway apartment building. I faced time pressure as well as having an enormous amount of variables to consider. But this was also an asset. Because it meant that I also had an enormous amount of avenues from which to approach a solution. I had an entire city's resources at my disposal. I opened myself to all ideas. I ran them through mental simulations, discarding and discarding until only the best remained. Sire Toby, you have indeed lost your two primary options. But two out of how many?"
Toby's head rose. He'd never thought of it that way. He looked upwards to the stars. Millions of them.
He felt something buzzing in his chest. An energy.
The mouse was quiet for an uncomfortably long period. "Sire?"
"Take us up, George," he said suddenly. "Take us away from here. It stinks like burning plastic. I don't want to be here anymore. Take us up as high as you can go."
"That is a challenge I find quite appealing." But first he thought of his master. In addition to his usual saddle, George coiled strong tendons around Toby's ankles, and also grew a handle of gristle.
Toby appreciated that. It felt icky and rubbery, but more comfortable than grabbing bare bone.
When George was certain his favorite passenger was secure, he pointed himself towards the sky's ceiling and took off.
Toby felt the air being squeezed out of his lungs. He reminded himself that he didn't need to breathe anymore. He fixed his eyes on the stars. They were not just lights, he remembered, but living beings. Constellations bumbling to and fro as they had since time immemorial. He wondered if George could get close enough to meet them.
'What am I thinking? He's George. Of course he can.'
A grin on his spectral snout, George made himself a moon rocket. The wind wrapped around him like a friend's embrace. His wings caressed its weight. He had felt so bulky before, so heavy and clumsy at times. But his weight was microscopic compared to the weight of the air. There was so much of it surrounding them at all times, and hardly anyone noticed. It was invisible and omnipresent. George could take hold of it now. Climb upon it like a staircase. Swim through it. Dance on it. His wings grabbed handfuls of the stuff like rungs of a ladder. He pulled himself higher and higher. The starlight grew brighter until he had to squint.
Toby was struck silent. The Veil Of Tears. Phobiopolis' stars truly weren't just glimpses of burning hydrogen millions of light years away. They were here. Almost close enough to reach out and touch. Silvery blue spheres of pulsating illumination. They dotted their upside-down landscape like berries on a bush. And here and there, unthinkably huge constructs wandered. A whole race of two-dimensional life forms, living in the sky like drawings on a galaxy-sized sheet of paper. They were as big as Red and just as docile. They acted out their predation of one another without malice. It was simply tradition. Toby watched a feline-shaped constellation take several minutes to pounce upon and swallow a rodent-shaped constellation. Both looked perfectly placid about the situation. Only the brightest stars that made up their forms could be seen from below. But up close Toby realized they were infinitely denser. The bigger stars formed the outline, while smaller ones provided details. And details. And details. Each dot was orbited by exponentially smaller dots, forever. When the cluster of stars that made up the rodent-shaped construct entered into the feline-shaped one, they scattered about and dispersed. And Toby saw an equal number of lights inside the feline constellation wink out in response. Conservation of form. The old stars melted away as new ones took their place. And elsewhere, Toby saw an unconnected cluster gather itself together, merge into a mouselike shape, and wander off in perfect contentment.
Toby's paws trembled. He wanted very much to reach out and touch one of these constellation-beings. But he also felt that this was a wholly separate world that hovered above his own. Perfectly balanced as a hanging mobile. The introduction of any new element might cause chaos. Toby wasn't sure if this was some revealed truth or just his own imagination, but he sided with caution and kept himself still.
Together the mouse and stallion gawked for a full fifteen minutes. Neither noticed. It took exactly that long for George to bring the words together to speak.
"They are like me. I can tell."
Toby thought George's voice was nearly on the edge of tears. He wished he'd asked L'roon to give him that ability too. "I know," he replied in a reverent whisper. "I figured it out at the diner. I was going to tell you soon. This is what all constructs could be like. What they all start off as."
The thought overwhelmed George with longing. "But then... why are we what we are?"
Toby did not want thoughts of Logdorbhok intruding in this peaceful place. "Because something changes you from what you ought to be." He felt his friend about to ask and shook his head. "The details aren't important. Just be glad you changed. I am. You are so incredibly important to me, George."
"Thank you, Sire Toby."
"And I'm glad you like your wings."
A soft chuckle. "They are magnificent. I shall never stop thanking you for them."
Toby smiled. "Glad to hear it. We've got eleven more capsules, so let's make them last."
George nodded.
"And let's go back now. This place is beautiful, but we need to plan."
"An excellent idea."
It took several more minutes to pry their eyes away from the panorama of hypnotizing beauty in front of them. Then they descended back towards the troubled world which they had chosen to fix.
***
George was soaring. Swooping, gliding, diving. Toby gave him free reign, telling him to do whatever he felt like. "I need time to think." George cautioned that he didn't have to take on the problem all alone. Toby said he knew, and that if he ran into any brick walls he'd bring George in to help knock them down. "And thank you. You gave me a new way of looking at this."
"You're very welcome, Sire," George said, and nosedived playfully towards a herd of shovelcows, scaring the heck out of them.
Toby had lost most of his childhood on Earth, he knew that. Scaphis' injection of gunk hadn't erased his past, but had stripped away the road signs along his neural pathways, making navigation almost impossible. But memories have a way of reemerging when one thinks of something just similar enough to draw a new connection. George's advice had brought back a memory of grade school. Every student in Toby's class had been given a box of random junk and an egg. They were told to build a cradle that could keep the egg from breaking when dropped from the height of the school's roof. The students perked up at the idea of chucking stuff off a building and dove into their task. Most of them had no experience in engineering and ended up just taping everything in the box into a bulbous cluster. But Toby had attacked the problem with quiet logic. He went through everything in the box, arranging them in as many ways as he could until he felt confident in a solution. He remembered the way tree seeds would twirl gracefully towards the ground on spring days. His egg was largely unshielded, taped beneath a paper spiral reinforced by accordion straws. At the end of the day, when eggs rained from the roof, only four survived. One was Toby's.
Now he had to solve the problem of fighting an omnipotent, omnipresent supervillain. He had been through so much already. He'd lost his friends, lost his memory, gained a family, lost them too, been kicked and barbecued by a friend, lost another to Scaphis, turned away one more, then on top of all of that, discovered his backup plan had been drowned in plastic too. It was more than anyone should have been able to bear. Toby felt like an eraser worn down to a nub. A cigarette smoked to the filter. He felt like there was barely anything left of him, and what remained was held together by loose string and thumbtacks.
Oh well.
None of it changed the fact that someone had to plant a boot in Scaphis' ass for all the rotten things she'd done.
So Toby turned the problem around. It had seemed insurmountably huge, but not when he accepted that his pool of solutions was even larger. George had only a city to make use of when he'd come up with his plan to stop Gyre 2. Toby had the entirety of Phobiopolis. And as George flew him over the undulating hills of Rhinolith, it was the perfect vantage point to fully realize and appreciate that fact. "All of this is mine," he told himself. He tried to draw upon the confidence that Piffle, Junella, and Zinc had shown. The attitude of, 'I can bend the world to my will.'
The first rule was not to worry about how. Toby looked down at the land below and envisioned everything in it as ingredients laid out before him on a kitchen counter. It didn't matter right now if something seemed impossible to get. He could worry about that later. The important thing was to allow himself to factor in EVERYTHING. Everything he'd seen during the entirety of his journey. Every place, every weapon, every furson, every food, every nightmare. It was all on the table. Spread out for his use.
Toby imagined a tiny, fragile egg. Upon it was written: 'Get back my friends and save the world.' His goal was to drop that egg from the top of the world and keep it from shattering when it crashed into Anasarca.
As George performed aerial acrobatics, Toby performed mental math. Eventually the rushing wind blurred away to background noise. He didn't see the writhing green vines or the yelping nightmares below them. He didn't feel George's bones beneath his seat. He barely saw the sky. All that mattered was his mind. Phobiopolis' residents and resources became numbers. Variables to be added, subtracted, multiplied or divided. Within them somewhere was the combination to solve The Scaphis Problem.
***
Hours passed. George knew his master was onto something when the mouse began to giggle in mad triumph. "An idea?"
"More than that, George." Toby's eyes were wide, seeing nothing in front of them. His skin tingled, his heart fluttered. He felt like he was holding something large and complex and incredibly fragile, but brilliant. "I've got a plan. How about you land us back at Rhinolith and I'll tell you everything."
"Inside the walls?"
"Not yet. Take us back to the tubs we came out of. Land on one of the benches so the grass doesn't eat us."
"A wise precaution." With that, George took a moments to regain his sense of direction. He'd been having so much fun, he barely knew where he was anymore. But soon enough they were headed back to their starting point. It was only a few minutes away, and Toby used the time to poke at his imaginary contraption, testing for weak spots.
He'd started off with some ridiculously unwieldy ideas. Plans so complicated they'd collapse under their own intricacy like a skyscraper of cards. So he kept simplifying it. He broke the big problem down into smaller ones. He combined and compressed his ideas. He shot down everything that caused more problems than it solved. Finally he was left with something that was ludicrously simple compared to his original schemes. It wasn't noble. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't how heroes in storybooks solved their problems. But it felt like it could work.
Hooves touched down on rickety wood. The bench had seated many bottoms over the years and was not well-maintained, but George kept still and it bore his weight begrudgingly.
He waited for Toby to speak.
The mouse was staring off into space again.
"Sire...?"
"Right! George! Okay. Sorry, I got wrapped up in double-checking everything." He licked his lips nervously. "Where to start? Allright, so, let's first be honest. If you and I just storm Anasarca and tell Scaphis to let everyone go, she's gonna cream us."
It rankled him, but George eventually nodded. "Regrettably correct. While we do possess the element of surprise, she has shown she is smart enough to foresee those who are capable of opposing her and rendering them dormant before they can."
A nod. "We have to assume she's as smart as we are. But who's smarter than her?" Toby asked with a grin. "And who's already beaten her once?"
George mulled the question over. "All that is coming to mind is Sir Luxy Bleeder in Ectopia Cordis."
"Bullseye! For one, if he knew she was on the loose again, I have a feeling he'd drop everything to go after her. He understands exactly how powerful she is. Better still, if there's anyone to ask for advice, it's the guy who got rid of her in the first place."
"But surely he is too far away to lend assistance."
A broad grin. "Distance doesn't matter, George! Wanna know why not?"
"Why not?" George echoed.
"Because we live in a land with the best postal service in the universe! All I have to do is write a letter and a little mouse will bring it to him."
"Splendid idea! I had not considered the Vermillion. Possibly due to being quite transportation-minded myself. So, are you proposing to gain insight from Sir Bleeder through correspondence alone? I do not think the mice are able to transport fursons in their entirety, or else no one in the land would own vehicles."
"Elementary, my dear stallion," Toby quipped. "And you're right. I'm gonna ask for his help, then bring him right here to us while we get ready in Rhinolith."
George was befuddled again. "How?"
Toby leaned in close till he was a millimeter from the bonecuddy's ear. He whispered gleefully, "Who do we know who's faster than you, and doesn't mind being a taxi?"
***
The snow was coming down so thick it was like being buried alive in cold.
Toby's vest and shorts poofed up. Genuine terrorbunny wool, after all. He'd forgotten they did that in cold weather. His knees and elbows were still pretty chilly, but the rest of him was relatively warm. He looked like a blueberry with limbs.
Toby waited in the shin-deep snow for George to pop into existence. When he'd stepped into the tub a moment ago, he'd thought of their mutual friend, rather than a place. He hoped like hell he'd actually been taken to the right area. But regardless, he'd asked George to wish for a certain mouse when it was his turn. And now, right on time, here came the THUMP of nightmare hooves plopping down into the drifts beside him.
George drew his wings in tight and looked all around, shivering. "Gracious sakes! Where in all the world has it taken us to!?"
"No idea!" Toby shouted back. They both had to shout over the incessant howl of the wind. And also be mindful of snowflakes up the nose. 'At least it's actual snow this time and not ash.'
George looked around at the vast white emptiness, then back at Toby. "Regardless, I am glad that wherever we are, we remain together."
Toby reached out to give him an affectionate pat. "Me too. I don't know what I'd do if it spat me out here alone and I had to find you all over again."
"Pity we cannot hope to encounter Sir L'roon out here so he can sell you another amulet."
Toby nodded solemnly, remembering the merchant’s silence as they'd left him behind. "Yeah..." Since there was no way to navigate in such a pounding storm, Toby picked a direction at random and pointed. "Might as well start searching that way first. It's as good as anywhere else."
"Actually, Sire..." George paused and concentrated. He raised his head, swiveling his ears around. "I may have..." He trailed off again, then abruptly slung himself down onto the ground with a huge POOFF of snow.
Toby brushed a splat off his face and looked closer. George was splayed out on his side, motionless. "...George?"
The bonecuddy was silent a few moments longer, until he was sure. "I feel minor tremors. By luck or coincidence, they are approximately in the direction you had already indicated."
Toby was pleasantly surprised. "Then let's go!"
The two friends trudged along side by side through the punishing weather. It was not a long journey, though the cold made it feel like miles. Toby was blinking constantly to keep the snow out of his eyes. And the drifts around his ankles were starting to numb his feet. He held onto George's ribs like a lifeline.
Soon enough they saw a massive dark shape looming ahead. When they drew nearer, they were treated to a remarkable sight.
Red was playing.
The mammoth construct was romping about in the frosty weather. Jumping and pouncing, driving his face into the snow, popping back up to leap to where the flakes were falling from. His titanic weight cracked the ground wherever he landed, but in this desolate place there was no danger of hurting anyone. He didn't have to watch his steps. No more worries about trampling smallones or their possessions. Plus the frigid temperature didn't bother him a bit. He was happy out here. It was his favorite place.
George and Toby watched him with immense grins on their faces. Toby held a glove over his muzzle to hold in giggles. It was simultaneously awesome and adorable to see something so gigantic frolicking around so carefree.
They let him have his fun for a few minutes until Toby realized his toes had gone numb as rocks. He tugged George's humerus to let him know. The bonecuddy nodded, then tipped back his head in a low-pitched, keening blare.
Red froze in his tracks. His boxy head zeroed in on the sound.
Seconds later, Toby could not hold back a scream as several thousand tons of oxidized metal came thundering towards him. Red skidded to a stop with plenty of space to spare, though he did kick up a minor avalanche in front of him.
With incredible dexterity, Red leaned into the snow pile and gently nuzzled his two friends out.
To be gently nuzzled by a ten-foot rusted cube is quite an experience. Toby's heart was hammering. "Hi again, Red!"
Red made a noise like a dinosaur in a car compactor. That meant he was happy.
Toby asked George, "Can you tell him the plan?"
"Certainly, Sire!" George began a series of ululations. Strange calls that sounded like brass instruments underwater, or tortoises mating.
Red sat down in the snow and listened very, very carefully.
While the two constructs talked, Toby crawled through the snow closer to Red. He was shivering hard now. Red's metal was cold, but at least it blocked the wind. The rustbeast even held a boxy paw over the smallone to shield him. Toby thanked him with grateful petting.
George spoke with solemnity, speaking simply but eloquently. Red responded in long, low tones. It was much like listening to a recording played at slow speed. Red could move quickly, but usually saw no need to think quickly as well.
Finally, George nodded in satisfaction. He looked down and noticed the snow was up to his ribcage. Fighting past it, he slogged over to Sire Toby. "Excellent news! I have conveyed the plan and Red is enthusiastically on board!"
"G-g-great!" Toby said, teeth chattering.
"To my surprise, I did not have to explain to him the concept of Scaphis Tarrare. He remembers her. She posed no real threat to him during her reign, but he took note of her negative effect upon the, as he calls them, 'smallones'. I have conveyed her current form. He agrees that she must be stopped."
Toby nodded. He struggled to stand. From the knees down his legs were nothing but icicles. His fingertips were already turning unpleasant colors. "I g-gotta adm-mit, part of m-me was expect-ting to get h-here and find h-h-him covered in p-plastic t-too."
"If I may wager a guess," George said, "Scaphis has been unopposed for over a month, yet Marasmus is the furthest known point she has extended herself. I hypothesize it is a laborious process for her. If it were so easy as walking, she could have reached Stoma by now. But something is limiting her. We may not yet know exactly what, but my guess is that, even if she did remember Sir Red, not knowing where to find him, she may have decided it would not be worth the effort to seek him."
"S-sounds s-solid," Toby concurred. The little mousesicle shuffled towards George, and the construct had to catch him when he toppled over. "Th-thanks." Toby did not want a faceful of powder. He thought his nose and eartips were close to falling off anyway. George's wing membranes were displaying spots of frostbite too.
He turned to address Red. "You unders-stand everyth-thing?"
Red's head raised slowly, then lowered slowly. A nod.
"And you can get to Ect-topia Cordis quickl-ly?"
A momentary pause, then Red gave Toby a head-tilt that perfectly conveyed, 'C'mon, kid, that's an easy one.'
Toby managed a laugh. It came out more like a gasp. He could see his breath crystallize in front of him. "Y-you're gonna b-be a hero for this, Red. P-people are g-going to l-love you."
Another nod. This one bursting with quiet happiness.
"Might I ask another request?" George spoke up. "I believe my companion is about to expire from this region's low temperature. As there are no tubs here to return via, might we hitch a ride with you to the nearest warmer weather?"
Red made an 'oh, sure!' noise.
"Excellent!" George leaned down to collect the ragged scrap of frozen mouseflesh before him that was still stubbornly clinging to breath.
Toby dangled bonelessly. "Th-thank y-you, George. I f-feel like a snow c-cone." Part of his tail fell off. He didn't notice.
"We'll soon have you warmed up again," George assured. And when Red knelt down, George sprung onto the top of his head with a bound.
Red took off running.
George slid backwards and collided ass-first with the top of Red's shoulders. Sire Toby nearly flew out of his mouth. As the immense red rustbeast flew across the frozen ground, George felt a moment of empathy for what his own passengers went through during one of his fast starts. His rusty friend was positively pronto.
Toby slid in and out of consciousness. The G-forces of Red's velocity were rattling his brain, plus the physical strain of the day was simply catching up to him at last. He began to feel strangely comfortable. He remembered from somewhere that hypothermia was actually a relatively pleasant way to go. Your body started hallucinating warmth near the end. 'Fine by me,' he thought with a smile. Still dangling like a kitten from George's clamp, he died quite peacefully.
***
Toby went through about four more deaths until they were out of the cold. Red had brought them to a region that looked like the bottom of the ocean. The air here was air, not water, but the plantlife resembled seaweed and coral. The ground was unmistakably composed of aquarium pebbles. There were even rock formations that looked like treasure chests and deep sea divers. George spotted no fauna, but he had a feeling whatever constructs roamed here would sate his taste for sushi.
Toby was currently deceased, and awoke just in time to feel the vibrations of Red galumphing off into the night. The mouse had just enough time to roll over and sit up, then toss Red a wave and an encouraging shout.
He was happy to hear the rustbeast bellow a goodbye as well.
"An immensely agreeable fellow," George said, smiling. He craned his neck down to check on Sire Toby. "You are alive again. Good. And do not fret: I remembered to thank Sir Red for rescuing the vending machine prisoners."
Toby blinked until his eyes focused. Amongst all the dying, he'd gotten just enough sleep to whet his appetite for the stuff. But he couldn't let himself drift off just yet. One last thing to do. "Thanks for remembering. He really is a sweetheart. I'm glad Piffle introduced us. I hope after this is all over, wherever Red goes people will come out and cheer for him and ride on him and make him happy."
"That is a pleasing thought," George concurred.
Toby flexed his fingers. Still six in total. No more frostbite on his left paw, although he noticed the tips of his righthand stubs had gotten quite callused over time. Made sense.
Looking at his hand reminded him of earlier when he'd reached inside George's brain. Toby considered the experiment he'd thought of during his whirlwind brainstorming. 'Nah. Time for that tomorrow,' he decided.
George noticed a hideously scabrous giant sunfish poking its beak out from behind a reef. "We should be off again soon, Sire Toby."
"Actually, do you think you could guard me for a few minutes while I write some letters? I don't think I can hold a pencil steady if I'm riding."
George remembered this part of the plan. "Understood! I shall patrol the area and let nothing interfere with your task." He chortled. "Truth be told, I have no idea where we are and the thought of tasting new constructs excites me."
Toby laughed too. "Go have fun then. Hopefully this won't take long."
So dismissed, George nodded and turned towards the sunfish. He growled a guffaw and charged. It screamed noiselessly and attempted to escape, hovering along the ground like it was swimming through the air. George soon caught up and began feasting. He reasoned that since the taboo on cannibalism was invented by living souls, they could keep it.
Meanwhile, Toby sat cross-legged in the pebbles and slipped his backpack off. In Gilla-Gilla's cabin, he'd written the porcupine a note. Now he gambled that he'd remembered to slip the notepad and pen into the bag when he was done. Toby's rustling paw soon found paper. He held the pad on his lap, clicked the pen, and tried to decide what to write.
George left the sunfish's corpse with more holes than a shipwreck. In his peripheral vision he spotted a stinger-tailed seahorse approaching Sire Toby. "Not on your life!" he bellowed gleefully and charged again.
The notepad was small. He'd have to be concise. Toby wrote:
"Dear Luxy." (He remembered the raccoon did not like to be called sir.) "I'm one of the people who helped stop Gyre 2. If you've ever felt like maybe you owed us a favor for that, now would be a good time. Scaphis is back. She was with us all along, in hiding. Now she's a shape-changing plastic monster and she's swallowing whole towns. I need your help ASAP. Send acknowledgment and I'll give more details."
That seemed pretty good. Toby signed his name at the bottom.
The seahorse's head split from its neck with the barest effort from George's powerful jaws. Its blood tasted fascinating. Miniature nightmares spawned from its pouch and George amused himself trying to splatter them all.
Toby tried to remember exactly how to mail his letter. Either Zinc or Piffle had explained it at some point. He knew the mice would need a hole, for one. He didn't want it to be anywhere on his body, so he made a little divot in the pebbles with his thumb and hoped it would be good enough. He tried to remember the words. 'They were pretty simple, right?' He cleared his throat, then spoke clearly. "Um, I have a letter I'd like to send."
Right away, a tiny whiskered head popped out of the thumb-hole.
"Allright!" Toby grinned. He folded his note in half and placed it between the nonev's eager paws. "Take this directly to Luxy Bleeder. I don't care where he is or what he's doing. It's top priority."
The mouse gave him a look like, 'Duh, that's what I do,' and popped out of sight.
Toby took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He rested his head in his palms and awaited a response.
After his massacre of the seahorse's children, George bounded towards a flounder sporting concentric rings of pointy teeth all over its underside. George trampled it even flatter than usual. After taking a sample, the taste was so enjoyable he nearly lost himself in devouring it and failed to notice a stalagmite-covered crab sneaking up on his master.
Toby hardly noticed George's hooves plummeting down out of the sky to punch the unfortunate construct six inches underground. He was too excited by seeing the mouse show up again. It handed him his same note, folded over backwards with a new message inside. Without waiting for thanks or a tip, the postmouse vanished again.
Toby opened the note. It read:
"You're out of your fucking mind! Insane! SCAPHIS!? Don't fucking talk to me about that filthhearted cesspool of a bitch! I already keelhauled her six ways from sunday. That was ages ago! What do you bring me these lies for!? I'll hunt you down and pitchfork your kidneys for this, you fucking bullshit-dispenser! LUNACY!!! GO TONGUEFUCK YOUR MOTHER!!!"
All the color drained out of Toby's face. He was stunned stiff. Nobody could have prepared for a response like that. He felt like the words had been screamed point-blank in his face. He could almost feel the flying spittle. This was bad. Oh, this was bad. He had been counting on Luxy as an ally. Now it seemed he'd become an enemy. Toby imagined the raccoon driving a chariot straight across Phobiopolis to come javelin a pair of mouse kidneys into oblivion.
He managed to tear his eyes away from the note long enough to realize that another representative of the Vermillion was glaring at him impatiently. With another note.
Toby's shaking hand took it. He was too terrified to open it for a moment. Cringing, he did. In much smaller letters, it read:
"Oops. That was rude. Gimme a sec here."
Toby had a brief moment of confusion-paralysis. Then it dawned on him that maybe all was not lost. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more easily he could picture Luxy being woken up in bed, reading Toby's note, replying in a fit of irrational rage, then cooling off a moment later and realizing what he'd done. The raccoon was certainly impulsive enough. Toby inferred another message would be incoming and waited anxiously for it.
Meanwhile, George was swinging the dead crab's claw like a baseball bat and causing massive blunt force trauma to a salmon the size of a safari van.
Toby stared into the pebble-hole in front of him, knowing that a watched pot never boils, but unable to tear his eyes away. So much was riding on this. Luxy's help would be crucial. And if nothing else, the letter proved the raccoon was safe. Out of Scaphis' reach. Toby thought she knew it too. He would have bet EC was exactly where she was heading, to wrest back her fortress, and torture the one who'd kicked her out. The frustration of not being able to get there yet was probably eating her up.
The mouse appeared. Another note. Toby snatched it immediately.
"I should probably apologize for that first one, shouldn't I? We all have our berserk buttons. Guess what mine is? But if I remember you right, mousie, you don't have a dishonest bone in your precious little body. You're telling the truth about her. That worries me. And I'm a hard guy to worry. So allright, paisan, what do you need? Tanks? Nukes? I'll empty this city's armory to stop her. I'll tip RB&WB's upside down and shake it. Whatever you think you know about the shit she's capable of, just take your worst worry and add five. I am at your disposal. Dead serious. Just tell me where she is and what she's doing. Half of me doesn't want to believe you, but the other half's been planning for this contingency a long time now. You can't stomp someone like her far enough into the dirt to get her to stay down. AND FOR FUCK'S SAKE, IF YOU EVER END UP FACE TO FACE WITH HER, NEVER BELIEVE A WORD THAT COMES OUT OF HER GODDAMN STINKY MOUTH!!!"
It was signed at the bottom with "Luxy XOXO".
Toby fell over backwards in relief.
George looked up with his mouth full, thinking for one horrible second that something had shot Sire Toby with a poison quill or some-such. Then he saw his friend sit back up, grinning immensely, and start passionately writing on his notepad. George smiled. All was well. Now to deal with that manta ray over there.
-***-