Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
Chapter EIGHTY-SEVEN
Toby yawned and tried to stretch, but couldn't move his arms.
He came awake quite suddenly, alarmed by the sensation. His limbs were pinned to his sides by some kind of gummy substance. For a second he imagined he was back in the arachnopus' lair. But then he remembered the night before. He looked down to see the ground streaking by below him.
He was sixty feet up, cruising along inside of George's ribcage, packed in nice and comfy with a layer of cushioning fat. Just like bubble wrap.
He relaxed. Yawned again. He barely remembered finishing his correspondence with Luxy and slithering into George for the night. By the end, he could barely keep his eyes open. His handwriting was abominable. But he and Luxy had worked everything out. The raccoon knew transportation was on the way, and he'd promised he'd inform his guards not to shoot any missiles at the red behemoth that would hopefully show up in a day or so. Toby finally let his pen and paper fall out of his hand, while the tireless Vermillion tugged the last note from the pad and sent it on its way. George recognized his master was exhausted, so he did not keep him awake for long describing the buffet of constructs he'd rampaged through, and how much easier pouncing was with wings. He helped his tuckered-out companion crawl inside, not minding being a sleeping bag.
Looking back, Toby could hardly remember the last time he'd slept. Was it back in Skeeto's bedroom or in L'roon's stomach? He tried to walk himself through yesterday's events in order. He couldn't believe half things he'd done. Some of it made him cringe, some of it conjured a smidgen of pride. He was surprised to find sleep hadn't erased any details of his grand plan. Keeping it simple had helped.
George noticed the mouse stirring. "Good morning! You have slept for nearly nine hours! Well-deserved, in my opinion. I have been flying all night, by the way. I feel as though, if I were never allowed to land again, I could be content with that," he said with a happy sigh. "You slept even more soundly than I would have thought possible. By accident I have discovered why flight is not commonly possible in Phobiopolis. It seems air currents and density can shift as capriciously as the land itself. I nearly fell out of the sky several times until I learned to compensate. Yet still, throughout the jostling, you snored on!"
Toby was kind of impressed with himself. "Honestly, I didn't feel a thing. I had weird dreams all night though. What's been going on? Are we anywhere close to Rhinolith yet?" He looked down at the landscape. Seemed like a pretty normal deciduous forest from up here. Albeit one with a lot of skeletons running around. Skeletons that hadn't come out of any lifeforms he'd ever seen before. Way too many heads.
"I have no idea where we are in relation to our destination. I am traveling by dead reckoning, if you recall. Madam McPerricone's method. Aside from turbulence, there have been no problems to report."
"Good to hear." Toby watched a few skeletons toss femur spears at him. None came anywhere close.
"From on high, I have had no vexation from earthbound constructs. They chase along below me, leaping up and snapping, but I am able easily to evade. When I feel like a snack, I simply descend, find a neck to wring, and eat on the go."
Toby thought he could smell raw meat on George's breath. "Sounds delicious," he deadpanned. Though actually... His tummy rumbled. "I wouldn't mind a full belly myself."
"Allow me, Sire!" George banked into a slow curve, skimming just above the treetops. "As soon as I spot something with a little meat on its bones, I would very much like to share a meal with you. It has occurred to me during the night that I have all the skills necessary to prepare for us, a 'cook-out'."
Toby became frightened. He pictured George rotating a whole spitted convorine over his flaming head. 'On the other hand, I liked Gilla-Gilla's buttered scorpion. Maybe nightmare-ala-George would make a good breakfast.'
George swooped to and fro until he found a sturdy treetop to deposit Toby in. The mouse slid out and got seated. "Won't be a moment!" George called cheerfully, and shot like an arrow towards the forest floor.
Toby hadn't minded being flown around in the stallion's passenger compartment. He'd been held so securely inside, he had no fear of falling. Snug as a bullet in its casing. The whole experience reminded him of hang-gliding. And that thought gave him something pleasant to reminisce on as he waited for George.
Soon, delicious smoky smells were nudging into his pleasant memories.
With a whoosh of wind, George appeared with two jumbo-size drumsticks held in his teeth. Toby was taken aback by their size, but the fire-grilled aroma made his mouth water. George plopped one of the legs into the mouse's lap, immediately soaking his clothes in juices. "Jeeze!! What'd this come from, George!?"
The branch sagged and creaked as he settled in beside Toby (It is not easy for a hoofed mammal to perch in a treetop). He held his meal between his forehooves as best he could and took a bite. "Mmmm! Hypena, originally. Spotted the wily specimen and remembered advice from Sir Gilla-Gilla. 'Muscle tone makes for good meals'."
Toby was too intimidated at first to take a bite. The roasted thigh weighed as much as an entire furson. But when he did lean over and sink his buck teeth in, he instantly became a caveman. "WOW!! Is this really your first time trying to cook, George? It's fantastic!"
George wiggled at the compliment. "I observed several methods along our way, and extrapolated. I am pleased it pleases you."
Toby smashed his muzzle into the meat, tearing with his teeth, letting the drippings stain his cheeks. The taste of freshly-killed hot beast awoke something primitive and masculine inside him. He felt like a Viking in the dining halls of Valhalla.
Hours later, Toby was splayed across the branch with a stomach stretched tight as a trampoline. He idly waved the remaining femur back and forth. George had taken several trips back down to the forest floor to finish off the rest of the hypena, chunk by chunk. Together the duo were bleary and bloated and utterly satisfied.
George said sleepily, "It would be prudent to continue, now that we have finished our meal, Sire Toby. We would not want our allies to reach Rhinolith before us."
"Yuhhh," Toby groaned. He burped spectacularly. "That's assuming I won't burst the second I try to move."
"Are you in distress, Sire?"
A broad grin. "Not in the slightest, George. I'm wonnnnderrrrrfullll..."
George was tickled pink to have satisfied his master so. He spread his wings and hefted himself off the branch, then maneuvered around to half-roll, half-pour the stuffed mouse onto his back.
Toby moaned. He felt like a waterbed.
George blanked his mind and tried to 'feel' the right direction to point himself towards. Northeast seemed fine. "Hold tight!" he called out, and let the wind carry him away.
Toby watched the treetops blur below him. He felt his stomach slosh around, and vowed to himself not to waste George's cooking by bringing it back up for a repeat viewing.
***
The mouse and the construct passed through many strange lands that day. Some well-traveled, others less so. And when they encountered areas no other living Phobiopolan had yet laid eyes upon, they were unaware of their discoveries. These places would have to remain nameless until new explorers stumbled across them again, however many years or decades that might take.
Traveling Piffle-style, by picking a direction and coasting on hope, is not like traveling by map. When one knows the route, the route is more likely to behave itself and conform to expectations. When one doesn't, Phobiopolis' natural chaos is let out to play. Regions that might otherwise be miles apart are suddenly sharing borders. Sometimes entirely new landscapes are created when two others smash together, or superimpose. George had an inkling of this, but Toby gave no thought to the wondrous terrors below. He was just glad he was out of reach.
For a while the forest continued. Toby recognized the trees with leaves shaped like card suits. Odder plantlife eventually appeared, as if the land was devolving, losing its coherence. The beasts he could see looked like half-exploded scribbles. They did not walk so much as fling their writhing misshapen bodies forward.
Further on, they entered a pink-walled canyon where blood-chilling screams could be heard all around, echoing into infinity. Toby clung tight to George's vertebrae and kept a watchful eye, but no nightmares seemed to be producing the sounds. That struck him funny, and he found himself laughing. George laughed too. Toby laughed even harder. Eventually he realized that the air here felt thick and had a foul, medicinal taste. That was hilarious. They were breathing in laughing gas. Soon enough they were howling helplessly. The screams around them had never actually been screams at all, but helpless, tortured cackles. Toby's vision blurred with tears. His ribs were in agony. He could barely breathe. Guffaws ripped from George's throat so hard his jaw dislocated. He tried to fly above to clearer skies, but the canyon's walls seemed never to end. The only way through was forward. Toby fought to stay alive. His convulsive mirth felt like it was ripping his tendons from their moorings. He was within seconds of asphyxiation when he tasted normal air again. George shot through the gap like a bullet, emerging from the side of a cliff over a grisly orange river. He coasted until he found solid ground to set down on. He and Toby panted and held onto one another as the final giggles left their sore, throbbing bodies.
George did not feel like flying for a while. He folded his wings and began to trot. Toby felt like a wrung-out washcloth. Like he'd already shed all his breakfast weight just from laughing so hard. They had to admit, their encounter with the gas canyon had produced one positive side effect. It had brought them back to full alertness.
George thundered across a desert made of fiberglass sand and razor wire bushes. A land of lacerations. Toby spotted antelope-shaped constructs with faces and hooves made of knives. They sprinted towards the smell of his soul, and Toby reached into the side pockets of his backpack. He knew George could outrun them, but he also knew he could use a bit of target practice. Gilla-Gilla's throwing knives were small but dense, akin to arrowheads. Toby whiffed his first few shots. He growled and reminded himself that he no longer had a magic pouch: his ammo was finite. He felt bad enough about stealing them without letting them go to waste too. He waited until a knife-creature was tailgating, lowering its icepick antlers to spear him clean through. Toby calmed his heart and let his arm compensate for speed and wind. Then the knife flew like it had been magnetized, straight into the antelope's breast. The nightmare bleated, stumbled, fell, and gashed its own throat open with its front legs. Toby nodded in satisfaction. Soon, other constructs fell.
George kept track of his master's progress. He did not offer advice or assistance. He knew it was unneeded. He simply kept his gait reliably smooth. A grizzly bear made of mirror-shards burst into pieces from the skillful toss of one of Sire Toby's lightning bombs. George smiled proudly.
However, when they approached a plateau and from behind it emerged a colossus of prosthetic limbs, both travelers realized it would be smarter to flee than fight. The lumbering amalgamation's oval mass blotted out the sun. Artificial arms and legs, glass eyes and dentures, were all cobbled together with sutures, straps, and surgical pins. As if every discarded prosthesis from all of Earth's junkyards had been sewn together into this charging monstrosity. Its scratched corneas rotated towards the tiny horse and rider. Its teeth rattled. It shed fragments of itself like dander. It oozed a grimy residue. Its legion of arms and legs shuffled and rotated places, swapping out as old leather straps cracked or fingers shattered off. Other constructs, and what souls it could catch, were all ground up and used for grease to keep its ancient parts from grinding.
For George it was like trying to outrun a clattering dust storm. He could not help but recall the catskulls. This thing was easily as huge. He could feel it spitting porcelain teeth and wooden fingers at his flanks. He considered unfolding his wings for a shield, but reckoned they would create wind resistance.
Toby tried his damnedest not to look back at the medical monster casting a shadow over him. He could hear its thousands of jumbled parts clacking and scraping against one another. He could feel the debris it spat against his back. A thrown ceramic hand grasped his neck and he smashed it with his hammer to get it off.
Then suddenly the monster was gone and they were somewhere else.
Such was Phobiopolis.
George barely stopped his legs skidding out from under him. He would have bashed facefirst into the ice otherwise. They were skimming across a frozen lake now. A few inches of wintry water splashed against his hooves where he ran. The ice below did not inspire confidence. He could hear it creak as it contemplated shattering.
"Wings, George!" Toby shouted. His breath made cotton candy in the air.
George took to the frosty grey sky as the ice began to break up beneath him. Just in time, as hordes of hypothermic piranhas started pouring from the cracks to leap and nip at his hooves.
The land grumbled at his escape and sent tantrums of gusty wind at him, but he managed to stay airborne until land was in sight. He plowed onwards past the ice-encased trees, dodging the frozen corpses of animals that lurched stiffly up from the ground as he passed.
'This is like Dysphoria all over again,' Toby thought.
Though, given the choice, he knew which place he'd prefer to be. Absolutely. Wherever he was now, it was only throwing the same mindlessly random attacks at him as anywhere else in Phobiopolis. He sensed no will behind it. None of the canny sadism that had animated Dysphoria's pranks.
Soon enough they were out of the woods, and George nearly wiped out again. This time because the ground, and everything else, had attained the consistency of lunchmeat.
It looked like normal prairie but felt like trying to run across a bouncy castle. Toby clutched George's neck and was dribbled like a basketball. George put up with this for exactly forty-three seconds before deciding it was an assault on his dignity. He spread his wings again. Toby sighed in relief, then became amused watching hog-sized radioactive moles attempting to chase after them. They tumbled around like pinballs.
They soared uneventfully for a time. Below, the land regained rigidity and Toby saw a multitude of licking caves: the nightmares his hammer's tonguerubber grip had been made from. The beasts looked like little hills, except that whenever anything came near, they'd split open like an observatory's roof and an unspeakable tongue would flop out in search of food. Toby watched dozens of the mole-creatures get eaten. Some of the licking caves even tried to eat each other, which never ended in anything but mutual gory annihilation.
And then he and George went suddenly blind. After a bit of screaming, they realized that it was actually the landscape that had turned dark, not their vision. It even absorbed most of George's illuminated marrow. Toby wondered if they were in a black hole. He could see nothing. George figured keeping his hooves on the ground was safer, lest he fly them into unseen tree branches or cliffs. Gingerly, he descended until his hooves touched asphalt. A road. A bit of tap-tapping revealed the width of it. It felt like any normal highway. So George followed it, as there was nothing else to do. Even at full brightness he could only perceive a few inches in front of him.
Toby kept his ears perked in case something was lurking around to pounce on them. Sure enough, there was. But at least it was considerate enough to bring its own light.
They began as soft blurs. Far behind them, but closing in fast. Toby heard the hollow, windy echoes of engines. Soon the blurs looked like clumps of fog on wheels.
Ghost cars. Toby could see their headlight beams feeling the road, searching for new victims. Their forms were insubstantial as smudged pencil sketches, but Toby could see dented doors, broken windshields, missing hubcaps and other signs that these were the spirits of long-ago crashes. Dead drivers slumped in their seats, clearly no longer the ones in control. Spectral grilles grinned as they sighted prey.
But the mouse held down his fear. He knew the only ghost here was him. These were still just constructs, and the squeeze of a lightning bomb soon proved it. A snapshot flash of a ghost car's shocked scream, then it blinked into blackness like flicking a switch.
This posed a problem. The ghost cars were the only light in this inky realm. When they crowded close, George could see the road ahead which gave him advance warning of curves. When Toby extinguished the foes, George had to squint to spot the rapidly-fading highway lines. Worse still, his brief glimpses showed they were in a tunnel now, complete with a sharp stalactite ceiling. Flying was definitely out. They were stuck on the road, battling their pursuers.
It became a juggling act. Toby had to let the cars get close enough to be their night-light, but stop them before they rammed into George. Luckily, he discovered that a knife thrown through their hoods was just as effective as a lightning bomb, and these things made nice, fat targets.
Toby and George were surrounded by the screech of tires and the stench of gasoline. The ghost cars swirled and stretched like living mist, solid only when they chose to be, or when they were caught off-guard. They soon learned to go incorporeal when Toby was trying to line up a throw. This irritated him.
Finally he asked George to hold his ankles down with some tendon-ropes, because he was about to try something risky.
Toby turned around backwards in the saddle. Then, trusting in George, he let himself slide sideways. The tendon-ropes held snug. He was now horizontal with the road. He could see the yellow lines streaking by, mere feet below him. Another car was heading in to ram. Toby readied his hammer. He knew he had to be careful here, because a mistimed strike would send it flying off into the darkness where he'd never find it again.
The car's engine revved. Toby's fingers flexed.
Impact.
There was a scream of crumpling metal. The front fender was driven up into the hood, exploding the tire into rubber scraps. The car squealed sideways and crashed into three of its kin.
Toby savored his victory for about five seconds until George yelped a warning and swung him up and over to prevent a second ramming attempt.
So it went.
It felt like hours passed until they saw moonlight ahead and they emerged in a brand new elsewhere. Toby was drenched in sweat and his arm pulsated with the echoes of a dozen hammer-shockwaves. He'd completely lost count of how many cars he'd scrapped. The repetition had begun to hypnotize him. All thought vanished, replaced by automatic action. Until finally, his foes began to fade away at the first touch of natural light.
The grass here was high and wavy. Waist-height. The horse and rider slowed to a walk and allowed themselves a moment of rest. George checked behind them. Nothing but an endless savanna all around. The dark region, the tunnel, and its haunted autos were all gone.
Toby's palm-slit ached like fire. Unsurprising. For a while there he'd felt like the Fearsleigher's turret: George had spun him back and forth to counter threats on either side. One time the ghost cars had even coordinated a synchronized attack from both sides. George had tried a risky maneuver. With a cry of, "Hold tight!" He'd spread his wings just before the double impact and coasted below his estimate of the spiky ceiling. The two cars totaled one another and caused a pileup. George and Toby had a moment's reprieve before the rest caught up.
Now, thankfully, it was over. Or at least, whatever new unspeakable beasts were out here hadn't shown themselves yet.
The cold evening wind rustled Toby's fur. The silent emptiness of this place should have been a relief, but instead it unsettled him. Miles of green nothing. Just infinite grass, dancing in the breeze. There were occasional stubby trees that looked like inkstains on the purple horizon.
George trotted slowly. The soft dirt felt much better than asphalt under his swollen hooves. He lifted his head and scented the air. "I believe we are near Rhinolith at last."
Toby perked up. "Really? Good. I was worried it might take us another day."
George acknowledged the same worry with a nod. "The air here smells similar. We should be less than an hour away."
Toby felt massively relieved, until he looked down at all the grass surrounding them. "Um, this stuff's not going to try to eat us, is it?"
George chuckled. "Fortunately, it seems inert. Unless it is simply waiting."
Toby grimaced.
They continued on. The swishy-swish of the dancing grass was soothing to listen to. The land was dim and quiet. Toby wasn't sure if it was always nighttime here or if they really had been traveling all day till evening. Time meant nothing anymore. Their journey felt like hours. It felt like a week.
George heard faraway movement. "We may not be alone," he warned.
Toby snapped out of his calm. Relaxing, he remembered, was not a good idea until they were safe within Rhinolith's walls. He scanned in all directions. He couldn't see anything yet, but this was a perfect place for pouncing predators to hide in.
After a few minutes of staring fruitlessly into the darkness, Toby thought he saw a soft white glow. Maybe an optical illusion. "I hope it's not more of those damn cars."
It wasn't.
Long before he could clearly see them, George recognized what they were. Even so far away, on a still night like this, the wind carried the sound of his own hoofbeats clearly.
***
The full moon hung overhead. An obese spectator.
The herd was coming.
George halted. No sense wasting energy when they were already on their way to meet him. He began a low, thrumming growl deep in his throat.
Toby didn't know if it was simple irritation or if it meant something in nightmare-ese. He stood up in the saddle to get a better view. The white mass was nearing. Glowing. Gleaming. Toby suddenly understood what they were.
"It just never lets up, does it?" he breathed.
George kept his eyelights fixed ahead. "Regrettably, no. It does not." He pawed the ground as he took stock of his body, seeing how much fight was left in him. "Though, in a way, I have been awaiting this. I had not yet encountered another of my kind since my reemergence. I suppose it was only a matter of time."
"Are they your old herd?" Toby asked.
George focused, casting his sight out as far as he could. "I cannot tell. Though does it matter? Would they recognize me even if they were? Or I them?"
Toby sat back down. He ran a gloved hand along his friend's neck. "I'll be right by your side, George."
The bonecuddy looked back. "No you will not, Sire," he said firmly. "This is my cross to bear. They are my past, and I shall face what I once was. It is not your fight. Quickly, climb down into my ribcage. I will protect you."
The mouse hesitated. Looking ahead again, the herd's numbers were more numerous than his first guess. Toby wasn't sure if George could take them all alone, but he didn't want to sound insulting by saying so. Instead, he hopped down into the springy grass and pulled himself inside his companion. Layers of shock-absorbing fat began to form all around him. "You don't have to," was all the mouse said.
George gazed forward, facing the oncoming horde. He folded his wings as best he could to hide Sire Toby from their sight. "I have come this far in shame of my origins. You and the others have done your best to assure my success in becoming something new. Now I must test that belief by experiment."
Toby nodded. "I can respect that." He looked ahead and steeled himself, knowing he was about to experience massive turbulence.
They rumbled across the grassland in a V formation, like a swarm of birds, or a plow. Their bones seemed to catch and imprison the moonlight. Brilliant ivory white. Sparks of color shot through calcium like comets' tails. Their teeth were bared. Their hooves trampled the grass to mud. The sound of their synchronized galloping was like an ongoing explosion, rolling across the landscape, growing louder and louder as their arrival drew near.
George tried not to quiver as he faced eleven reflections of his former self.
Within a perimeter of twenty feet, the others all stopped on hidden signal.
Toby could hardly breathe, awestruck by the sight of them. They were terrifying and gorgeous in equal measure. On Gilla's porch, he'd only seen the one that killed him for a second. There hadn't been time for details. Now, Toby could understand George's vanity. It was surprising his friend could stand his blackened, sooty appearance after having been one of these. They were masterpiece nightmares. Long, lean, unblemished bone glinted with rainbow hues. And some were unicorns! Toby couldn't believe it. Two of them brandished icicle-shaped spears, stretching skyward from their brows. Leaders? Did these things have a hierarchy? Toby noticed something else interesting. The others' colors were brighter, yet George's aura was sharper.
They stared at George in vicious confusion. Their nostrils drew in the smell of prey, which seemed to coexist within their charred cousin. This was beyond them. They shook their heads and stamped their feet, waiting for this unnatural thing in front of them to clarify whether it was enemy or family.
George felt the weight of their gazes like an iron yoke around his neck. Could these be his own relations? Had the herd been so large in his day? Or had their number grown in the centuries without him?
They were waiting. Eager to attack, yet momentarily held at bay by the inscrutability of this two-scented enigma.
George could not bear the tension any longer. He stamped his hoof, hard, twice. Then addressed them in their native tongue.
Eleven pairs of spectral ears perked up.
In the language of constructs, George tried to persuade them. Toby could not understand the meaning of the tortured-sounding grunts and bellows, but George's tone sounded pleading. Diplomatic but desperate.
'He's telling them what he's become. Asking them if they'll try too,' he realized.
The other bonecuddies gasped at the astonishing ideas coming out of the darkone before them. Impossible ideas. Ideas so beyond what they were currently capable of, they seemed to scrape painfully inside of their skulls.
George was building to his most fervent plea when one of the light ones suddenly bellowed and charged. These ideas caused too much pain. They had to be stopped. The others agreed.
George dug in his hooves and braced for battle.
Toby shielded his eyes.
The next thing he knew, intense heat smacked his face. George had unleashed a gargantuan fireball.
It startled the others, who never could have imagined one of their own using such an attack on them. It boiled their marrow even hotter. This thing was not just insane, but a traitor. The living soul inside its ribs was not prey, but a parasite! They had to destroy it! And then destroy their corrupted kin.
The struggle that took place that night was a spectacle deserving of a vast audience. But only the moon and one small mouse were there to witness. One bonecuddy against eleven. Black against white. An uneven chess match played out on a board of swaying grass.
It was a battle of strategy versus brutality. The white stallions were more numerous, but George had the ability to think. And what was more, he had something to protect. It wasn't just cleverness that kept him bounding out of their attack range, or smash them with unexpected kicks. He had a reason to fight. One they could not begin to appreciate. Their motivation was to purge the infection from his body. George's was to keep safe the small living soul he cared about more than anything else in the world. His eyelights shone like drops of molten steel. His gritted teeth struck sparks.
They came at him from every side but one. Above. The sheer crushing weight of their numbers should have bulldozed George into powder, but he had another advantage besides his heart: his wings. They could not hold him down. They kicked and chewed, but he could regrow flesh perpetually. He lashed broken bones back together faster than they could break them again. Their squalling shrieks were a tempest of outrage. The abomination in their midst would not submit and die. Again and again, he leapt away from their attacks to divebomb, shattering skulls and vertebrae whenever he struck.
Toby cringed in darkness and weathered the storm. He had his eyes shut tight. He wished he could lift his arms to cover his face. Gravity kept changing direction, kicking him from every angle. His ears were folded back, but the sounds that made it through rattled like a heavily-shelled warzone.
For a while, George was brawling well enough to feel confident. Sire Toby's heart still beat within him. His own bones were scraped and cracked, but nothing important was broken. He'd scored seven kills already. But the problem was, his earliest victories were beginning to regenerate and rejoin. He suddenly realized he had a twelfth opponent: time. The only way he could win was to slay all eleven before the first could rise again. He calculated and realized it might be impossible.
For that brief instant of doubt, he was unguarded.
A flying pair of backhooves slammed into his cheek with the force of a car crash. George's left side went dark. They had taken his depth perception.
He roared in rage and doubled his ferocity, but the tide had turned. With only half his vision, he now had a literal blind spot they could exploit. He felt several more hooves smash into his legs and pelvis. Strong, blunt teeth clamped down on his wings, not trying to chew but to hold. Keeping him still so the others could rain down punishment. George struggled with the devil's strength, but there is a point where all the will in one's heart simply cannot conquer physics. Ten bonecuddies chomped down, digging their teeth into his ash-flaked frame. More weight than he could withstand. George writhed and bucked and shrieked and gushed fire into the faces of his demon doubles.
Their jaws clamped down harder. They were not so stupid as to be beneath cooperation. While ten of them held on, the remaining stallion charged.
George saw too late. He reared back his head to counter, but the one at his shoulder leapt up to bite down hard on the shattered side of his face, pulverizing the eye socket completely. The lightone held down the blackened heathen, preventing him from stopping what was rushing towards him.
Toby had been covering his eyes until he heard George's scream of, not pain, but anguish. The mouse risked a glance. A silvery-white lance was advancing.
Then the unicorn drove its horn through the top of Toby's cranium, shredding down the mouse's esophagus and spreading streaks of brain matter across his other organs. The construct snorted in satisfaction and screwed its head back and forth, churning the already-dead parasite to slush.
George wailed. His cry was not from loss, as he knew full well that death was impermanent. Neither was it from the agony of feeling his master's pain as he would his own. It was from the deeper pain of failure. When he'd seen the other constructs on the horizon, he'd been certain he could defeat them. So certain that he'd stood his ground and asked his closest friend to hide in the safest place he knew. Only now did he understand his arrogance. 'I could have flown away,' he realized. There was never any real need to confront them. They meant nothing. They were no different from any other beast he'd slain or fled from. He had only made them important by projecting upon them the memories of his past self. And Sire Toby had suffered because of it. No physical pain could compare.
Driven by grief, George whipped his head forward and tore a skull clean off its neck. Then he jammed his black teeth into the unicorn lancer's forehead. It gurgled a sound of surprise. George sucked out he shimmering essence and chewed it to tatters. The unicorn let out a shrill, excruciating wail at feeling its very existence vivisected.
The others fell upon their bastard cousin in fury. They held on with their teeth and pounded hooves against George's bones, trying to shatter his limbs and ribs. They'd long since turned his wings to crumpled, useless kites dragging from his shoulders.
George howled to the sky. He could feel his master's limp body dangling from within his own. The blood ran down his legs and pooled in the dirt. He prepared to light an ultimate pyre. If they would not let him go, his flames would fuse their bones to his. He would bring them all to cinders. His inner lights surged. His temperature rose. He changed tactics, no longer trying to escape but trying to keep them from escaping him. He heard them squeal as his fire began to burn their skulls as black as his own. They would learn. All of them. Fire was the most primitive and strict of instructors.
POW
Someone's pelvis turned into ivory confetti.
George felt the weight on one side of him lessen.
POW
An agonized whinny as a femur became a mist of splinters.
Those still living among the lightones wrenched their heads away from George's burning haunches to search for what was reducing their numbers.
POW
George knew. And suddenly he felt limitlessly foolish for thinking he could do this on his own.
This was a two-man job.
Toby disappeared again. The grass was the perfect height to hide him. The fire was so bright it stung his eyes, but he didn't dare look away from the mob of maddened bonecuddies that were tearing themselves away from George's welding torch of a body. Some realized they were being stalked. One caught the sound of rustling and turned its head directly to Toby's position.
He stepped out into its view. He held up his palm.
The lightone snorted. The parasite was loose! It was reaching out for mercy! It would find none! It would-
POW
Toby's hammer pushed its face through its spinal column.
"GEORGE!! I'M WITH YOU!!!" the mouse roared.
George heard. There were still so many weighing him down, and his own bones were already so fragile, but there was only one option left. He had to shove them all off at once. For that he'd need some divine intervention. When he'd done this before, he'd always needed to raise his forequarters high and then bring them down in a smash. But he couldn't now. Instead, he decided, he would simply will it to be. He concentrated all his mind on his fire, raising his inner furnace to temperatures beyond limits. And at the instant when he let his boiler overflow, he called down the lightning.
Toby went blind.
George became a living cataclysm. Heat and electricity exploded out of him, ripping the other bonecuddies apart. Incinerated instantly. For one singular moment, George beamed brighter than all of them combined.
Toby crawled backwards on hands and knees. He couldn't see. He could barely hear. A high-pitched drill was skewering his head. George had blown up somehow. A lightning bolt had come and his friend had erupted like a volcano. It was amazing to watch, but Toby thought his retinas were probably baked into glass right about now. Worse, he could feel hoofbeats shaking the soil nearby. The survivors of the blast were converging on him. Toby waved his palm around wildly, but knew in his heart he couldn't hope to make a blind shot.
Two nearby bonecuddies had charred and smoking rear ends. They had to limp along, dragging themselves by their forelegs. But even crippled like this, they were certain they could outrun the rodent they smelled. They cast a glance between themselves and zeroed in, attacking from both sides, heaving themselves forward to plunge their hooves into the-
The rodent was pushing its hand against its temple. Then it ceased to be there.
Two pairs of hooves smashed down onto nothing but grass. The lightones snorted petulantly and scanned around for any signs of their quarry.
They weren't looking for George.
He ran to the one on the right, bit down, and peeled its ribcage open like a trash can lid. It sputtered in inexpressible agony. George was kind enough to end its misery by planting a crushing hoof in its throat. Its corpse bounced in the grass with a thump. Its head landed nearby.
The other stared. First at its dead companion, then at the looming form of the blackened heathen. It had no concept of a Grim Reaper, or else its mind would have instantly flown to the image. It cowered in terror nonetheless, separated from its herd and pinned under the vengeful gaze of this inconceivable betrayal.
"You sicken me," George snarled, and passed judgment upon the construct at his feet.
The others were beginning to recover after being blasted to kingdom come. Toby had reappeared, senses intact, a few feet away from the action. When the cluster of bonecuddies smelled him, they turned like a single mind.
Toby tossed a lightning bomb into their midst, then ran.
Electric arcs took out two of the constructs that were closest together. There were screams of surprise and hatred as the others detoured around the smoking remains and gave chase.
George gave chase too.
The lightones were keeping their focus entirely on Sire Toby. His master was cutting through the grass like a hot scythe, zig-zagging crazily, easily eluding them. The poor dumb creatures, their minds were overtaxed tonight. They weren't watching their flanks.
George sped along behind them, gaining ground. He'd known he'd lose his wings in death; that was how potions worked. But even without them he could still leap. While his cousins saw only the mouse in front, George lunged into the air and came down upon two unfortunate backbones. Two lovely, splintering crunches. The crippled pair fell to the grass, braying in pain and horror. George elected to leave them like this. They deserved no merciful coup de grâce.
'Two down, minus the pair back there, leaves seven,' George calculated. And now it was easy. He'd ensured his own failure when he tried to take them all on at once. There can be no victory when your enemy surrounds you. But now they were spread out, still chasing Sire Toby, whose feats of evasion were quite extraordinary. No normal soul could outrun a bonecuddy without a heroic injection of willpower. Then suddenly, only six remained. George guffawed as he watched Sire Toby suddenly stop dead, turn, slide past the legs of a bewildered pursuer, then hammerstrike its ankle into glue. It tumbled into the grass like a crashing airplane.
Toby's ears pounded with the drumming of hoofbeats. He readied himself to be stomped into goo, or maybe impaled again, when suddenly a black corvette T-boned the two nearest bonecuddies and slammed them to the ground in a tangle of bony limbs. George sank his hooves through their ribs with the ease of breaking toothpicks.
Toby had never seen his friend's eyes glow such colors.
Flushed with glee, George pranced over and met his master's eyes. And suddenly his pride was replaced with overwhelming shame.
Because the mouse's face was etched in horror. Shock. Revulsion. Sire Toby was seeing him for what he was. No more or less than these craven beasts surrounding him.
He allowed only a fraction of a second to be overwhelmed by self-disgust. Then he swiveled his head to the three remaining lightones. George snorted blue flames. He shook rib fragments from his battered hooves and advanced upon the trio.
Bonecuddies are relatively intelligent by nightmare standards. These ones were smart enough to know when it was time to retreat.
George charged towards the quaking threesome anyway. They could not scamper fast enough to stop him leaping forward and biting the remaining unicorn's horn clean off, leaving behind a hole in its skull like a gunshot.
He snorted towards the fleeing nightmares, "RUN!!!" To hell with their shared language. Spoken words were more elegant. "Run from me, you low, weak, primitive insects!! You gutless dullards! BLIND!!! ALL OF YOU!! So blind you can't see how blind you are! Let your fleeing backsides be the last I see of you, or next time I'll scatter chunks of your carcasses from one edge of this world to the other!! BASTARDS! FEEBLE-MINDED VERMIN!!! REMEMBER THIS NIGHT! THE NIGHT I TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FEAR!!!"
The remaining bonecuddies fled as soon as they reincarnated. George chased them away, still shouting and snapping at their heels. His contempt for them was bottomless. They fled from his teeth and his tirade, all scattering in different directions. George could not permanently kill them, but at least he had scared the collective into eleven whinnying deserters.
George watched them bolt towards the horizon, keeping his eyes on them until they vanished into specks. He was trembling from fury. A mane of flames along the length of his spine still burned without him realizing it. His tail was also alight, looking like a firework fountain.
Toby peeked out from the grass. He saw his friend and protector standing in the center of a clearing where everything living had been scorched flat. Breathing heavily, he pulled himself to his feet and approached.
George's head was still twitching back and forth like a clock's second hand, watching for any sign of returning bonecuddies. From his sneer, he looked like he even hoped for it.
Toby reached out to pat him comfortingly. Then he winced and snatched his hand back. "Jeeze! You're like a stove burner!"
The stallion jumped at the mouse's outcry. "Sire Toby! My endless apologies!" He grimaced and snarled. "It seems I am completely unable to stop myself from bringing you harm..."
Toby chuckled.
George's head popped up. "You laugh at this!?"
Toby could hardly believe his friend was serious. "You're not still upset I got shish-kebabbed are you? It's allright. I know you tried like crazy to keep me safe for a hell of a long time. And it's not like worse stuff hasn't happened to me. At least it was quick."
George looked absolutely baffled, actually backing up a step. "But... But I... I was a fool! I let them harm you! I invited them to attack when, if I'd had any sense, I should have fled! I am directly responsible for causing you to suffer!"
Toby gave the quaking bonecuddy a withering look. Then he approached him. George shrank back, not sure what his master intended. Toby opened his arms and hugged the silly horse. It sizzled a bit, but he didn't take his arms away.
George stood there paralyzed for a moment. But then he turned to jelly and flopped down in the grass.
Mouse arms were around his neck in no time. Toby squeezed gently, not minding the heat anymore. It had leveled off; just about the same as sitting close to a campfire.
"Sire Toby... It is hard for me to understand," George said in a very small voice.
"Why?" the mouse asked gently.
He jerked his head away, almost insulted. "Because...! Because I am a beast! At heart I am merely one more of their number! I know, yes, I have come far from my roots. You do not need to remind me. But to see them..." He looked out across the moonlit savanna again. "Memories are one thing. But to see their savagery, their brutality... their ignorance!!" he hissed.
George's chest did not rise and fall with breath as a living soul's would. He also lacked a heartbeat. Yet when Toby held him close like this, the mouse could feel a faint shifting of his colors. Like water flowing through buried pipes.
He was about to remind George of all the things he'd done that demonstrated loyalty and thoughtfulness, but then he reconsidered. Sometimes it's not enough to be told something. Not when your own eyes seem to contradict it. Instead, he decided to tell his friend a story. "Once upon a time, George, there was a star being."
George angled his skull back towards his master, making an 'Excuse me?' sound.
"There was a star being," Toby reasserted. "And it got killed. Its body floated around until this ugly asshole called Logdorbhok found it and smeared its cruddy ugliness all over it. Like wiping boogers on toilet paper. But the star being had started out good and was still good underneath."
"This is what Sir Aldridge told us," George recalled.
"Yes, but none of us understood what it meant at the time," Toby said. He poked the stallion right between the eyes. "That star-being is you." He pointed away, to where the bonecuddies had fled. "And them. And all the other constructs. Even my hammer. It's all made of the same stuff, which is inherently good. George, you've had it backwards all along. You didn't start out being like them. They started out being like you."
The stallion froze stiff.
Toby rested his cheek against his friend's flaking cheek. "I remember the night I found you. You told me you wanted to be my servant, so you could learn how to be better. How to be kind and sweet and polite. George, haven't you realized? You never needed me to teach you any of that." He smiled reassuringly. "You were perfect from the moment you woke up. You never needed my help, or any of us."
George's old neck bones softly creaked as his head hinged downwards under the weight of the revelation.
Toby patted him between the ears.
"I was afraid sometimes," George whispered.
"Of what?"
"You," he replied, turning to meet Toby's eyes. "Specifically, of the moment when you would begin to fear me. I felt it was inevitable. Upon our first meeting, I knew you were in shock. You couldn't have accepted me otherwise. And I hid my trepidation the next morning, fearing that the instant you woke up you would scramble off my back and vanish into the wasteland. But you didn't. And then further on, when you suggested selling me I thought, 'Well, here it is.' But I was wrong again. You kept... confusing me by refusing to turn away."
"I never realized," Toby said.
"I am a good actor," George replied with a hint of a smile.
Toby rubbed up and down his friend's backbone, then winced. "It must have been really hard on you when I stomped off after the waterfall."
George nodded. "Yes it was. But even then, I could see that it was not due to my own actions, but friction between yourself and Madam Brox. You even spared a word for me as you left. Such consideration..." He sighed. "Sire Toby, I have waited so long for the moment when I'd look at you and see fear in your eyes, and I thought I saw it a moment ago. Yet here you are now, as if it never happened."
Toby just smiled at him and shrugged a little. "I don't remember ever fearing you. Maybe my eyes were just bugged out, watching you stomp those other guys."
George reflected. Maybe that was what he'd seen. Not fear, but awe.
Toby asked, "George, why did you think I'd give up on you? Was it," he flinched, "because I was such a scaredy cat overall?"
"Not at all!" George was quick to reassure. "It was not a lack of faith in you, Sire Toby, but in myself. I was unable to believe I deserved such compassion as yours. I worried that you were... 'too good to be true' as the saying goes. Whenever you showed me kindness, I would recall my past misconduct. Memories of merciless sadism. And there were times I would slip and find myself enjoying those memories..." He turned his face away from his friend, unable to bear the shame.
Toby sat up a little straighter, then he took George's skull into his paws and manually rotated it back towards him. Eye to eyelight. He spoke with great solemnity. "George. Listen to me."
George listened.
"Fuck the past," said Toby. He chuckled tiredly. "What's it ever done for us, right?"
George could not stop a small laugh from exiting him as well. "You sounded like Madam Brox for a moment."
A nod. "I was thinking of her."
The construct's inner light cycled through several gentle colors. "While I would not have expected you to phrase it in such a way, Sire Toby, I believe I understand your meaning."
"Good. Because as your master, I am hereby ordering you to stop thinking so badly of yourself. You have been the most loyal companion I could ever ask for. Whatever you used to be, you've already more than made up for it in my opinion. I'm just sorry you were keeping this to yourself all this time. If I'd known, I would have disagreed sooner."
George looked deep into the coral eyes of his friend. The thorny brambles inside him began to unclench. His air of assured self-confidence had always been easy to fake when he was with the others, and sometimes it even felt true. Now, he thought that maybe it could stop being an act. George could not put words to it, but he now understood the power of a rare moment that few people are able to recognize or appreciate: having someone see you for all that you are, both the good and the bad, and still love you.
Toby didn't know exactly what George was thinking, but his friend looked better already. He'd always changed moods swiftly and with intensity. "Are you okay now? Do you want to rest a little more?"
"No, no. I am quite recovered. Though I would enjoy another vial of potion. A bit of flight would be soothing to my nerves at this time."
Toby stood up and brushed the burnt grass from his legfur. He dug around in the backpack. "Gotcha. I think I'd enjoy a night breeze too. Oh, and just in case you were thinking it, you don't have to apologize about fighting those guys. I know we could have flown or run away, but there's a reason I didn't even suggest it."
George pondered that as he hefted himself to his hooves. "Are you telepathic, Sire Toby?"
A chuckle. "Nah, I just figured... Some things are important. Personal." Toby found the cache of aluminum pills. "Here you go."
"Thank you." George accepted it with a bow. A moment later he gave Toby yet another dazzling show as his wings reemerged. They grew much faster this time. After a bit of pleasurable excruciation, George moaned contentedly as he stretched his new bones and regrew the membranes between them.
Toby looked around for stray bonecuddies once more, before grabbing some ribs and hoisting himself up. "Sorry your family turned out to be a bunch of jerks, George. I can empathize."
The stallion snickered. "At least I tried. I'm sure you heard me attempt to convert them, even if the dialect was not clear. I thought perhaps I could make them see how limited their lives were, that a door was open to greater experiences."
"It's not your fault they didn't listen," Toby said.
"I am aware."
Toby patted his headbone again. "Maybe someday. Maybe we could round 'em up and bury them for a while. Until then, at least we've got each other. And soon we'll have everyone else back too."
"With luck and courage, yes," George nodded. He arched his back and prepared for takeoff.
What Toby said next came out as nothing more than a casual remark. "I know I used to be an only child, but I've had some experience lately. I think you would've made a great brother."
The bonecuddy had been testing the wind and trotting forward to begin building speed, but suddenly he stumbled.
For a moment Toby thought he'd said something offensive. "...George?"
The stallion slowly turned his head, fixing his eyelights on the mouse. "Only Sir L'roon has ever said that word to me before."
Toby noticed George was actually trembling a little. He'd really struck a nerve. "'Brother'?"
"Yes. Did you mean it?" the construct asked, or rather pleaded.
"Of course," Toby said without hesitation. He smiled warmly. "I guess I've got two brothers now. Skeeto in Scarlatina and you right here."
From George's reaction, Toby thought he would have been crying if he were able. He looked up towards the moon, overcome with his depth of feeling. "Sire Toby, I cannot fathom what I have ever done to earn you."
Toby leaned in close to hug him again. "Same here."
George laughed as if coming up for air. Then his jollity rose in volume and intensity as he began to run. When his wings swept the pair of them up into the sky, he was bellowing in joy. Toby joined in, screaming his heart out just for the fun of it.
George grinned and made himself an arrow. Streamlined and deadly. He pointed towards Rhinolith and streaked across the sky.
-***-