CHAPTER TEN
Time didn't quite work right in Abyss. Long, distended minutes stretched into the distance, followed by short, sharp hours that seemed to flash by in a rush. Eventually, you stopped trying to measure time at all, and that was when you succumbed to it and your humanity was gone, like that.
Alice kept counting. She didn't know how long it had been. She couldn't tell. But she tried to count. She tried.
There were times when the Chains remembered what they had lost to the dark waters of Abyss, to the white goddess at its heart. They cried together, shrieked, wailed into the blackness, and Alice would shut her eyes and feel the water soaking through her boots, and if she listened right, the wailing sounded just like singing.
She kept counting time through the song.
After a while it was even beautiful, a soaring crescendo of wailing notes, human voices long lost to beasthood and madness shining in the dark. All alone, with nothing but the lapping water and the night and the uneven beat of time, this was how she remembered she was sane.
It took an awfully long time for her to crack. When she heard the first strains of music floating down from the light above, real, melodious music, calling her, she lost the beat of time that had been going in her head, and she could no longer hear the singing of the Chains – just screaming.
She had found Oz, then. And she had saved him. And he had saved her. And they had gone together into the light and the silence.
xxx
This is how you keep your humanity. Not through petty fights and staring into the endless dark. Through human things – music, and beauty, and time.
Alice wished now that she could hear the song of Abyss. But they were in the light, now, and it was dark and cold and hungry, and silent. At least there were stars in the sky. She massaged her temples, trying to relieve the presssure in her skull, like a headache but worse.
They were in the capital, Sabrie – no – it was Leverru now, so it was. Sabrie was far away and long since gone. One hundred years. She had spent them in Abyss. Time moved strangely there, but it was one hundred years all the same.
Her memories shrilled and called out to her – she could hear them almost! Couldn't the others hear them? But they weren't there. Not there. She had no memories, just fading impressions of a dead city.
"I'm hungry," Oz said. "I mean, we've got cloaks, now, but you can't eat cloaks."
"Shut up," Lotti sniped. "Where do you suggest getting any food, the garbage?"
How strange that an insane, grieving, time-travelling murderer, with pink hair of all things, seemed to be the one in charge. An insane, grieving, time-travelling murderer with pink hair who had...kissed Oz. That had been a strange thing to witness indeed.
When it had happened, she had felt a dull anger, a possessiveness somewhere inside her, that had not ignited any kind of unstoppable rage, like she felt maybe it should have, but simply added to the thick weight pressing down on her. She had felt that thing – jealousy – but it had not caught alight, it had not consumed her. That was odd, somehow.
The pressure on her head. It was like…like swimming. Whenever she swam too deep (she had gone swimming before, back then, in the days of the dead city), she could feel it, all that water pushing down on her, and her ears began to ring and pain would shoot through her head like needles.
Right now, it was not water pressing down on her, but the sheer power she knew she possessed. It had always been with her, this feeling. After all, she had always been B-Rabbit. But it had never never been so so so like this, dulling her emotions and constantly throbbing, throbbing.
It just kept growing and growing, and growing, every flicker of rage or need or despair just adding to it, and she was dying to let it loose, all that power! And she knew she- she knew she could – there was no limiter, now, nothing to restrain her. All that power and it was hers. Hers.
She clenched her fist. She was not afraid! She was not holding it back because she was afraid of the power she held.
Then why?
She began to tremble. Shiver. Shake.
"Look, we need to eat," Oz was saying. "I'm really hungry. C'mon, we're wearing cloaks, if we do it right we can maybe get some food from a stall or something. I'm sick of this alley. It stinks."
"Whiny brat," Lotti muttered.
He was always talking to Lotti, now. He had insisted Alice spare the Baskerville's life. She had kissed him.
But he hadn't exactly thanked her for it, had he? And Alice was so quiet now, and all he ever did with the Baskerville was argue. She pushed the feelings down, and concentrated on keeping the power back.
"Let's go," she said.
Oz's face lit up. "Yay!"
They crept out of the dark alleyway into the main street, Oz and Lotti leading the way, Alice trailing behind. People seemed to be rushing by quite quickly, Alice noticed vaguely, and they were casting worried looks in all directions. There was a faint roaring sound coming from the city centre.
"How are we going to pay?" Lotti hissed. "I don't want to draw attention to us!"
Oz shrugged.
"You don't care?"
He shrugged again. "Are you good at stealing things?"
"No! I was raised in a respectable house!"
Alice vaguely noted that Oz didn't seem to raise any objection to this. Respectable, huh? Even what with the mass murder and creepy devotion to her insane lord?
"Yep. So was I. Okay, we might have a bit of a problem."
"Do you see the flaw in the plan, now?"
"Would you rather we starved to death? I know Alice wouldn't want that. Alice?"
"No," she said mechanically.
Oz frowned under his hood, stopping dead. They had reached the city square, which was packed with stalls and shoppers. It was packed – Market Day in Leverru was always a busy time, according to Oz, and they had walked right into it."Alice? Is there something wrong?"
"Let's keep walking," she said.
"No. Alice, you haven't exactly been your usual self lately."
"Neither have you," she retorted weakly, but truthfully.
"You haven't blown up at anything in anger. You haven't…I dunno, killed Lotti or anything."
"You asked me not to."
"Since when do you listen to what I have to say?"
"Since now." She folded her arms.
"I'd like to just say thanks for that," Lotti interjected. Oz pushed back his hood some more and shot her a look.
"Alice…I don't understand," he muttered. "We're partners. Contractors. I'm your..thingo."
"Manservant."
"Yeah. But you…you're trying to hide something from me." His green eyes flashed, showing a hard edge, and she flinched back.
"Oz," she whispered.
"Don't – don't whisper!" he snapped, taking a step forward. "That's WRONG. That's not YOU. You're acting wrong, Alice, you're too calm – too - you're hiding something, Alice, don't lie to me."
"I'm – I'm not hiding-"
"LIAR!" he snarled. "LIAR!"
Oz's shoulders were shaking, his eyes were narrowed, his teeth bared. For some reason they hadn't drawn any attention from the passers-by, who seemed to be rather interested in something across the square.
"Can you feel it, then?" she asked dreamily. "Like you're drowning, in deep water."
"This is all very interesting," Lotti broke in, "but we need to figure out how we're going to get some food – "
"Do we need to figure it out?" Alice said in the same tone, turning to Lotti and fixing her with a vaguely interested stare. "Can't we just take what we want?"
"No, that's called stealing. Stealing is against the law. You wouldn't want someone to steal your handbag or your carriage," Lotti said slowly, gesturing like she was talking to a small child. "So it's wrong to steal something that someone else-"
"Murder is against the law," Alice said. "Since when do you care about the law?"
Lotti laughed harshly. "She's good." She turned to Oz. "I won't have you shouting at her, boy. We can't draw attention to ourselves. In case you'd forgotten, all three of us are wanted by Pandora and if we want to get food we're going to have to do it the smart way."
"Look over there," Oz said suddenly. "What's going on over there?"
They looked. The screaming should have clued them in, really, but it was a very crowded square.
Two Chains. One had a grotesque resemblance to a flamingo, the other a deformed kind of turtle, which bellowed and sent bowls of soup from a soup stall flying everywhere.
"Chains," Alice said.
"And what's the betting," Lotti said grimly, "that they're in a contract with each other?"
Oz looked at her sharply. "You don't mean –"
"Yes. I think the Unicorn happened."
"Look at them," Alice said. "They're not scared or afraid. They're happy. They're… using their power."
People around them were struggling. Fighting to get out of the square, get away from here. Only the three of them remained stock still, staring, the two Chains and the Baskerville.
"There's probably more," Oz said.
"There's probably lots more. The Unicorn doesn't do things by halves."
"But Pandora will catch them, right?"
"What makes you think that? They haven't caught us yet, for crying out loud, and we're standing right here!"
Oz went white.
"Don't be such a pussycat. Well, you are a pussycat, being, aha, B-Lion. Still. What are you looking at?"
"Gil," Oz said, pointing. "He's right over there."
So he was.
"Well, he's probably occupied by that…thing that's happening over there," Lotti said brightly. "There's time. Let's just get the hell out of here -"
"They're just," Alice said. "Taking. What they. Want."
Oz turned to look at her. "Alice?" He frowned. She was pale and shaking, and her eyes were closed. "What's wrong?"
Her fists clenched and unclenched. "I – " she shuddered, gulped, moaned. "I'm scared –"
"Alice!" he said, seizing her hands. "I'm – I'm sorry I shouted at you, I don't know what came over me – please, what's wrong? What's going on?"
"The power," she said, looking straight up at him. "Can't you feel it?"
"Yes!" he said wildly. "Of course I can!"
"I can't hold on," she whispered. "I can't –"
Oz took her face in his hands, threaded his fingers in her hair. "Please, Alice -" and he did not know what he was pleading for.
"GET OFF ME!" she shrieked, stumbling backwards, slapping his hands away. "Get AWAY!"
"Get away, Oz," Lotti said suddenly.
"No –"
"GET DOWN!" She dragged him down to the pavement.
They were just taking, ruining, hurting. Those Chains. They were using their power. And Alice had the power to do anything she wanted. Anything at all. Anything she chose. No limiter, no Gil or Oz or Pandora. She had the means and the motive and the question was why was she holding all this power back?
She let it loose.
xxx
Alice gave a tiny gasp, and something changed in her eyes. Her body stiffened strangely. For just a fraction of a second, the sky was calm and the city seemed to freeze, to remain absolutely still –
And then she was B-Rabbit, and the whole city shrieked in pain. The two Chains dissolved into dust. Waves of invisible energy thundered through her like the seas of Abyss, raging out of her and rolling out through the city. The people of Leverru screamed. Their buildings crumbled, their carthorses and songbirds and lapdogs wailed and yowled and perished, the fires went out of the lamps.
Oz called to her, desperately, reaching out for her, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. Lotti hauled him away. He turned to her, shouted obscenities and insults and threats that neither could hear over the lightning and the screaming and the raging wind.
Let me go! Take me back! Let me go to her - I can stop her –
A blast of energy knocked him down, and Lotti grabbed his arm and tried to drag him farther. He became the lion, and snarled at her. I could kill you right now. The sharp ends of his clock-hand-swords hovered dangerously close to her throat.
And then she'd kill you, Lotti replied. You can't go to her.
I will! I have to! She's my partner-
A huge crash next to them startled them out of their argument. A huge block of stone from Parliament House. If it had been a fraction closer, it would have crushed them.
Lotti knelt and shouted into his ear. "If we stay here, we'll both be killed."
"Do you hear me? I'M NOT LEAVING HER!"
Lotti's face went curiously calm. She reached behind her to grasp something.
"What are you –"
She brought the rock down on Oz's head, and he collapsed, senseless, a boy again. They'd both gone without food for a while, so while he was light, she was quite weak. She grabbed a stray loaf of bread that had escaped obliteration, and scarfed it down while dragging Oz and pretty much focusing on getting the hell out of there.
The storm raged on, and the city screamed.
xxx
So this was the true extent of the power held by a Chain contracted to another Chain. And it wasn't just any Chain. This was Alice.
Stupid rabbit.
Gil stepped forward, breathing hard, his hair whipped around his face by the ceaseless wind. Bodies and rubble littered the streets.
He hadn't made a sound, but B-Rabbit turned her head around to glare at him with slitted, soulless red eyes.
"Salutations, Rabbit," he said. "My name is Gilbert Nightray."
The wind calmed, and the world was deathly silent.
"Gil?" the rabbit said, sounding confused. It dropped to the ground, and became Alice the girl. "The power's still there," she said, sounding close to tears. "All that and it's still there!"
Gil gritted his teeth. "Alice…I'm sorry." He raised his gun.
"Gil…" she said again.
"Alice, do you realise what you've done?" he cried out, flinging out an arm to gesture at the destruction around them. "You've destroyed Leverru! Look at all the people – dead. You killed them!"
"Where's Oz?" she asked in a cracked voice.
"I wish I knew," Gil whispered.
"He didn't stay – ?"
He lunged forward and cracked her over the head with his gun. She folded to the ground in an instant.
"You are the Chain B-Rabbit, contracted to the Chain Oz," he said aloud. "I am in charge of the expedition –" he reached down and picked her up, then slung her over his shoulder, " – with the intent to apprehend you and remove you to Pandora headquarters."
He picked his way through the rubble of the city.
"Or, what's left of them," he added as an afterthought.
xxx
The Unicorn laughed in glee and drank up the chaos and ripped open the throats of a small farming household and lapped up their blood and it was very, very good.
xxx
It turned out that the Pandora building was mostly intact, due to the concerted efforts of the staff inside. Gil hauled Alice inside, trying to be as gentle as possible.
Break met him in the front hall. "Ahh, Raven!" he crowed. "You've got hold of B-Rabbit, then? I assume we can blame her for this…mess."
Gil nodded curtly. "Be gentle with her."
Break's face suddenly became hard as stone. "Give me one reason why I should."
"Because I believe she and Oz are innocent," Gil said. "I really do. I don't think Oz is capable of doing that to Sharon –"
"B-Rabbit just levelled the whole town," Break said.
"Not all of it," Gil said defensively, "or we wouldn't be standing here."
An agent came up, saluted, and took Alice from Gil's arms. She looked quite vulnerable, Gil thought.
"Put her in a human cell, not a Chain cell," he ordered the agent. "I'll question her myself."
"Yes, sir!"
Gil turned back, to find Break giving him an unreadable look with his single scarlet eye.
"Perhaps you'll prove me wrong," he said. "That would be so much fun."
xxx
Sharon jerked in surprise, spilling a little tea on the coverlet. She carefully set down the teacup and then she simply marvelled.
It was so simple, so neat, so obvious! She ran her eyes once more over the picture book. Eques had told her once that when he had been human, he enjoyed reading this book, and it was the reason he was a unicorn shape now.
So if we connect the dots, if we go by the rhyme-
The lion beat the unicorn all round the town…
Then –
Lotti Baskerville, she thought. Her Chain was a lion. And according to Break, they were searching for the culprits, the ones who had nearly killed her. They were searching for Lotti Baskerville. And for Leon.
What if Leon could beat the Unicorn?
She grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and began to write.
xxx
The Dark Unicorn stepped onto the paved city centre, and looked around. Warm blood dripped from its mouth.
It could feel power flowing into it – oh, so much power. The chaos, the blood and death and misery of this place was like adrenalin, like electricity in its veins. It grinned and called out to the Chains of the ruins of Leverru. They rallied to its cry, and soon enough it was surrounded by a silent army of Chains. Roughly half of them had been human very recently indeed.
That B-Rabbit had been a good catch. Yes. The Unicorn would have so much to eat!
GO ON, HAVE FUN, it said. CAUSE SOME CHAOS. The Chains scattered.
And let them try to hurt it. Pandora, B-Rabbit, the Baskervilles...let them just try. For every wound and scar they tried to mar the Unicorn with, it would repay them back threefold and laugh as they screamed. Any Chain that attacked the Unicorn would fade into dust. And, if it should be so unfortunate, then the one who finally killed the Unicorn would be dragged into death right along with it.
A word occurred to it. A name long forgotten, a name that meant something. Something precious.
SARAH, it whispered. MY SARAH. I DID THIS FOR YOU.
And the Unicorn grinned.
xxx
Woop, a 3,000 word chapter! Sorry about the wait, there. We've still got a fair bit to go, but this story is definitely closer to being finished than it was.
Til next time!