He plunged head first into the darkness, leaving trails of tears in the living night.
Michael.
He opened his eyes. There was nothing beyond him, but the void.
It's not over yet.
He raised his head, looking up at what he was sinking towards. He was drifting helplessly into the lightless centre of all things. A dreadful feeling assailed him, sweeping through him like a tide. The death of hope. The end of love. The hell of isolation.
Michael Tanner sank deeper, slipping down into sorrow, crushed by despair.
At the centre of it all, He waited.
"Gaspard," the boy cried.
He smiled, his black eyes full of stars.
Don't be afraid, son.
He reached out to him, his hand white, and blazing. Michael took it, and the fear was burned away.
They drifted in the dark, as stars began to stir.
"What do I do?" The boy asked. "How can I stop her?"
Don't give into fear. Remember what you are. Think before you act. It's in your hands, Michael. As long as you are loved, you are never alone.
The stars were awake, and their light was spreading, driving away the dreaming dark. It was time.
"I don't know if I can win," Mickey stammered, tightening his grip on the hand, the one real thing he believed in.
Gaspard smiled.
Then don't lose.
Mickey woke up, gasping.
A faint chuckle from somewhere nearby set him to scrambling about, or would have. As blurred vision and dizziness struggled to clear, the raw sensation of pain cut clear through everything else. His head ached terribly. His wrists burned. When he tried to move them they would not budge, nor would his arms at all. They could move, but they were bound behind him. That realisation snapped the boy awake.
He was in a chair, a big wooden one with four legs. He could feel its formidable weight even as he tried to shake himself free. His arms were taut, stretched and tied painfully behind the back of the chair with ropes. It was tall, the boy soon recognised. His feet and tail dangled helpless above the ground, and any chance of purchase. His coat had been taken off. He smelled and tasted blood. The periphery of his throbbing world was black, but there were light sources ahead, blazing so brightly that they stung his eyes, even through his shut lids.
The light beyond his tightly closed eyes flicked, then dimmed. The ground before him creaked loudly.
"Look at me, child."
The boy shook his head. The movement seemed infectious, for soon his whole body was shaking violently.
"Look at me…now!"
Against his will, Mickey opened his eyes. He could not close them again. He began to scream.
It had cast aside its clothes, but not all of the corpse it had worn. The Luma's face was stretched, tearing now, as malleable teeth distorted its jaw, which dribbled foul smelling liquid. Fat tumours rippled pendulously, glistening wetly in the light of two oil lamps. There were protrusions that might have been fingers but they were so long, and leaking.
It laughed, looking through the dead face's eyes as it did so, lighting up orbs filled with maggots.
"I have something for you," it said, slopping aside a little. Beyond it, between the burning lamps lay something large and angular, hidden under a dirty cloth. It began to reach for it. "I finished it just before you came here. I was not jesting, Michael, when I said I was inspired. I don't know how you found me. That can be your secret. But please, let me share you a secret of mine."
Shadows that did not match the thing that lurched before him danced across the stained walls. The cloth began to slip away. Michael began to wail, begging for help he knew was not coming.
"Let me show you a world beyond this one, Michael. Let me show you my home."
The cloth fell away. The boy lost the ability to scream, as he saw what lay before him. As he felt it begin to draw him in.
Don't give into fear.
Nothing made sense, but it was real. It was out there. A dark universe, yawning. Black planets rolled without aim.
Remember what you are.
Nothing. He was nothing. The world was nothing. All was nothing, before this place and it's horrors.
Think before you act.
There was a court among it all. There was a King. A God, who devoured time.
It's in your hands, Michael.
What could he do? Everything was cold, and gnawing. He was slipping, at the edge of the Abyss – the supreme darkness. What hand could save him? What light was there to fight this?
As long as you are loved, you are never alone.
In that instant, in the last second before it was too late, the boy understood what could be done, and did it.
There was a sudden blinding flash, turning the boy's bound hands into beacons of white fire. At once the wooden floor, and the back legs of the chair exploded. Splinters filled the air as the small shock waves rocked the young Tanner's world, breaking his view of the painting. Gravity pulled him back then, and the connection was broken completely. It all happened so quickly then. There was no time for anything other than instinct, and action.
The chair slammed down against the ground, causing an explosion of pain around the boy's arms. He twisted violently amid the momentum of the impact, and an instant later he was lying on his left side, cutting off the circulation to his left arm which, even now, felt as if the heavy back of the chair was about to snap it in half. But he was on his side, and not his back. His feet could touch the ground.
A bubbling, piercing howl cut through the air. Shadows pulsated as the loomed over him, began reaching down.
Mickey lashed out with his feet, not aiming for the monster, but the ground that he could now touch. There was an audible squeak as he skidded along the smooth, heavily polished floor. He cried out again as horribly long claws missed him by inches, kicking again and again, putting precious feet and life saving seconds between him and those rolling, vomiting fangs and flashing eyes. He willed himself to look past the horror, to focus on the heat building up in the fists that were now holding onto the ropes so tightly that it hurt.
She lunged at him, like an animal with too many limbs. A flash of light and heat, and he was free, rolling over the fallen chair and back, pushing it against the witch. It shattered in her fist as she knocked it aside, barrelling forward and reaching out to grab him.
Mickey raised his hands to her, channelled the light Gaspard had granted him, but he was dizzy and try as he might, it was so hard to not let the sheer terror he felt overwhelm him. He unleashed the light too high, and she slithered low and to his left. A limb like a liquid mace swept towards him out of the shadow, hitting him on the left side, under his raised arm. He was airborne and weightless before he could react. He struck the wall then, which must have been plaster because he went straight through it without dying.
The world spun. Something was throbbing in his skull. Lights danced before blinking eyes. Mickey felt the cold floor pressing against his face, only for an uncomfortable sense of friction to scratch along it. Breathing in caused a spasm of hot agony to seer its was through his chest. The ribs on his left side felt wrong, as if they were caving in, crushing his lung. The pain shocked him back to the now, as a bellowing roar echoed across a vast, empty space.
He pushed himself to his knees, looking about as he did so. He was in the gallery, unlit now. The white walls had an eerie blue hue to them, as moonlight cut through the air from the skylight high above. To his right, perhaps fifty feet away was the window that was supposed to overlook a street, and a door that might lead out to it. To his left, far closer, another door was flung open. There was supposed to be burning lamps inside, but all the light he could see were from the eyes, and the belching maw. The hole he had made as he had been hurled through the wall lay open and black like an untreated bolt wound a couple of feet from it.
"Michael..."
Mickey tried to stand. He made it to his feet on his second try, and it was a miracle he stayed standing past the wave of pain that made him want to throw up. Breathing hurt. The hammering of his heart hurt him now, too. He was nearly blind in his right eye until he wiped the blood streaming down over it from a gash high up in his face. He wanted to run, but would anything be different? The witch was ambling closer, and he heard her laugh carried to thunderous cacophonies throughout the bare chamber. No, it was not bare.
Though he did not look, the boy could feel them all, those dozens – hundreds – of paintings, lining four storeys of walls. On display, yet hidden. Each was a person, a life with dreams and loved ones that had been snatched away. In the slowly dying light the few that he could just see in the periphery looked as if their surfaces were in motion, once more. Could they see him? Could they see her, lumbering now into the gallery? Could they hear her laughing? Laughing. She was laughing at this.
The pain began to recede, or was pushed aside as a different spark was set off inside of the boy, and began to engulf him. Something so new, that he was unprepared for it. Rage, pure and undistilled. Claw tips stabbed into the palms of his hands as they clenched into bleeding fists, which then erupted into white flame. Stark shadows danced about the white walls and paintings. The cut above his eye cauterised.
There was a wet chortle of amusement, as the thing called Maria drew closer. The fangs in her maw were like glass caught in the sun.
"Having a tantrum, are we, boy?" It mocked.
Mickey threw himself at her, his howl becoming daemonic, his eyes and fists aflame.
"I'll make you pay for this!"
An oily limb, glistening wetly with its blade like claws snapped out, aiming for his head, but Mickey dived under it, was rolling and rising up under the nebulous bulk. His left fist plunged into the tenebrous mass, discharging the bolt that flashed around it as he did so. The fleshy blackness shuddered. There was an awful, high pitched scream as the thing staggered. Tanner's next blow came as he lined up under the burning eyes and smoking maw. The right cross blazed as he lashed out, hitting the gelatinous protrusion with everything he had. There was a sickening snapping sound, as the far wall was sprayed with black, living ichor.
For just a second, a feeling of triumph threatened to overtake the boy. He could hurt this thing. He could beat it!
The other limb found him then, its claws coming up and fast to his right. His reflexes were phenomenal, but even he was not fast enough to do more than lean out of the way of the most of the blow. It lifted him clean up into the air. The lights flashed before his eyes once more as he heard, more than felt himself skidding and rolling across the polished floor.
"You rotten little bastard!" A raging voice howled, echoing through the empty room. The sensitive floor creaked loudly as it chased after him.
Mickey, meanwhile, had come to a stop near one of the walls. The sense of hope had been swiftly exorcised. Dragging himself back to his feet, leaning against the wall for support, the thick scent of blood filled his nostrils again. There were throbbing, dulling aches along his right side. The sleeve of his shirt was stained in his own blood. There was a gash across his thigh, which forced a hiss out of his grinding teeth as he put his weight on it. The wound above his eye was open, again. This had been a terrible mistake. He should never have come here alone.
Maria reached him, but he was ready for her, in a manner of speaking. A limb lashed out, whip like with the claws cutting terrible wounds across the paint and plaster covered brick. The boy had to roll, rather than dive under the attack. He was back on his feet within a second, staggering back and around the monster's flank, fists burning white as he hurled a pair of bolts at her. The first one went wide, detonating one of the pictures in a shower of flaming ink and parchment. The second struck home, stabbing into the dark mass.
The limb that had missed before swept out again, covering nearly the whole distance between them. Mickey cried out, leapt back. The air before his face whistled as the claws nearly took his head off. When he opened his eyes from being forced to blink, he caught a glance of something welling up within the darkness: another lair of black, pulsating and expanding rapidly. He heard words he could not comprehend, but which burned his ears. Blue lightning danced along the surface of the now fist sized sphere. Mickey clenched his fists, and felt the heat beginning to mass once more.
She hurled it at him, acting first. Without even thinking, Mickey let loose with the gathering light in his own hands.
What the witch and the boy unleashed met in the floor between them. He could just see Maria being thrown back against the wall before the shock wave hit him, and sent the whole world spinning.
When he came to, everything ached. Something crashed nearby, sending rippled from the impact along the floor where he lay sprawled on his back.
Get up, Michael. Come on, son. Get up. Get up!
Mickey let out a noise that was halfway between a groan, and a sob. The acrid smell of burning wood filled his nostrils. When he rolled onto his side, what little of the room that he could see had started spinning. Breathing hurt, as the cracked ribs on his left side pressed too tightly against his lung. His right arm felt heavy, and numb. There was something digging into his left hip. Pushing himself back up onto his knees, the boy looked around.
The gallery was in ruins. Dozens of pictures had been knocked from their hangings, and were now lying scattered hither and thither, either leaning against the walls, or lying half broken on the floor. The polished floor itself was in ruins, with a smashed space before the boy that looked as if some huge, flaming hammer had been brought down upon it. Shards of glass were everywhere, and even as he watched, more fell flashing down from above, from a shattered skylight. There was still light burning from the open doorway to his right. To his left, there was the shut door, and the wide window that might lead out into the square. It was badly cracked.
Before Mickey, across the shattered hole and the glistening glass, was the witch.
She looked more like a person to him, now. Dark, oily, horrible to behold, and yet possessing more normal shaped limbs, and a head more like the Luma girl whose face she had kept as a mask. She was pulling herself to her own feet. Mickey tried to do so, with great effort. Something was still digging uncomfortably into his hip. With a growl of frustration, the boy stuffed his good hand into the trouser pocket, found the dangerously distracting item, and pulled it out.
He paused then, the witch briefly forgotten as he stared down at what he found in his hand. It was his bubble pipe. Galder's Bubble Pipe.
The sound of hissing reached his sensitive ears. Looking up, he saw Maria Mussorgsky coming for him, not running now, but striding purposefully upon the wooden floor. Her approach was heavy, slow, and relentless. There was no smile left – mocking or otherwise – on her face. Instead, she wore a look of absolute, unremitting hatred. Her blue eyes burned like stars. Foul smelling smoke belched from a maw that was becoming a sharpened mockery of a beak.
Mickey Tanner met her gaze, but he did not flinch. Instead he wet his lips, and put the pipe in his mouth. He knew exactly what to do.
Where Maria's feet fell, the glass was ground into dust. Planks of polished wood groaned, and cracked. Her arms came together above her head, and the fists clasped together, beginning to grow, and distort.
Mickey slipped into a loose, somewhat unsteady stance. He tried a painful, slow calming breath, making sure to breath out through the pipe. Little runes glowed along the stem, as some bubbles began to emerge from its mouth.
Maria did not seem to notice the pipe, or care. The few steps between them were covered in an instant. Her suddenly spiked fists tore through the air in a downward ark as the boy bit twice on the stem. The huge, pendulous mass destroyed the spot where Mickey had stood, though nothing of the boy remained, save for a misty outline that was swept away by the rushing air.
Barely a second later, that huge limb was lashing out, stretching and cutting the air with growing blade claws, covering and then tearing apart everything in its path between it, and the door and window leading out to the street. She had expected him to try and escape, as he had done before.
It took her a moment to realise he was not. By the time she had realised this, he had quickly covered the remaining distance, and had gotten what he wanted.
Stepping back out of the room where he had woken up, where the awful painting still sat waiting, Mickey hefted the oil lamp up in both hands, and threw it as hard as he could.
It arced high across the open space, the glass top flying free as it spun. Maria had a second to look back in his direction – to see him staring at her, before the lamp struck her head on.
It shattered against her chest, spilling oil all over her. The fire swept after it instantly.
The light returned to the gallery, the broken walls becoming white once more. Maria screamed, then, sounding more surprised than in agony at first. She began to shake, started to stagger and thrash as Mickey fetched the second lamp from the room. This one he threw at her feet. Glass and oil scattered all over the polished wooden floor, which then erupted in flame as well.
The black figure at the centre of it threw its head back, letting out a high pitched, ear piercing scream. For a mad instant, it looked to Mickey like a picture he had seen in a book at home, of a witch being burned at the stake.
The fire was spreading. It reached some of the fallen paintings, which were set alight almost at once. The wave of destruction rolled on. Smoke began to fill the gallery. Mickey stepped back, even as he watched the horror out there topple. The hissing sound of flesh burning reached him. The stink in the air was indescribable.
Despite this, the thing out there was not dead. Eyes burned brightly amid the flames. A horrible black limb, with claws at its end and sizzling flesh dropping off of it reached out, took hold of the burning ground, and dragged itself forward.
"I'll find you!" Something melting gobbled. "This isn't over, boy!"
Mickey shivered, feeling sick and disgusted. Looking away, he stepped back into the studio where the awful painting sat. A radiant bolt shattered it, scattering its hellish remains on the floor. A back door was just visible in another corner. Seeing his coat and hat, the boy quickly scooped them up in his good arm. It was time to leave.
The back door led to a small kitchen. Smoke and screams were filtering under it, after he shut it behind him. Beyond this door lay an alley, strewn with trash, but at either end, mickey could see openings, leading into streets. He was back in Alderheart! The relief he felt at this made the boy giddy, and unbalanced. He blinked tear from his sore eyes.
Looking back just once, he saw the windows of the gallery all lit up, as the fire spread inside. Smoke was already vomiting out of the broken skylight, in prodigious streams and in a colour wholly unnatural.
A scream shook the windows, echoing up out of that burning ruin.
"I'll find you! I'll FIND YOU!"
Michael Tanner turned and fled, staggering out of the alley, disappearing into the night, and the streets of the city. Behind him, the conflagration spread, and something evil inside of it swore, and raged.