Chapter 32

The night grew a little older and a little more frigid as the nocturnal fragrance of wysteria seeped in through the pores of the ancient temple. Its old bones heaved and settled as its foundations shifted. Its pulse oscillated almost beyond perception as if some other sense were required to fathom it all.
Everything was different now. The little sprite felt indifferent. her recent experiences had opened her eyes. She asked herself, did she feel antithetical, did her eyes that once perceive all and sundry See things in a different way?

” so, where do we go now?” Said Elkie on a cryptic note, as she tried to move the fringe of her wine coloured locks, that had gone awry back to where they’d come from, using only the power of her breath. they were both so young, and yet so old at the same time.

“We are going to complete the mission!” Replied the sprite as she muzzled hard her jaw with willful stubbornness to see the thing done!
“We are!”
“Yes, we are… for Grozette!” She said ruffling her hair once again.

“Begging your pardon!” Interrupted the black an amber spiderling in her unnerving humanoid form. She glared at them both with her black eyes that were as black as a nun’s habit “I’d better serve you guarding the temple.” She said as she gazed up into the eaves of the old building.
“maybe!” Said Eulin, but you’d be alone “. Brownie thought about the conundrum and imagined how awful it would be completing the mission only to find out the temple had indeed been infiltrated.
“Do not worry about me…” she insisted dismissing Eulins concerns out of hand, “I am more than a match for anything that could come into this place,” she said with confidence beyond disturbing. She continued, “it was only by subterfuge, they caught me the last time.” as if she were about to burst into guffaws of laughter.

“Well now, I suppose every old church hall has its spider!” Brownie said tersely as Jn Joro bowed in agreement. she panned her eyes around them all “We need to do this quickly, in and out… We have already wasted too much precious time,”
“The key!” Guessed Elkie affirming her suspicions.
They readied themselves to leave, but before Brownie took another step, she took Eulin to one side
“I want you to liaise with Googlee tell him to be ready to be brave…. an’ that we miss him!”

The little ghost stood still and quiet by her side as she studied Brownie with worried eyes
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Asked Elkie.
“don’t think so,”
“We have no magic, how are we going to succeed without magic,”
“You let me worry about that,” she said as she continued with what she was about to do. The young ghost frowned with frustration. “you have no idea at all do you, you’re hoping to blag your way through this!”
——-
It was a peculiar ill feeling, a tad like temporary madness as they felt themselves compressed into zeroness, and then quickly back to their own relative mass, as if cast by a divine fishing rod to their destination on the end of an unbreakable string, at least in theory.
Brownie rubbed her eyes as she looked around to see the inner workings of a grand hall the type banquets were often held in. Its architecture seemed to be fashioned out of dark volcanic minerals that sometimes sparkled in the moonlight.
The suspense felt truer now, as if that which had been emphereal, was now its polar opposite and constant.
They wrestled with their demons as they snuck in the shadows, filtering into the main corridor by the light of the autumn solstice. A stray moonbeam burst in through the window and struck a silhouette across the back wall. It was reminiscent of an antique horror movie. not one from later days, one of the early ones Without sound, where the musician poured his innermost soul into emphasizing the harsh poeticness of it all. it made you quiver in your bones.
A soothing sound followed one of the pitta-patter of precipitation falling onto the shutters and onto the window panes. they glimpsed the vista below it was the city horizon, the streets hushed by the rain and further away the oceanfront. The rain almost seemed like soldiers walking along the walls of the citadel.
They followed the passageway until they found themselves standing at a large mysterious black door. The two of them looked at one another as they both tried to communicate by the power of mime, it was a little odd that there were no guards around…
“is this the place?”
“I think so?”, answered Elkie in a murmur
“I thought you knew!” She said more assertively in her defence. Brownie shook her head.
Slowly they raised the latch both of them working in tandem steadying each other’s hands and arms so they wouldn’t tremble So much as to make a sound. The duo slowly reversed back a step and opened the door, so it was ajar.
When they had made an opening sufficient enough, they put in their heads and peered around to examine more closely the internal dynamics of the knightmares boudoir in all its eeriness. their curiosity equalled their courage as they walked softly into the chamber like moonlight shadows That Wrought themselves onto the floor. Inside they beheld a giant bed and the vast magnificent mirror that was hung across from where the bed was sited. they moved like creatures of the night slowly, so very, very slowly, so as to not disturb the shape they could only classify as… HIM! As he lay upon his bed. Remaining unseen and unheard was crucial, so they muffled their breathing and worked slowly, methodically.
A watched minute hand moved faster.

Quite by chance, Elkie found herself distracted, it was the Mirror. The Mirror had an alluring seductiveness.
As they neared closer, she found herself peering into it, just for a split second. A harmless cursory glance that’s all. What did she think she would see…? For the moment she thought she perceived herself and her father standing behind her as if for some halcyon family portrait … only to look again to see it was not really her father at all but an admonition of misery. An amorphous changeling … an evil act personified and brought into the flesh. Her own little face was ashen and bloodied and her eyes that once appeared like polished marbles now looked tearful, bloodshot and swollen. she recognized it was the moment of her horror, the moment of surrender where she could do nothing but to succumb to powerlessness. She remembered lying rigid on the cold tiled floor afterward like a broken china doll as her blood flowed away from her like the spring tide going out. Then her vision closed down, but she recalled still hearing echoes of the aftermath of her life, and it was precious to her, until she felt the sensation of finality spreading through her veins and pushing out to the tips of her fingers and toes. her body coming apart, pearling into the atmosphere, like embers rising from the fire on the hearth. it was her own nightmare, and she was compelled to relive it.

It was overwhelming, too much of a trauma to her system. she violently convulsed, it evoked an intense Stare as Brownie slapped her and quickly kettled her behind a curtain.
She could regret it later.
The man sprung up in the bed and shrieked in torment “who’s there??!” They stood there behind the curtain, not moving a single muscle, not a twitch, for a whole hour. Nor did they hear him lie down again. He, the Knightmare – just sat there listening in the still of the night.

They heard him groan, a small stifled sound that welled up from the basement of the soul, he had tried to console himself, to put his mind Singularly at ease, but he could not.
rattled he was, they may have even though he looked terrified, a fear of that which is unnamed, a fear of what the dark harbours.

He had tried to comfort himself, to relax his ever-worried mind. eventually, though sleep took hold of him and he began to slumber once more.

Brownie looked at Elkies face she looked broken she rested there clutching her cheek in silence her eyes large and teeming with tears. The little sprite mouthed the words “I’m sorry,”
As they swung their attention back toward the: HIM lying on the bed, as they inched closer until they were standing over him, like the spiritwalkers of old.

He didn’t seem so notorious, in fact, quite the opposite as the little sprite examined the places Grozette told her, where he would most likely hide his wand.

Unbeknown to her. The little ghost was prudently standing above the very creature that had caused her so much pain and anguish, and like the mother merewolf, she was imagining the exquisite thrill of the kill. Revenge for the act of murder, in the likeness of her father whom she adored, it’s self an unforgivable atrocity.
Whilst she was behind the curtain, she had turned a sleight of hand and retrieved the obsidian blade that Brownie kept in her right boot, and now she was about to brandish it with great vengeance and furious anger, both hands thrusting downwards as if she were committing some sacrificial ritual.
A Hungry ghost that could not satiate Her primordial Drive.
As the little sprite continued to survey the bedclothes of his bed unaware, she could see something just about sticking out from under his pillow it was the wand. “Oh, I found it! “She said to herself. She turned to look over towards Elkie as she discovered her about to plunge the dagger into him.

The young sprite thought many things all at once. She questioned, did she have the right to lecture Elkie on that which was morally righteous? After all, it was the same thing that had been done to her in turn. But then, she was about to murder someone in cold blood, and she wondered what kind of smear it would leave upon her soul.

A moments distraction. She looked down at her Victim. To see him awake. he looked at first to have steam coming off him, but on a second look, she saw he was misshapen as his blurring figure was transformed into a plume of black bilious smoke that wandered past her curled in on itself and finally resided into the space underneath the bed.
“Oh-oh, “Said Brownie. she felt a lump in her throat as she clutched the wand tightly in her left hand and braced herself for impact. she knew something was about to go horribly wrong.
They could sense the sound of something straining. Fibres stretched like elastic beyond carrying capacity as if something were bursting into their reality. They looked down and saw a barely humanoid hand emerge from underneath the bed, it was gnarled with unusually long, jagged fingernails that were pitch black. almost shadowlike itself.
Another arm followed it as the tall figure of inky blackness righted itself until it was standing like an abomination sent by Tiamat herself, from the underworld.
outfitted in flowing robes and a face that was hidden behind a mask that was almost human, the Pa’mina primavera, the changeling king and the Knightmare they were all the same, Elkie knew it.
closer and nearer it came until it was looming over Brownie as HIS aura of dark matter, which encroached on her personal space as she felt squashed between him and what was behind her.
“That belongs to me!” He retorted as she was almost pinned up against the wall. She cringed and drew away from him as much as she could, he made a grab for his wand. She had threaded it up her sleeve to avoid detection. unexpectedly she felt a hand hold on to her arm, not a jagged hand but a soft cold hand that seemed to hold on to her. she felt the sensation of moving through a slip-stream of fluid briskly.
Then everything was still.
She found herself standing on the other side of some balcony doors looking in , onto where she was standing previously with the added bonus of looking through a partition of glass.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

” aaaarrrrrrrhhhh!” Raged the Knightmare as he realized they had thwarted him. he quickly located the two girls and pounded on the doors. Brownie and Elkie linked hands quickly as they tried to summon the power of the Acsetion key to take them to safety.

Alas, when it did not respond. The two of them wondered what could have happened, “Maybe he doesn’t like his wand! “Said the little phantom implying a male persona to the key. In the next breath, she said, ” the flares!”. A panic ensued as the Glass in the balcony door began to crack, it would only be seconds before he would be through. Elkie took out the flare from her pocket, hurriedly, it fumbled on to the floor and rolled around on the deck as the duo tried fervently to recover it. finally, Brownie picked it up and in seconds she had shot it upward into the atmosphere above. The two of them clambered over the side in the faith that Googlee would appear. Time was running out. A final crunch of glass breaking and then Silence as the two girls glanced at one another and slowly dared to pan their eyes toward the horror that stood in front of them personified.

He hissed as he broadcast intangible fear somehow. “Now you will immediately yield to me that which you have stolen!” On the floor they saw shattered fragments of glass everywhere, sparkling like the Crystal from a chandelier the draperies behind him flapped in the gentle breeze

They needed more time.

Elkie summoned the last of her spirit as she stood in between the knightmare and the Brownie.
“You don’t recall me do-do you, “She said as she stammered as fear gripped her in waves. They couldn’t tell if he gave the paradox much consideration, but he paused a moment for the occasion in silence “I’m Li Kays and Li Sx Mins – daughter, I want you to know that!!!!” She said as she stamped her foot and saw a peppermint coloured blur from the corner of her eye as they made a beeline for it. She and Brownie quickly clambered over the side of the balcony. The held hands entwined their fingers, took a step as if they were sashaying forward. They were plunging, free falling without a net.`

Then unexpectedly they felt themselves plucked out of the air as they rolled shallowly and spied the white occasional stripes and the streamer like profile of the dark red hide of Googlee the Peppermint Wyrzel, he had saved them. As the two rejoiced, and both held their hands to the sky and shouted “WOOHOO!” As they felt the rain splash their skin beneath the autumn moons.