The Tangle Box

Uh, oh, Questor Thews thought belatedly.

The bluff face seemed to rip itself apart, torn like shredded paper, obliterated behind the sundering of the air in front of it. Scarlet dawn light poured into the black hole that was left, filling it with shifting color and smoky shadows. Thunder boomed, shaking the earth and those who stared openmouthed from both the meadow and Sterling Silver’s ramparts. The hiss of monsters mixed with a clash of armor and weapons. Everything rose to a shriek that sounded of things dying in terrible agony.

Questor went dry-mourned. Demons! The black-cloaked stranger had summoned demons!

A fierce wind whipped across the meadow, flattening tents and standards and causing horses to rear in terror and men afoot to drop to their knees. Kallendbor had his broadsword out, holding it forth like a matchstick against a hurricane.

Demons emerged from the rent, their armor bristling with spikes and jagged edges, all blackened and charred as if burned in the hottest fire. Their bodies smoked as they leapt from the gap onto the meadow floor, steam leaking from their visors and the chinks where their armor was fastened by stays. They were lean and misshapen beings, all bent and twisted like trees on a windswept ridge stripped bare and turned as hard as iron. They rode beasts that had no name and lent themselves to no description, things out of nightmare and horrific fantasy, creatures out of shadowy netherworlds.

Out from the darkest recesses of Abaddon they came, spreading right and left about the solitary figure of the black-cloaked stranger, sweeping from lake to bluff rise and filling up every inch of ground in between until they covered the far end of the meadow. The dawn’s blood hue settled over them so that they had the look of coals on which a bellows had been turned, the heat etched into the fissures and cracks of their black forms like fire burned into metal.

Questor Thews felt his heart move into his throat.

When the black-cloaked stranger turned to face him from across the lake, he knew that real trouble had arrived on his doorstep.

*

“You ate the bird? You ate him?”

Abernathy stared in disbelief at Fillip and Sot, who stood crestfallen before him, the satisfied smiles slowly melting from their faces.

“He deserved it,” Fillip mumbled defensively.

“Stupid bird,” Sot muttered.

“But you didn’t have to eat him!” Abernathy shouted, furious now. “Do you know what you’ve done? The bird was the only one who knew how to get us out of here! He was the only one who knew how to open the box! What are we supposed to do without him? We are trapped in this cave and the High Lord is trapped in the box and we cannot do anything about either!”

The G’home Gnomes looked at each other, wringing their hands pathetically.

“We forgot,” Fillip whined.

“Yes, we forgot,” Sot echoed.

“We didn’t know,” Fillip said.

“We didn’t think,” Sot said.

“Anyway, it was his idea,” Fillip said, pointing to Sot

“Yes, it was my ...” Sot stopped short. “It was not! It was yours!”

“Yours!”

“Yours!”

They began shouting at and then pushing each other, and finally they rushed together kicking and biting and fell to the cave floor in a tangle. Abernathy rolled his eyes, moved over to one side, and sat down with the Tangle Box on his lap. Let them fight, he thought. Let them pull out their hair and choke on it, for all he cared. He sat back against the cave wall, pondering fate’s cruel hand. To have come this close and be denied was almost too much to bear. He watched the G’home Gnomes battle across the cave floor and into the shadows. He still couldn’t believe they had eaten the bird. Well, maybe he could. Actually, it made perfect sense, given who he was dealing with. For them, eating the bird was a natural response. He was mostly angry at himself, he guessed, for letting it happen. Not that he could have anticipated it, he supposed. But, still ...

He ruminated on to no discernible purpose for a time, unable to help himself. The minutes slipped by. From back in the dark, the sounds of fighting stopped. Abernathy listened. Maybe they had eaten each other. Poetic justice, if they had.

But after a moment, they emerged, cut and scraped and disheveled, their heads downcast, their mouths set in a tight line. They sat down across from him wordlessly, staring at nothing. Abernathy stared back.

“Sorry,” Fillip muttered after a moment.

“Sorry,” Sot muttered.

Abernathy nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them that it was all right, because of course it wasn’t, or that he forgave them, because of course he didn’t. So he didn’t say anything.

After a moment, Fillip said brightly to Sot, “Maybe there are still crystals hidden back in the cave!”