Fred made his way down the stairs to the cove in a slightly dazed haze. He was willing to believe everything around him, but that didn’t mean the shock to his system didn’t have his hands shaking and his heart racing. He’d been fine with the risks outlined to him by the recruiter, if anything the risks had made it more appealing. He’d wanted nothing more than to go out in a blaze of glory, far from everything he’d been trying to deal with.
And now Tom was alive.
It was utterly staggering. He’d been grieving for a long time and hadn’t even noticed that he had been. He’d cycled through every possible stage of grief over the time since he’d heard the news. He’d gone from being part of a duo, part of something more than he was to being a singular, the only person in the world who looked like him and who had been through all the same things he had. It had hurt bitterly when Tom cut him off, hurt in ways he hadn’t ever thought would be possible but the idea of him being gone for ever had been so so much worse. There’d been times he’d wanted nothing more than someone to tell him it was just a horrible dream and that everything was the way it always had been
Things weren’t the way they had been, they were in fact completely different now, but Tom was alive and couldn’t get away from him ever again. He was rattled but he was delighted and for the first time in the best part of a year he realised he could see a future again, just like someone had switched on a light in a dark room. He wasn’t afraid of anything ahead of him any longer, no matter what it was. He’d come this far and if to go forward he had to befriend some monster in the dark, then he would without hesitation.
What had been a death wish was now a wish for something greater built with his own two hands.
The cove was dark and lined with tablets along the walls, each bearing a picture of some sort of weapon.
Supposedly these things were where the creatures who woke them up were. He’d read the stuff they gave him, and though it read like the sort of thing you’d get in one of the novels he liked, he had to operate on the probability it was all real. That meant going along with whatever was down here or dying trying. He felt a bit stupid as he stood there amongst the silent and still stones, but at the very least it was meditative, the calm reminding him of some dusty old warehouse, like the ones he and Tom used to get into. It felt homey.
There was a flash of movement at the corner of his eye and he turned, looking behind him in a hurry. There was nothing there and he had to assume in the moment that it was just a rat.
Not a rat. A voice whispered far away. A rabbit. You like rabbits. That’s why I chose you. That’s why you woke up. Every sentence was a different voice, cycling through a woman, an old man, a little boy. The hair on the back of his neck rose and he tensed, feeling his blood run chill with adrenaline as he prepared to fight some invisible assailant.
“Show yourself!” he said, a little shakier than he expected.
No, you must find me. You must wake me up the way I woke you, I can help you, you can help me. That’s how it all works isn’t it?
And it was how everything worked, you didn’t get something for nothing, you had to work for everything you had. He moved in the direction of the voice, letting his hindbrain lead him, ignoring the logic of the thing. He went along with it because what exactly were his options? Survival now mattered again, suddenly the most important thing on the agenda after Tom and the job.
It didn’t take too long to locatethe spot where the whispering seemed to be coming from, an unremarkable tablet on one of the many shelves, a strange long curved blade on the image. There were more flitting shadows around him as he reached out his hand and they multiplied and multiplied the closer he got until a hundred thousand movements danced on the periphery of his vision. His fingers met the stone and it all stopped with a suddenness that made him flinch and in a moment his head was full of noise, a voice that sounded like a hundred voices raised in unison.
<
And in his hand was the sword, incredibly long and difficult to hold let alone wield, but he knew that it was his, that it would spring to his aid whenever he needed it, that he was the host and the creature a symbiotic part of him. He was fine with it, if Tom had one, he wanted one, always even, never out of step and this was how it would be.
<> Desummoning it worked as easily as the creature had made it sound, the blade gone in an instant and in its place a large dangerous looking black ring on his finger.
“Great.” He said to no one in particular but meant it wholly, and turning, he headed back up the stairs, secure in the knowledge that now, now he would get even with his brother.
