MISSING PERSONS - PART III

In the grimy dim future of the forty-first century, there is only… VR!!!

“Merlin! Merlin!”

Things are boringly similar, we were only seeing the start of it in my time, but two thousand years on, and we’ve still not conquered the stars.

“Don’t worry, Daemah, darling~”

Bland cubes interlock from horizon to horizon, like textureless QuarryCraft.

“I’m going to fall…” but from several hundred feet above the highest pile, “…this is terrifying…” floating just below the few wisps of cloud “…hold me!”

Merlin is too busy maintaining the levitation spell and monitoring my preparations of the hunting idols to play silly games... “Now tie the ribbon around its neck and whisper her name like you were lovers. I’ll cuddle you all you want to warm up later~” ...but, I am all about winning silly prizes.

“Álfhildr…” a vision of someone comes to mind – beautiful – a mix of every woman I’ve ever known.

The idol twitches.

From twigs bound in rags to wicker birds in flight.

Feathers of fabric, the rich royal hues of our target’s coronation gown, now torn for her finding.

“Álfhildr…” she comes into sharper focus this time.

A dazzlingly fair maiden, eyes of darkest emerald green, lithe and graceful.

She was crowned in clothes the same colour as those jewels, her hair a veil to match.

Now the hunting idols bear those very shades.

“Álfhildr…” with a thud so deep and singular, my heart aches at the clear sight of her, and I become light-headeded, almost sick and faint.

Fleet of foot, clad in dripping scraps, smeared in ash and oil.

Between the sterile shifting cubes, she darts and weaves a ballet so antithetic to the earnest empress we had heard about on her home-world, the juxtaposition is nauseating.

As the third idol takes flight – surprisingly, the only unnerving thing about them is the lack of twittering – they shift in their limited murmuration to triangulate Álfhildr’s exact location.

“Breathe my dear Daemah,” Merlin’s honeyed tones, rich as cream, remind my body to function, “You need your strength.”

I appreciate Merlin for being a steady hand that can take over for a bit while I get my head straight.

The official story is, I’m shadowing her to get a feel for Missing Persons. The truth is that I’m just following her on missions, she does all the work, so none of it counts towards my productivity. It keeps me out of the spotlight, and I’m under orders to not do anything, touch anything, or save anyone.

My guardian mage briefed me on the details for our first outing as we did some in-person on the ground research.

Álfhildr had just been made empress. As part of the ceremony to anoint her as their leader, she was required to perform a series of trials. Easy magic user stuff apparently, though controlling the elements and creating windows into the future to prepare for calamity seem pretty out there to me.

It was as she did the latter, by all reports, thing went awry. The window she conjured became a door, and Álfhildr stepped right through... as if beckoned.

Krrr-kuuu-kiii~

Far below, there comes a chirping, “They have her scent-”

SKKRRRREEEEEEEE!!!

My relief at being done so soon quickly cut off.

A mile or two out from us, a plume of smoke shoots up – refusing to dissipate in even the high altitude winds – as our totems’ chirps turn into warning cries.

Kurrrriiiiiiii-kurrrriiiiiiii~

“...and she has ours!” Merlin rapidly controls our decent to the nearest cube, “Her counter spell is quite tenacious.”

With what sounds like appreciation in her velvet voice, even at a time like this, the moment we make contact with what passes for a surface in this world, she takes control of the hunting idols directly.

The core of each artificial bird, a simple rock, like the stony hearts of hunters written in runes. Merlin twirls one in each hand, but keeps the third between her lips.

They’re still too small and far away for me to see, but the mage makes them dance through the clear sky towards us, avoiding their pursuer. “Mmmmmm...” she moans in contemplation, swaps which stone is in her mouth, and continues to make the idols swirl about the smoke.

It ebbs and flows.

Sometimes it darts and feels like a bird of prey, yet in other moments it merely moves as a single mass, a microbe taken to the sky. Tendrils feeling out the breeze as if it were blind and groping its way through the air itself.

“That’s kinda gross!”

I’m not usually bothered by how something looks, I’ve worked in sanitation before, there’s always worse, but that smog is just off-putting.

Merlin scoffs around her gag, managing an, “Mmmhmmmmmm” in agreement, before continuing the aerial acrobatics display.

When she rotates the third rock to her lips, the shadow shoots after its connected idol.

Things accelerate so rapidly I can barely keep up.

Movements losing their natural flow.

No longer sailing on air currents, but defying physics altogether.

She tosses me the two rune-stones for the totems not being targeted, and swallows the third.

I don’t mean to imply anything about my guardian being experienced at doing this kind of thing, especially at her refined age, but the hunting idol hearts are between the size of knuckle bones and thumbs.

The clear pale sky, more grey than blue like the mage’s robes, is streaked by the twin forked lightnings of green and black.

Splintering and retreating at sharp angles.

Eventually they are close enough.

Merlin, her hands ceasing their dance to the heavens, heaves at an invisible chain overhead.

Down shoots the hunting idol.

Down follows the counter spell.

Down comes the curtain on our scene.

As if ensnared from behind by a net, the opening shrinking about its beak, the stream of smoke is brought tumbling to the deck in front of us.

The third idol barely making it out of the noose in time.

It almost bounces off the top of the cube, then soars back into the sky to rejoin its siblings. They frolic above, rejoicing like they were alive, before flitting off towards where the spire of soot had first scaled upward.

Before the amorphous heap of shifting smog can drain itself of life, the high mage reaches into her snare, yanks the shade forward as if by the neck – what would be wings still bound by the spell, no matter how hard they beat in defiance – then beheads the outstretched portion with a small crystal shard.

At first, not much seems to happen, but slowly... “What on earth?!.” ...my mouth agape, the counter spell fades.

From what would be the open wound, it bleeds black up into the air, that floats away as ash. After a long few seconds, nothing remains but a few flakes of white and grey.

Merlin, still holding the part she cut away, bows her head. She says nothing allowed, but in my head I hear her prayer, “Hold this my dear...” she places the glassy shard in my upturned palm, then wrings the smoke into it as if from a dishcloth.

It pools into the crystal and stains the waters within midnight pitch. Darker than obsidian.

Again, I murmur, “What on earth...”

The shard loses the sheen expected of glass. A black void remains that threatens to absorb all light around it.

I turn it over in my hand as Merlin sighs with relief.

Magic makes zero sense to me.

Her warmth envelops me.

The pressure of her body, the weight of her robes, the smell of smouldering embers and dusty forgotten rooms... I sink into it whole.

As she hugs me from behind, her face pressed into my neck and shoulder blades, arms tight around my middle, there comes the muffled sounds of her yawning.

“We’re a long way from earth...” a comforting correction, she turns me round to face her, not letting go for a second, “...so what happens next?”

I played a stupid game.

I won a stupid prize.

“I don’t know?”

I shrug.

Worth it!