Painfully cold, the whittler scraped across the surface of Saul’s mind. It left trails of memory in its wake. Trickles of blood ran from the long wounds it left in his scalp. He screamed every now and then. Each time he thought better of it. Each time the pain convinced him.

  After a while, the melange of pain and memories pushed him to the edge of delirium. The tragedy of it all was not how much it hurt to be `carved up little by little under Elise’s whittler, but that he did not even know the parts of his memory she was paying attention to if she was paying any attention at all.

  She worked methodically, silently. All her ferocity went into diligent work. She hardly seemed passionate in her movements. More like a surgeon than a butcher.

  Her caring fingers drove and dug and carved without hesitation. Deep inside, Saul knew the situation was bad. But on the outside, he only acted like a prisoner should. A perfect victim for a talented torturer.

  At last, his memories contracted, congealed, reformed his conscious mind. He twitched. Elise had left the room, though Vulture still sat by the doorway, looking half-asleep. Pain inched from the grooves left by the whittler. There were six of them in all, each one impossibly narrow at the bottom, like skin separated by the sharpest blade. At the top, however, they would be obvious, he felt certain. Torn bits of hair and blood littered the floor at his feet. He glared down at them.

  Farewell bits and pieces. Perhaps the rest of this body will join you soon.

  Saul trembled as he looked at the box on the table. He hunched forward, saw the whittler left with its bloody end pointed at him, and screamed again.

  The sun had set out the window. Then, a hiss, as of air escaping a balloon reached him. He frowned and looked up. Vulture had a hand on her sword. Her eyes were alert in the darkened room.

  A glint of silver shimmered in the air over the mid-point of the long table. Saul frowned at it. Then, the blade moved downward and the skin of the realm parted. The stink of burnt metal drifted to him from the gash in the world.

  Vulture rose and circled the table toward Saul. “Is that a gern, prisoner?” There was fear in her voice.

  “Looks like it,” Saul said.

  “Stay still.” Vulture approached Saul’s chair. Her blade cut through the ties on his ankles, first left, then right.

  He looked down at his freed shoes. He moved them absently, letting feeling return with time.

  “My orders are not to let any intruders see the prisoner,” said Vulture. “Get behind me.”

  “Your funeral.” Saul backed away from the chair on unsteady legs. He halfway stumbled. His hands felt his scalp and came away with traces of blood. He gritted his teeth. “Well, if art-children get funerals.”

  Vulture ignored him.

  The silver blade carved downward, spilling gray light from between realms into the dark room. A single glowing yellow eye peered in from beyond. A familiar yellow eye. Bantos. A splintered grin spread across his face, despite the pain.

  The cyclops emerged from the rift into the room. The table sagged under his weight for a moment, and then he dropped onto the floor. He held the passage blade between himself and Vulture.

  “Saul,” said the cyclops. “It is time for you to go.”

  Saul nodded to Bantos.

  “Stay back, gern. I won’t hesitate to destroy you where you stand.”

  “Gern?” Bantos took a step toward Vulture. “I’m insulted.”

  Vulture extended her sword toward Bantos. “Don’t take me for a fool.”

  “Enough talk,” said Olivia’s voice.

  A set of taser prongs shot from the rip in reality. The prongs struck vulture in her outstretched sword arm. Electric charge sent the art-child shaking. Saul seized the chair from the floor behind her. He raised it and swung. The piece of furniture shattered on Vulture’s back. The art-child hit the side of the table, then sprawled onto the floor.

  Saul panted for breath. He dropped broken chair legs from bloody fingers.

  Olivia stepped onto the tabletop in front of him, then climbed down to the floor. She turned and saw Saul. Her eyes were wide.

  “Saul, you’re alive!”

  He groaned. “I almost feel that way.”

  Irene followed Olivia out of the rift, with Morrie behind her. Rult padded the to the end of the table before jumping to the floor. Last, Hush alighted on another chair. Bantos flicked his blade across the gash in the world. It sealed with a hiss and burning scent.

  Saul stared at them, mind reeling. Olivia reached him. She looked at his bloody hair. “What did they do to you?”

  “She used a whittler.” Saul walked past Olivia and picked up the memory harvesting tool from the table. He looked at its end, where his blood still dripped. He held that needlepoint with his gaze for a moment, then stuffed it into the box.

  She followed him to the table. Her hand fell onto the box as he closed the lid. “It must have hurt.”

  “Yeah,” said Saul. “It hurt.”

  “You said ‘she’ did it.” Irene scowled. “Abigail tortured you? That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “Not Abigail. One of Simon’s junior guardians, Elise.” His pulse hammered behind his eye, the beginning of an ache from within. He breathed deep and hoped the pain would subside.

  Hope did not achieve anything. His father used to say something like that. Having had his memories whittled seemed to have brought some from his childhood to the surface. When he squeezed his eyes shut his mind showed him the gnarled, twisted branches of a temper tree, reaching for the sky in his father’s garden. He and Irene sat together under that tree.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He shook himself and opened his eyes.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed his coat. It still had one of his oven rods in a big pocket. He put the box of tools in the other pocket, then slipped on the heavy coat. He still felt cold.

  “We’re already in the passage house,” said Olivia. “We can make it to Mortressa.”

  “I’m not sure.” Saul frowned. “They said something about fighting in the passage.”

  “Inside the passage?” Irene folded her arms.

  “Could it be monsters?” asked Morrie. “Gern?”

  Irene shook her head. “Passage blades cannot breach shuttered passages. If it wasn’t for my unraveling the wards around this house, we couldn’t have cut our way in here either.”

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible,” said Olivia. “Gern end up all sorts of places you wouldn’t expect.”

  Irene arched one brow. “Such as?”

  “Such as a modern art gallery in Pittsburgh,” said Olivia with a flush. “Look it doesn’t matter. We need to get somewhere safe.”

  “If there is such a place,” said Saul. His temples throbbed and the pain in his skull intensified. “But we have to move.” He looked down at the floor where Vulture had fallen. Mask, blade, and cloak had gone. Kari lay unconscious, breathing steadily. “Bantos, carry her.”

  “You can’t mean to take this… thing with us,” said Irene.

  “She’s an innocent human,” said Morrie.

  “Right now,” said Irene. “But that art-child could take control of her any moment.”

  “I have to believe we can help her. We can help them all.” Morrie scowled at Irene.

  Bantos ignored them both. He slung Kari over his shoulders. The Irene led the way out of the room, and toward the passage doors. Saul wished he could remember which one went to Mortressa. He did not dare check the directory again. Olivia joined Irene in the lead as they walked past door after door. Each one led to other places on other worlds.

  He dragged himself along under the weight of pain, and the burden of memories. He stumbled. Bantos reached out and steadied him. “Saul, I can carry you too, if you require it.”

  “I can walk.”

  “Door ninety-one,” said Olivia as they took the stairs up to the second floor. The entire house sounded hollow, vacant except for them.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Irene.

  “Could be the disturbance in the passage was real trouble,” said Saul.

  Rult stalked ahead of the women and stopped by a door. His invisible taphic arm turned the knob just as Olivia and Irene caught up. The two women and the cat child stared into the passage.

  “Saul,” said Olivia. “Which passage had a disturbance?”

  “They didn’t say. But let me guess.” He limped to the doorway and peered down the enclosed bridge that made the safest path to Hidria from Earth. His mouth hung open. He forced his jaws closed so fast they snapped like a turtle’s bite.

  Structurally, little had changed since the last time he had used this door. A narrow hallway a few feet long led into a much larger area with an arched ceiling. Metal struts supporting the roof. The high, dark shutters of metal over the windows were mostly closed. Beyond those windows, flickers of movement told Saul abei-gern filled the gray area around the passage. Their myriad of bizarre shapes obscured the gray light that normally filled the passage in the absence of lamps.

  Saul and the other crept to the end of the narrow entrance of the passage. He looked over Olivia’s head at a swirl of shifting color further into the passage. Electric jolts like small lightning bolts flickered from the shimmering rent in the air.

  A world gate stood open in the passage. From the circular wound in the local reality, abei-gern poured. Their taphs reeked of unconcealed might, though they were mostly close to human size. As lightning flickered around the portal, Saul caught a glimpse of the other side. A dark forest lay beyond the gate, with a huge plant-stalk rising out of site a short distance away.

  “You see that?” said Irene.

  “Yeah,” Saul said. “It’s a gate to the world we made.”

  Humanoid art-children with bluish skin advanced on the portal, carrying spears and shields. Saul spotted Simon just behind them, standing with Abigail and Elise. Elise had her careful hands on the hilt of a winged sword. The three makers faced the gern, and either did not notice or did not care about the arrival of Saul and the others.

  “We’ll never get to Hidria, through this,” said Irene.

  “We don’t have to.” Saul clenched his fingers around the handle of the oven rod in his pocket. “We only need to get to that world gate.”

  Olivia glanced at him. “You have to be kidding.”

  He shook his head. “Apahar may be on the other side of the gate, but I’ll take our odds of getting past him over fighting every step through this passage.”

  Irene nodded. “We’ll have our children to help us once we get to the wandering world.”

  “You people are crazy,” said Morrie. “How are we supposed to even get there?” He pointed at the portal.

  Saul raised his oven rod. “Stay close to the fighters.” He turned to Rult. “Take the lead, my child. We’ll need your strength to make a gap.”

  “With pleasure, Saul. We must be careful. I sense the god-enemy nearby.”

  “God-enemy,” Morrie said.

  “Apahar.” Saul gripped his oven rod tighter. He gazed at the battle as the art-children phalanx met the gern’s charge. “We must hurry. Head for the edge of the passage, then cut through to the gate. Who knows how long it will stay open.”

  More gern emerged into the passage. Art-children roared along with their monstrous foes. Battle cries and death screams filled the passage. Saul lurched into an unsteady step and the others moved with him.

  Saul made it to the side of the passage before Simon noticed him and the others. In his daze, he met the guardian’s eyes.

  Simon stood just behind the phalanx of art-children. He appeared startled at the group around Saul.

  Saul glared at the man, muttered, “Damn you,” under his breath, and then turned away.

  Irene shot him a glance. “Hush and I can help Rult clear the way.” She looked like she wanted to add something, probably about Saul’s curse at Simon, but she did not.

  “Do it.”

  “Hush,” said Irene. Her fiery-winged bird child swooped down. Irene’s ignition blade emerged from his open beak. The sword fell and Irene caught it by the hilt.

  Hush peeled off. His wings began to blaze. Flames leaped from him and shot toward the fighting.

  Nat fluttered onto Saul’s shoulder. “Are you alright, master?”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks for getting Olivia out of there.”

  “I did not feel good about leaving you behind.”

  “You obeyed me. That’s what I needed.”

  “But they hurt you.”

  “They would have done worse to her.” Saul gritted his teeth. “Nat now is not the time to bare your heart.”

  “Of course, master.” He folded his wings and slipped under Saul’s coat collar.

  Hush’s flames devastated art-children and gern alike. Irene and her blazing child cut through the lines, surprising their foes in every direction. Olivia and Saul flanked Morrie and Bantos and charged after her.

  She held her cattle prod in one hand, and a loaded taser in the other. She had no need to use them until they came within ten feet of the portal. There, the gern had fallen back before the onslaught of Irene and the phalanx of spears. Olivia killed one gern with a taser shot that vanished into snarling jaws. Bantos swung the shoulder not holding Kari into the gern, and threw it down.

  Saul leaped over the fallen monster. His oven rod met the next one. He channeled his spark to ignite the tip of the sculpting tool. Heat leaped from the mystic seal on the rod’s broad head.

  The gern burned from within. It fell with a hiss of steam escaping its flesh. He and his group stood before the crackling world gate.

  Simon and charged after them, flanked by Crow and Eagle. The two art-children cut down a few straggling gern. Rult caught Crow and shoved him back with his taphic arm. Simon avoided the hulking art-child as Crow swayed off balance.

  Eagle’s rapier sliced toward Rult. Hush breathed a wall of fire between the cat child and Eagle. Simon darted past before the wall could cut him off completely. He met Irene blade to blade.

  They clashed at the edge of the gate.

  “You should never have returned to Earth,” he said.

  She parried a flurry of his strikes. “The council should not have sent that letter.”

  “I am but a faithful servant.” Simon grimaced as the flames from Irene’s sword threatened to singe his hand. “That’s more than I can say for you and Burton.”

  “So self-righteous,” she said.

  “Arrogance is its own reward.” Simon fell back from her as Hush’s wall of fire threatened to burn him from one side. “And you will have yours.”

  Hush’s flames cut Saul and the others off from Simon and the rest of the maker forces. The bird circled low.

  “Through the gate,” Irene called to him.

  “Everyone,” said Saul.

  They stormed through the opening and into the forest of the wandering world.