Phillips Harbour
October 28, 1868. Night
With the gibbous moon overhead, Bernice and Caliban bring Rev. Hale into the woods to rendezvous with Rae and the unicorn. Marseilles was supposed to come, but something caught her attention on the way out. Promising to catch up later, she turned into a fox and darted into the woods.
Miss Townes and Mr. Shaft annaged this meeting in the hopes that talking to the unicorn in person would win Hale to her cause.
This might have been more effective if the unicorn were a proponent of her cause, herself. But while Kari answers Hale's questions honestly and completely, she agrees with his own conclusion: Opening is far too dangerous, and the odds of helping the spirits now on Earth without enslaving them and the whole world is virtually nonexistant. Better that the portal be Closed.
Soon, Kari and Rev. Hale are united in the effort to persuade Rae, Bernice and Caliban of the necessity of Closing, and abandoning the foolhardy hope that they can help Earth's spirits with any tactic. Rae is reduced to
Soon, Kari and Rev. Hale are united in the effort to persuade Rae, Bernice and Caliban of the necessity of Closing, and abandoning the foolhardy hope that they can help Earth's spirits with any tactic. Rae is reduced to tears trying to argue otherwise; she has no experience with the Game, no knowledge of its workings, and nothing to refute them with but her own conviction that the unicorn and her kindred spirits must be saved.
The chimpanzee looks at Bernice, bemused by this odd turn of things. Doc, this is not exactly how I saw this li'l talk playin' out.
Bernice sighs, running her fingers through her hair. She looks like, more than anything, she wants to go over to Rae and comfort her, but with so little time left, she tries with some effort to focus on the critical matter at hand. "Ever since we learned how this Game more or less works, I'm of the belief that there should be no clear Opening or Closing role. I can't say I disagree with the Reverend or Kari, honestly. But I do feel as though we can do everything in our power to research possibilities before the time of the Banefire... it's with the hope, however slim, that we can find a solution with a fair chance of success. On the bright side, I think the lack of animosity between us all right now is encouraging."
The chimpanzee scratches behind an ear. Well, that's a good thing, but... It's either going to be Open or it's going to be Closed, there's no third way, is there?
"We've only three days left," Hale says. "Kari's had centuries to look for a solution and hasn't found one." The unicorn ducks her head, looking abashed; she doesn't say as much, but from past conversations Bernice knows that Kari has never thought to look to the Other side for an answer, either. "The spirits are beyond our help. We must put them in God's hands and do the best we can for our own world."
The doctor shrugs helplessly. "If there is, I'm not aware of it. I'm not saying we won't have to make a choice. I'm just saying I'm hoping we can find an option the Banefire so we can make an informed choice, hopefully the best possible choice." She looks over to Hale as he speaks. "I know it looks grim, Reverend. But I'm sure you could quote me a passage on hope. Is it foolish of me to hope for a miracle, or faithful of me? We may be tapping into a resource that Kari didn't have available before, the very same that were opposed initially."
The chimpanzee ponders. Hey, Miss Kari... You opened the Portal to get to this world, years an' years an' years ago, right?
Hale sighs. "At this stage, Miss Townes? Yes, it is. Thank you for your time, lady unicorn, and your information. But my own course is still clear."
The unicorn ducks her head in a nod to the reverend. I understand. She nods to Caliban. I among others, yes.
So... How'd you wind up in this world? Why not... Somewhere else? I mean, if there's a world you spirits all lived in, could there be... Another world out there? Maybe some place with whatever it is spirits need, but no spirits? asks Caliban.
Bernice nods gravely at Hale. "That's fine, Reverend. But we already know how to Close, correct? We're not looking for a way to Open, nor am I asking you to. I'm asking that you help us develop our ideas. If it comes down to Closing, I'll be right there next to you."
Bernice adds, "Or do you actually need more time to prepare? You don't, do you?"
I do not think so. This world was empty, or so we felt, when we first found it, Kari answers Caliban. It approaches our native one at a tangent. When they touch, so to speak, the barrier may be weakened and we could pass through. There are no other worlds beyond these two, not that I have ever discerned.
The chimpanzee frowns thoughtfully at this, tapping a finger to his chin. Can't be like goin' out the back door while the cops're hammerin' on the front door, I guess.
"There's always more that can be done, Miss Townes," the reverend answers. "Undermining the plans of the Openers, for example, springs to mind. And instead I've been discouraging Locke and Woodrome from interfering with them."
The unicorn looks amused by the image. Rae sniffles a little. Let the Masters have this one while all of us evacuate to the next? Alas, I know of no other to run to.
I was thinkin' more fool the Masters into goin' right by us into the other world, Caliban says with a wry grin. We could use the Spirit Lamp to blind 'em into thinking this is still their world, an' the other Portal is the one they really want to go through.
Ah. All you need now is another world to trick them into going to, and you'll be set, the unicorn says. Does your inventive master keep spare worlds handy for such purposes?
The chimpanzee looks up thoughtfully at this.
Lessee... Spare worlds, no, but... What're the limits of Portals? Could you open one out into just nowhere? Back into the other world, somewhere different they wouldn't see it? asks Caliban.
Townes nods. "Fair enough, sir. But let us recount which seriously dedicated Openers remain." She ticks them off on her fingers. "Two are physically dead, and trapped in the remains of the Hill. Miss Pau can be reasoned with. One is a coyote running in circles, another is a stubborn old goat." She glances at Rae piteously. "And one is a small woman. Sir, I submit to you that you may have some resources to spare. Even if it's just monitoring Randall and Trouble, I suppose that's fine too."
"And of the Closers, one is dead and all the rest of you are talking like Openers. Including my own Companion," Hale folds his arms. "We are getting no where with this, miss. We'd all be better off getting some rest than arguing in circles."
Kari shakes her head, silver mane shimmering in the moonlight. The Portal may be opened at only one point, where our two worlds touch. I know of no other way to Open, not in all these millenia of seeing the Game played.
So it comes down to, fight whatever comes out of the Portal or keep it Closed? asks the chimpanzee, disquieted. And you don't think we can win the fight?
Bernice rubs her temples, looking exhasperated. "We're not talking like Openers!" she insists. "We're talking like survivors, like people who want to investigate every last option before we commit!" The vet pauses... it occurs to her she hasn't heard what Prayer has had to say. "Did you say your own Companion? What does she have to say about all this?"
I cannot see how you could possibly win against them, Kari says to Caliban sadly. We did not stand a chance ten thousand years ago, and we were much stronger then.
Prayer pokes his head out of Hale's coat pocket and squeaks at Bernice. I just think it wouldn't kill him to be a bit more openminded.
The chimpanzee nods, and looks up at the moon thoughtfully, in hope of inspiration. His boss's attitude has infected him a long time ago, that you can solve anything with a sufficient application of mad science... But so far, it seems like a fairly intractable problem.
The doctor can't help but smile at Prayer, and she puts her hands on her hips. "See, I don't either. That's reasonable."
Hale scowls, not sure what Prayer and Bernice are talking about but suspecting it's not in his favor. A dark shadow drops out of the trees, and melts into the form of a fox-eared girl. "Hi again!" she chirps to the unicorn. "How's it going?"
Oh hey, Miss! Did you find anything interesting? asks the chimpanzee.
This and that, she says, vaguely, with a flip of her tail. "Oh, Mr. Shaft wanted me to tell you about some of the stuff we'd been doing," she says to the unicorn, and fills her in on their experiments. The unicorn listens alertly, but has no new insights to offer.
The chimpanzee examines Miss Marseilles thoughtfully.
Bernice stops chipping away at Hale for the time being, looking on when Marseilles arrives, and thinking back to what the others have been talking about. "What defines how much.. er, spirit a given thing can hold? Is there anything that spirits have been sent into from which they haven't ever returned or escaped?"
Caliban scratches behind his other ear, a sure sign he's thinking overtime again. You're thinking of that Black Stone stuff, right, Doc?
The doctor rubs the back of her neck. "The stuff you put things into that spirits couldn't see? I honestly don't think I actually learned much about that... does it actually absorb spirits, or merely block them?"
Seems like it blocks them, it's the stuff inside that stores spirit energy, the chimpanzee opines. But it has to be completely surrounding them.
The unicorn tries to explain to Bernice. Imagine a spirit as a sculpture in clay. A skilled sculptor can add more clay to an otherwise finished sculpture and make it larger, or more detailed, or add to the base, or so forth. But as more and more clay is added, at what point does the sculpture stop being the same creation, and become something else entirely? Or if the sculptor is not skillful, the added clay may unbalance his creation. It might collapse beneath the weight of additions. So might a spirit be harmed by feeding on other spirits, or become unable, unwilling, to incorporate more additions to itself. And as with clay, the matter that comprises spirits deteriorates over time. I've not seen spirits 'leave' or be exiled, but I have seen them disintegrate into nothingness. Perhaps that is a kind of 'moving on', as some humans regard death as a journey. But it is not a journey of footsteps that I can perceive, she says.
This is one of those meta-phor things, right? asks Caliban curiously. I mean, you can't bake a spirit to make it hard and tough?
Slate whickers a laugh, and the unicorn shakes her head. Yes, it's a metaphor. I don't know how to fire spirits. Or maybe we are fired as we age, and that makes us brittle and more prone to breakage.
Townes misses the metaphor discussion, instead holding her chin in one hand and tapping her cheek as she mulls this over.
But, Kari, you didn't say anything about whether you'd ever seen a spirit be trapped? asks the chimpanzee.
Not in this world. Or, rather, only by other spirits in this world, the unicorn says. Unless you count being embodied as a kind of entrappment. But that is not the sort of permanence you seem to be seeking.
Caliban elaborates, Was there never anything like, say, a spirit gaol, or exiling them or something to punish spirits?
"And do you suppose..." Bernice pauses, chewing her lip and worrying about how stupid this is going to sound. Still, might as well spit it out. "If one managed to force enough spirits together to make them collapse, could they effectively be contained as a mass that could no longer break apart or act? Like... a huge blob of clay."
The unicorn shakes her head. Not in this world. In the Other, Masters could build such things out of the force of their will, to hold the slaves. but on Earth, none of us has been able to make things that can bind spirits. There is no astral rope or iron which one may work to such a purpose. If I want to trap a spirit, I must stand on it with my own four hooves. Or wait until it takes a host body, and trap the host in a material jail.
We've got a spirit trap, the chimpanzee points out. The problem is that it's too small.
I don't really know, Miss Townes, the unicorn says. Normally the process involves one spirit deliberatly devouring another, and a spirit will stop when it cannot digest further. Before the point of collapse, although possibly after the point of transforming into something else. But your Mr. Shaft has the ability to process spirits in a way I've never seen done before ... a way that seems to leave them less themselves. Nor have I seen these 'spirit traps'. As Caliban says, both the traps and the processing seem too small to be useable against the Masters. But if they can be scaled up ... I do not know what the effect would be.
Bernice nods at Caliban. "That's the concern I'm trying to address. We have a means to divert spirits where we want them to go. We just need someplace for them -to- go."
Divert? If you mean the Amplifier, Doc, it's a converter - it turns spirits into energy, the chimpanzee ooks, trying to recollect what he knows about that. You can use that energy for anything - Closing is what we'd had in mind to begin with. But you won't be getting the spirit itself back out of the other end.
Bernice stops and blinks once or twice. "So... what's to stop us from just... wasting that energy? Spraying it into the sky as light or heat or something?" She looks vaguely guilty. "Not that I want to destroy them, but if it's us or them, I choose us."
No, no, here's the problem, as I see it, Caliban elaborates. Stuffin' them in the Amplifier. See, my boss wants to use the Spirit Stunner to zap 'em, make 'em easy to handle, an' then we stuff 'em in the Amplifier, one at a time, an' charge up our own friendly spirits so they can overpower the rest. We get stronger, they get weaker. Catch is, getting the first one in the hole.
"Oh, so we don't actually have a way of... erm, just sucking them up with the.. Amplifier. Thing." Bernice rubs her head. University did not prepare her for this.
Hale pats Prayer absently, trying to follow the conversation by means of the half he understands. Slate and Kari are listening curiously, while Rae leans against the unicorn's flank and looks tired.
That's what the Spirit Lamp is for, normally, Caliban explains sheepishly, with a nod toward Marseilles. We was thinkin', blind 'em with it so they can't see us, stun 'em, move 'em. Thing is, you need someone to be doin' the haulin'. Someone who's good at spirit-wrasslin', 'cause maybe they won't be that sheep-like.
"Plus they're'll be too many to stun," Marseilles adds helpfully. "You only have one gun, right?"
The chimpanzee draws diagrams in the ground, illuminated by the moon, to help fill in the Rev. The Gate is depicted as an open rectangle. The Spirit Lamp, a small circle with rays radiating from it. Spirits are drawn as the top half of a stick figure, with the bottom part trailing away into a waver; they pass near the stunner, a gun-shape that emits waves of energy, then they seem to be drawn toward the Lamp, and then a line curves from the lamp, splitting into two arrow-tips, pointing to a four-legged shape with a horn on its long head, and a stick figure with fox-ears and tail. These two figures are aimed toward the spirits.
Bernice listens thoughtfully. It occurs to the doctor that she hasn't really learned much about the workings of the equipment so far. "But the Spirit Lamp... is that the one that also worked like a lure? How then is the spirit discharged into the Amplifier? It couldn't be used like a.. hopper, right? You couldn't say, put the spirit lamp at the.. uh, mouth of the Amplifier and see if the spirits file through assuming it's the portal into our world?
It's a lure, the chimpanzee agrees. Normally the spirit just wanders by an' touches the trap an' whoosh, in they go. In this case... We just dunno enough about what we're gonna be facin'. I mean, it's been hundreds of years, right? What if they've had a change of heart an' they wanna come through and tell us the spirits can go back home? Or what if it doesn't work on them?
Rev. Hale does take the time to study the diagram Caliban has drawn. At length, he exhales. "Well. I wish you luck, ladies and gentlebeings. But for my own part, I am going to retire to my bed and get some sleep. Thank you for your time and your efforts. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintence," he says to the unicorn, with a kind of bemused nod at exchanging pleasantries with an animal. "Good night."
Caliban waves his hands. But that's not what's important, he ooks. What's important is what we believe in. If we don't believe we can win this, then we have to Close. We can't supercharge someone who doesn't want to fight. He looks at Kari intently. There's one thing we can do maybe to change your mind about whether or not we can win.
The unicorn pricks her ears, listening. Rae leans forward, too; she doesn't understand Caliban's words exactly but she gets a sense of something important.
"Well, we intend to feed them into it anyway, don't we?" says Bernice. "I think it's fairly safe to say that Kari understands their intentions... centuries for them aren't the same as they are for us. Maybe the stunner doesn't even have to be part of the equation. I think luring them to the trap and diverting the resultant energy out, either into raw energy or into a friendly spirit, should be enough. I wonder how much energy can be passed through it, and how fast." She stops he nattering as Hale speaks, and offers him a small curtsey. "Yes, thank you for coming, and for at least listening, Reverend. I hope we can still cooperate in whatever comes up."
An' good chance that we'd have to do it anyway, if we wanted to win this, the chimpanzee ooks. It all hangs on gettin' that first good hit in. We use the Battery, feed all that we got from the House into Kari. If she can take the energy an' if it makes her strong enough to take down at least one Master... We're golden.
If it doesn't work... We Close.
"But the problem is we couldn't Close it after it was Opened," frets Bernice. "They'd hold it Open."
The woman continues, "But we could at the very least see if Kari can absorb the House's energy, and she can tell us how she feels, relative to when she first arrived."
We should do it before the Banefire, Caliban opines. I don't know how long Kari could hold the energy. That's the important part, we only get one shot at it, one charge.
For a moment, the unicorn's mirrored eyes are bright with hope. Then she glances sidelong to Marseilles. She shakes her head. It would not be enough. The power of ten such houses, perhaps, would suffice to make me the equal of what I was. The entirety of a single one will not be enough.
Marseilles wrinkles her nose. "Well. There's me and you and the artifacts. They're old Masters, too, right? Or used to be? How many does that make?" she asks, pragmatically. "Does that add up to ten?"
The chimpanzee lets out a breath. It'd be all or nothing then.
"Hasn't it always been?" Marseilles perches on a tree stump, her tail swishing. "I've already died once. I'm not afraid of dying again. Well, I am, but I'm not going to run away. I'd rather go down fighting."
Bernice hastens to add, "But if we can get one of the enemy Masters to blunder into the Amplifier and have it process that energy straight back out to Kari, what then? And if they keep streaming through it?"
Then Kari gets stronger, they get weaker, the chimpanzee opines. Once we can get one of them in the chopper, we're set.
I don't know that I can hold that much energy. Even as much as I once had, and still remain sane, Kari says.
"But you can funnel some into Alorn," Marseilles offers. "He was a Master too, once. Right? And he wanted a way to get more power so he could fight at the end, too. Mr. Shaft said he could rig it that way."
Townes nods thoughtfully. "He'd need a vessel to get out of the Hill, though."
"He thinks he can pull loose if he has enough spirit-energy. If he were super-charged like me. That's why I'm not stuck any one place. Also why I'm not gonna last as long, but, um, that's not going to matter over the course of a few days or hours anyway," Marseilles says.
"Oh," says Bernice soberly.
Wait... What? asks Caliban.
Marseilles flicks her ears back at Caliban's question. "I'm not stable like this," she says. "It's like Kari said. You need a host to be stable or you burn yourself up faster. And I don't want a host." She rumples her hands through her hair, beneath the lace veil, which changes is length as they watch. "So ... we'll just see what comes, right?"
The chimpanzee ponders this, then reaches out and gives Marseilles a hug. I guess so, Miss, he says soberly.
The ghost-fox-girl hugs Caliban back. "It's better than most people get, isn't it?" she says, trying to look brave.
I always figured the afterworld would be full of bananas an' sunshine an' shady branches, Caliban opines, giving her a smile. But for you, I'll throw in tea an' cookies. He looks up at Miss Townes. Doc, it's all gonna come down to that at the end. Ten Houses. If we can get that, we're golden.
The doctor sighs. "Simple enough," she says, without much conviction. "Well, I'll think about it some more, perhaps ask Mr. Shaft for more information on how it all works."
After finishing their discussion with the unicorn, Bernice tries to contact Miss Pau. It's too late to visit her, but she manages to get Lei's attention. Through the songbird, they arrange to meet on the morrow and track down Yotee to discuss the staff, and find out whatever the coyote may have learned in the last couple of days.