Through The Looking Glass: Part 2

by Alicia McKenzie

 

 


Lady Katherine had been right. Almost before Nathan knew it, the barge had traveled up the river and out of the forest completely. Hard to believe, he reflected, sitting on the divan at Katherine's side. The trees had seemed so endless when you were in the middle of them--

"There," Katherine said brightly as the rowers - Colossus clones, Nathan thought bemusedly - moved them past rolling fields of emerald green, broken by the darker green of hedges twice as tall as his head, hedges that grew in the distinct patterns of, lo and behold, a maze, stretching right to the horizon on the other side. "Isn't this better? I always find the forest so oppressive. "I much prefer being able to see the sky."

"I supposed," he muttered, squinting at the brightness of the sunlight. His head still hurt. Not as badly, but enough to make him quite content to sit here and do nothing for a while yet.

Katherine smiled. "You're terribly grim, you know that?"

"So I've been told."

Amazingly, she perservered. "I swear, you all but radiate gloom. I'd almost call it a talent." Her eyes glimmered mischievously, and Nathan snorted, despite himself. "Ah, so you DO have a sense of humor," she said with a chuckle. "I was beginning to wonder."

Nathan shook his head. She sounded so much like Kitty--well, except for the formal speech patterns and the British accent. Could she actually BE Kitty? I suppose that brings me back to the question of whether there's something wrong with me, or something wrong with the world. He'd been thinking, as they drifted up the river. It HAD to be one or the other. Given the feel of his head, he would tend to suspect the former--

A flutter of motion out of the corner of his eye broke his train of thought, and he blinked at the white bird that seemed to be keeping pace with the barge. It chirped at him, and, without really thinking, he stretched out a hand. The bird trilled ecstatically and landed on his palm.

"Fascinating," Katherine observed with a smile. "I've never seen a river dove do that before."

Nathan studied the bird, which tilted its head and stared right back at him. "A river dove," he murmured, tilting his head in unconscious imitation of the bird.

The bird trilled again, and Nathan nearly dropped it as the flonqing thing, apparently true to form to the rest of this strange world he found himself in, began to sing.

~Where are you going?
Where have you been?
You feel like you're running
from some awful sin--~

"I'm not going to sit here and be psychoanalysed by a bird!" Nathan snapped, tossing the river dove back up into the air. It took wing, almost casually, and circled around their heads, still singing.

~Tell me your story,
I'll listen, you know,
I'll fly right beside you,
Wherever you go.~

"No, thank you!"

~I'll listen to everything,
You might want to say,
You don't want to talk now
But you might, yet, one day.~

"Go AWAY!"

"Don't shout at the river dove, Nathan, it's rude," Katherine said gently. "Besides, you might want to listen to it. They say the river doves can see into a person's heart--"

"They? Who are 'they'?"

"The ones who make up the sayings," Katherine said, sounding almost surprised. "You know, them."

Nathan laughed wildly. "Oh, right. Them. How could I forget." He glanced upwards, gritting his teeth. "Crap on my head and you're dead, bird!"

The river dove trilled at him again, almost amusedly, and flew off over the Maze, vanishing into the sunlight. Nathan sighed and sunk his face into his hands. "Why does everything SING here?"

"The world only sings if you listen," Katherine said quietly. "Perhaps you have more music in your heart than you gave yourself credit for."

"I wouldn't lay money on that," he growled, subsiding into a sullen silence as the barge started to move, gradually, towards the left bank of the river. Just before the bend they were coming up on, there was a dock of some sort--a very ODD dock, Nathan thought as they got closer. It looked like it was made out of spun glass lace.

The rowers brought them to a stop alongside, and Katherine sprang up off the divan, leaping eagerly onto the dock. Nathan hesitated, wincing, half-expecting it to collapse beneath her weight.

"Come along, Nathan," she called back over her shoulder. "If we want to get through the gates today, we need to hurry."

Nathan stood up, swaying a little, and stepped gingerly on the dock. It seemed steady enough--

He tried not to hurry too obviously down its length to solid ground.

***

"Come along, Nathan!"

"I'm coming," he said tiredly, struggling along in Katherine's wake. She didn't so much as look back at him; hadn't, in the nearly fifteen minutes they'd been walking along the river bank. Oath, what is WRONG with me? His headache was getting worse again, but that shouldn't be leaving him this winded. Part of him wanted nothing more than to lie down on the nice, warm grass and quietly pass out--then again, the grass would probably start talking again, and that wouldn't be very restful, would it?

He nearly knocked Katherine over as she stopped suddenly. "What?" he managed, breathing heavily.

"We're here. The gates." She gestured, and Nathan stiffened as he looked in that direction.

"Those are some gates." And they were, several feet high than the hedges themselves, carved from some kind of dark gray stone, and most definitely closed.

The fact that they were closed didn't really bother him. After all, he wasn't particularly bent on getting into this Maze in the first place; he just hadn't thought of anything better to do yet, so going along with Katherine had seemed like a viable option. No, it was the carved stone face in the middle of the gates that was putting him off at the moment. Mostly because it looked like Bishop.

Okay. He had to be concussed. Or dreaming. Or SOMETHING. This was just too much. Bishop's face did not spontaneously appear on stone gates.

Katherine walked right up to the gates, and curtsied, gracefully. With the sound of grinding stone, the face, unbelievably, shifted into a grimace.

~Who seeks entrance through the Gates?
Who would the Maze's dangers brave?
Who seeks the chance to change their fate?
What have you lost, and what would you save?~

The voice came from everywhere, it seemed, and rattled the ground beneath his feet. Nathan took a step backwards, instinctively. Stone eyes rolled slowly in their sockets to regard him, and the grimace turned into an outright scowl.

~If you be faint of heart, begone,
For the path is hard, and the path is long,
And if your fear you cannot mend,
You'll never follow it to its end.~

Katherine gave him a worried look, and then cleared her throat, drawing the face's attention back to her. Its expression seemed almost to soften. Nathan had only a moment to appreciate the irony of his own choice of words before Katherine began to sing.

"Faint of heart? Not me, my lord,
For though I bear no shield or sword,
I seek to enter the Maze you guard,
For my life as it stands is sadly marred.
Nothing outside can soothe my pain,
This quest, indeed, may be in vain,
But I still desire to enter here,
For my love is greater than my fear."

The face on the gates seemed to freeze, and Nathan watched with some wonder as a line appeared down the center of the face, a sudden seam that blazed with light as the gates, very slowly, parted. He couldn't see what was beyond them, just the bright, white light, featureless and nearly blinding.

Katherine took a deep, shaky breath, and then ran back to him, embracing him tightly. "Be honest," she whispered. "That's all you can be, here and now."

"But--"

"If I could take you with me, I would, Nathan," she said, leaning back a little, her eyes soft with compassion. "But we all have to enter the labyrinth of our own accord. There's no traveling together, not here. The answers you find have to be yours, and yours alone."

"Katherine," he started, his voice wavering, far too hesitant. She shook her head, and standing tiptoed, kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Fare you well, Nathan," she said with a sudden, bright smile.

And with that, she was gone, back to the gates and into the light, which seemed to swallow her up. She hadn't even cast a shadow as she approached. Nathan watched stonily as the gates swung shut again, the face at their center becoming animated once more, as soon as the gates were fully closed.

The face regarded him, skeptically. Nathan glared at it. "What?" he demanded.

~What and where and when and why,
Stop asking questions; just cast the die,
Take your chances, open the cage,
Leave behind your grief and forget your rage,
Simply admit that something's wrong,
And the road to answers grows a little less long.~

Nathan folded his arms across his chest. "Fine," he said, barely managing not to snarl. "Then let me in and stop singing at me."

Silence. The gates didn't move, and the face's expression didn't shift in the slightest. Nathan gritted his teeth.

"Let. Me. In."

The silence was broken only by the distant trill of a river dove, somewhere high above his head. Nathan didn't look up. He started to walk, slowly, towards the gate, each step measured, deliberate.

"Let me in," he murmured, very quietly. "Or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down."

The face raised an eyebrow.

~A little rough, but it will do,
Go on, my friend; walk right through.~

The gates opened. Nathan took a deep breath, and walked into the light.

***

It was a maze. Nathan didn't know what he'd expected, but that was all that it was. A maze made out of hedges, tall and thick and impenetrable. "What you see is what you get," he murmured, wandering helplessly down the twisting, narrow pathways.

There was a trick to mazes, wasn't there? You took all right turns--or was that all left turns? Whatever it was, he couldn't remember how it worked, and he was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, on top of everything else.

Even the wind seemed musical. It whistled down between the hedges, ruffling his hair playfully before it continued on its way.

The world only sings if you listen.

He shook his head, trying to banish Katherine's words. I feel like I'm in a bad fantasy novel. Even here, more or less alone with his own thoughts, he couldn't figure any of this out.

Clearly, this wasn't quite real. People and gates and fish and birds and grass didn't go around singing, as a general rule--at least not in his experience. So maybe this was somewhere in between, caught between real and imaginary. It all seemed too--pointed. Well, except maybe for the leprechaun. Or the fish--

Okay. This wasn't getting him anywhere, either this train of thought or this aimless wandering. Nathan stopped, looking almost furtively back over his shoulder. This was insane. No one was here, so no one was watching him. He was just being paranoid. It's not being paranoid if they're really out to get you--

Something rustled, somewhere above his head in the hedge to the left, and Nathan whirled, backing against the opposite 'wall' of the maze and looking up, warily.

"Hah! Scared ya."

Nathan blinked. I did not just hear Victor Creed tell me he scared me. "You wish," he growled, still not seeing anything in the hedge. That rustling sound came again, this time from the hedge he was backed up again, and he jumped out to the center of the path, looking around wildly. "Who are you? WHERE are you?"

"Here and there and everywhere, pal," the voice came again, mockingly. It really did sound like Creed, but higher-pitched, as if someone was playing back a recording of his voice at a higher speed. "'Sides, the better question'd be 'who am I?'"

Oh, no. I am not playing riddle games with another disembodied voice. "Great," Nathan said with a forced laugh. "Now the greenery's getting enigmatic."

"Greenery? Do I look like greenery, ya half-witted, addled-brained excuse for a human being?" A head popped out of the hedge to the left--a small tawny-striped, unmistakably feline head, whiskers twitched, amber eyes glowing with disgust.

Nathan didn't jump, this time. He regarded the cat with Creed's voice as thoughtfully as he could, and then shook his head. "No, you look like a cat. Not a very big cat, either."

The cat hissed. "Hey!" it--he?--snarled, fangs bared. "You watch it. I'm as big as I need t'be. Size isn't everything, ya know." The snarl turned into something that was far, far too much like a human grin. "Aw, I forgot who I was talkin' to. Ya bought into the whole David and Goliath thing from way back, didn't ya?" Nathan gritted his teeth, and the cat's grin only grew. "Only it didn't work out quite the way ya wanted, did it?

"Shut up," Nathan grated, and started to walk away. The cat's head vanished, and the rustling noise followed him down the path, randomly switching from one side of him to the other.

"Sure, run away. Not like y'ain't an expert at that, after all," the cat continued, almost conversationally. "Ya don't even know where y're goin', ya moron."

Nathan laughed again, and suppressed the urge to follow it up with a curse. "Away from you," he muttered almost feverishly. "I know that much."

"And ya think I'm the worst thing in here?" the cat taunted. "I hate t'break it to ya, pal, but I'm just the appetizer."

"Then don't break it to me," Nathan muttered, picking up the pace. "Just go away!"

"Ya baffle me, pal. How can someone so screwed up NOT want advice?"

"Maybe I just don't want it from you!" Nathan snarled, stopping in his tracks and thrusting a hand unerringly into the hedge. He pulled the cat out by the scruff of its neck, ignoring the way he hissed and tried to claw him. "Did that ever occur to you?"

"Put me down!" the cat snarled, furious amber eyes fixing on him as he stopped struggling and just hung there in Nathan's grip.

Nathan let go of him. The cat dropped to the ground, landing on his feet, and then sat down, regarding Nathan suspiciously.

"Ya really want me to go away."

"YES!"

"So what in the name of the King are ya doin' IN here, if ya don't want answers?" the cat demanded.

Nathan blinked, the anger draining out of him like water, leaving a strange, gnawing uncertainty behind. "In the name of the King?" he asked uneasily. "What King?"

"What do ya mean, what King? Are ya really that dense?" The cat snorted, and began to wash his paws. "Aw, I don't know why I even bother--"

"No," Nathan said, kneeling down beside the cat before he quite knew what he was doing. "Tell me. About the King."

The cat paused in mid-grooming, eyeing him for a moment. Then, he grinned again. "Yer serious, ain't ya?"

Nathan bit his lip. "No," he said through gritted teeth, "I'm being facetious. Humor me."

"I swear, they get dumber and dumber every time the flamin' Gates open--" The cat flopped onto his side, staring up at him and still grinning. "Fine. Ya want to know about the King? I'll tell ya about the king." It looked over at the hedge to the left, and meowed, loudly. "Hey, boys! Where's my flamin' back-up band?"

"Coming, boss!"

"Right here, big guy!"

"We were just waiting for you to give us the signal!"

The voice were tiny, high-pitched and piping. The cat got up, shaking itself all over. "Well, the signal's given, so get yer tails out here!"

And Nathan watched, in considerable wonder, as four tiny mice, each carrying an equally tiny instrument, filed out from underneath the hedge. One had a guitar. One had what looked like a miniature electronic keyboard, of all things. Another was dragging a set of drums behind him, and the fourth--

"What're you lookin' at?" it huffed at him. "Ain't you never seen a mouse with a saxaphone before?"

"Honestly?" Nathan asked, very faintly. "No."

"Aw, pay no attention to the rodents," the cat said cheerfully. "Musicians. Can't live with 'em, can't eat 'em."

"No, cause we got CONTRACTS!" the guitarist said enthusiastically, and then cringed as the cat looked around lazily. "Aw, boss, c'mon--I wasn't challenging you, boss, really--"

The cat reached out, snagging the guitarist in one paw and lifting him off the ground. "Don't tempt me, Herschel," the cat said amiably. "I ain't had nothing to eat since that smart-mouthed rat yesterday night."

"Of course not, boss!" the mouse squealed in terror. The cat put him back down, almost gently.

"They're not a bad bunch, once ya get to know them," the cat confided.

"I'm--sure," Nathan muttered.

"All ready, boss!" the keyboardist said.

"Yeah!" the drummer said. "Yeah! Yeah! Take it away, big guy!" It slammed its own head against the cymbal, as if for emphasis. "YEAH!"

The cat actually sighed. "Donny, ya keep doin' that, yer gonna damage what little brain ya got left." He turned and grinned up at Nathan. "Yer in for a treat, pal."

It finally dawned on Nathan. Back-up band. More singing. The cat with Creed's voice was going to sing. And he thought he'd left 'surreal' behind with the belligerent fish--

"And a one," Herschel counted, "and a two, and a one, two, three four--"

The saxaphone-playing mouse picked up first, a long, wailing melodic line. The rest of the band came in, cued by Herschel, and then the cat started to sing.

"Ohh, let me tell you about this king,
The blues I sing, for this mighty king,
He once ruled over this mighty land,
And we were all safe, 'neath his mighty hand--"

"Gotta love that king!" the drummer howled in anguish, and used his head to hit the cymbal again.

The cat glared at him briefly, and then picked up the second verse.

"Then the Old Guy came, and things went wrong,
He wanted answers, wanted t'be strong,
And no one could fight him or stand in his way,
'Til the king stepped in that fateful day,
And for this land threw his life away--"

"STOP!" It came out in a shout, and the band stopped playing. Trembling violently, Nathan stared down at the cat. "The king's dead?"

The cat rolled his eyes. "Aw, for the love a'Pete--if ya wanted t'know that, ya could have let me finish my song!"

"Is he dead?" Nathan demanded, his voice breaking. "Tell me, damn it!"

"Well, in a matter o'speaking--" the cat temporized.

"Long live the king!" the drummer shrieked, and beat his head repeatedly against the snare drum. "The king's dead, long live the king! The kingdom of the blind and its one-eyed king!"

Pain lanced through his head, and Nathan grabbed at his temples, cursing beneath his breath. "Stop it," he muttered feverishly, hands sliding down to cover his face, as if he could shut it out, shut all of it out. But the pounding of the drum and the drummer's howls kept on, and on and on--"Stop it--STOP IT!"

Silence. Nathan let his hands fall to his sides, and stared around dazedly.

The cat was gone. All of them were gone, except for the mouse with the keyboard. It was still down there, playing softly. The song was gentle, strangely wistful--and oddly familiar. Before he could ask it where the cat and the other mice had gone, it started singing, very quietly.

"I walk the tightrope, 'cause you won't let me fall,
I trust my instincts, 'cause you told me, stand tall,
I never say never, 'cause you taught me to fight,
And that darkness will pass, if you believe in the light."

"He's not dead," Nathan muttered. "Is he?"

The mouse stopped playing, and looked up at him with a tiny, but bright smile. "Nah," it said softly. "Just sleepin'."

It had picked up its keyboard and wandered back into the hedge while he was still trying to digest that particular bit of information.

"Not dead," he murmured, getting back to his feet. "Just sleeping." Pain was still pounding in his head like a second pulse, but he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.

He'd find the right way to go, if he just kept going. He had to.

to be continued...


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