Chapter 7: Crystals

In just under a week, the world that Marc belonged to had become unsettling and alien, and all he wanted to do was to find a way back to Oniron. He had to know what was going on – he had to know if Piper had succeeded and destroyed the Nexus.
And what if he had? What could Marc even do? It wasn't like he knew how to fix or reverse it. It was some sort of supernatural thingy and he had no experience with it. He had never really figured out the rules of Oniron and he was pretty sure even Icelus didn't know it all. But he still wanted to know. If he knew, he could adjust. The not knowing what what killed him.
At least being at his grandmother's house reassured him a bit. If something was going to happen in Oniron and if it affected the human world, Marc figured it had to start here. He had arrived home from Not the Same, Part II in a daze, and not just because it was 3AM. He had refused Austin's offer to spend the night, making up an excuse that he felt sick, and he had driven back with his mind racing in circles.
When he arrived, he was hoping, more than anything, for Icelus to be there. Maybe she would be fine, maybe she would chuckle and spin him a yarn about how she had overtaken her guards and how she had found Piper, neutralized him, and now the Shieldwork was safe and everything was fine. Or maybe she had just broken out and she had come to Marc immediately because he was the only person she could trust any more, and she would ask for shelter. He would have given it to her. He didn't have any reservations about his involvement with this whole affair anymore. He just wanted to save the universe. That's all.
Instead there was nothing. Marc got home and the kitchen was dark and the fish were asleep. He had never in his life wished for that dog statue to be waiting for him in the dark when he came home, but the past week had changed his views on a lot of things, including that old thing he used to have nightmares about.
Marc turned the light on and glanced at the refrigerator. On it hung pictures of Marc's family – his cousins, his parents, him. His eyes picked out the one that Mary had showed him right before she left. He and his cousins were crouched on the floor in front of the fireplace. Looming over them was the thin, stern figure of Icelus.
He plucked out the photograph from under the magnet and looked at it. And for a moment Icelus wasn't Icelus anymore – she was just... the dog statue. Her face looked as cold and as cruel as it always looked in Marc's nightmares.
All this, and he still couldn't shake some stupid dreams from when he was a kid.
Marc slammed his fist on the refrigerator, and took one last look at that picture.
“Wherever Icelus is now,” he whispered to himself, “she deserves a better friend than me.”
Marc put the photo back and turned off the light.

The destruction of the Shieldwork had been agony for Icelus, and she was only now starting to recover.
That she was recovering at all was surprising. Surely when her sigil had been dealt such violence as it had been dealt, she would have been rendered as weak and helpless as Piper's friend, Canis. Maybe even moreso. And yet here she was – winded, not in any state to escape, and mostly just resting in between long stretches of terminal boredom and frustration – but in much better health than she had ever expected.
But the initial blast of psychic energy, ripping apart the Shieldwork, had hurt. A lot. It was pain such as she had never known before – a battering assault that struck deep at her core, left her lying on the floor unable to breathe. Every second her eyes swam, and she heaved and hacked and coughed and her limbs flew everywhere in pain.
When it finally subsided, Icelus did not know how long it had been. It felt like hours, but in retrospect it seemed more like ten minutes. Ten minutes where she had to fight every second to stay alive. As soon as the pain stopped, Icelus felt such relief that she immediately fell into some sort of trance. Not a sleep – her kind didn't sleep, not really, but it was as close as she could have gotten to it.
And she did wake from the trance, feeble but definitely alive. Why?
She had a lot of time to think about it, and she thought she had an answer.
If Piper had destroyed the Nexus, Oniron wasn't tied to the human world anymore. The dreams and fears and hatred of humans no longer held any sway in here. It made sense, timing-wise – assuming it took Piper ten minutes or so to draw a spell circle and destroy the Nexus, then there were only ten minutes where she was actually affected by the humans' negative thoughts. After the Shieldwork's collapse but before the Nexus's destruction – that was when she had suffered.
On one hand, this meant that she was mostly okay now. Again, very feeble and probably in need of a long recovery, but okay. For now, her suffering was over.
On the other hand, it meant that Piper really had destroyed the Nexus.
Just knowing this was as bad as her brief moment of torture, and it didn't go away. She had failed – completely and utterly. Her job was to protect the Nexus. It was the one thing she was sure was her duty, the one thing she had always done. From time immemorial, she had protected it. Icelus didn't even remember an infancy or an adolescence. It must have happened at some point, but it was so long ago now that she had forgotten it, and her earliest memories were of her, in her fullest power, hellbent on guarding that bridge.
And now this series of stupid, contrived coincidences had robbed her of her purpose. A bunch of little people had undone everything she had tried to uphold for hundreds of thousands of years. She would have taken the pain fifty times over living with this.
The floor of her cell was probably going to get a circle worn in it soon, so often did she pace. The worst part of a jail cell, she mused, was the inability to run. She only had a few square feet of free space on any side of her, and if she could run at least she could block out her thoughts. If she had been human, maybe she could have slept. Or exercised, or something. She briefly thought about charging and running up the wall, not because she thought it would help her escape but because she needed, more than anything, to not be stewing in her own thoughts.
The only solace she had was the occasional visit from the guards, but it wasn't much of a relief. They were never friendly visits; after all, these were the ones that were holding her captive. But they didn't want to taunt or mock Icelus like Piper had done. Instead, they were usually just awed. It was like they were seeing a legend in the flesh – except the legend was currently helpless and sitting in a cell with no way to get out and really resented them. A legend nonetheless.
Sometimes she didn't want to put up with the guards, so she roared and hissed at them until they left, but sometimes she asked them about the outside world. When she did, she usually got somewhat helpful answers. It had indeed been seventy years since her rampage. It was an infamous event that had become almost a legend in the town. Nobody had noticed anything amiss since the Nexus was destroyed. Actually, everybody seemed pretty flippant about what the Nexus was and what it did. It didn't seem important to them. When Icelus tried to describe Piper and tell them that he had done it, they usually just rolled their eyes and left her. She got the feeling that she was a museum artifact – one that was less interesting than everybody had hoped. It was better than being hated and feared, but it didn't feel that way when one was in a jail cell.
Right now, she heard footsteps – there was probably another guard coming to gawk at her. She felt too tired to bark at him and make him leave. Maybe she could ply him with questions.
The man stopped and took a good look at her. He was tall, tanned and seemed like he smiled a lot. He crouched down and peered at her, saying nothing.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He grinned and turned his head to the hallway. “This is definitely it!” The man turned back to her. “Icelus?”
Icelus narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”
Someone else opened the door and walked over to her cell – an intense-looking woman. “You're sure?” the woman asked.
“Yep.”
The woman had a bag on her back, and swung it around to dig inside for something.
“Icelus,” said the man. “Nice to finally meet you. This here is Lya,” he pointed to the woman, “and I'm Remont. We need to have a talk with you.”

There was still one remaining artifact from Marc's trip to Oniron, and he was looking at it right now.
Scary Monster in the Night was a really dull book, he thought. It didn't teach kids a valuable life lesson or anything like that. It was just about getting them to hate Icelus. Which it really wasn't even very good at.
But whoever did those illustrations had been pretty on-point. Icelus in this book really was frightening – teeth bared, fur matted with dirt and grime. Mostly, though, it looked like it was staring out of the book straight at the reader. Intensely, viciously. Who had illustrated this? They had knocked it out of the park.
Marc flipped the book over to the back and looked for the credits. There they were – in small text at the bottom. The illustrator, apparently, was one Jean Hall. What was under that little bit of text, though, was the real interesting thing, and what really set his mind racing.
© 2002 Terrell Publishing
Marc looked at the publisher more closely. “Terrell”...
He took out his phone and Googled “Terrell Publishing.” He got the publisher's website. Not much was useful on here. “High-quality books for all ages,” they said. Marc idly flipped to the About tab.
Founded in 1991 by Gordon Terrell in Richmond, Viriginia...
Gordon Terrell. That's the name that had stuck with Marc. He wracked his brain to remember when he had heard it.
Wait, yes! It was just last night he had had this conversation.
“The author of the movies – or not the author of the movies, but the guy who wrote the books they were based on – did you hear about this? Gordon Terrell?”
“No, I didn't. What about him?”
“Well, he just died a few days ago.”
Gordon Terrell was the writer of the books that those movies were based on! And his publishing house had put out Scary Monster in the Night. Marc picked up the book again and looked at the author. Reid Marshall.
Marc only had vague memories of Mr. Marshall. He had been very young. Mr. Marshall wasn't a very outgoing or remarkable person. He'd never talked much to Marc, which Marc hadn't liked because he was a child at the time and liked being paid attention to. That was about all he could remember – a vague sketch, a couple of the man's quirks and his attitude. Nothing useful.
And yet this person had written a children's book that was actually some sort of magical incantation. And so had Gordon Terrell.
Had these two men been in league? They must have been. Piper was involved too, somehow. But now both Marshall and Terrell were dead. Why?
Marc felt himself getting a headache and put the book down. He didn't have the resources to sort through all this, and it was looking more and more like something he couldn't do anything about anyway.
But then a strange and otherworldly noise made Marc turn his head.

“What do you want?” Icelus asked again.
The woman named Lya had taken out two thin metal rods and seemed to be testing them. The man – Remont – was still staring at Icelus intently.
“First thing's first, we need to know if you're on our side,” he said.
“I'm in jail and you're the guards,” Icelus replied, “what do you think?”
Remont held up a finger and waggled it. “Don't trust your first impressions. We could bust you out of here, and are fully prepared to,” he gestured to Lya, who twiddled with her rods, “but first we need to know one thing.”
“What is it?”
Remont crouched down to meet her at eye level. “Did you hurt Marc? Is he okay?”
Icelus sharply gasped. “Are you... are you the people who picked him up?”
“Sure are,” said Remont gravely, “and I need to know what you did to him.”
Icelus's face dropped. “Marc... I let him down,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
She looked up. “He's safe. He's in the human world now.”
Remont relaxed a bit. “You two disappeared when we were in that house. Where'd you go?”
“To his world. I couldn't wait any longer – if he had stuck around then you'd have found out he wasn't a tripper. You would known he was here for some other reason.”
“So he wasn't a tripper at all?” This time Lya asked the question.
“No,” replied Icelus, “he was actually there in Oniron.”
“And you were with him before we found him?” Lya asked.
“Yes. Well, he was with me. I needed his help and I brought him over here.”
Remont and Lya cast a glance at each other and nodded. “Hold on,” said Lya, “I'm going to pick the lock.” She bent down and stuck the two pin in, and began working.
“You don't have a key?” asked Icelus.
“They don't give the guards keys,” said Remont. “I guess nobody had any intention of letting you out.”
“Then they'll know exactly who helped me get out,” said Icelus.
“We've prepared for that,” explained Remont, “but if I was Chief Decan, I probably wouldn't be high on the list of suspects anyway. Nobody's gonna suspect a Bairdsley of breaking you out.”
“Bairdsley?!” Icelus shot up. “You're...!”
Remont laughed. “Mackenzie Bairdsley, the man who exiled you? That was my grandfather.”
“Then why would you help me?!”
“Two reasons,” Remont said. “First, I'm not my grandfather, and I don't care much about his grudges. I mean, yeah, you did scare my great-grandfather to death – that wasn't nice, even if it was an accident – but I never knew him, so I have a hard time taking it personally. Second, and more importantly,” his tone became more solemn and his voice dropped, “what I love more than anything in the world is the freedom to go out and explore and see great new things. It's pretty important to Lya and my sister Osette too, but especially to me. And I know the Nexus has been destroyed. Unlike everyone else in Zamasea where I live, I know what that means and how important it is. It means no more change. No more new things.”
Icelus had to admit, she was impressed. “Is that why you're freeing me?”
Remont nodded solemnly. “You are – you were – the guardian of the Nexus. If anybody knows how to restore it, it's you.”
A clank was heard in the cell. Lya took out the pins from the lock and swung the door open. Icelus was free.
“Even if you don't know how to restore it,” said Remont, “I'm sure you want to. So we could use your help.”
As she took her first steps out of the cell, Icelus turned to Remont and Lya. “Thank you,” she said. “What happens now?”
“Well, this is the start of my shift,” Remont said, “It's basically the middle of the night, so there shouldn't be anyone else here. Next guard comes in about six hours, and it'll take them at least an hour and a half to get back to Zamasea to raise the alarm. We have a big lead.”
“Won't it take us an hour and a half, too?”
“Not necessarily,” Remont smirked. “We have sphere-cycles and they don't. Come on, we're heading to our house.”

Remont was right – there were practically no guards or people on the way down through Agremonth. Lya would look around the corners to warn them of any oncomers – she was neither a guard nor a prisoner, so she could afford to be seen.
“What a relief,” he said as they bounded down into the main hall after Lya. “I thought there still might be some people who wanted to visit you.”
“I am kind of insulted,” muttered Icelus.
Nonetheless she was relieved at their luck. They made it out of the castle with no problems. Lya and Remont's sphere-cycles were waiting outside, but one of them had an extra accessory that Icelus didn't remember from the last time she had seen them.
“A sidecar?!” she shot Remont an incredulous sneer.
Remont grinned sheepishly. “Well, erm... there's no other way we can get you on these things. You can't hold on to our backs, you know, being a dog and all.”
“I am not a dog.”
“You're dog-shaped,” he said, mounting his bike. “Are you coming with us or not?”
Icelus made a show of grumbling, but slowly climbed in to the sidecar and allowed herself to be taken off.
It took about ten minutes to cross the trail from Agremonth to Zamasea, and Icelus, though trapped in a sidecar, couldn't help but appreciate the feeling of freedom – of air whipping through her ears and no walls on any side of her.
Remont turned away from Zamasea – they headed instead toward a large, gated-off mansion that was located on a hill a ways from the town proper. This was good – Icelus didn't want to be seen by the townspeople.
They came to a halt outside the gate and Lya hopped off the sphere-cycle, took out a key and turned it.
“Is that your house?” Icelus said, shocked. The mansion was huge and impressive, and visible for many miles around. It was almost a castle itself.
“Yep,” said Remont. “I figured you'd have seen it before. You knew my grandfather, right?”
“I didn't get out much,” she said.
The gate swung open and Lya hopped back on her bike. From there it was a short, leisurely drive up the main parkway to the front of the house.
Remont swung the doors open, all business. “We should get to the main study. Check on Osette. See if she's got the dirigible ready.”
“I hope she has,” said Lya.
“Dirigible?” asked Icelus.
“Our escape plan,” explained Remont as they ascended the stairs up through the mansion, passing many ornate dining rooms and libraries. “If the whole village finds out that we're the ones that helped you escape, then we take to the skies. Osette was in charge of prepping it while we were away.”
“Do you think they'll find out that quickly?”
“Always possible,” said Remont. “At any rate, we need to talk strategy. Osette!” He shouted into the room they had entered.
This room was clearly well-lived-in: maps, books, journals and handwritten notes filled the large table in the center in huge stacks that threatened to topple over at any minute. The walls were plastered with even more maps: ones that showed the whole of Oniron and other, more specific counties of the world, upon which paths and routes had been hand-drawn extensively.
Currently at one of the larger, world-spanning maps was a small, ratty girl who turned her head to see who had just called her. “Oh!” she said. “You got her.” The girl turned back to her map.
Remont chuckled. “That's Osette. She's big on maps and not so big on new people.”
Lya walked over to where Osette was and leaned on her. “You doing alright?” she asked.
Osette nodded and pointed to a newly-drawn path on the map, eager to show Lya. “I planned out the best way from here to the crystal formation!”
“That's great, Osette,” said Lya. “We might need to leave soon. Is the dirigible ready?”
Osette huffed. “No, it was dumb.”
“What do you mean?” Lya took her hand off Osette's shoulder and turned to her. “Osette, that was all you had to do. We might have to leave here at any time.”
Osette crossed her arms and didn't look Lya in the eye. “I tried to figure it out and it was just... normally you're the one who does all that dumb stuff.”
“I told you exactly what you needed to do to get that dirigible ready, Osette,” said Lya tersely. “I gave you very clear instructions on how to-”
“Lya,” interrupted Remont, “Don't get too hard on Osette, she'd never done it before. I could have gotten Icelus out by myself, you could've stayed here...”
In response to this Lya shot Remont a glare that made his sentence trail off quick. “Icelus,” he said under his breath, “let's leave them alone for a bit.”
Icelus nodded and Remont closed the door slowly and quietly.
“Are they normally like that?” asked Icelus.
“No,” said Remont, “that's the weirdest thing. Lya's been so tense lately and she's kind of... taking it out on Osette? I don't know.”
“It didn't look pretty.”
“No,” Remont deeply sighed. “Osette and Lya... they love each other. They really do. But Osette's the kind of person that needs help and support with things. And Lya's definitely the giver in the relationship. But lately she's been trying to push more things on Osette, it seems like.”
They began to walk down a hallway. “That doesn't sound fair,” said Icelus.
“Well, it's not like it's really a bad idea. Osette really would be up a creek without someone to support her. It couldn't hurt to learn some independence. It's tough,” Remont said. “But we need to focus on our destination.”
“And where's that?”
Remont had led her to a bedroom – probably his own. It was, like everything else in the house, large and ornate, but it was fairly messy.
“You don't know anything about what's happened to the world in the last few days, have you?”
“No. What happened?”
“It's strange, and we don't have the full brunt of it yet,” he said, “but the psychic energy that used to make nightmares stronger isn't coming in anymore. And at the same time, some of them are losing what power they do have. And now all that energy is in the world, swirling around, and it's eventually taking a physical form.” Remont crossed the room to a small wall-safe, turned the lock combination, and opened it. He drew out a small gem. “Crystals.”
Icelus peered at the small, purple stone that Remont held in his hand. It was barely the size of a fingernail, but it seemed to glow and blur the boundaries of its physical container. “I can sense it,” she said. “The power.”
“Yep. These things have been popping up all over the world – sometimes big formations of them. Nightmares have been making grabs for these – they're not relying on the human world for power any more. It's a new game in town.”
Icelus looked up at Remont eagerly. “Then we need to find some. Gather what we can.”
“I agree!” he said. “That seems like the best bet for restoring the Nexus. But meanwhile, I have a plan for this one.” He held out the small crystal to Icelus. “Take it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“I want you,” he said, “to think of Marc. Locate him. If he can help...”
Icelus did a sharp intake of breath and stared at the crystal. “This little thing... can open a gate to the human world?”
“Yes,” said Remont, “but not for long. We don't have many of these. We can't waste our time when it's open.”
She solemnly considered the crystal. With this, she could find Marc again. Apologize to him.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me see it.”
She gently took it in between her teeth and thought of Marc's house – the living room she had grown to know so well over the years. “How do I do this?” she asked, muffled with the crystal in her mouth.
“Throw it on the ground,” said Remont, motioning to do so.
She did. The crystal smacked the ground and broke apart easily, and out of it arose a flickering, strange apparition – like a window in the universe, one with no form or weight, but showing a clear image of the living room.
And there was Marc. He was there. He had noticed. He was looking at her.

Marc couldn't believe it. It was like someone had taken a knife and cut a hole through the world and now on the other side...was Icelus.
Her back was crouched and her eyes were sad. She looked nervous, and not quite like she believed what was going on either. But slowly, she opened her mouth and spoke.
“Marc,” she said. “I need your help.”


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