Labyrinth -

  Another door, this one even more imposing, stood unbothered by the Shepherd of Decay. Ruin bled from his claws as he futilely scratched at imperceptible seams. He did not despair, for what was the point? What utility did it serve to rage at a wall? Especially a wall that rebuffed his very presence.

  But the Shepherd did not give up. He simply traced across the smooth metal surface. Eerie shrieks that almost sounded alive screeched out. All he was looking for was one crack, one invisible sliver of an entrance to resonate his essence through. He knew that what he desired lay just across the way but still, no.

  It did not matter. Another Endless Door called to him. Even those that did not catch his interest still received the same tireless attention. A smaller fraction of those he could have opened but it would have required investment. Time. Energy. Willingness. But those doors did not need his presence. They did not need his focus. They already boasted more than an iota of his veil. The Shepherd’s progeny already were hard at work on those worlds, those planes of existence.

  Maybe a few needed a small boost or a rekindling of their diminished presence but the Shepherd searched for something more. New winds of promise lingered in the twisting halls of the Labyrinth. No longer did he skirt the far reaches of existence where the Labyrinth forged new realities from the maw of the Void. No longer did he roam the snakelike mazes that were anathema to all but the Highest and Lowest of Beings.

  Slowly, inexorably, the Shepherd trod the realm of the physical, where the living walk.

  Here, the Shepherd returns. Here, the Shepherd searches.

  *********

  Earth - Sunday - Day 8 - 15 May 2021

  Sandra’s glare in the early morning light was disheartening. At least it wasn’t directed at me. Well, mostly. I was frustrated. She was exasperated. Eli was confused and Paul stood there with a permanent shrug in his shoulders.

  Elvis proved to be the most intelligent person of us all. He stood in full gear with his shield and war-axe at the ready. His tall frame allowed him to stand head and shoulders above the rest of us and the craggy rock he stood upon was big enough for him to get a good view of the neighborhood.

  “Is this supposed to be useful?” Sandra asked, her tone somewhere between skeptical and insulting. “How come you didn’t just tell us to plant the damn things?”

  Paul looked between me and my wife, his odd reverence for her hindering his ability to get out a simple answer. I saw Elvis turn a bit more so that his back was completely turned to us. He was determined not to be a target for my wife’s irritation.

  “Don’t look at me, man.” I said, trying to hide a tired laugh. “Would’ve saved me a bunch of time and energy last night if I had know that just PLANTING A FUCKING SUNSTONE IN THE GROUND WOULD MAKE IT GROW!”

  Pointing at the top of the hill covering my house, I threw my head back in exasperation. “Seriously, I could’ve used those quartz crystals for windows and that granite for some cool weapon ideas stewing in the back of my brain. I feel like I’m working in circles! Just treading water when I should be getting out of the fucking pool and WALKING!”

  Eli coughed. “Uhm, so we did all that Alchemy stuff last night to make another sunstone, but you’re saying that when planted in the dirt like a seed, sunstone will just grow when exposed to soil and sunlight? So we could've done what we wanted with zero work?”

  “Anansi, why?” Paul muttered. He turned back to me, his mouth open to say something but I cut him off by pointing him at my wife.

  “No, no. Answer her. You ruined her beauty sleep by yelling and running through the house and snatching the sunstones so you could come outside just before the ass-crack of dawn.”

  My wife piled on. “AND, you broke the door!”

  We all turned to see the shattered remnants of my stone circle lying in the grass. There were chunks bigger than my chest, their jagged edges covered in stone powder from the force of Paul charging through.

  Paul raised his hands, pleading with us. “I had a dream!”

  Trying to keep the Martin Luther King jokes to myself, I gave Paul the benefit of the doubt. At least I caught him before he could hit the ground and act out his usual strange reverence. That didn’t stop me from sending my mental laughter to Sandra through our mental link.

  Thomas picked up one of the chunks, heaving it off to the side with a huff. “Remind me to never get in your way, dude. You’re like a tank with a rocket for an asshole. Do you even lift?”

  My brother chuckled as I waved him off. The beams of the early morning sun cut through the misty haze that was quickly clearing up. We could hear happy sounds of birds welcoming the new day but we weren’t fooled. Some of those formerly cheerful birds were now bigger than raccoons with an even bigger appetite.

  “I’m sorry! I am still getting used to my powers and it was dark in there.” Paul said. “But Yoruba said to plant them!” He explained. “Yoruba said I should’ve planted them long ago but your magic made them even better!”

  Eli walked up the hill to poke the sunstones. He took care to walk slowly around the pre-cut holes where I had planned to put in some windows and maybe vents or a hidden chimney. “They kinda feel alive . . . warm and softer than you’d think.”

  I gave him an unamused glare. “Dude, they take in sunlight. Like solar panels. Of course they’d be warm.”

  “Let me explain.” I motioned for Paul to continue because he was somewhere between stricken and confused. He didn’t know whether to bow before his self-anointed queen or listen to the person she listened to. It was funny to me that my short blonde cutie of a wife went from southern sweetheart to southern sweetheart with a big red nuclear button. Something told me that ‘bombshell’ jokes may not go over so well.

  “Please do.”

  “Yoruba said that He could not say much for long, but he could tell us helpful things. Last night was His last message.”

  Not rolling my eyes was the third hardest thing I’d ever done. “I’m about fucking done with ‘messages on high’.” I muttered, breathing slowly through my nose to prevent my day from being ruined. “Yoruba being, who?”

  Paul’s answer was about what I expected. “An angel, a god, I do not know. He shines with wings and kindness and fire lives in His eyes. But He was not alone, others were behind Him. I could not make them out.”

  Sandra grimaced, her hand going to the dagger at her waist. “Well, if the holy rollers up the street hear about this-”

  “They didn’t kill Elvis.” Thomas commented. “He’s got that Greek bloodline thing, right? Exactly how many religions are true or real? Besides, ain’t nobody killing Paul without an army of tanks and him giving them a fighting chance.”

  “Oooooor is magic making everyone crazy?” I interjected. “We may never know. But as long as I can rearrange matter with a magic circle and rip monsters apart with my bare hands, I’m going to keep my fucking mind open.” Turning to Paul, I waved towards the sunstones. “Apologies, please continue.”

  He gulped. “I’ll keep it short. Sunstones, good. I had to plant before dawn. Plant in dirt, with sun, they grow. Three phases of growth. At dawn, they grow some in size. At noon, they gather the most energy. At sunset, they shrink but less than they grow. They will be useful to us in fighting some kind of coming darkness.”

  “Didn’t that original message say something about a war?” Eli asked. He nervously fiddled with his hands. “What war? Aren’t monsters enough?”

  “Wish I knew, kid.” I said, just shaking my head at the sunstones. “There are just too many unknowns here. I just wanted to have some magical way of capturing and reflecting and creating light for the house. It’s too dark in there, even during the daytime. And I plan on building down with Earth Magic, making multiple basement levels for different things and reliable light that isn’t fire would be huge for a quality of life improvement.”

  My wife walked back into the house, muttering about making breakfast since there was no going back to bed at this point. Even when she walked out of earshot, I could hear her complaining about unwanted drafts in the house and letting mice just waltz right in.

  Chuckling to myself about my wife’s priorities, I shook my head and got to work.

  “Don’t worry about the door.” I said to Paul, gathering up the largest pieces and molding them together. “Terrastria makes this too easy. Just find me more rock and after today, we should have two doors large enough to accommodate Elvis and heavy enough to give you pause.”

  I stared at the stone in my hands. “And maybe these bad boys should swing outwards only.”

  Spending the rest of my morning working on smaller projects is exactly what I needed. Eli kept busy as my assistant, gathering all kinds of materials nearby inside the house or in the walled-in back yard and donating bits of energy as needed. I didn’t ask him to hand over any feathers even though they were useful. I saw how much energy it took out of him and wearing out the healer for no good reason is an easy way to end up dead for NO GOOD REASON.

  But I knew that my logical thinking wasn’t going to last. This was the fucking apocalypse. Every minute was only a second away from a potential mindfuck.

  Elvis, Thomas and Paul, however, were put to work. Their first two hours of work were dedicated to plans of expansion both above and below ground to include planning out places to explore and scavenge. I assumed that the nearby Food Lion would’ve been cannibalized to death at this point and the two closest strip malls would’ve suffered the same fate. I did mention that before sending them off, mentioning old Towne Fredericksburg and shoppettes along William and Princess Anne street. There next block of time, until I finished my Alchemy work, I directed them to work on thinking out tactics for moving and fighting: who would do what and stand where based on who was actually a part of the team at the moment.

  Out of all of us, Paul was the most suited for scouting due to being nigh-invulnerable. I figured that his internal solar battery did have a limit in terms of how much charge he could hold so theoretically, he could be worn down and eventually killed, but he could get away before letting that happen. But if he stuck with Elvis and Thomas for scouting/scavenging trips, they should be able to handle just about anything.

  My Alchemy work consisted of experimentation and even more planning. My little notebook filled up with ideas that I wanted to try but I kept coming back to one that I believed would be beyond useful. And it all clicked after seeing the effect Eli’s feathers had on the sunstone experiment from last night.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Eli, what do you actually know about healing?”

  “Huh?”

  The skinny kid scratched his nose after putting down an armful of medical supplies. Two bottles of antibiotics toppled over and Eli scrambled to catch them before they broke open all in the grass. We were standing in the back yard over a new raised stone table, much smaller than the one the magic apple tree broke.

  “Azith - ro - my - Kin?” Eli sounded his way through the name on one of the pill bottles. “What is all this?”

  “Azithromy-SIN.” I corrected, grouping the medicine together in related groups. “It’s an antibiotic and it’s one of those general purpose ones like Amoxicillin.” I held up a few bottles of Amoxicillin along with some Penicillin. “We have everything here from anti-fungals to anti-virals. Elvis and I raided a blow-up CVS two days or so in the end of the world. But again, what do you know about healing?”

  He gave me a bewildered look. “I’m a kid! What are you even talking about?”

  “Right.” I nodded sagely, continuing to organize the stuff on the table. “Exactly. You don’t know squat. And I barely know squat. I did some Army medic training years ago at some two week training in Wisconsin but I don’t remember any of it. And none of us here are doctors or have any kind of medical training except for my wife who is CPR certified.”

  The small Alchemy ritual stone platform was about the size of a card table, piled high with stuff. I took my time arranging the contents of the table, starting with a thick but empty first aid kid that resembled a tacklebox in the very center. On top of it sat a key item that made it look like a wizard’s tower: the densest piece of sunstone I could find that was shining the brightest. Around this arrangement sat five of the magical seed pods from my boosted fruit tree, all of which were peeled and arranged around the tower like a pentagram.

  Going clockwise on the points starting at the top sat a small tower of first aid pamphlets, outdoor survival first aid books, and a couple medical books such as the ‘Hesperian Health Guides’, ‘Where There Is No Doctor’, and ‘Wilderness Medicine: Beyond First Aid’. On top of the books sat my wife’s broken Iphone.

  I gestured towards the point of the pentagram and nodded. “Knowledge at the top cause without it, we’re all lost.”

  Pointing at the next two points in turn, I said, “Tools for specific uses and then the general tools most people are familiar with.”

  The corner in the top right of the star had a few scalpels, shears, needles, clamps, fishing line, staples, splints, glue, and a small hacksaw. The bottom right corner pointed at the next pile: gauze, bandages, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and a pile of Neosporin.

  I grinned, pointing to the two corners on the left. “And then we got our drugs, the good stuff and the funky stuff.”

  On the bottom left corner were all the pills: antibiotics, anti-fungals, anti-virals, and anti-psychotics. The last corner in the top left were clean little piles of salt, sage, activated charcoal, dried dandelion root, clove, garlic, and turmeric.

  The look of horror on Eli’s face cracked me up.

  “Are you some kind of witch?” He gasped.

  “It’s still Alchemy.” I said calmly, making sure that everything was balanced and well placed. “You watched me do it last night and I’m just doing it again. Alchemy has another side to it, which is using symbology.” I gestured at all of the ingredients in front of us. “Don’t worry, this is all technically for you, Mr. Healer, sir.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  My fingers drummed against the stone table. “In theory, it’s simple. All of this is healing-related, but none of us know jack shit about it. So, I am going to make a healing tool, a medical kit. One made from Alchemy. Which is why it’s so important that you are here. You are the final touch, the capstone to make this work.”

  “My lovely husband is beating around the bush.” Sandra walked into the backyard with a basket full of small tin boxes and assorted plants.

  I sneaked a peek down our mental link. “Oh, you got seeds? Did you find those?

  “No, actually Paul did.” She said with a bright smile. God. I could stare into those eyes forever. She lightly slapped me on the shoulder and gave me an amused grin. “At least someone puts me first.”

  “Well aren’t you a lucky lady.”

  Sandra turned to place an apple in front of Eli. “You need to eat or you’ll get skinnier.” She turned to me. “Do you really think this’ll work?”

  “If you can convince him.” Nodding at Eli, my wife looked back and forth between us as she examined the pile of thoughts I sent her way.

  She paused. “That- that might actually work!”

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on here?”

  My wife gently set her basket down and put her finger on her broken phone. “All of this is medicine. Grant has everything organized by relationship. My phone had a bunch of first aid apps on there and the pamphlets plus the medical textbooks give a broad overview of what to do in common situations along with surface level explanations of harder medical problems. The sunstone next to my phone is a source of magical energy and purification, because the sun is a symbol of those things.”

  I nodded along as she explained my thoughts to Eli who just looked bewildered.

  “The magical fruit seed pod things are condensed magical energy that boost powers and serve as the connections to the groups of items AND also will help power this thing along.” She cleared her throat. “Then the groups are surgical tools, first aid tools and stuff, then medicine for specific illnesses and infections. And the top left corner is natural medicine.”

  “It’s just missing a key ingredient!” My hands rubbed together as if I were an evil scientist crafting a new Frankenstein’s monster.

  Sandra playfully slapped my shoulder again. “Honey!”

  I dropped my hands. “Anyways, the key ingredient is YOU, my man. Well, not you, but part of you. Your feathers, specifically.”

  Eli held his hands up, slowly backing away. “Uh, I mean, this was a lot of fun guys but I think I need to go.”

  Sandra waved her hand and blue energy encased Eli, picking him up and gently setting him down in a chair made out of vines that sprang from the dirt.

  “What my husband is trying to say, in his clumsy way, is that this is his gift to you. This is how you can be useful to the team without having to spend a feather every time someone needs healing.”

  My wife can be really persuasive when she wants to be. That sweet kind exterior of hers is real, but it often fools people into thinking she’s not that bright. No, she’s both peppy, kind, AND smart.

  “Your feathers, the healing magic you can do and the healing magic we’ve seen our former neighbor Isabella do, it’s not something they ‘know’ how to do.” Sandra explained gently. “It’s something they can do because the laws of reality as we know it are different. Magic is real. Faith seems to be real. Powers are real. This-” she pointed at the Alchemy ritual circle, “-is now real. And this is something Grant can and IS trying to make for you. It’s not to replace you, it’s to help you. All of these things are ingredients, the knowledge, the tools, the medicine both man-made AND natural, they don’t mean anything without your powers. Your feathers are the key. They bridge the gap between what is possible to what can be probable.”

  Eli calmed down a bit but still looked like a deer ready to bolt at the first wrong twitch.

  “Please, Eli.” I said, leaning to the side slowly and tapping on the empty first aid kit box. “This tool-box will become your main tool, a repository for extra energy, a wealth of medical knowledge and easy ‘how-to’s’. If we do this right, then you’ll have what you need to be an incredible medic for us. Even better, it will help all of us stay alive so we can help you get to the point where your powers grow enough to protect you.”

  Sandra shot me a look, confused and warning me off a little bit but I couldn’t help it. I got excited.

  “Dude, you have an ANGELIC race and bloodline!” My voice shook as I spoke. “Do you have any concept, any clue as to how INSANE that sounds? Elvis has a sliver of a Greek demi-god in him and he’s unstoppable! If we can figure out how you advance and grow, just think of the power you’ll wield!”

  His wings fluttered as his hope did.

  “Exactly.” I said, looking up at the cloudless sky. “What if your wings grew so you could fly? What if a simple touch or word could bring someone back from the brink of death? What kind of powers do Angels have?!”

  I could see the light dawn in his eyes as his imagination and memory of Sunday school caught up to his fear.

  “Do you really think I can make a difference?”

  My voice was firm. “Eli. I know you can make a difference right now. And in the future, I believe that you may make all the difference.”

  Sandra pulled him into a hug. “Remember, this isn’t just for you. Think of all the people you can help if you do this. Instead of having to use a feather to heal someone and then waiting a day to recover, with this, you might be able to help a bunch of people before needing to rest.”

  “I’ll do it!”

  “I’ll even sweeten the pot.”

  I coughed, laughing as Eli and I spoke at the same time.

  “Sorry, I was going to do this anyway but I figured this may help you make up your mind.” Scratching my head with a small stick that I’d been using as a pointer, I tossed it down at my feet where it bounced off my helmet. “After we get this experiment done, I’ll be getting you kitted out like the rest of us. Only, you’ll have light leather armor and your ‘weapons’ won’t be weapons, they’ll be bucklers.”

  I held my arms up in a boxing stance, hiding behind my forearms.

  “Bucklers, dual shields but with blades on the tip and the sides. Mostly defense to keep the medic alive but enough edge to be dangerous.”

  I could see how much faith Eli put in me, his face shining with belief and desire, not just for himself, but to exceed his limits and make me proud. My heart hurt for the kid. His yearning for approval . . . it’s not something to take lightly.

  “Well?” Sandra waved at the ritual circle. “Times’ a-wastin’.”

  “True.” I agreed, putting my hands on the circular edge of the ritual. “Too much talking and not enough doing. Babe, get water, meat, and a chair for Eli who is going to need it in just a minute. Then I'll need your help with energy infusion. Eli, give me as many feathers as you can without passing out. Do NOT hurt yourself.”

  He nodded, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. Reaching back, his stubby wings brightened until they solidified. With a soft prayer, Eli pulled free three feathers and placed them in the ritual.

  I arranged them where I thought best as Sandra returned.

  “A feather in the center as all of this needs Eli to work at its best. A feather at the top to make the knowledge magical and accessible and a feather on the herbs, because faith fits right in with mysticism in my book.” I clapped once. “Let’s do it!”

  “Grant!”

  I turned to see Sandra glaring at me, her telekinesis gently lowering Eli into a chair, his face awfully pale. Shaky hands gripped the sides of the wooden chair and I noticed something strange.

  “You did good, kid.” I said, stepping forward to lower him the rest of the way. Peeking at his back, I saw his feathers regrowing and their ethereal hue taking on a new light, a more golden hue. “Huh, that’s weird.”

  We waited a minute, making sure that Eli drank water and ate food before turning to the task at hand. Elvis caught my eye, giving me a thumbs-up to let me know we were safe.

  Breathing deeply and slowly until only my ritual table filled my vision, I dug my bare feet into the dirt, connecting with the slow-moving energy of the earth. Dirt climbed up my calves like a living putty until I was encased from the hips down. Channeling my power personal energy from my core down through my arms, the flow of mana joined with the natural, steady thrumm of earthen mana as it flowed into the ritual border.

  Small, soft white hands joined my own on the other side of the table and the energy swirling within took on a greenish hue to balance out my own deep brown. Nature and Stone joined together as a foundation and my soul willed my thoughts into reality. Slowly, the power built in a counter-clockwise direction and for a moment, thoughts and memories that were not my own impeded my focus. The more I used and experimented with my Alchemy, the more my core removed the limits on the power infused within me, to include guiding memories of what was truly possible.

  “Whoa!” My wife breathed, keeping her output of energy constant. Neither of us were pouring as much energy into this as we could, instead, we were gently keeping a steady flow of power into the ritual circle, concentrating on breaking down the objects into pure transmutable energy and infusing them with what those things meant.

  This effort was more than physical, more than just mental, it was touching on the intangible. Mystic, unexplainable effects and infusing them into natural matter. My wife’s old Iphone broke down, taking with it all of the knowledge stored within her First-Aid mobile applications and combining them with the books and pamphlets. The tools joined together, superimposing their state of beings over each other. With each section dissolving into the purest white light, I held firm, focusing my will on pushing that into the first aid kit box.

  One by one, each grouping vanished and the box grew brighter, denser, heavier. Eli’s feathers did more than just infuse their energy into the process, they smoothed over the inefficiencies, the inaccuracies. The mistakes in my focus or imaginings ironed out as the faith-based magic of his Angelic bloodline power sank in, elevating my working into something approaching the miraculous.

  It ended sooner and quieter than expected. One moment, we were beholding a veritable sun being born, and the next, an unassuming thick white first aid box with straps on the bottom just sat on a stone table.

  No one moved or spoke for what seemed like forever.

  Eli’s hoarse whisper startled me. “Is it over?”