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Part 2-8: Jailer
The door slammed shut and disappeared as I crossed inside. Persi stared at me, mouth agape. The hobo was nowhere to be seen. We were in a small, charmless foyer. Behind Persi another door stood half open.
“Did you see—there was—Alena, I thought you were—” Persi put her hands on her cheeks and started another two sentences. I noticed her, but my whole body felt like static and rushing blood. I needed to sit down or scream or keep moving, else my head might explode.
I heaved through the second door, into a modest room with a fuzzy bearskin carpet, some chairs and cabinets and another fireplace. The mantle was built into a tall column, around which stairs coiled like a holiday garland. Footsteps clapped down, someone was coming. I stood brave for a moment, then my legs turned to jelly and my vision swam. I angled toward the bearskin, and plopped sideways onto it.
It was soft and musty. I liked it, and lay there on my side, shaking and breathing hard.
The hobo emerged from the steps, carrying another yellow blade, this one shorter and rapier-like.
“You made it,” he said, stopping beside the fireplace.
“Yeah,” I managed, between breaths.
“There was a great blue flash,” said Persi, who’d followed me in. “Then it was all feathers; I thought for sure they’d gotten her, but she came up out of it like some sort of goddess with the sword all aglow. The bird riders, they were afraid! I saw them, they were afraid.”
“Glowing? Then you must…” He walked over, and knelt close. “Ah.”
“Feh?” I wheezed.
“The Queen’s Band. You found her, and now you bear it.”
“Time out, time out,” I said, mentally subduing a growing charlie horse and trying to stay the dizziness that chased around the edges of my consciousness. “Do you have a, a beer, or even a cigarette, or a…?”
He blinked at me.
“I mean, I,” I took another breath, “I quit a long time ago but now—”
“I think what Al— what Sally is saying is she needs a moment to recover,” said Persi. “And we’d both like to know what is happening. This is all very strange and new to us.”
“What she said,” I said, and rolled onto my back. I felt like I could control my lungs better now, and my numb arm’s feeling was coming back.
“Sally? Are you not Alena and Persimmon?”
“We’re terrible spies, sure, rub it in,” I said.
“You know us then, who are you?” Persi said.
“I am the Jailer. We may stay a tick while you recover. The Keeper cannot easily enter my tower. Especially not if the Band is within.”
“Great. So about that beer?”
“Provisions are for the living, Alena. You’ll find scant in the way of food and drink here,” he said.
“Okay, so you’re all dead then? Ghosts?” I said.
“Dead? No, not dead. Can the dead do this?” He twirled the rapier.
I sat up with a noisy sigh. “Maybe you should start from the top then.”
The Jailer agreed to do his best to fill us in. He put the rapier down by the fireplace and dragged a chair over to the carpet, where Persi and I both sat like kids waiting to hear an elder tell a tale. He collected his thoughts for a few moments.
“You must forgive me,” began the Jailer, “I’ve been here for such an age now, the land between truth and illusion sometimes runs with the same colour. One thing is for certain. This is a false kingdom. I forget when we built it, or who we were when we did. But there were three of us who did, you see? The King, the Queen, and me, the Jailer. There was nothing to rule. The names are codes, understand. They helped maintain the cohesiveness of this world. The names used to make it stronger.”
I didn’t really understand, but it was nice to have someone other than myself and Persi confirm that this place was bullshit. I massaged my arm and nodded at the Jailer.
“It used to be beautiful too, I seem to recall,” he continued. “But now, with no one spending the effort, the sky has left us, the halls are grey and dull, and there’s too much space in the darkness.”
I thought of how far away Persi sounded when she walked into the shadows. What would happen if the lights went out forever? I tried not to think about it.
“We made the kingdom for the Prince. Before he was the Prince, he must have been something awful, because everything here was designed to distract him, and to keep him asleep. He was one of us once, I do suppose. But far more powerful. Anyhow, for the first era, or epoch, or however you’d like to imagine it, he did sleep. We made him sleep, yes. When he finally woke, he was amicable, pleased to be a Prince and live life according to the script. He’d even return to slumber for a time. It was this way for oh… a long while. Then Prince started having nightmares. When awake, he began to question his reality. The power of illusion faded from us. He drew energy and instinct from something outside of our little kingdom. Something we had once known. But whatever it was… whatever it is, I cannot recall. Believe me, how I have tried.
“His ability overwhelmed. We used to have servants and entertainers and all the like, but the energy used to keep them around had to be poured into keeping him under control. It was like fighting a tide, however. Some ages ago we switched to a defensive tact. But he would find a way to subvert us, always. He gained more and more control, able to create his own servants and machinations. You’ve met a pair already. The Minder and the Keeper. They’re both a part of him, sentinels drawn from memory or observation or perhaps pure imagination. The third form—the Collector—its the one that has breached the kingdom, or so I strongly suspect. Using a clock as its anchor in and out. It’s working hard on dismantling the last of our deepest defenses. I’ve done what I can from in here to slow it, but against creatures like the Keeper and her charges, I fear it’s more a matter of how and when, not if. But now…”
“Eden,” I said. “Does the name Eden mean anything to you?”
The Jailer closed his eyes and breathed a low, flat note. He said, “It’s a name I’ve maybe heard, but I can’t quite be sure.”
“It’s what the thing in our world calls itself,” said Persi.
“Ah. So the Collector has indeed reached beyond the walls. I’d much like to learn about your world, and maybe one day you might tell me. But for now, the telling’s still my province. Showing would be even better. Come, if you are rested well enough to climb the stairs?”
My breathing was back to normal and my body was more or less usable, it seemed. I stood, and did not topple. I’d gotten good at keeping gibbering, panicky thoughts at bay over the past month or so, so I nodded at the Jailer.
He led the way up the spiral, talking more as we went.
“This tower is my last bastion against the Prince’s will. The King and Queen used to have their own stronghold, but that disappeared when they were lost. They left little behind, though I’ve a few of the King’s possessions. The Queen’s objects were erased entirely, or so I believed until but a few moments ago.”
I fidgeted with the ring. He’d called it the Queen’s Band.
“What happened to them?” I asked.
“In short, they organized a final assault on the Prince. Combined their power and best of ability to undo the momentum he was gaining. We made the plan together; I stayed back as insurance. They lost. They died. Had I helped them…” The Jailer shrugged with open hands. “Some decisions cannot be revised. It is a good thing that I am here now to slow him. I can never know if it was truly the right choice. I’ve learned to live with the fact. I’ve learned that keeping peace sometimes means accepting that no peace can ever be made.”
“For what it’s worth, I am very glad you were there to help us,” I said.
“Yes,” said Persi. “Thank you.”
He smiled over his shoulder. “You’re welcome. And it may be worth everything. Ah, we’re here. Fear not the open air, you’re safe in my tower, as I’ve said.”
The staircase led us up through a hole which exited onto the top of the tower. It was a stone circle, bordered by blocks that had those castle-top breaks in them, so that people could see out or maybe archers could fire down. There was one piece of furniture, sitting dead center: some sort of wooden rack.
Above, the sky was dark purple, moonless and star strewn.
“Welcome to my sanctuary,” said the Jailer.
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