Labyrinth

  The Shepherd of Decay stood in front of yet another Endless Door searching its grooves for any fracture, any hairline weakness that it could not perceive. Not all doors led Home but that didn’t matter. Each portal leading to a different layer of Existence rebuffed the Shepherd, some more than others. They all had delectable tastes but abundance is key.

  Hands older than most stars tickled at the seams before lingering around the keyhole protected by a shimmering silver glow. The Shepherd knew better than to touch the keyhole directly. It looked down at an appendage missing one of its many hands. This lesson was almost as old as the Shepherd.

  The Labyrinth more than anything was a jealous mistress.

  But the Shepherd of Decay was too old to truly feel anger. Too ancient for frustration. Patience had been its friend, its guide, its companion since the Light of Creation split itself from the Void’s endless embrace.

  It would not be denied. It could not be denied. Time itself fell subject to Decay. Entropy already waited at the end of the road. This door would fall long before that.

  Another whiff of ecstasy drew the Shepherd away but it did not leave before leaving a long, shallow scratch on the golden frame of the door. Black oil bubbled, hissing before sinking into the door as if it were never there.

  The Shepherd’s Home was calling. One day, Yerth would welcome its long lost child.

  *********

  Grant - Earth

  “What do you mean they abandoned us?”

  Yelling was pointless. My wife certainly wasn’t at fault. If anything, she’s the reason any of us are still alive. Besides, she’s a hottie who can cook. Can’t yell at that combo.

  Thomas leaned back in his chair. “Not that I know these people, but the big guy and the black guy said they’d be back. Should be quick if everything stays this quiet. They were just going to escort the rest of the people in the house back to some church up the road.” He turned to look at me. “Do ya’ll really live five minutes from a church?”

  Sandra snorted. “Thomas, pull your head out of your ass. This is the Bible belt. You’ve lived in the ‘Bible belt’ your entire life. Shoot, there’s a church every three blocks around here. America is religious, and with all that’s going on around us, I would place hefty bets that it’s even more religious now than ever. Lord knows I’ve thought about it.” She furrowed her brow as she looked at me. “Didn’t you say that Elvis is a descendant of a Greek god? Or that’s what his status sheet said?”

  “Yeah, but-” I stepped in before we could truly get to debating one of the forbidden topics. “Doesn’t matter, what actually matters now is that our guaranteed dedicated healing force is no longer here. Without Isabella and her two friends, we have no way to heal.”

  “I heal, it’s just painful.”

  “But I don’t!” Glaring wasn’t going to do me any good but I couldn’t stop my eyes from doing it. “What exactly did they say?”

  My wife sighed. “It’s actually my fault. Killing that big bug shook the house, almost shook it to the ground. Scared Denise and Rochelle so bad they convinced Isabella to convince Mike that only the church is safe. They said something along the lines of ‘we never should have come here’ and ‘we’re clearly not a priority’.”

  “Wimps.” Thomas laughed, shaking his head. “Sandra, you took that thing down with your mind! There is no safer place than here.” Then he shrugged. “Besides,” he said, shaking his left arm in front of us. “Broke this several times fighting carnivorous deer and their demon squirrels. My shields work well but that doesn’t mean I can handle every hit they take. The leftover energy can heal me, it’s just slow. Surprised I’m not in a wheelchair.”

  “Still doesn’t help me or my wife! What if we get hurt?” I said through gritted teeth. My skewer broke in my hand. “I negotiated that deal with Pastor Mansfield for this exact reason. They get armor, we get healers and I provide material assistance while they’re here helping us. That damn church has enough healers and manpower.”

  My brother laughed at me. “You’re getting duped by a bunch of fatties at church?” He laughed even harder. “Did they try to get you to join too? Let me guess, join us and you too can go to heaven!?”

  I glared at him. “Oh come on, I’ve read that Book back to front, our current circumstances are VERY different from how that Book says it’s all supposed to end. Wonder how they’re going to deal with that ‘revelation’.” I made finger quotes in the air. “What makes this worse is that that group hauled all the armor I’d already made back to the church, huh? Well, that plus their flaming weapons and holy fire.”

  Thomas nodded wryly, amused at my plight.

  “Assholes, every last one of them.”

  “Eh, HMMM!”

  “What?!” I growled, turning again to see my wife glaring at me. She scoffed a bit and then reached underneath the table and carefully put a large seed pod on the table. It glowed with a gentle yellow light. Wrinkling her nose at me, she reached under the table and proceeded to slowly pile up six more seed pods.

  “I know you got distracted with fighting and rain that melts and your brother almost dying . . .” She said, dragging out her words. “But I can’t believe you forgot about all of THIS!”

  “The hell are those?” Thomas asked, leaning forward to poke the glowing seed pods.

  “Mine!” I snapped, leaning forward to smack his finger away.

  My hand bounced off a blue shield that suddenly appeared.

  “Are they?” As one, all of the seed pods took on a blue glow and levitated into the air. “Or are they mine? Pretty sure I grew these while you were playing Sleeping Beauty all morning.”

  “Babe!” I sighed, drumming my fingers on the table. “That’s not fair! I can’t fly.”

  Sandra looked me dead in the eye. “What I can’t get is how crazy all of this is. We have SUPERPOWERS. I’m using MAGIC and so are YOU!”

  One of the seed pods dropped into her hand. With a deft hand, she peeled back a section of the husk to reveal a crystallized apple with no stem. It almost looked like someone shined and polished a big gummy.

  “We have to figure out what to do with these fruits.” She said, letting the one in her hand float back up to join the others. “I know you boys didn’t notice as you were fighting yesterday, but most of the bugs that came by didn’t go after you guys. They came after these. Whatever we did, Grant, you and I, to make these things, the bugs want them.”

  My mind ran faster than my mouth for once so I just let it charge ahead. My wife’s next sentence pulled me up short.

  “How do you think I grew this behemoth?” She said, pointing at the green monstrosity of a twisted flytrap that gripped the sides of our house. “I was desperate and yes, my magic did most of the work but two of those fruits were most of the fuel.”

  I froze. In all of the insanity of the last week, it’s not fair to say that this damn tree and its power-boosting fruits slipped my mind. The absolute chaos of almost dying and magic being real had shoved the possibilities of this revolutionary produce into another dimension.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  I employ the bloodline descendant of a Greek god.

  I have talked with a guy who burns with angelic fire.

  I have seen the dead walk and hunger.

  I saw the Laws of Nature turn on their head.

  I have grown younger.

  I wield magic.

  I took a life.

  While my mind attempted to process the events of the week, my hands shook. With a great effort of will, I slowly put them down on the table in front of me and stared at them. I focused so hard that I couldn’t hear my wife or my brother talking anymore. All I could do was breathe. For those next moments, I just sat there, battling the unrelenting tremble of my own hands. I closed my eyes and flexed, my fingers curling into fists.

  This. This I could control. If I couldn’t relax enough, then I could strain. I could push the burdens of my mind into forward momentum. I don’t need to unwind. There isn’t time for that. I don’t need to chill. There’s work to do.

  Idle hands are the devil’s workshop but mama didn’t raise no bitch. I could be idle later. When my wife is safe. When my brother is safe. When my house is a fortress. When I can walk outside without the everpresent fear of some mutated thing howling for my blood. I can be idle then.

  Now, I have work to do.

  “You okay, bro?”

  I let out another deep breath, forcing out all the thoughts of weakness, doubt, and self-pity.

  “Yeah, man. Sorry, it all just kinda hit me.”

  Thomas looked at me, worry in his eyes. Sandra looked a bit pale, her small hands holding mine.

  “We’re going to be okay.”

  My brother swallowed, his voice thick with emotion. “We better be. I worked too damn hard to get here for us to not be.”

  Clearing my throat, I stood up. “You’re goddamn right. We have fucking superpowers and magic.” My laugh was a bit forced. “My wife is a psychic nuke.” I turned to Thomas. “You’re a halfway-unkillable bone freak thing. We’ll be allright.”

  My wife gave me a hug and then shooed me away to stave off further complaining and emotional outpouring. Any more of that and I’d be useless. So Sandra did what she does best: she bustled around the table and cleaned like a whirlwind on steroids. I gave her a quick kiss and a hug.

  “Love you babe, I’ll get busy. Make me a list of things that need doing and I'll start knocking things out.”

  She gave me another quick kiss before heading back into her garden.

  I chuckled, grabbing Thomas by the shoulder and pulling him away.

  “We got work to do.”

  Thomas didn’t argue, instead he grabbed a couple more skewers of meat and the big pitcher of water before following me down to my basement.

  I talked as I gathered various materials and items from where they were stashed around the house. “One of Sandra’s cool and yet irritating abilities is her telepathy. We have some kind of low to mid resolution mind link. I can tell the direction that she’s in but I can also get a sense of how she’s doing and what she’s doing if I pay attention. It’s also useful for getting that list of stuff to do from her without having to write anything down."

  Thomas gave me a look over the pile of bug chitin plates I’d loaded him up with.

  “You’re telling me that you use your wife as a memory bank?”

  “Yup. All husbands do this. Women keep track of everything anyways, and their priorities have a tendency to be different so it’s always worth checking in.”

  “Sounds a bit, I dunno, dirty? Is that the right word?” Thomas grumbled as I added more chitin plates to his pile. “No, misogynistic?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well that’s stupid. No, it’s not. My wife is brilliant. She has a master’s degree and she grew up on a farm. Not only is she down to earth, but she sees things in a way that I don’t. Why wouldn’t I get her opinion? I can always disagree and do something else but if I can accomplish something useful and make her happy or feel safe at the same time, there are zero downsides to doing things that way.”

  We laid the bug chitin on the basement floor next to the smaller Alchemy table. It was dark down here as I had covered up the small basement windows with stone so I took a minute to uncover them so we could actually see while we got some work done.

  “Grant, I’m probably saying this wrong but it looks to me like you’re-, I don’t know, not taking your wife seriously as a partner when you say shit like that.”

  I couldn’t help it. Deep belly laughter rocked me, I almost dropped the plate of cast iron I just picked up.

  “HAHAHAHAH! Is that what you think, bro?”

  The look of shock on his face only made me laugh harder.

  “Oh that’s funny, wow! Yeah, our relationship is fairly traditional compared to most people but you seriously think I could ‘make’ that spitfire do anything she genuinely doesn’t want to do? Shit, right now, she could literally send both of us into orbit. I picked her to marry me because she’s an absolute sweetheart who loves me. And because of that, I’d do anything for her. I bring home the bacon and she cooks it up. Well, now, I kill the monsters and she makes killer plants. I’ll build stuff and she uses green thumb magic to make super potatoes. We’re a team.”

  Thomas sighed. “Maybe misogynistic isn’t the right word. It’s like you’re doing all this stuff and keeping her in the house like a 1940s housewife.”

  Shaking my head, I went to a small shelf and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen. I made two columns and started jotting stuff down.

  “Again, she’s a psychic nuke, she can literally do whatever the hell she wants. Two, for some reason, you think she and I are maybe at cross-purposes with each other but we’ve been doing this for a while. We’re not. Here, take a look at this.”

  I pushed my piece of paper over to my brother and let him read it as I continued to gather a bunch of different things from around the house.

  “I don’t get it.” He said, still looking down at the two lists.

  I got another pen and used it to point. With a finger, I moved the paper a bit more into the light.

  “Not a problem. You just got here so you’re missing context. Her first item on the list is ‘gather seeds’. She wants different kinds of seeds because her plant magic ability will let her grow them and mutate them. The seeds she’s looking for are for useful things. Like this one, a basic luffa plant. You can grow those, dry them out, and they become sponges. We have to look for natural alternatives for things that we can’t make on our own anymore, like sponges. And this one, looks like a cross between a pinecone and a cattail, that thing, you wring it out and you get soap and shampoo.”

  “Sure, but the other things here: water storage, community, garden, house repair/fortifications, pot/utensil repair, expand fence area, fix dirt . . . What? I am not following any of this.”

  I laughed. “Think about it but ignore ‘community for now because that takes time and people and actual houses. These are all things to fix the house and make it either more sustainable or more fortified. If we get those plants she wants, we can eat better and also have plants that have functional uses such as gourds for bowls or luffas for sponges or the cattail looking thing for natural soap. The house, well, I have plans to seriously upgrade the house but that will take around a week on its own, maybe. And of course she wants me to fix her pots and pans and utensils. I can use Alchemy to replace the plastic or rubber with wood or metal. And the last two are obvious, use Earth Magic to make our dirt healthier for Sandra’s plants and expanding our fence gives us a bit more room to grow things without having to look over your shoulder every second.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. Not sure how I fit into it but I see how this is useful overall.” Thomas scratched his head. “So . . . your list is not her list.”

  I smirked. “Duh. Different priorities, right? My Alchemy power-”

  “Which you still haven’t explained.”

  “Right.” I said, shaking my head. “Did you ever watch that old show ‘FullMetal Alchemist’?”

  Thomas shook his head ‘no’.

  “Anyways, I can use a defined circle structure, like a round table or something like that, put materials in the middle, and infuse the circle, the boundary of the circle, and the materials with my mana. And from there, I can reform, reconstitute, and rearrange the things in the circle. Like a torn jacket, or an ax with a broken handle or chipped edge, I can fix the thing using the materials already present. I can either use the stuff already present, meaning the ax handle may get shorter or the ax blade may be thinner, but I can also put extra material in there to make up for it. I can’t ‘create’ stuff from nothing. And the more I know about what I’m doing, the more efficient the entire process is.”

  “Well, that’s awesome.” Thomas looked over to a side table when I pointed at it.

  “See, made a bunch of weapons the other day to test this stuff out: spears, knives, small shields and various pieces of armor.” I looked down at myself. “I was all decked out yesterday in all kinds of awesome medieval sheik but now I have to start from scratch. But that’s besides the point.”

  Lightly coughing, I tapped my side of the list. “Here we go, see my priorities?”

  I squinted at the piece of paper for a moment. “Well, not exactly ordered properly but you get my drift. I have to use Alchemy and Earth Magic to make a large water cistern with a built-in filter system, turn my house into an oversized hobbit-hole type home by piling a ton of dirt on top of it so it becomes a hill. Then, make with the Alchemy to upgrade or make new weapons and armor for the team. Experiment with Alchemy and the magic-tree-fruit to create a non-faith based kind of healing.”

  “How am I supposed to help with any of that?”

  Thomas had a point. I chuckled, realizing that this was all stuff I had to do because nobody else really could. I’m the one stop shop for construction and craftsmanship.

  “Fair point.” I said, slowly nodding as other pieces to the day’s plans fell into place. “What would truly help me out is if you stay with Sandra and be her lookout. That would allow me to work in peace without having to worry about her. And when Elvis and Paul get back, work with them on scavenging anything useful, from metal to boulders to chunks of wood to more important stuff like technology or medicine or food.”

  My brother squinted at me. “Okay, you’re going to need to explain that last part. Didn’t the rain melt away anything not ‘natural’?” He made finger quotes at the last word. “Most of the houses dissolved into dirt and that playground two blocks away is creepy. Cars are rusted to bits and all the rims are bent like cheap paper plates with no rubber to hold them up. Shit, half the clothes we find are soup!”

  I held up a finger. “Yes, you’re right. However, didn’t you notice that clothes I made or upgraded with Alchemy didn’t melt? Somehow, the stuff I infuse does not melt in the rain. And to be frank, we don’t know if that’s a one-off or if mana-rain is a new constant force in the world.”

  “Like the animals going crazy after the rain?”

  “Exactly.”