- Partners
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Summary: A veteran explorer visits an uncanny town on the edge of a Labyrinth.
Disclaimer: My knowledge of PMD is drawn from the two games I played a long time ago and osmosis. Creative liberties have been taken.
The road to Thickenwood was not well worn, and Iwa had it to herself. The few people she passed were not going in her direction. They flinched when their eyes fell on the bright claws swinging at her side. But the scrap of cloth knotted around her neck—old and ratty as it was, thin with washing, worn with wear—reassured them.
“Explorer,” came the greeting and the respectful nod. But she learned little when she questioned them. Yes, there was a town on the outskirts of Thickenwood. A big town? Well, a medium-sized town. Prosperous? Yes . . .
Always, the catch of hesitation. A strange town, proclaimed a muscled heracross, pulling his goods behind him. A strange town, murmured a bashful leafeon, her tail sweeping across the dirt. A chatty yanma, who had seemed glad to meet a stranger on the road, fell abruptly silent. That was a strange town . . .
Towns on the outskirts of Labyrinths tended to be strange, of course. Often they constructed high barricades and converted their homes into fortresses. Children were trained in fighting from a young age in such towns—to hold off incursions, they said, as if the logic were obvious, though they had to know their enemy was the terrain itself.
One town, composed mostly of bellossom and jumpluff families, had cultivated vast gardens. These they tended almost obsessively, as if the carefully imposed order of the flower patches could hold back the warping threat of the ever-encroaching Labyrinth. Another, a small town that stood isolated on an open plain like a lone tree on a mountain-top, built no walls and made no gardens. Their shelters had no doors and for every ten apples they coaxed out of the hard soil, the eleventh was thrown into the distance, where the plain rippled and compressed. An offering, Iwa had thought at the time. But whether offered out of fear or of pity, she couldn’t have said.
Thickenwood lay at the edge of every map Iwa had seen. No explorers returned who set off in that direction. Iwa had volunteered.
Before she’d left, the Guildmaster had once again asked if she wanted to travel with a partner. Most explorers found partners or formed into bands. They did it for the conversation, for the sense of friendly eyes on their back, for their own sanity. That was the truth of exploring a Labyrinth—it cannibalized your mind. From the first step, it began to work on you. It took your sense of time, your sense of distance. Smell, taste, hearing, vision—all warped and became strange. At last, if you let it, the place took your sense of self. In that respect, no matter how many companions came in at your side, when you entered a Labyrinth, you entered it alone. Iwa had shaken her head.
The sun hung low in the sky when Iwa neared the settlement. She passed through rows of cultivated orchards, thick with apples. As she approached the modest wood gate that marked the town entrance, she fingered the rag around her neck. Most towns welcomed explorers, but there were some that blamed them for the outward creep of the Labyrinths, believing that the spaces would stay stationary if only they were left well alone. Even in hostile towns, though, people usually took one look at Iwa and gave her no trouble.
Busy, but quiet. That was Iwa’s first impression. Workers were bringing in the last barrels of the day’s harvest. Children moved through the streets, but sedately. They didn’t shout. Eyes followed Iwa as she made her way into the main square, but no one spoke to her.
She didn’t see a market. Perhaps it had already closed down for the evening. As a raticate hurried past, Iwa tapped him on the shoulder.
“Good evening, sir. I was wondering where I could purchase one of those excellent-looking apples I noticed in the orchard.”
He studied her with complete bafflement, as if she were a snowstorm that had appeared suddenly on a summer day. Then, without a word, he continued walking.
Busy but silent. She wondered if some freak effect of the Labyrinth had taken away the villagers’ capacity for speech. Vaguely, she recalled a story about a town that had woken up blind after a strange sandstorm passed them over. But as she came further into town, she noticed a breloom and a caterpie at work constructing a wagon, exchanging words occasionally as they worked. Not mutes, then. But no one seemed inclined to return her greetings.
The light was almost gone now, and Iwa doubted she would find an inn, so she returned to the orchard and curled up against a comfortable tree back. The orchard was redolent with the scent of fruiting apple trees. Iwa was tempted to spike one and find out if the sweetness of the fruit lived up to its smell. But she was an explorer, not a thief. With a sigh, she clawed her pack of dried apple slices from her satchel. Shortly, she sank into sleep.
What is your purpose?
The voice reverberated, low and pleasant, through her mind. The tone was curious.
She was on a mountain, passing rapidly over the snowy ground. Between two rowans, whose branches interlocked as if forming a gate, the snow fell on the same spot but the snow did not rise. Elsewhere the snow was stacked three feet high, but there the snow fell on the same spot and did not rise.
What is your purpose? The question had become a thrumming demand. But Iwa stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the footprints that led to the place where the snow fell on the same spot—
She woke gasping. The sun was only a pale yellow suggestion past the trees. Workers were already marching into the orchards. A caterpie crawled into Iwa’s row. Ignoring Iwa completely, she began to methodically string shot apples into her basket.
“Is there a psychic in this town?” Iwa asked hoarsely. She probably looked feral herself at the moment, with her fur ruffled and eyes gleaming. But the caterpie didn’t answer. She didn't even turn.
A psychic intrusion. Iwa had never experienced one before, but what else could it have been? The voice had been too clear. As for the dream—
Iwa thrust a claw just shy of the caterpie’s soft belly. “It’s polite to answer questions,” she hissed softly. “Is there a psychic in this town?”
The caterpie blinked at her. Had some ember of fear flared deep in its foggy eyes?
“Yes,” said the caterpie.
“Who?”
“Fumihiro. The alakazam. A waste of energy—”
The caterpie’s speech was rapid, yet oddly mechanical. Her eyes were fixed on a point beyond Iwa’s head.
“Where does Fumihiro live?”
The caterpie’s tail jerked towards the hill that rose on the other side of town, standing over the settlement like a watchtower.
“Thank you,” Iwa said as she pulled back her claw. She already regretted the threat. It was that dream. It had shaken her.
The snow fell on the same spot.
More is wrong here than just silence, Iwa thought, studying the pokemon in the streets more closely. They never stopped to chat. They didn’t exchange nods, sniffs, or smiles. Instead they moved single-mindedly, as if oblivious to everything except their own purpose.
On the edge of town, Iwa came across a group of children huddled around a patch of dirt. Normally, she would have kept her distance. Her dark form and scarred face either scared children or impressed them to the extent that they followed her about town, peppering her with cheerful questions. But Iwa had a suspicion that here her approach wouldn’t be heeded.
As she got closer, she saw that a rattata was painstakingly drawing a diagram of a wheel. The lines of the spokes were incredibly straight. The rattata drew another line, which wavered slightly. He flinched and rubbed it out. The faces of the other children were intent, almost solemn. Playing? That word didn’t fit.
Unsettled, Iwa lifted her gaze to the hilltop. Perhaps I’ll find answers there.
Scaling the hill took less than an hour. She caught no sound other than her own nearly noiseless footfalls. The sun beat warmly against her back. But as she neared the peak, a tart, pungent odor deluged her. Cautiously, she crept between the thin trees, until she was peering into a berry tree grove.
At first, she didn’t identify the creature slumped against the large tree stump as an alakazam. The creature’s body was encrusted with green goop. Mashed tanga berries, Iwa realized, as she stepped closer, smeared onto every limb. Their juice dripped down the alakazam’s long whiskers. He sat still, unmoving.
For a moment, Iwa wondered if she was bearing witness to some strange alakazam death-rite. But abruptly, one filmy eye snapped open.
“You must go back,” the alakazam wheezed. “You must warn them . . .”
Not the same voice as the dream, Iwa decided at once. That voice had been clearer, stronger … female.
“Warn?”
“The Queen . . .” The alakazam slowly raised his spoon. A small green berry levitated towards him. He plucked it from the air and smashed it against his temple, letting out a short groan. “She’s moved on from me. Waste of energy. But the moment I relent . . .”
When he spoke again, it was in a low, dreamy voice.
“A queen was born with compassion. That’s how it began. She looked upon her rivals and had no wish to destroy them. Her mind expanded. She gained insight and purpose. Where the queen leads, the hive follows, the hive—” His voice turned frantic. “Fumihiro is my name, and this name was given for the words that I spoke upon the day my eyes first cracked open, for when I looked out onto the world I saw a sentence that continues and does not end, growing and gaining in complexity as it steps and trails the crevices of being, hunting for order in those places order cannot be found—”
Iwa waited patiently, but the alakazam’s sentence did not end. He seemed almost in a trance as he spoke, and his spoon trembled. She didn’t know how to help him, so at last she turned away. His low, feverish mutter followed her down the hillside.
Iwa didn’t think she’d find any more answers in town, so she set off into the woods. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, pleasant on her back. The entrance to the Labyrinth lay a quarter-mile in. There the light breeze swaying the trees stopped abruptly, as if it had met an invisible wall.
Iwa didn’t pause before stepping forward. When she opened her eyes, the forest had shifted around her. The canopy of leaves now cut out most of the light. The trunks were thicker here. The air was warm and musty.
The Labyrinth had given her a path, this time. It ran straight, with no curves or side-passages, until Iwa became uneasy. The characteristic feature of a Labyrinth was its randomness. Yet, Iwa felt led. She caught movement in the trees that flanked the path and raised her claws. But no attack came. The forest remained still and watchful. That wasn’t right either. People in Labyrinths didn’t plot or wait to choose their moment: they attacked with the simplicity and ferocity of toddlers, with all that was left of their minds and bodies.
This is a strange Labyrinth. The thought almost made her laugh. How could something defined by abnormality be abnormal? Only through normalcy. The path didn’t twist or vanish. No one attacked. The ground didn’t shift under her. If Iwa hadn’t known better, she would have thought this forest nothing worse than musty and perhaps a little dark.
Iwa came to a stop, her ears twitching. Footsteps were approaching down the path. She dropped into a battling stance. But when the owners of the footsteps came into view, her claws fell limp at her sides. Her eyes flicked from one small form to another; her breathing sped.
Children, in this place! Three shroomish, their faces showing no traces of fright. Their small feet moved unhesitatingly, like travelers on a familiar path. One eyed Iwa with mild interest as they approached. The other two did not seem to take note of her at all.
“You need to get out of here!” Iwa cried out. She tried to modulate her tone. “Come with me, we’ll—”
“We know the way,” the shroomish that had noticed her said in a flat voice.
“You might think that, but you’re in a Labyrinth. The paths change. Your parents must have warned you—”
Because good, responsible parents did that, they sat their children down and they explained that there’s a place where the world ends, and if you go inside, I won’t be able to get you back, even if I scour the whole world for you, I won’t be able to find you—
“The paths don’t change here.”
The shroomish were past her now, moving at speed down the path, which to the naked eye didn’t seem to have altered at all. That meant nothing, though. Iwa turned to follow them.
Incorrect path. The voice thrummed in her mind. Forward path for you.
Moving her limbs was suddenly like dragging boulders. Incorrect path. The voice jabbed against her with a thousand stings. The shroomish had passed almost entirely out of view. By the time she forced her right leg forward, they had vanished.
Iwa stood, panting in the middle of the narrow path. Another staggering step. Another. I’ll never catch up like this. At last, almost experimentally, she turned around.
At once, the heaviness lifted.
“Forward path for me, is it?” she whispered. “All right. Then here I come.”
Iwa raised her claws. Awash with hot, clean fury, she sped down the path.
Dark yellow cocoons hung from the trees. No wind passed through their branches, but the air seemed to thrum, unsettled by distant vibrations. Iwa knew she was approaching the core of the Labyrinth. The air in the core always felt tight enough to choke.
Ahead, the path spilled into a broad clearing. In its center, what might have been a tree rose, but every inch of leaf and bark was covered by beedrill bodies. The dim light rippled across their gauzy wings, giving the entire structure the appearance of a silvery chrysalis.
What is your purpose? The voice rose with a thrum. It came from everywhere and nowhere. This is my purpose. I create Order. I weave together a thousand minds. I hold them to their purpose. We expand. We conquer. We give purpose. When Order has been made in every mind, when all hold to the same purpose, the Chaos shall be tamed.
Visions rushed through Iwa’s mind. The swarm of beedrill descending like a storm-cloud. Great wagons, filled with fruit. Town upon town, the inhabitants working with the same blank faces and mechanical movements. A honeycomb tessellation that would expand, until the shifting lands ceased to shift. Until all was ordered and still.
Join into me, commanded the voice. I will give you purpose. I will bring the Chaos to an end.
The thrum rose in Iwa’s mind, loud enough to drown out any thought. She closed her eyes. A honeycomb structure wrote itself behind her lids. She could join. She could become one tiny, perfect repetition. She could bring the Chaos to an end.
Silent towns. Children drawing wheels in the dirt. Blank-eyed children, passing through the wood.
“My name is Iwa.” She spoke in a trembling voice. “My name is Iwa, I have saved daughters. I saved Chikako when she was lost in the woods. The leaves trembled on her head, but when she understood I had come to bring her home, the air became sweet. I saved Kazue. A cave had swallowed her. She dug in beneath a boulder, but I brought her out—”
You have saved daughters? The voice that was a thousand voices pushed Iwa to the ground. I have saved daughters. Once the Chaos took every third pupa. Now we live with Order. I have saved thousands. I will save thousands more.
How many had Iwa saved? Not thousands. No number that compared. Why not become a vessel? Why not be given purpose and save thousands, even though there was one—
The snow fell on the same spot.
—there was one that would not be saved and would never be saved, and for a thin gleaming second, that immeasurable one drowned out the thousands and the voice.
“It ate my daughter,” Iwa whispered. “I never told her, I didn’t know. The snow fell on the same spot. It was only ever rumors.”
Join into me. I will give you purpose.
“I named her Kita. She stank of my scent. My scent. I scolded her. I sent her away. Her name was Kita. She stank of my scent. You will not take her away from me!”
My grief. Mine. You entered a Labyrinth anchored by one certainty or you never left at all. Iwa pushed herself to her feet. Tears blurred her vision. The beedrill quivered on the tree.
The voice still buzzed against her mind, but now it was like flowers beating against glass. Slowly at first, then faster, Iwa began to walk forward. She passed the massive tree. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the air was brighter. Wind stirred the leaves.
Only when she had reached the edge of the forest, did Iwa lay down and weep.
The return journey seemed to take no time at all. Towards noon, she reached the outskirts of Laspendew. The noise stunned her. It rose from all sides.
A market was in full swing and the air resounded with the competing cries of hawkers. Children screamed with joy as they raced through the crowd. An azurill bounced forward, knocking into Iwa’s side. Her eyes widened as she took in Iwa’s dark, scarred visage.
“S-sorry!” she burbled. “A-are you—”
“An explorer? Yes,” Iwa said hoarsely, crouching so their faces were level. “Do you know what a Labyrinth is?”
“Ma says they’re places where the land goes funny. Places people get lost.”
“Your ma’s right. If the air ever seems strange to you—if you see a leaf fall but never land, you need to turn and run back home. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the child said solemnly, but the expression fell away as a cutiefly pecked his beak against her head. “Hey, not fair, I was talking to an explorer!”
The two children moved away, still squabbling. But Iwa stood motionless. The crowd flowed around her like a stream split by a stone.
Could it really be that Labyrinths arose from this, from the beautiful chaos of living? Iwa imagined this town gone silent, each person the iteration of a larger order, taming the landscape by taming their laughter, their tears, their joys. Children that were lost, even when they came home.
Iwa would go back to the guild. She would tell them what she had seen. Perhaps they would go to war against the beedrill queen. Perhaps they would do nothing. Perhaps on the road, the ground would soften suddenly under her feet. Her lungs would fill with water, then with ice.
Perhaps somewhere, Kita was waiting.
Disclaimer: My knowledge of PMD is drawn from the two games I played a long time ago and osmosis. Creative liberties have been taken.
The road to Thickenwood was not well worn, and Iwa had it to herself. The few people she passed were not going in her direction. They flinched when their eyes fell on the bright claws swinging at her side. But the scrap of cloth knotted around her neck—old and ratty as it was, thin with washing, worn with wear—reassured them.
“Explorer,” came the greeting and the respectful nod. But she learned little when she questioned them. Yes, there was a town on the outskirts of Thickenwood. A big town? Well, a medium-sized town. Prosperous? Yes . . .
Always, the catch of hesitation. A strange town, proclaimed a muscled heracross, pulling his goods behind him. A strange town, murmured a bashful leafeon, her tail sweeping across the dirt. A chatty yanma, who had seemed glad to meet a stranger on the road, fell abruptly silent. That was a strange town . . .
Towns on the outskirts of Labyrinths tended to be strange, of course. Often they constructed high barricades and converted their homes into fortresses. Children were trained in fighting from a young age in such towns—to hold off incursions, they said, as if the logic were obvious, though they had to know their enemy was the terrain itself.
One town, composed mostly of bellossom and jumpluff families, had cultivated vast gardens. These they tended almost obsessively, as if the carefully imposed order of the flower patches could hold back the warping threat of the ever-encroaching Labyrinth. Another, a small town that stood isolated on an open plain like a lone tree on a mountain-top, built no walls and made no gardens. Their shelters had no doors and for every ten apples they coaxed out of the hard soil, the eleventh was thrown into the distance, where the plain rippled and compressed. An offering, Iwa had thought at the time. But whether offered out of fear or of pity, she couldn’t have said.
Thickenwood lay at the edge of every map Iwa had seen. No explorers returned who set off in that direction. Iwa had volunteered.
Before she’d left, the Guildmaster had once again asked if she wanted to travel with a partner. Most explorers found partners or formed into bands. They did it for the conversation, for the sense of friendly eyes on their back, for their own sanity. That was the truth of exploring a Labyrinth—it cannibalized your mind. From the first step, it began to work on you. It took your sense of time, your sense of distance. Smell, taste, hearing, vision—all warped and became strange. At last, if you let it, the place took your sense of self. In that respect, no matter how many companions came in at your side, when you entered a Labyrinth, you entered it alone. Iwa had shaken her head.
The sun hung low in the sky when Iwa neared the settlement. She passed through rows of cultivated orchards, thick with apples. As she approached the modest wood gate that marked the town entrance, she fingered the rag around her neck. Most towns welcomed explorers, but there were some that blamed them for the outward creep of the Labyrinths, believing that the spaces would stay stationary if only they were left well alone. Even in hostile towns, though, people usually took one look at Iwa and gave her no trouble.
Busy, but quiet. That was Iwa’s first impression. Workers were bringing in the last barrels of the day’s harvest. Children moved through the streets, but sedately. They didn’t shout. Eyes followed Iwa as she made her way into the main square, but no one spoke to her.
She didn’t see a market. Perhaps it had already closed down for the evening. As a raticate hurried past, Iwa tapped him on the shoulder.
“Good evening, sir. I was wondering where I could purchase one of those excellent-looking apples I noticed in the orchard.”
He studied her with complete bafflement, as if she were a snowstorm that had appeared suddenly on a summer day. Then, without a word, he continued walking.
Busy but silent. She wondered if some freak effect of the Labyrinth had taken away the villagers’ capacity for speech. Vaguely, she recalled a story about a town that had woken up blind after a strange sandstorm passed them over. But as she came further into town, she noticed a breloom and a caterpie at work constructing a wagon, exchanging words occasionally as they worked. Not mutes, then. But no one seemed inclined to return her greetings.
The light was almost gone now, and Iwa doubted she would find an inn, so she returned to the orchard and curled up against a comfortable tree back. The orchard was redolent with the scent of fruiting apple trees. Iwa was tempted to spike one and find out if the sweetness of the fruit lived up to its smell. But she was an explorer, not a thief. With a sigh, she clawed her pack of dried apple slices from her satchel. Shortly, she sank into sleep.
~*~
What is your purpose?
The voice reverberated, low and pleasant, through her mind. The tone was curious.
She was on a mountain, passing rapidly over the snowy ground. Between two rowans, whose branches interlocked as if forming a gate, the snow fell on the same spot but the snow did not rise. Elsewhere the snow was stacked three feet high, but there the snow fell on the same spot and did not rise.
What is your purpose? The question had become a thrumming demand. But Iwa stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the footprints that led to the place where the snow fell on the same spot—
She woke gasping. The sun was only a pale yellow suggestion past the trees. Workers were already marching into the orchards. A caterpie crawled into Iwa’s row. Ignoring Iwa completely, she began to methodically string shot apples into her basket.
“Is there a psychic in this town?” Iwa asked hoarsely. She probably looked feral herself at the moment, with her fur ruffled and eyes gleaming. But the caterpie didn’t answer. She didn't even turn.
A psychic intrusion. Iwa had never experienced one before, but what else could it have been? The voice had been too clear. As for the dream—
Iwa thrust a claw just shy of the caterpie’s soft belly. “It’s polite to answer questions,” she hissed softly. “Is there a psychic in this town?”
The caterpie blinked at her. Had some ember of fear flared deep in its foggy eyes?
“Yes,” said the caterpie.
“Who?”
“Fumihiro. The alakazam. A waste of energy—”
The caterpie’s speech was rapid, yet oddly mechanical. Her eyes were fixed on a point beyond Iwa’s head.
“Where does Fumihiro live?”
The caterpie’s tail jerked towards the hill that rose on the other side of town, standing over the settlement like a watchtower.
“Thank you,” Iwa said as she pulled back her claw. She already regretted the threat. It was that dream. It had shaken her.
The snow fell on the same spot.
~*~
More is wrong here than just silence, Iwa thought, studying the pokemon in the streets more closely. They never stopped to chat. They didn’t exchange nods, sniffs, or smiles. Instead they moved single-mindedly, as if oblivious to everything except their own purpose.
On the edge of town, Iwa came across a group of children huddled around a patch of dirt. Normally, she would have kept her distance. Her dark form and scarred face either scared children or impressed them to the extent that they followed her about town, peppering her with cheerful questions. But Iwa had a suspicion that here her approach wouldn’t be heeded.
As she got closer, she saw that a rattata was painstakingly drawing a diagram of a wheel. The lines of the spokes were incredibly straight. The rattata drew another line, which wavered slightly. He flinched and rubbed it out. The faces of the other children were intent, almost solemn. Playing? That word didn’t fit.
Unsettled, Iwa lifted her gaze to the hilltop. Perhaps I’ll find answers there.
Scaling the hill took less than an hour. She caught no sound other than her own nearly noiseless footfalls. The sun beat warmly against her back. But as she neared the peak, a tart, pungent odor deluged her. Cautiously, she crept between the thin trees, until she was peering into a berry tree grove.
At first, she didn’t identify the creature slumped against the large tree stump as an alakazam. The creature’s body was encrusted with green goop. Mashed tanga berries, Iwa realized, as she stepped closer, smeared onto every limb. Their juice dripped down the alakazam’s long whiskers. He sat still, unmoving.
For a moment, Iwa wondered if she was bearing witness to some strange alakazam death-rite. But abruptly, one filmy eye snapped open.
“You must go back,” the alakazam wheezed. “You must warn them . . .”
Not the same voice as the dream, Iwa decided at once. That voice had been clearer, stronger … female.
“Warn?”
“The Queen . . .” The alakazam slowly raised his spoon. A small green berry levitated towards him. He plucked it from the air and smashed it against his temple, letting out a short groan. “She’s moved on from me. Waste of energy. But the moment I relent . . .”
When he spoke again, it was in a low, dreamy voice.
“A queen was born with compassion. That’s how it began. She looked upon her rivals and had no wish to destroy them. Her mind expanded. She gained insight and purpose. Where the queen leads, the hive follows, the hive—” His voice turned frantic. “Fumihiro is my name, and this name was given for the words that I spoke upon the day my eyes first cracked open, for when I looked out onto the world I saw a sentence that continues and does not end, growing and gaining in complexity as it steps and trails the crevices of being, hunting for order in those places order cannot be found—”
Iwa waited patiently, but the alakazam’s sentence did not end. He seemed almost in a trance as he spoke, and his spoon trembled. She didn’t know how to help him, so at last she turned away. His low, feverish mutter followed her down the hillside.
~*~
Iwa didn’t think she’d find any more answers in town, so she set off into the woods. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, pleasant on her back. The entrance to the Labyrinth lay a quarter-mile in. There the light breeze swaying the trees stopped abruptly, as if it had met an invisible wall.
Iwa didn’t pause before stepping forward. When she opened her eyes, the forest had shifted around her. The canopy of leaves now cut out most of the light. The trunks were thicker here. The air was warm and musty.
The Labyrinth had given her a path, this time. It ran straight, with no curves or side-passages, until Iwa became uneasy. The characteristic feature of a Labyrinth was its randomness. Yet, Iwa felt led. She caught movement in the trees that flanked the path and raised her claws. But no attack came. The forest remained still and watchful. That wasn’t right either. People in Labyrinths didn’t plot or wait to choose their moment: they attacked with the simplicity and ferocity of toddlers, with all that was left of their minds and bodies.
This is a strange Labyrinth. The thought almost made her laugh. How could something defined by abnormality be abnormal? Only through normalcy. The path didn’t twist or vanish. No one attacked. The ground didn’t shift under her. If Iwa hadn’t known better, she would have thought this forest nothing worse than musty and perhaps a little dark.
Iwa came to a stop, her ears twitching. Footsteps were approaching down the path. She dropped into a battling stance. But when the owners of the footsteps came into view, her claws fell limp at her sides. Her eyes flicked from one small form to another; her breathing sped.
Children, in this place! Three shroomish, their faces showing no traces of fright. Their small feet moved unhesitatingly, like travelers on a familiar path. One eyed Iwa with mild interest as they approached. The other two did not seem to take note of her at all.
“You need to get out of here!” Iwa cried out. She tried to modulate her tone. “Come with me, we’ll—”
“We know the way,” the shroomish that had noticed her said in a flat voice.
“You might think that, but you’re in a Labyrinth. The paths change. Your parents must have warned you—”
Because good, responsible parents did that, they sat their children down and they explained that there’s a place where the world ends, and if you go inside, I won’t be able to get you back, even if I scour the whole world for you, I won’t be able to find you—
“The paths don’t change here.”
The shroomish were past her now, moving at speed down the path, which to the naked eye didn’t seem to have altered at all. That meant nothing, though. Iwa turned to follow them.
Incorrect path. The voice thrummed in her mind. Forward path for you.
Moving her limbs was suddenly like dragging boulders. Incorrect path. The voice jabbed against her with a thousand stings. The shroomish had passed almost entirely out of view. By the time she forced her right leg forward, they had vanished.
Iwa stood, panting in the middle of the narrow path. Another staggering step. Another. I’ll never catch up like this. At last, almost experimentally, she turned around.
At once, the heaviness lifted.
“Forward path for me, is it?” she whispered. “All right. Then here I come.”
Iwa raised her claws. Awash with hot, clean fury, she sped down the path.
~*~
Dark yellow cocoons hung from the trees. No wind passed through their branches, but the air seemed to thrum, unsettled by distant vibrations. Iwa knew she was approaching the core of the Labyrinth. The air in the core always felt tight enough to choke.
Ahead, the path spilled into a broad clearing. In its center, what might have been a tree rose, but every inch of leaf and bark was covered by beedrill bodies. The dim light rippled across their gauzy wings, giving the entire structure the appearance of a silvery chrysalis.
What is your purpose? The voice rose with a thrum. It came from everywhere and nowhere. This is my purpose. I create Order. I weave together a thousand minds. I hold them to their purpose. We expand. We conquer. We give purpose. When Order has been made in every mind, when all hold to the same purpose, the Chaos shall be tamed.
Visions rushed through Iwa’s mind. The swarm of beedrill descending like a storm-cloud. Great wagons, filled with fruit. Town upon town, the inhabitants working with the same blank faces and mechanical movements. A honeycomb tessellation that would expand, until the shifting lands ceased to shift. Until all was ordered and still.
Join into me, commanded the voice. I will give you purpose. I will bring the Chaos to an end.
The thrum rose in Iwa’s mind, loud enough to drown out any thought. She closed her eyes. A honeycomb structure wrote itself behind her lids. She could join. She could become one tiny, perfect repetition. She could bring the Chaos to an end.
Silent towns. Children drawing wheels in the dirt. Blank-eyed children, passing through the wood.
“My name is Iwa.” She spoke in a trembling voice. “My name is Iwa, I have saved daughters. I saved Chikako when she was lost in the woods. The leaves trembled on her head, but when she understood I had come to bring her home, the air became sweet. I saved Kazue. A cave had swallowed her. She dug in beneath a boulder, but I brought her out—”
You have saved daughters? The voice that was a thousand voices pushed Iwa to the ground. I have saved daughters. Once the Chaos took every third pupa. Now we live with Order. I have saved thousands. I will save thousands more.
How many had Iwa saved? Not thousands. No number that compared. Why not become a vessel? Why not be given purpose and save thousands, even though there was one—
The snow fell on the same spot.
—there was one that would not be saved and would never be saved, and for a thin gleaming second, that immeasurable one drowned out the thousands and the voice.
“It ate my daughter,” Iwa whispered. “I never told her, I didn’t know. The snow fell on the same spot. It was only ever rumors.”
Join into me. I will give you purpose.
“I named her Kita. She stank of my scent. My scent. I scolded her. I sent her away. Her name was Kita. She stank of my scent. You will not take her away from me!”
My grief. Mine. You entered a Labyrinth anchored by one certainty or you never left at all. Iwa pushed herself to her feet. Tears blurred her vision. The beedrill quivered on the tree.
The voice still buzzed against her mind, but now it was like flowers beating against glass. Slowly at first, then faster, Iwa began to walk forward. She passed the massive tree. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the air was brighter. Wind stirred the leaves.
Only when she had reached the edge of the forest, did Iwa lay down and weep.
~*~
The return journey seemed to take no time at all. Towards noon, she reached the outskirts of Laspendew. The noise stunned her. It rose from all sides.
A market was in full swing and the air resounded with the competing cries of hawkers. Children screamed with joy as they raced through the crowd. An azurill bounced forward, knocking into Iwa’s side. Her eyes widened as she took in Iwa’s dark, scarred visage.
“S-sorry!” she burbled. “A-are you—”
“An explorer? Yes,” Iwa said hoarsely, crouching so their faces were level. “Do you know what a Labyrinth is?”
“Ma says they’re places where the land goes funny. Places people get lost.”
“Your ma’s right. If the air ever seems strange to you—if you see a leaf fall but never land, you need to turn and run back home. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the child said solemnly, but the expression fell away as a cutiefly pecked his beak against her head. “Hey, not fair, I was talking to an explorer!”
The two children moved away, still squabbling. But Iwa stood motionless. The crowd flowed around her like a stream split by a stone.
Could it really be that Labyrinths arose from this, from the beautiful chaos of living? Iwa imagined this town gone silent, each person the iteration of a larger order, taming the landscape by taming their laughter, their tears, their joys. Children that were lost, even when they came home.
Iwa would go back to the guild. She would tell them what she had seen. Perhaps they would go to war against the beedrill queen. Perhaps they would do nothing. Perhaps on the road, the ground would soften suddenly under her feet. Her lungs would fill with water, then with ice.
Perhaps somewhere, Kita was waiting.
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