A Maze of Glass, Chapter Twenty Two, Pt. 1
The Manifestation flashed toward Zoe and Zoe’s right knee twisted and caved as she bent for her gun. The Manifestation crashed into her, a blunt force bullet, and she tumble-tumble-rib-bruising-tumbled across the floor, landing face-down and breathless. She pushed herself up to all fours, braced for the Manifestation’s next blow.
The monster stood, frozen mid-stride next to Zoe’s dropped sidearm.
“I am ninety-nine days clean.” Jill’s voice rolled in from every corner of the void. “I am not the person I was.”
“As above, so below,” Sung-ho said.
“As above, so below,” Zoe croaked, still on her elbows and knees.
“This is my domain, not yours. You’re not the god. I am.” Jill flicked her wrist and the Manifestation slammed against the optical-illusory floor hard enough to rupture its arm from its shoulder. “You are the lowest power here. You are a whisper, a rodent, a roach. You threaten my sister? Her mentor?”
Jill pointed her bloated, wrong-way-broken hand at Sung-ho and all of his bounds released at once. He fell forward, dizzy with pain and bloodloss. He clambered away from the chair, panting. Once he’d managed a dozen scrambling paces, he collapsed onto his back.
“The world will crush you like stones it will slice you up it will needle you, burn you, hang you!”
Jill limped forward and yelped. She took a breath, stabilized herself, and jerked her good hand through the air. The Manifestation followed, flying blur-fast across the room until it crashed into the empty chair and blew it to splinters with the force of the impact.
“There are people who will save me,” Jill said.
The Manifestation struggled against unseen forces, manipulated gravity, and dust. It tried to stand. “I’ll win one day, frail little witch.”
“Sometimes you will. And there are people who will save me.”
“You’ll hurt them. I’ll make you. I can make anyone run away from you.”
“If that were true, I’d be fighting you alone.” Jill took another step, groaning through the pain, and held her good hand out toward the staggering Manifestation. All the ropes, chains, twine, and leather the Manifestation had used to bind Sung-ho began to wrap around it, instead. “But it’s not, because you’re fighting us alone.”
“The world wins.”
“Yeah. And then the sun wins. And then some black hole wins. What hurt you so much that you became this thing?” Jill half-collapsed and half-knelt, peering up at the bound Manifestation. “All the pain that we’ve magnified together, all the anguish we’ve paid forward…tell me what hurts so much. Please.”
“What, are you insensate?”
“Tell me what you see.”
“The weeping indigent, the abused, the hollowed-out, the exhausted, the hanged boys and raped girls, the waste, the wasting away, the despair and the desperate, the knife in skeleton-hands, the hatred, oh the hatred, hatred written through every archive of history and on every column of culture, so much hatred you could get love-drunk on it, and so very much violence…”
Tears creased the patina of sweat and gore crusting Jill’s face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I am. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. But that’s why I have to seal you here.”
“You’ll be back.”
Jill stood again. “Probably. But even if I can’t change the world, I owe it to people to try. To help. I owe it to Jonathan. I owe it to Sung-ho and Zoe. I owe it to myself.”
The Manifestation said nothing. It just stared at her. “As above, so below,” Jill whispered.
###############They jolted awake in the ritual space, morning sun spilling down from the skylight.
Sung-ho screamed rolling onto his side. His hand wasn’t completely destroyed—not in the literal, material world—but some of the damage had transferred over. Gashes and cuts criss-crossed the back of his hand, bleeding.
Zoe tried not to mirror Sung-ho’s volume, her back wet red and burning pain, and pushed herself up onto all fours. It hurt scream-worthy but she knew that Sung-ho’s wounds required more immediate attention. She choked on her own voice, crawling across the floor.
Hobbling to her feet, her breaks becoming sprains and her sprains becoming aching inflammation, Jill went for the nearby first aid kit and the pack of esoteric salves they’d readied for the ritual. Still hobbling, she navigated the dozen or so feet over the course of seconds. She wrapped Sung-ho’s hand in bandage and began muttering a healing spell.
For natural adepts, minor or even moderate healing could take very little time to apply. For people without the natural-born talents, including everyone in the room, it took sixty seconds minimum to patch a scrape—and they had much worse than mere scrapes. Even with their injuries diminished by the transition from the mystic to the material, it took almost an hour for Jill to attend to their wounds. In the exertion, Jill threw up twice and worsened her own damages. After they’d stopped groaning and grunting and panting, Sung-ho and Zoe returned the favor as best they could.
Bandaged and healed beyond the need for medical attention, the trio sat in the ritual space for a long time afterward, not knowing what to do or say next. “Even with the salves and the spells, it might take a few days for everything to heal,” Jill said.
Zoe and Sung-ho nodded.
“I, uh…” Jill swallowed. “Thank you. I know I’ve said it, before, but just…thank you.”
“Any time,” Zoe replied.
Sung-ho flexed and clenched his hand. Flexed and clenched. “Feels tight.”
“It will for a while.”
“Huh.”
“Well.”
“Well,” Sung-ho agreed.
“What now?” Zoe asked.
“I…don’t know,” Jill admitted. “I guess…I guess I have a lot to figure out.”
Zoe nodded. “I’ll do anything I can to help.”
Sung-ho stood up, stretching. “But first, I need everyone to help me un-barricade my house.”
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