Chapter 3
Chapter three
NPC: The Watcher of Thoughtfall.
A pale oracle perches above a waterfall of frozen light. She says, "You cling to reason like a raft in storm. But the sea never asked you to solve her, only to feel her rhythm. Answer this to pass:"
"What cannot be braced, only surrendered to—
is invisible, yet breaks the mind in two?
It shows no face, holds no blade,
yet rewrites the world in a single cascade?"
Patrick
I reached the push door to exit the building and hesitated.
It looked nasty out there. Despite being just past noon, the sky was dull gray.
A foot of snow shrouded the islands of grass and polite trees that broke up the city's expanse of concrete and asphalt.
More fat flakes drifted down in a thick, never-ending barrage.
A white Christmas, all right. And then some.
As I stood, stiffening my resolve against the cold, my breath fogged the window in the door.
I was surprised to see a design appear on the glass.
It looked like a rune from Veilborn. Fehu?
I couldn't quite place it, like an echo of something half-remembered.
Then the fog of my breath vanished and so did the rune.
"Weird," I muttered. Maybe someone had drawn the rune on the glass with a finger, and the skin oils prevented that place from fogging up? I exhaled hard on the glass again, and it fogged up once more. But this time, there was nothing there.
I batted my eyes and tried again. Nothing.
"Okay, extra weird," I said. But whether I'd imagined the rune or not, I couldn't stand there all day. I stepped out into the cold.
Only four cars lingered in the normally full lot. Mine was where I'd left it, at the far end of an aisle, a little gold Subaru Cross-Trek mounded with snow. I'd have to use the scraper.
As I headed across the snowy asphalt, I was thinking about my favorite Chinese place and hoping that the curb in front had a spot open when I got there. Curling up at home with a movie and some moo shu sounded nice, even if the red cake-of-death still sat in my stomach like a stone.
I didn't see the patch of ice under the snow, had no clue until my feet flew up into the air. One second, I was walking. The next, the world was gone—boots skimming sky, spine cracking pavement, head bouncing like a stone on glass.
Everything went black.
"Hello! Sir? Sir? Can you hear me?"
The elf NPC wagged a finger at me. No, that wasn't right. I opened my eyes and looked up at two freckle-faced guys with dirty blond hair wearing black coats with white paramedic badges.
"There you are!" the one on the right said. "Don't try to move. You hit your head, and you were out cold. I'm Jim, by the way."
"And I'm Jim," said the one on the left.
The world spun in a sickening rush. I closed my eyes. "I'm seeing double."
"No, there really are two of us," said one of the Jims cheerfully. "Open your eyes for me?"
I complied. Yes, there really did seem to be two of them. And, now that I thought that, I saw they weren't identical. One had a little blond mustache and the other had a double chin. They could have been twins, though. Except for the same-name thing.
The Jim with the mustache shone a light in my eyes. "We're just gonna take a little trip to the ER. Okay?"
"Wha—? No, I—"
"Not really optional," said the other Jim. "You were unconscious on the street with a head injury, so we're operating under implied consent."
"I don't consent! And it's a… a…," I fought for the word, "… uh, parking lot. Not the street."
"Yup. The ER it is," said one of the Jims.
"I wanna go home," I complained. Then I realized I couldn't quite remember where home was. Wasn't it DelGato Street? No… no, that was LA. This wasn't LA. I looked up into descending snow. Chicago! Yes, I lived in Chicago now. Was my apartment above a deli, or…?
I didn't mention any of that as I was put in a neck brace, loaded on a gurney, and put in the ambulance.
And, just like that, Christmas started with sirens.