Risen Chapter 35: Trapped

My horde buzzed angrily around me as I fought, working their way past the criminal’s defenses, shoving themselves through open mouths and flared nostrils. Just like that, they choked and strangled, leaving the men helpless before me.

Every so often, one of the struggling men would land an off-center blow; even that was enough to break bones, fracturing my skeleton with disquieting ease. And yet, it wasn’t enough.

The pain didn’t matter. The injuries didn’t matter.

I was in too many places. I was in too many things.

Powerful as the dust-enhanced men were, they were nothing before the sheer numbers I had at my disposal. I fell upon them like a black tide, thousands of my Risen dying in the course of the fight, their bodies crushed and crumbling in the midst of the onslaught.

Still, there were always more.

One of my arms bent at an awkward angle; if it was my real body, that would have been unnerving. Instead, I just knew that I would heal it later. I would put aside the pain of the moment, dissociated as it was, and focus on what truly mattered.

And yet, where was she?

The rod that I had borrowed from the guard was showing its worth, the shocks that it transmitted enough to force the Gray Men to gasp and tremble; those brief moments were more than enough for my horde to force their way in. After that, it was only a matter of time before they fell limp entirely.

A few took advantage of my uncertainty and the chaos, pretending to lose consciousness before they actually did in the hopes that I would be unwilling to kill them.

They were right, but that didn’t stop me from taking them down again the moment I realized they were only faking.

Finally, I burst through the cloud of Risen, rod raised in the air.

And yet, the Gray Woman was nowhere to be seen.

Out of the corner of my eye, the air ripped and twisted, revealing a starry void that peered out with an unnerving hunger. A man walked out.

I turned towards him, sending my Risen as well.

He raised his hand, pointing towards me. A light flared from his shoulder. The world ripped behind me, sucking me in.

Everything else disappeared.

From my crow-self, I could only watch as the strange Marked stepped backwards into the void once more.

My horde buzzed, but there was no path to follow.

I was already gone.

The trail was already cold.

I was surrounded by the void. It chilled me to the bone, little wisps of darkness working their way around my limbs, winding about like grasping tendrils. They curled and twisted in the air, creating a seeping coldness in my bones that belied my general insensitivity.

It was strange.

Around me, glimmering pinpoints of light broke the monotony of the void; they peered out like little windows, viewports into unknown locations and worlds. I could almost imagine that I could see through them, that I could step forward and find myself in another place, far from where I had originated.

My feet moved before I could stop myself. It was only an unexpected voice that forced them to halt, breaking the near-irresistible urge.

“I really wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

The voice was familiar, its words intoned with a cool confidence that was evident even through the heavy distortion of the mask its owner hid behind. I turned, meeting her eyes.

Just as I had known, the Gray Woman stood behind me. She looked just the same as she had a moment ago. Unperturbed, even-keeled. As much as those qualities could be seen with an expressionless mask, anyway. Regardless, the set of her shoulders revealed it all.

Her back was straight, but not defiant. Not in the way that I was, my spine straightened and my hackles raised. She didn’t feel that she needed to be. She thought that she was in control here.

And maybe she was.

A few moments before, I had been full of confidence. The horde that I had pulled from my reservoirs at Reaper’s Grave, reduced as it was, had felt undefeatable.

It probably was - which was likely why we were here, and not there.

Here in the starry void, that place in between that the strange Marked could reach, I was cut off from my soldiers.

The strangest part was that I could still move, really. It meant that, for all intents and purposes, we weren’t really gone. There was some esoteric aspect to the ability at play here, linking the plane that I found myself in to the spot where I had disappeared. If it was closer to traditional teleportation, I might have lost my link to Markus.

He would have been left on his own to deal with the Gray Woman.

Would he have come out of hiding for that?

I wasn’t sure, but I was grateful that we didn’t have to find out.

Finally, I broke the silence.

“And why is that?” I asked.

She cocked her head, puzzled, the exaggerated gesture serving to provide a sense of emotion where her expressionless mask could not. A moment later, she gestured around us. “The Other is not exactly safe without a Beacon to light the way - and my dear husband is busy with other things for the moment. He’ll come back eventually, but for now…”

She stepped forward, little trails of darkness twisting behind her, broken up by the woman’s passage.

I tensed, readying for a fight, though I wasn’t sure what I could do with all of my Risen separated from myself. I had them rush and whirl at the spot where I had disappeared, hoping to find a crack that would allow them to push into the void where I had found myself.

It didn’t work.

The path was gone.

Even worse, my own preparations to fight were fruitless as well.

With an inhuman burst of speed, the Gray Woman was upon me. By reflex, I loosed a punch in her direction, containing all of the power that I could muster.

My bones shattered against her skin.

“That was just stupid,” she said. “I know that you already watched Alexander make the same mistake. That was you, wasn’t it, little insect?” She paused for a moment.

“Yes, I’m sure it was. Perhaps you aren’t as powerless as I first thought, though.”

I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. She was just standing in front of me, talking. With her strength, I knew that she could reach out and crush my bones. She could break my neck. She could throw me into the void that surrounded us. It wouldn’t truly kill me, but she had no way of knowing that.

She did none of those things.

Instead, she continued speaking, as if nothing was strange about the situation at all.

That, in and of itself, was strange.

“Is it guilt, that drives you to oppose me? Is it anger? Perhaps you should look at yourself, instead. Of the two of us, you must have sacrificed far more lives than I.”

I was struck silent, unable to understand how she reached that conclusion. Did she know who I was? Did she know who I had been?

“How much blood did you pour over the Stone, to create so many Risen? Were you overwhelmed by guilt, confronted by what you had done?” Her voice began to raise in volume, her anger rising to a crescendo. “I am not like you, committing atrocities in order to gather power. I serve a purpose, as distasteful as my methods might be.”

Though I was caught off-guard by the things that she was saying, I couldn’t help but ask. “What purpose do you serve, then?”

She looked at me for a few moments, pausing in thought. At her side, her fists clenched and unclenched, as if she was fighting with some demon in her mind. Finally, they loosened.

The Gray Woman stepped closer to me, wisps of darkness trailing behind her. Just as it seemed that she was about to answer, the void ripped. The strange Marked who had banished me here stepped in, tossing the Stone back and forth in his hands.

Shit.

Distracted by the Gray Woman and lost in the strange void, her partner had been able to slip away from my crow-self’s sight and track down the Stone. With the HQ nearly emptied out and the guardsmen that had remained either beaten or fleeing, it had likely been rather simple work.

I dashed forwards, attempting to reach the man and pry the Stone from his grip. If nothing else, I needed him to free from this starry prison. It would be far easier to convince him with force than with words.

The Gray Woman caught me easily, pulling me backwards by the unkempt hair that spilled from the back of my head. Many of them ripped, shorn away by our opposing pulls. Enough held, allowing her to spin me back around. She grabbed me with a second hand, placing a firm grip around my throat.

“Welcome back, dear. And you. Don’t do that again or I’ll snap your neck. You don’t want that, do you? If you die, all of the lives that you poured over the Stone would go to waste. What would be the point, then?”

Again, her talk of the Stone. She didn’t know who I was. She didn’t know that I was somewhere else. She didn’t know that I couldn’t die.

And yet, her threats still held a little water. If Markus’ body was destroyed here, I might not be able to revive him again. He could be trapped forever, lost in the starry void. And so I nodded in acquiescence. The few bugs that remained inside me wouldn’t be able to take her down, not with the mask preventing access to her airway. I would wait for a better chance.

A hand reached towards my mask, pulling the bone disguise away.

My face - Markus’ face - was bared to the void around us.

“Let’s have a chat, you and I,” she said.