by Tireity Alse
A structure of gray brick and a dozen spiked towers floated through the void of space. It was gothic in its nature: grandiose and ominous. It moved perpendicularly across a path that would not appear on any star map. Cracks along the outer walls indicated that this pale, blocky speck amidst the stars had been constructed long ago, in a time unfathomable. To the eyes of any human it looked, in all its parts, like a castle. But no building or tower was topped in bright blue or red tiles. No flags or banners waved in the winds on some hill from the middle ages. No. Far removed from any human touch, even if a coat of arms or sigil could be displayed for the eyeless to see, it wouldn’t be. She, the Warden, who dwelt and ruled within, would never allow such boastfulness without herself being on full display.
The castle came to a rest. It seemed to stop on its own, nestled between two planets, one the color of maroon and another with an impenetrable green-yellow gaseous atmosphere. Gears did not grind to a halt, thrusters were not shut off: a great machine or spacecraft, the castle was not. Such positioning of the structure would not be noticed for some time.
When the eyes of man came across the castle, it was the three pilots on a human colonization ship making their way to a new world to call home. The captain was the fourth to see the gray, unexplainable dot that blocked their way. He ordered scans to be taken, thinking it to be an asteroid, or some kind of small moon. Nothing that made sense was reported back. A projection of the castle opened before the captain and the pilots: thick, stoney, and cracked outer walls, courtyards, medieval cobbled streets. There was a large barred keep at the heart of the structure. They exchanged looks.
“Go above it or below it. I don’t care which. Just get us past whatever it is,” ordered the Captain. “Tell none of the crew.”
—
With their routine training exercises finished, the head of security onboard the ship led his best and brightest protégé into his office. As per tradition he moved into the small room to the left where he had a pot of coffee set for the same time every day. He fixed his black coffee with a small amount of sugar and cut open a grapefruit for himself. Though he hated it growing up, it came to fit his given name Bitters as he reached his current age; not quite an old man but still capable of clinging to the strength of his youth.
Without looking, he knew his partner had entered and had probably already sat herself at his desk. Ah, yes. He could hear her spinning around in his rolling chair as he poured an absurd amount of cream and sugar into her coffee, the way she liked it. Gallock sat her helmet on Bitters’ desk, caught in a stare. Her eyes rested on the family portrait on Bitters desk.
Everyone onboard would describe Gallock, the pride of the ship’s security, like a childhood crush, the girl next door, a pretty preschool teacher, with bouncing hair tied up in a ponytail, freckles and all. Her slim body was attuned for battle but the hardened attitude of a soldier never seemed to stick to her. Even old Bitters wasn’t immune to her infectious smile.
He hated all his employees with the exception of his fellow coffee-fanatic. Gallock, at first, supposed he liked her because she was so skilled. Maybe because of how high she scored on all the exams. But then she realized he missed his daughter, who had been around her age when Bitters last saw her. Due to the nature of the colonization effort, the length of space, and the minuscule existence of humans and their lifespans, she was likely long-dead. Bitters only had pictures of his daughter at thirty–four, and even Gallock admitted she did kind of resemble her.
Bitters brought out their coffees and his breakfast. They sat and had their usual chit-chat about the books or movies they’d been catching up on. But Gallock was far too keen not to notice something was different about today. Bitters had something under his arm. A paper of some kind. He caught her glances and from the seat designated for visitors to his office, he extended the paper to her. It was a degree. A document congratulating her on the completion of her training. More than that, it was a promotion.
“Head of security?” she asked in disbelief. Gallock’s face became twisted up in pained confusion.
“You always did say you’d take my job.” Bitters smiled over his coffee cup.
She shook her head and let the paper fall onto the desk. “I don’t want this.”
“Of course you do.”
“When I said I would replace you, I was only joking, I–” Gallock was at a loss for words. “I want to feel like I matter. I need goals, I want to…I’m a soldier.”
“Oh please.” He took another sip. “We’re glorified mallcops, you’ve said it yourself. I know you, Gallock. You were meant for this.”
This would throw everything out of order. No more routines with Bitters. She’d have to train worthless underlings, pitiful things born in the vacuum of space. She’d risen above the expectation of weakness that those who grew up within the walls of the colonization ships, without grass under their feet, had. Gallock would have higher-uppers giving her mandates. She was nobody’s pet. There was nothing to reach for in being the head of security.
“No,” she repeated. “When will the two of us be able to–”
“You have friends. You need more than an old man’s company.” His face was kind when he spoke gently like that. It stung a deep wound within Gallock, knowing their separation was ahead. She never had a father. Her mother had been her nemesis all her life.
The two of them felt the ship stop.
“What was that?” asked Gallock. “Did…did we just–”
“I’ll check with the Captain,” said Bitters as he got up and left his office, his fast walk breaking into a jog down the corridor. The weight bore down on Gallock. How long would this be his office…before it became hers? Who would she have coffee with? Her mother’s ghost?
She got up, chugged her cold coffee, grabbed her helmet, and left the room. The ship had never stopped before. Ever. They were expected to arrive at a certain planet at a certain time. Nobody could stop age from catching up to the crew. Already children were being instructed on how to keep the vessel afloat long after its initial crew had died. Everything about the colonization efforts was on a time table. It wasn’t on their side. No stops were needed in space. That was the focal point of their craft’s design. She moved through the sparsely populated interior of the ship. Its hallways were wide with windows that looked out to lower levels. Shops, restaurants, and distractions from the void of space gave it the feeling of a mall rather than an intergalactic government-mandated place to live and die.
Gallock couldn’t help but wear her anxiousness as she made her way to someone to talk to. She found her friend Xanixus in the lounge area of her apartment block with a telescope before a large window that looked out to space.
“Hey. Do you two know what the hell is–”
“Take a look.” Xanixus wasn’t smiling as she gestured for Gallock to look through the telescope. She leaned in.
“What the fuck is that?” Gallock laid her eyes on the castle floating between the two closest planets. She dialed in on the scope’s magnifier, looking closer at the gray mystery before them.
—
Deep inside the castle, far from sight, there were black bars in the dark. Out of the shadows, a gleaming white-skinned hand reached out. The bones were inhuman, fingers too few, eerily elongated. No veins ran beneath the tight skin. Moving rhythmically in the silence, the fingers wiggled and shook. The hand inched outward from the bars from the shadows that concealed the rest of the figure. As it did, a song began: a high-pitched melody of an unknown language which brought an unnatural, numbing feeling of peace.
A spindly white arm and bony, spiked shoulder slipped between the black bars. Continuing to sing, the majority of her form slinked and fell out of imprisonment at once. It was a thin body, sparkling white in contrast to the surrounding dark. The singing being moved without rest. Like a dancer, her ribbed body writhed about. The figure spun, and twirls of web-like, bright skin hung loosely at her hips. Her beauty was in her commonality to a ballet dancer, and it was horrifying due to the sheer absurdity of form. Only glimpses could be caught of her blocky, eyeless head with a grinning, singing slit. Spinning, spinning, letting her call out.
Entranced, the security detail of the colonization ship prepared themselves for war. Armor strapped, rifles and pistols loaded, helmets buckled tight with compressed oxygen. Save for those hundreds of sleeping souls in cryosleep, the ship’s waking skeleton crew gathered into their three docking vessels with no thoughts of their own. Their minds were a whirlpool, wrapped in the melodic harmony that reached their ears from within the castle. No words were spoken, not one person had control of limb or heart. Blank eyes. Zero sense of reality. The siren’s call beckoned Gallock, her mind not her own, along with Bitters, Xanixus, the captain, and his pilots as the trio of docking ships abandoned the larger vessel for the frigidity of space.
Landing upon a rocky clearing just before the castle gates, Bitters and Gallock led the security detail of just under twenty bodies as they stepped before the warped and imposing entryway. It was as if it had been built for giants. Gallock, dwarfed at the sheer size of the gates, sought a way to open them. She handed her rifle to Xanixus and stepped between the bars. Along the wall she saw where the gate was bolted into the stonework. It had been shut from the inside. She tried kicking the bolts free before surmising the best course of action. Gallock drew her pistol and shot the base of the gate until there were six smoldering and smoking holes. It took the strength of ten to push open just one of the two doors.
They strode down the streets, staring ahead at the long walk to the keep. None yet wondered where they were or what they were doing. Braindead, they were corralled by the main street to the hundred steps spiraling higher. They were hardly stairs, as they were too large for any human to traverse in any other fashion than needing the aid of another to lift themselves up to the next. Ignoring their fatigue, they hustled up to the second set of gates—those of the keep, decorated in ancient carvings of imperceivable shapes. Event depictions, whether fictional or historical, could not be understood by small minds, even if they had the ability and curiosity to observe them. Humanoid creatures bowed—prayed—in the rusted gold of the massive doors.
Gallock and Bitters were able to open the way themselves. The others walked into the keep, a wide open cathedral—except no stained glass lined the walls…only bars. Cells lined them on all sides for at least two more floors. Archways above them were raised like demon wings, but their sights were set forward, at an impossibly large passageway, possibly the beginning of a hallway, that led deeper into the keep. The shadows veiled what lay beyond.
Before them lunged the pale figure who had beckoned them forth. The siren, dancing, twirling, singing, wove her way between the humans, watching them with a childlike curiosity. Her song was the only sound in that place. She nodded with satisfaction before pirouetting her way to the front ahead of Gallock and Bitters. The siren went farther, leaping ahead without care to guide them into the darkness at the end of the cathedral.
Something, a change in the air, caused the siren and her song to stop. Each of the crew’s heads were then overcome with crippling pain. The change of atmosphere hit them all at once. Their hands clamped to their helmets, unable to touch the skin of their pulsing temples. Through her splitting headache, Gallock looked at her surroundings, horrified.
“What the fuck is this?” asked Bitters. “Where the fuck are we?”
The siren thrust an arm out to them, begging their silence with a webbed finger pressed to the slit of her mouth.
“The fuck is that?” All of the armed security pointed their weapons at the siren, who begged with hands clasped. Gallock observed her surroundings. She took a step toward one of the barred squares that lined the cathedral walls. She heard a hissing and saw the faintest image of a tailed and winged creature inside. It swiped at her from behind the bars and she backed away to the others.
“This is a prison,” said Gallock.
Xanixus adjusted the grip of her pistol. “A prison for what?”
A monstrous roar, like that of a tyrannosaurus through a dead man’s throat, echoed from the dark ahead of them. This signaled a great booming, an organ deep in the bowels of this place. Stone and bone rocked. An alarm.
Singing other than that of the siren, who now threw herself to the floor, broke out all around the space. Though silent, the pale dancer which had summoned them reached and pleaded in her movements. Gallock watched curiously. Was she begging for…forgiveness? Looking to where the siren was reaching, into the black hole ahead, where the alarm bellowed, it became clear something large was coming their way. The crew took several collective steps back.
As the alien stepped into view the angels sang, but the feminine voices were unable to finish their melody out of fear of their master. Quiet, hushed exhalations stopped before their climactic rise.
Yah – yah – yah – yah…
Massive feet stomped between the breaths of the angels.
Drep – drep – drep – drep…
To enter the passage, it had to stoop its head due to its sheer, overwhelming size. Out of the shadows came her sloped head of bone, rows of barred teeth, manifolds of appendages, and twitching tendrils, sharp as blades at her side. She was absolute in her eyelessness, yet ever-watchful. Not one being present in the cathedral drew breath—they dared not in her presence. Once her full form was in view, Gallock felt the sudden urge to bow, kneel, submit.
The Warden snarled and with fury brought her giant leg down onto the siren, crushing her defiance. Each clawed finger clenched into a fist as she roared horridly, mightly. Most of her extraterrestrial prisoners shook their hands, tails, and extremities out from their cells to praise their keeper. The Warden’s head lowered to gaze upon the trespassers as her angels and her prisoners continued the roar of victory for her.
Gallock inched one protective arm over her cowering crew and gripped her rifle with the other. They stared up like prey who had first laid eyes upon their natural predator wanting for their flesh, insignificant to the power that sought them. Xanaxius turned from the Warden’s glory. To her right she looked up, seeing a bright light, something like a small shining star, on a stairwell veiled by thin curtains. She ran for it as the crew, all at once, fled. The others followed Gallock in a mad sprint toward the door they came through. The doors to the cell-block shut at once by the will of the Warden, whom Gallock looked back at over her shoulder. The monstrous keeper of the castle seemed to smile in her wickedness, foot still stuck to the crushed siren. Pale blood ran out in rivers from under the Warden’s foot, staining the floor as it, too, fled from the keeper’s weight.
“Here!” cried Bitters. He took off with the others toward an opening in the wall through an archway that went into lamplit hallways. Gallock followed, knowing no other way. In her heightened panic, she looked for Xanixus and could not find her. Her mouth was sewn shut with fear. She did not call out to her, she could not with the Warden staring them down. Gallock’s rifle found her hands as she sprinted to the front of the crew as they ran wildly, unknowingly, into the catacombs.
—
Xanixus shakily pointed the pistol forward as she reached the top of the stairs. The light she followed after had disappeared. To her right were rows of dark cells, to her left was a ledge that looked down to the open area they were led to while entranced by the siren. The angels quieted, the prisoners went lax, and the cells were silent. Mind far from focus, Xanixus thought not of the Warden or Gallock or even where her feet were taking her. She just continued with her gun aimed ahead. On occasion, she turned her head and dared to look into the dark of a cell. At times, these glances gained her nothing. But there were sights she witnessed which broke the inner workings of her mind. Creatures and aliens, bound in impossible forms and shapes, warped her.
Her vision became splintered. Each of her eyes distorted like broken glass, each a kaleidoscope varying in color and illusion. Some of the prisoners reached for her, putting their own spells on her—the very reason for their placement here. Xanixus’mind split open like crumpled piece of paper and she thought she saw the bright star again as she turned a corner.
She did not see the Warden’s mass rising to her full height beside her.
—
Gallock and Bitters led the crew through the catacombs. The many twists and turns of the lamp-littered rock walls presented a decision for them. They had to decide fast: which turns to take and which to avoid. So far the pair kept straight and only made a left turn when they had no other option.
“That smell,” noted one of the security guards. Their looks turned up behind their face shields in disgust. Somehow the smell pierced through their impenetrable helmets.
Gallock was running on pure instinct when Bitters tugged on her shoulder pad. She turned to what had his attention: a room to their right where bloody chains swung over a corpse-ridden floor. Multi-colored blood dotted the space. Cut pieces of flesh sat on metal trays. Food storage? thought Gallock.
Bitters moved everyone past the room before saying, “Alright, let’s stop for a breather. Everyone is going to be okay. We’re together. Stay calm.”
“We have to keep moving,” said Gallock.
“These people are scared.”
“Yeah, and they’ll stay that way until we’re far from this place.”
Bitters motioned for her to step aside with him. Once they were farther down the tunnel, only then did she see fear show itself on his wrinkled face. “Where are we? Last thing I remember is…”
“Looking at the castle,” said Gallock. “That’s where we are.”
“How did we get here? How could we…you don’t think the ship crashed into this place, do you?”
“Whatever made us lose our minds made sure we came armed,” Galloack nodded to the captain, “and with someone that could get us here.”
Bitters shook his head. “My head’s all swimmy. You feel that? Like…”
“Like there are spiderwebs in my brain? Yeah. I feel it.” Gallock could use some coffee, cream and sugar and all, right now. She checked her rifle.
“You said it was a prison,” said Bitters as he lowered his head. “Maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe that thing doesn’t want us dead! What if this isn’t a prison! It could be like—like a zoo!”
“What’s the difference?” asked Gallock flatly.
Bitters sighed and shook his head. “Okay, we’ve got two choices. We either continue down this god-forsaken tunnel-”
“Or we shuffle our way back to the god-forsaken monster,” said Gallock. “I know I rejected your offer to take command…but…given the circumstances–”
“This is your call,” said Bitters. With these words he put all his trust and faith into Gallock. She nodded, rolled her shoulders, and cracked her neck.
“Then on we go.”
—
Xanixus turned, ever so slowly, facing the sight of the Warden. Her eyes spun wildly, seeing broken afterimages of the siren’s slick bone all across the Warden’s body, exoskeletal plates like porcelain.
Falling to her knees, Xanixus wanted to beg for forgiveness but she could no longer speak. Her brain was splayed open, roasted, dipped in acidic resin. Xanixus rotated in circles on her knees. The Warden watched the misery unfold. Her tail inched out of the shadows and snaked across the floor of the cell block. It coiled at the Warden’s feet in three full folds, yet its end had still not come from the dark. The Warden turned and beckoned something forward with the curling of many fingers.
The end of her tail was attached to something else, something fast that moved on two legs as it leapt to the second level which Xanixus knelt upon. This creature, conjoined yet independent in its actions from the Warden, approached the mind-sick woman. Slowly, queenly, it approached the subject. Xanixus could not get a clear viewing of this being. If she had, it would have driven her further into insanity. It towered over Xanixus at nearly ten feet tall, like a smaller, more humanoid version of the Warden, then attacked. The Warden proper watched her tail-creature’s claws rip into flesh. Limb from limb, meat from bone, it was soon done. The Puppet of the Warden, bathed in blood, screeched with satisfaction. It took the unhelmeted head of Xanixus and presented it to their master.
The Warden took the head and stabbed one of her appendages into it. As she drew the fluid into her system, she and her Puppet became adjusted to the knowledge and inner workings of the human brain.
“Ah,” the Warden hissed, then snarled, in perfectly fluent English with an unplaceable accent. “Intruders! Summoned here…to kill me. That siren was a foolish little thing to think such miniscule pests could bring about the end of my reign.”
The Puppet looked up. “Master…why must we speak in such a language?”
“It is new to me…You of all should know that I cannot resist my hunger for curiosity.”
“What is my next task?”
The Warden looked to the entryway Gallock and Bitters had taken. “The others fled into the catacombs. Soon they will find the Tombkeeper. Follow and show them my wrath.”
After a short bow, the Puppet jumped onto the Warden’s shoulder and crawled down the length of her like a spider. The coil of otheir bound tails followed the Puppet as it started down toward the catacombs, a dog on the leash.
—
“Stop.”
Hushed gasps followed Gallock’s order. Without speaking, Bitters joined her as she pointed her rifle into the dark. There it came again: the sound of metal scraping on stone. They had long since been without lantern-light.
The tunnel had become winding, dark, cornerless. Gallock had the sinking feeling that they were being corralled into a trap once again.
The others followed her down the tunnel bending to their right. It led into a kitchen of sorts. From rows of rusty knives, to the filthy cutting boards and sinks, and stacks and stacks of rank trays, it was as vile as the gore room they had thought long behind them. The one seemingly responsible for the upkeep, or lack thereof, stood hard at work slamming their hands down onto something fleshy and blue. It had its back to them. Gallock motioned her team to form a half circle with their sights aimed at the…man? It had two arms, two legs, and a head underneath its wide and hole-ridden scarecrow’s hat and stitched trench coat. He turned, and his head of fire had a slated piece of charged metal forged to the mouth. He unfurled his claws from the sleeves of his rotting jacket. With each thrust of his arm, more and more knife-sharp tools burst outward from his wrist—an ever-growing metal bouquet, like trees of iron, all rusted and colored with blood stains. This was the maker of the mess they’d seen in the room far behind them. They were now at the mercy of the Tombkeeper.
Gallock readjusted the butt of the rifle against her shoulder, exhaling a nervous breath. The detail opened fire on her order. It seemed to not affect the creature as it calmly strode toward them.
“Back up!” shouted Gallock. “Spread out!”
Her head snapped to the doorway as something slunk its way in. “Behind!”
The first of the Puppet’s victims was too focused on the terror of the Tombkeeper’s first attack on their unit. Gallock and Bitters watched as the Warden-like alien ravaged their comrade into pieces. It was chaos, a fight on two fronts.
Bitters threw himself onto a metal slab which Gallock realized was a door. He kicked it open and the detail filed in behind him, given the order to. The Puppet of the Warden cried out and bounded its way after them. The walls of the tight corridor were coated with ice and as the area opened up, it was clear they were in the storage locker…for meat. Hundreds of slabs hung on chains from the ceiling.
“On me.” Gallock led the others through the maze of frost-bitten bits. They stopped as they heard the Puppet of the Warden and the Tombkeeper enter after them. “Hide!”
Each team member hid behind the hanging meat. They held their breath, tightened the hold on their weaponry. Gallock and Bitters shared their cover and peeked out on either side. They saw the two creatures searching for them, on the hunt.
Quiet footsteps and the cracking of ice: those were the only sounds in the room until a sudden audio-communication blared loudly from each of their helmets.
“It’s all clear,” said the voice.
With that, the security force laxed and cautiously stepped out from behind their cover. Only Bitters and Gallock remained hidden.
“No!” she whispered and cursed to herself. “Who gave that order?”
“It sounded like Xanxius,” noted Bitters. He poked his head out and saw their people openly walking about looking for their leaders. Instead, death found them. Both the Puppet and the Tombkeeper emerged and began the slaughter fest. Blood froze as soon as it escaped fresh wounds.
The Puppet wiped crusted fractals of red from its teeth as it summoned Xanxius’ voice to break through their comms again. “Come out!”
None knew it was a trick. Tried as they did, their guns were no match for the fire-headed butcher of the prison and the Warden’s pet. Gallock’s blood boiled to the point of action but she was held back from the fight. Bitters had slowly placed his trembling hand over her own. She let go of her weapon in order to take hold of his embrace. His grip tightened. She could feel his terror…and his goodbye. Gallock met his teary eyes.
“What?…Don’t.”
She watched Bitters take a grenade from his belt. Gallock put her hand over his and their face shields met softly. Ignoring the bloodshed behind them, the two held one another like that for several seconds before Bitters broke away and gave a sharp nod. Gallock returned the gesture before the old man slipped out of cover and headed straight for the monsters. He removed the pin from the grenade. They noticed him, and lunged.
Gallock flinched at the explosion. She sank into the fetal position and cried as silently as she could. She stayed there, rocking back and forth until she heard the monsters stirring once more. The Tombkeeper groaned in pain, the sound of a rusty gate creaking open. His hat had been cast back and his left arm was now missing. Yellow blood ran down his broken leg. The Puppet rose with effort, sections of its body burnt.
“The intruders are dead!” spoke the Puppet. “Return to your duties. Fix yourself! The Warden will want you back in working order!”
The Tombkeeper nodded and shuffled off back down the corridor. Gallock got to her feet and peeked out to see the Puppet collecting itself. Her friends were strewn along the ground in piles and pieces. In the explosion, one of the Tombkeeper’s limbs had sent a bombardment of metal shards all over the freezer. The Puppet pulled one such shard out of its ribcage with some effort. An instinctual rush overcame Gallock. Her blood boiled, overflowed, beat at her eardrums, forced her limbs to action. If the booming of the Warden came from the music of her angelic slaves, then the internal sound that sparked Gallock to life was that of the devil himself.
She stepped out from behind her cover, rifle in hand. Before she was noticed, Gallock unleashed a volley of gunfire at the weakened Puppet. It cried out and moved between hanging slabs as it came for her. She reloaded and popped off several successful shots into the creature before it was upon her. Gallock swiped the butt of the gun, losing her hold on it, across the creature’s head and grabbed a shard from the Tombkeeper in each hand. She dodged a claw-swipe and planted a sickle-shaped object into the Puppet’s side. Its shriek rattled Gallock’s helmet. She backed away and waited for the creature’s next move. Removing the clawed hand from its wound, the Puppet began to have a sinking feeling, for the first time, of its own morality. It clenched the blood in its claws with anger, not daring to die. Gallock was met with wild retaliation. Deep gashes to her right arm and left hip swept her body with waves of pain. She redirected her body, careful to avoid the tail, and slid the metal shard against the alien’s left arm. It stumbled and sang out in pain.
Gallock roared as she planted blades into the Puppet’s back. Thinking quickly, she kicked a hunk of frozen meat free from its hooks and took hold of the rusted grips. As the Puppet took its next chance to lash out, Gallock threw the hooks into their chest and backed away. Like a dying insect the Puppet threw out its limbs, flailing about as it rose off the ground. Gallock stepped back with a hand pressed tightly to the blood-frozen wound on her hip. She knew the chains wouldn’t hold long. Keeping the sickle-shaped blade in her left hand, Gallock found and slid the strap of her rifle over her shoulder. She limped her way further into the meat locker in search of a way out.
—
The Warden’s throne room sat before a large window which looked out into space. Her seat was formed from the corpses of at least a dozen different species, defilers and cursed ones, enemies of the Bloody Gods. The Warden stomped away from her admiration of the stars to see to the next order of business.
Her angels sat those who had colluded with the siren down before their master and her corpse-throne. The three aliens had swayed the siren, boosted her signal, and given her the confidence to stand against the Warden. More insolence.
“Sightlessness brings the absence of time. A bird with no concept of the sunrise only screams…yet it sounds like music to the ear. No sight…no eyes…no time,”
She bit, clawed, tore, and crushed their bodies and ordered them be smelted into her great seat of power. The angels spoke, having been passed down knowledge of the human language from the Warden.
“Now that justice has been done unto your thralls, and strangers have been allowed inside our kingdom, perhaps we should reconsider your brother’s offer?”
A low growl escaped the Warden’s maw. “I need not conform to the ways of my kindred. They can keep their worlds and plots of dwelling. I have all I need.”
“Master!” pleaded the angels. “Just imagine how many more we could bend unto our power! Should we accept the star field offered to us by–”
“Damn the others! I go where I please.”
The Puppet slunk its way into the throne room. Having freed itelf from the hooks set into it by Gallock, its burned, cut, and hole-ridden body functioned without hindrance.
“I heard your words echo, master. Birds…Sunrises…Why do you speak of such things? In their tongue no less?”
The Puppet readied itelf for a harsh reaction for questioning her, but the Warden laxed and exhaled through her snout. She turned and stared out of her window into the expanse of space.
“I must confess…I feel…changed. These ‘human’ thoughts…they are particularly intriguing to me.” The Warden glanced back at her Puppet. “Our intruders seemed to get the best of you. What is the fate of the Tombkeeper?”
“Injured but back to his work! Only one remains alive.”
The Warden thought on this. “The Catacombs empty into a courtyard. I want it filled.” She crept close to the Puppet. “Fail me not. Finish it. I will come up with another plan in case you are outdone.”
Her pet fled back down the corridor.
—
Gallock, armor singed with frost, pulled on the grate that stood between her and a wide open courtyard of stone.
Pulling up, she found the ironwork locked into place by small magnetic thrusters. Each time she applied enough pressure to free herself, blue fire shot out. It looked like a more intricate version of the same boosters used on their shuttles. She worked them free with her sickle. Having collected a handful of the thrusters, Gallock shouldered her way through the heavy grate and collapsed onto the stonework.
Sitting up, she examined the metallic objects in her palm. She took a shot in the dark and set them against her metal boots. With two on each, Gallock stood. Testing the propulsion, she pressed her heel to the stone. Nothing happened. Not enough pressure. Upon stomping one foot, Gallock’s one leg was pushed into the air and she fell hard back onto the ground. She picked herself up and tried stomping both feet at once. This let her take flight and remain airborne for a solid thirty seconds before being let back down. To keep the thrusters from being set off again, she landed in a roll. The pain pulsating at her arm and side had to be ignored and her adrenaline was doing most of that work for her.
She then heard a great chorus of monsters coming from three different tunnels across the courtyard. Piling over one another, prisoners with incredible deformities and powers unknown moved in shambles into the yard. They wormed their way out of the openings and charged straight for Gallock. Rifle in hand, she knelt on one knee and fired off at the oncoming hoard. The twisting, twitching crowd would soon reach her. She could not stop the tide.
She tossed her rifle aside and ran to the nearest wall of stone. Gallock kicked her thruster-boots to the ground and boosted herself up to the castle wall. The amalgamation of alien prisoners slammed into the wall, screeching and reaching up for her. Upon the wall, she turned to see the Puppet, its malice seeking to taste her flesh. It spoke with the voice of the Warden herself.
“Now you see. I am the keeper of deformities. You are not welcome!”
The Puppet leapt at her! Gallock rolled out of the way and pushed herself up into the air. She crashed through an upper walkway, a tunnel of glass mirrors. She didn’t know how the network of crystalized hallways hadn’t altogether collapsed at her entrance, but she had no choice but to move through the maze. Everything reflected her image back at her. The never-ending mirrors sought to confuse and throw Gallock off her course of escape. She froze at seeing the Puppet’s image close behind her. She turned with a swipe of her blade, but there stood nothing. Yet she heard the cries of the creature close by. The Puppet found her, but it too was deceived in the distance of its prey. Gallock spun and delivered a cut so devastating it severed the tail of the Puppet, freeing it from the binding leash of the Warden. Her blood froze after the creature swiped at her but she ignored it and pushed forward. She cut at the neck and body until it backed off and skulked away in the opposite direction.
Gallock’s left hand felt odd. Cold. Each time she moved her fingers…looking down she saw only a bloody, dripping stump where her hand had been. The Puppet’s claw had severed her appendage raggedly from her. She fell to the floor and grasped her wrist, crying and trying to swallow the pain. Gallock had to survive. She had to flee. The lightheadedness would not have her! Not after everything she’d seen! Pushing past further deception of the glassy walkways, Gallock thrusted herself against the next corner she came upon, breaking through the mirror.
She fell, arms waving, in a slow descent from the upper walkways, which looked like stone, not glass, from the outside. Gallock landed on the gray tilework of a tower. She caught herself before falling from a vantage point that would have taken her life. The darkness of space was all around her. From it emerged the Warden. Her bared teeth and incredible mass encroached upon the castle. Gallock hadn’t realized she could hear the hissing and cawing of the aliens in the courtyard until they, all at once, were silenced.
Behind the Warden, Gallock saw that she had summoned the massive colonization ship Gallock belonged on. It moved effortlessly through space at the pulling of the Warden’s largest limbs.
“Choose!” said the Warden. “Serve me…or flee alone.” The alien sniffed. “Gallock, is it? I am rarely mistaken. Know that if you accept my offer of freedom, Gallock, those souls inside this ship will be mine to have my way with. Mine are the jaws of fate, the power of the Bloody Gods flows through me. Will you leave and live? Dooming so many to die?”
With small movements of her many arms, the castle bent its will unto her. The stonework shifted, moved, reorganized so that the Warden’s feet rested against them. She moved around the tower Gallock stood unsure atop. Gallock, in the very shadow of a God. Each step rocked the foundation and threatened to fling her from the tilework.
She could not bring herself to do either. The colonists in cryosleep did not deserve whatever twisted vision the Warden had for them. And Gallock…she would never give herself to servitude to such a monster. Her fate was her own.
With a great effort, Gallock let go of her wrist and took her blade into her right hand. She looked up, eyes brimming and boiling with fury, and faced the might of the Warden. Crying out, she slammed her feet against the tower tiles and flew at the monster before her. Her blade did not reach the Warden before a section of the castle slammed into Gallock and sent her flying off her course. She crashed through a window of another cathedral-like building. She rolled amidst the glass and came sliding to a stop. The Warden looked in at her from the hole she’d made upon impact. Gallock could do nothing but listen and fall into the fire in her bones. She stood and went from limping into a full sprint! She stomped and flew through the window with a renewed strike ready!
This time the Warden herself snatched Gallock into her grasp and tore her left arm brutally from her body. Screaming out in pain, she was thrown down into another roll across the gray cobble streets below. Blood flew about, streaking the street with her life essence. The Warden smiled as Gallock came to a rest. She saw this intruder stir, wanting to get back up. The Puppet, injured and seeping blood, crawled and stood upon its master’s shoulder.
“Stay down, Gallock.” Though she spoke this, the Warden wished for more. She hoped that the woman would stand up and try again. It had been so long since her power had been challenged. Her curiosity pulsated beneath her exoskeleton. And so it was that the Warden’s wish was fulfilled.
Gallock got up and stumbled her way back toward the Warden. With the last of her strength she activated the boosters on her boots and came flying up toward the castle’s commander. Her sickle stabbed directly in the center of the Warden’s slick and eyeless head. Gallock roared as she clung to the handle…but that did not last long.
In a single swipe, the Warden’s claws tore her leg from her waist and sent her falling back down to the ground.
“I was wrong about you,” said the Warden as she hung over the injured Gallock. “You’re too precious to die. A fiery thing.”
The Warden then opened her incredible jaws and swallowed Gallock whole.
—
The Warden stomped into her throne room and splayed herself out, her tail moving aside to begin the birthing process. Slowly, painfully, the Warden inched something from her insides out.
Gallock, wet, pale, born anew, fell upon the cold floor. She twitched back to life and screeched an ungodly sound. She had been rebirthed as her former self in thought and soul but had been changed in a way she could not place. In her first, new moments, she was incapable of speech or anything other than her pitiful cries and convulsions.
The Puppet appeared from the shadows.
“Take her,” said the Warden. “When she is able to understand, tell her that I redirected the course of her colony’s ship. It is back on course. They are unharmed.”
Gallock’s scarred sibling took her into its arms and carried her away. Over the Puppet’s shoulder, she watched the Warden rise and felt an odd sense of contentment. Gallock knew what was ahead for her. She would be imprisoned, yet unharmed. She meant something to this place’s keeper. Exactly what, Gallock didn’t care to know. Perhaps a challenge. There would be a long time of imprisonment, a period in which her sole thought and devotion would be given to the idea of escape, but more importantly…to killing the Warden. This would be her purpose.
She would see it done.
The Warden sat upon her throne, having no master to serve but her own unimaginable ambitions and her twisted sense of justice. There were more cells to fill. More devils to entrap. She had been delayed long enough. In motions none but the Warden could perceive she bid her temple onward to new triumphs.
