Gleam - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Gold light coiled forth again. It danced across his fingertips, twisting to and fro. Chance watched it, transfixed.

Huh. That’s funny. It’s just like dad said. Be thankful for something before it happens, and then it will. Never expected to actually see that working. It almost looks like flame, just… gold. And not hot.

The wisps instantly started to flicker, going from vaguely flamelike to a perfect replica of golden fire. Chance blinked. He pictured the light changing shape again and turning into a small disk. The golden energy moved, shaping into the shape he’d formed in his mind before fading away.

Chance resisted the urge to cheer. That probably would have brought every creepy thing in the alleys down on him, and he didn’t know how much use his magical mist was going to help there.

I’ve got magic! No idea what it does, but it’s magic! Thank you, Bob. Now, if you just show me how I’m supposed to get out of this alley, I’ll be eternally grateful.

Chance didn’t wait for a reply. He knew he wasn’t going to get one. He picked an alley and set back off, hopeful that the escape to this strange maze wasn’t too far.

Seconds turned to minutes and minutes stretched to hours. Chance’s optimism started to fade as he continued through the endless alleys, no closer to the exit than when he had started. There was absolutely no way to tell where he was. He tried climbing the walls several times, but they were just too tall and he couldn’t find purchase on the slick stone.

His stomach rumbled. He ignored it. He’d gone hungry before. There had to be an exit somewhere. He’d run into it eventually. He had to.

A click rang against the stone behind him. Chance froze, and it nearly cost him his life. A dark blur flung itself at him and he dove to the ground as an emaciated dog bounded over his head, snapping its jaws shut on thin air.

Chance thrust his hands forward and called on the golden mist. A small bolt of it leapt from his palm and struck the dog as it spun and charged at him again. Confusion flickered in its eyes for an instant, but it didn’t falter in its attack.

Cursing, Chance scrambled back. His foot hit a loose pebble at just the wrong angle and he went down in a tumble of limbs. His left knee snapped up, catching the dog straight in the chin and knocking it back with a crack.

Chance rolled over right as it lunged for him again, and he mistakenly drove his elbow into the creature’s nose while he was struggling to stand. It pulled back with a shocked whimper. Chance stared back at it, equally surprised.

Then he hit it with another blast of golden mist. The dog cocked its wiry head to the side, as if to ask him what he was thinking. Then it lunged at him again. As its claws pressed into the stone, one slid into a crack and lodged there.

Yowling, the dog drove itself into the ground face first. It ripped its claw free, snarling, and leapt at Chance once more. Chance dove out of the way, mistakenly clipping a wall with his shoulder.

For the second time that day, a loose brick pitched down and struck the monster square in the head. Bone crunched and it collapsed to the ground, dead.

Once was a coincidence. There’s no way that happens two times completely by accident.

Chance edged away from the dog, then scurried down an alley. It wasn’t a good idea to stick around in case something bigger and uglier came poking around. More importantly, he was starting to get an inkling of what his magic did.

It feels a bit disingenuous to call this luck. You can’t control luck, that defeats the whole point. But it doesn’t seem that far off. And, if it’s related to luck…

Chance pictured an arrow pointing him in the direction of civilization or, at least, a way to get out of the alleys. And then – nothing happened. He sighed, then set off once more. He didn’t make it more than a few alleys before another dog attacked.

He fought the beast off like he had the last ones. His stomach rumbled as he stared at its body. Chance shook his head and walked into the darkness. He wasn’t that hungry. Yet.

His resolve lasted all of three more days. While he managed to find a few more streams of water trickling down the buildings to just barely sate his thirst, Chance’s hunger only grew with every passing second.

Eventually, he couldn’t think of any other option. The next time he killed one of the small monsters, Chance decided to see what they tasted like. It took him by no surprise that the answer was awful.

Still, it was food. He tried not to think about the thousands of diseases he was probably exposing himself to as he ate the stringy, foul smelling meat. Somehow, it wasn’t the worst tasting food he’d ever had. It was a close runner-up, though.

Chance barely managed to finish a handful of food before his body rebelled against him. He gagged and heaved, but he didn’t let himself throw up. There wasn’t any other choice, and he wasn’t about to starve to death in these alleys.

Molten heat gathered below his heart and pulsed through his veins for a few minutes after he ate the monster. It slowly faded away and Chance continued on.

He lost track of how many days he wandered through the darkness or how many of the wretched monsters he fought. It had to have been at least a few weeks, but he couldn’t remember how many times night fell. The alleys always seemed to be in the shadow anyway, regardless of what time of day it was.

Chance slept in short bursts of only an hour or two at a time, awaking at the slightest noise or shift in the wind. Slowly, his heart burned less when he ate the dogs. That didn’t make them taste any better, though.

And then – in the endless maze of identical roads, Chance saw something different. A flicker of purple cloth disappearing past a corner. He didn’t even stop to consider what it might be. Anything was a welcome change from the starving monsters and darkness.

He ran after the cloth, just making it into the alley as it disappeared down another. Chance took off, chasing the retreating figure as fast as his weary body would allow. He considered calling out to it, but didn’t at the risk of calling every dog in the area to their location.

With barely energy left in his body, Chance rounded a corner. He skidded to a stop, nearly tripping over his own feet as the breath caught in his throat, cutting off a scream.

A man floated upside-down in the air before him, his legs in a yogi position. His tattered purple robes hung around him, and a limp monster was gripped in his pale, sallow hands. The man’s eyes shifted, two baleful pale spheres turning to look straight in his direction.

In spite of the rest of his body, the man’s head was twisted one hundred and eighty agrees so it was face-to-face with Chance. The monster’s body slipped from his hands, crumpling to the ground.

Chance took a step back, his blood running cold.

“I – ah,” Chance rasped, his voice ragged from weeks of disuse as he continued to back up. The floating man followed after him, matching his pace. “Please stop.”

“You,” the man whispered. His words were leathery and ancient, but each exuded pressure that demanded he be heard. “I know your Essence.”

“I’m lost.” Things that talked could be reasoned with. Probably. “Could you help me?”

The man’s body rotated around his head and he uncrossed his legs, setting feet down on the ground with a slow sigh. “You should not be here.”

“I – yeah. I don’t want to be,” Chance said, gathering his resolve. Every fiber of his body screamed for him to turn and run down they alley, but even the slightest chance was better than nothing. “Can you help me get out?”

“Help,” the man said, rolling the word over in his mouth. “Your name. What is it?”

“Chance.”

“Chance. I am Yamish.”

You usually don’t give your name to someone you’re going to kill. Thank god.

“It’s, ah, nice to meet you, Yamish.” He had to force every word out from stiff lips. Even though Yamish wasn’t showing him any hostility, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was teetering on the edge of a precipice.

“How did you arrive in this place?”

“I – I really don’t know. I died, I think. Then I arrived here.”

“A new arrival,” Yamish mused. “But not in the proper place. You are a curiosity.”

“Can you help me get out of here?” Chance asked. “Maybe to the place I was supposed to go?”

Yamish wet his lips with a pointed tongue. “Yes. We are of the same Essence. I will aid you. An investment.”

Yamish extended a hand, and Chance couldn’t help but notice that his fingers were just a little too long. There was an extra joint in each of them. He swallowed, then reached out and took the man’s hand. They shook.

Chance half expected something to happen, but nothing did. Yamish just released him, then extended a hand behind him, pressing it against the stone wall. The alley rippled and melted, forming into a new path. A faint light glimmered at the end of it, beckoning him forward.

“We will meet again,” Yamish said. “Do not return here of your own volition. Tell nobody of our accord. You are not prepared. Go.”

Chance didn’t argue. He ran for the light like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.   The light grew brighter, forcing him to squint as he ran toward it. And then he burst through, stumbling out onto a wide street. Chance slowed to a stop, his limbs trembling as the strength seemed to evaporate and he flopped to the ground, rolling over to stare up at the sky.

For the first time, he was able to get a look at the city’s skyline without the walls and shadows of the alleys to block it off. Towering skyscrapers rose above him, piercing into the beautiful purple haze. Massive islands floated in the air between them.

Blurs flew to and fro in the air, some larger than others. After a few moments, Chance realized that some of them were people. He wanted to cry, but he was so dehydrated that his body refused to give up the water.

He eventually managed to force himself back up. A glance in the direction of the alleys showed nothing. There was just a wall where there had once been an entrance. Chance shuddered. Standing with the help of a wall, he set off in the opposite direction and – with any luck – toward civilization.

The further Chance wandered down the road, the less aged it became. Lanterns with bobbing motes of orange and yellow light within them cropped up along the walkway, and the stones had less cracks and damage.

He pushed himself to walk faster, practically able to feel the escape to his torment. A faint clang reached his ears. Chance froze, but several more followed after it, followed by what he suspected to be someone yelling.

Chance broke into a run toward the noise. He crossed another empty street and sprinted up to an iron gate. Beyond it was a field of packed dirt, sectioned off into small arenas. Dozens of people stood within them, sparring with medieval weapons and armor.

Magic was interwoven with their movements, and Chance watched in mute awe as one man smashed another to the side with a fist of earth. Then his common sense took over once more and he shoved the gate open, stumbling inside.

On the nearest field, A gray-haired man in simple leather stood against a short, heavily armored opponent. Every single part of them was hidden by plate mail. Chance couldn’t even see a single speck of unprotected skin.

The armored figure swung a hefty warhammer at the man. Moments before the strike connected, the man moved his sword in a smooth motion, leveraging his bodyweight and shifting in close to his opponent, knocking the hammer to the side.

He drove his free hand into their helmet palm-first, knocking it back with a loud clang. The armored figure staggered back, dropping the hammer. With a grunt, the gray-haired man whipped his foot out, hooking it behind their legs, and knocked them off their feet. The armored figure it the ground with a loud crash and a muffled groan of pain.

“Slow. Bad timing. Terrible posture,” the man rattled off, sheathing his sword and shaking his head. “Also, absolutely no magic usage. What are you doing? Are you trying to lose?”

“You don’t use magic,” the man snapped, pulling the helmet off to reveal a head of curly brown hair. He looked young – only a little older than Chance. “It only seemed fair to do the same, Gibson.”

“Fair fighting is for dead men,” the gray-haired man who, Chance presumed was Gibson, replied. “And you are not nearly good enough to avoid using your magic when fighting me. I don’t use my magic because, if I did, you would get nothing at all from a sparring session. Idiot.”

Gibson paused, catching sight Chance staring at him, his eyes wide and mouth slack as he tried to form words with his dry lips.

“What are you doing?” Gibson asked.

“Help,” Chance rasped. “Water. Food. Please.”

Then he collapsed, every last ounce of his energy spent. The world spun around him, and everything went black.