A curtain of light shot straight up to the ceiling, then fell again, and a scene played in the air like a silent movie on a screen. The image showed a dark forest, then an explosion of light that first collapsed back on itself, then grew into a shimmering, moving hole, ripped right into the air and showing a stark, dark dimension beyond. A young woman with long black hair and pale skin was visible in the dark dimension. She ran for the hole then dove through it, leaving the stark dimension, entering the vibrant forest, hitting the ground rolling. Next, a muscular, naked man carrying a limp black wolf came through the hole.
“Who’s that?” Ethedra asked, watching from above the well.
“That’s thevodvodMac Niles carrying his dead boss.”
They both laughed nastily. In the image, Mac dropped the wolf on the ground.
Ethedra smiled wickedly, looking Mac up and down. “Didn’t he grow up nice?”
“Shhh,” Abigail commanded, her eyes on the screen. “You’re missing it.” She raised both hands to the image and again said, “Evincifi.”
The young woman had gotten to her feet. The spoken word revealed three undulating strands of silver and gold smoke emerging from her chest. One strand reached to the hole between realities and swarmed the edges of it, holding it open. Another strand reached out and surrounded the body of the wolf on the ground. The third strand reached into the hole, into that other reality.
White light poured from the hole for a moment, and then Boe dove out of it with the third strand encircling him, swarming the light—containing it, punching through it in several places. The woman watched Boe carefully, while Mac looked at him briefly, then focused back on the hole, reaching and yelling into it.
Boe staggered then caught himself and looked around incredulously. He turned slightly, but the silver-gold smoke tugged him to the north. He ran pitifully on swollen feet, then picked up speed. The smoke split into billowing clouds, with one wrapping around the woman, and another swirling around Boe as he ran off. Behind him, two black wolves jumped neatly out of the hole, and then a massive red and yellow dragon flew out, carrying a limp woman in its great claws. The hole vanished and the image faded away to nothing.
Ethedra shook her head. “That was the first and best Promised, huh? Pssht. She ain’t that pretty.”
“You leave Trailer Park Snow White alone,” Abigail said.
They both cackled and Number Six shook his head, a smirk on his face.
“She’s powerful enough,” Abigail said.
“Are you certain Sage doesn’t have that power?”
“Little Miss Angel is still a big fat dud. No power at all,” Abigail said with a wave of her hand. She gestured at Boe. “The time is here, it’s finally here!”
Ethedra stared at her, unimpressed. “Let me guess, thebofox.”
Abigail gave her a dirty look and turned away, hurrying to a dark corner. She called Number Six over.
“This one,” she said, and when they came back into the light, Number Six was carrying a stone fox statue with glittering eyes. He set it on the altar near Boe and the metal fox statue.
Abigail hurried to a large wooden shelf partially hidden in darkness, speaking as she went. “Yes, thebofox. The prophecy says,‘Exert the given power, summon the bofox, break the Tether forever and for all’—this is the given power, has to be!”
Ethedra motioned at the pile of maimed fox statues. “Where’ve I heard this before?”
Number Six laughed and hooked a thumb toward a dark corner. “More’n the pit,” he said.
Abigail scowled at him. “You hush.” To Ethedra she said, “If I take hisfoxenessence, his mark will come with it, and so would hisrenqua, if he still had it.”
Ethedra crossed her arms in front of her. “So, you think the power will come with the essenceand the mark,” she said doubtfully.
“Iknowit will!” Abigail shouted. “Why else would he have been able to get it out of the Pravus? Why else would the power of the Promised stabilize it?” She took the fox pelt off her shoulders and dropped it on the slab. “Help me turn him over,” she said to Number Six.
The two of them moved Boe onto his stomach. Abigail took Boe’s hand and pressed it to one leg of the fox statue. A chime sounded, light and tinkling, then Abigail pulled Boe’s t-shirt to one side, revealing a rectangular scar the size of a domino on the back of his left shoulder. She took her cask and squeezed it behind the ears, then pressed the mouth to the scar for only a moment, then lifted it back up.
She looked around, her face and manner agitated. “I need something,” she said to herself.
“I need something—,” she called out louder to Ethedra, holding the fox pelt up by the throat and shaking it, “I need something powerful enough to hold everything that’s in here. I can’t afford anything to go back to its owner if something goes wrong.”
“What’s in there?”
Abigail ticked off items on her fingers. “A few animal essences, several memory threads, some placeholders, uhh… various secrets, one recognition, a tooth, and tworenquascraps.”
Ethedra didn’t say anything for a moment. Abigail paced back and forth in front of the slab, head down, one hand behind her back, the other curled under her chin. Ethedra disappeared from above the well, briefly reappeared above the first well, and then was gone. When she came back, she had something tucked under her left arm—a taxidermied fox, positioned alertly on a log. She dipped her right hand into a pocket on her dress, in and out quickly—and then there were silver and black, pointy, thimble-looking things on her thumb and first two fingers. She clicked the points together, then splayed them in front of the mouth of the fox. It opened silently.
