A man was dead.
At the hands of a child, a little blonde girl with a black butterfly barrette in her hair. Not even at her hands — all it had taken was a summoning of two discordant tones, and the next thing Roland knew… a man was dead. And all the answers he might have provided, dead with him.
“Everything will go so much more smoothly if you are lost.”
Those words, and a snap of the finger — a snap that wasn’t a snap, but instead summoned two discordant tones that made Roland’s ears ache — were all it took for the little girl to send Roland and the others out from their room at the inn on the outskirts of Mount Fuarain…
To a land beyond all others. A land from which there was no escape.
Aîrchal. Land of the Lost.
Roland stood, gazing into the grey, swirling mists, through which the contours of a low, hilly landscape could be made out. No significant landmarks in any direction. No trees, no towers, no buildings. No major rises or falls. Just the gentle, rolling landscape of loamy, springy soil, dark, dry grass, and endless mists. There was an oddly lifeless scent on the air, like earth and grass and living things, but strangely artificial, like the mists and ground they stood upon were all just illusion, a facsimile of nature.
“Discord,” Roland muttered softly, his mind not so much on where he was, but where they’d come from. On what — who — had sent them here.
“What’s that?” Tsubasa asked.
“That child,” Roland said, turning to Tsubasa, Erika, Enrique, and Muirrach. “She killed a man with just… discordant notes. And then transported us here in the same way. Discord… is she…” He said the question with his eyes.
“She must be,” Tsubasa said softly. “I… didn’t see it coming. My Teacher —” Her voice broke for a moment, and she bowed her head. “He called the leader of Zweitracht ‘the Lady.’ So I thought… I was expecting someone older. Not just a kid. But that kind of power, that confidence, the black butterfly… she fits the bill.” She sighed, then looked around, hands on her hips. “How’d she even send us here? And how do we get out of here? How do we…” She trailed off. The tension underpinning her questions was a tension felt through the air, linking the five of them.
“No one knows,” Muirrach said in his craggy voice, like waves crashing against rocks. His large, bulbous eyes gazed into the distance, betraying nothing of his emotions on the matter. “All accounts of those who have escaped Aîrchal have come with no explanations. Those who have found themselves here and made it back out have no idea of how they did so.”
“Wonderful,” Tsubasa said. “Just… wonderful.” She sighed, bowing her head, shoulders slumping.
Roland eyed the twins, Erika and Enrique, who were holding hands, staring at the grassy turf, fear and anxiety written all over their faces. He knelt before them, and asked gently, “Are you all right?”
They didn’t immediately respond. Enrique nodded, and then Erika followed suit. Slowly, Enrique said, “Physically, yes. But…” He hesitated, then shook his head. “Zweitracht. And… Reunion.”
The twins looked at each other. Something unspoken passed between them, and then they both nodded. “Right,” Erika said. “You deserve to know everything we know. No more secrets, no more holding back. We don’t know anywhere near enough, so bringing all of you in might help us make sense of everything better than we can alone.”
“You’re sure?” Tsubasa asked. “I mean, of course I want to know, but I don’t want to push or pry if you’re uncomfortable.”
“We can’t handle things alone,” Enrique said, a determined gleam in his eyes. “And you three have been so good to us. We can trust you.”
“So,” Erika said with a heavy breath. “Where… do we even start?”
She and her brother shared another look.
“From the beginning,” Muirrach said, taking a seat in the grass, the mists swirling around him. “As best you can.”
“We know you’re trying to fulfill the mission your parents gave you,” Roland said, taking a seat as well, “to deliver the wishes of the world to Elysia. And that you were separated from them at some point.”
“And that you have some connection to the Masks — I mean, Reunion,” Tsubasa said. “Gonna take a bit to get used to calling them by their actual name. And that butterfly girl called you…”
“Keys,” Enrique murmured. “Yes, right. From the beginning, then.” He sat, and his sister with him, between Roland and Tsubasa.
“We left home when we were very young,” Erika said. “Two, maybe three years old? We remember very little about it — we know more about home from what our parents told us than what we actually remember. But home is a place that we don’t even know how to return to — or even entirely why we left. What we do know is it had a name: New Elysia.”
Roland sat back, stunned. Tsubasa looked equally as perplexed. “New Elysia?” she asked. “New? What does that…?”
“We don’t know,” Enrique said. “Our parents told us a little bit, and we’ve inferred a bit more from that, but we don’t know for certain. There was a desire by the people who lived there, I think, to try and recreate Elysia. Or to connect to Elysia, or commune with it? We don’t know exactly, but there is definitely a link between New Elysia and the true Elysia, and the people who lived in New Elysia desired to complete that connection in their own ways.”
“ ‘It is what we seek’…” Tsubasa murmured. “That’s what that man said. About the name: Reunion. So then…”
Enrique nodded. “They must have come from New Elysia as well,” he said.
“But we didn’t know!” Erika said quickly. “When you removed his mask and we saw the feathered ornaments on his ears, just like what we wear, we were as surprised as the rest of you. Maybe even more.” She reached up to the little white feather ornaments dangling from her own ears. “These are unique to New Elysia. A… little piece of home.”
“So why the masks?” Tsubasa asked, rubbing the back of her neck. “Especially the way Eagle Mask talked to you, like she’s trying to make some emotional appeal. Wouldn’t it be more effective if you could actually see the connection you share? But I’m getting ahead of the story, sorry.”
“Our parents were working on some major project in New Elysia,” Enrique said. “They kept a lot of the nature of their work a secret, even from us. There was… a sense that they expected to have more time with us. That they were waiting to tell us, when we were older. We never thought we’d be separated.”
“They had some connection to Songbird, the governing body of New Elysia,” Erika said. “Which we also know precious little about.”
“The governing body of New Elysia is called Songbird…” Muirrach mused. He reached up with his left arm to rub the stump of his right arm. There was a chill in the air.
So Roland raised a hand, and hummed the melody of Jurall’s song. Scarlet fire blossomed in his palm, and then leapt into the center of the circle. It didn’t set the grass alight, or require firewood. It floated just above the ground, crackling cheerfully, a self-perpetuating flame that gave precious light and warmth to this lonely circle in the mists.
“Gosh, I really wish you knew more about your home, now,” Tsubasa said. “This is already so intriguing!”
“Before we left, our parents were worried about something,” Enrique said. “They were working as fast as they could to complete something. It had something to do with Songbird. Like… something was wrong. With Songbird, or New Elysia, or both, we aren’t sure.”
“Wait, you said Songbird was the governing body of New Elysia,” Roland said. “But you’re talking about it as if it’s a… single entity?”
“It is,” Enrique said. “Songbird was… not a person, or a group of people, but something greater. It was Songbird that governed New Elysia. But… something was wrong. Again, we don’t know enough. And we didn’t get a chance to learn. In the end, our parents were forced to flee with us. There was… a disagreement. Whatever they were working on, they were developing it for one purpose. But there was a larger group of people in New Elysia who wanted it used for some other purpose.”
“We don’t know what it was, or why it came to such conflict,” Erika said. “And because there was such a conflict… and our parents left with their project incomplete… and that they were worried about our home… well…”
“We don’t even know if we have a home to go back to,” Enrique said, bowing his head. He took a breath, as if to steady himself, and continued. “They never told us what their project was. But we fled to Wonderia, and then to Albia, and kept crossing back and forth between the realms. It… didn’t feel like we were on the run, not for a while.”
Erika smiled. “We had a lovely time together,” she said, “just traveling through the realms, seeing all sorts of new places and people, things we’d only ever read about or seen in pictures and video.”
“Video?” Tsubasa asked, cocking her head to the side. “What’s that?”
Erika stared at her, and then at Muirrach, and Roland, who were equally puzzled. “I, um…” she started, then looked to Enrique helplessly.
“Moving pictures,” Enrique said. “It’s… well, I never thought about it, but we haven’t actually seen videos anywhere other than New Elysia. Sorry. It’s… hard to explain. Moving pictures, with sound, too. That’s what video is. Like a recording of an entire scene of memory, rather than just a single frozen snapshot.”
“Fascinating,” Roland breathed, his mind spinning with the implications. “But wait, going back a moment — you said you fled ‘to Wonderia.’ As if…”
He trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air.
“We don’t know enough,” Erika said helplessly. “But…”
“New Elysia was… separate,” Enrique said. “Not of Albia, or of Wonderia. Certainly not part of the true Elysia. We don’t know for certain where it is. Father spoke of it as ‘watching over’ Wonderia.”
“Can you tell us more about New Elysia?” Tsubasa asked. “I know you don’t remember much, but what you do remember.”
“It was… anachronistic,” Enrique said. He was looking past them all, as if he could see his home in the mists of Aîrchal. “The floors, and walls, and ceilings… it was all metal, all constructed. A whole world, completely indoors. But we had gardens and farms. They had to be given special nourishment from crystal light, because they couldn’t get enough light from the sky, even through windows. The real sky was…”
“It was always night,” Erika said, eagerly, as if remembering that one detail was helping her remember more. “We had windows, and glass ceilings in some places, so we could look out at the sky. It was always stars and distant lights, and strange, lovely shapes in the dark. We had a big bay window in our room. Mother would sit there with me in her lap, just watching the stars together.”
“But all of New Elysia was indoors?” Roland asked. “You never went outside?”
“Father said ‘we create our own outside’,” Enrique said. “There were apparently some people who went to the true outside, but going out there was dangerous. You needed special training and equipment. But I don’t know what the outside was like, or why it was so dangerous. The only time we left was when we… left completely. And when we did, we set forth in a ship, and it all happened so fast, we didn’t really see the outside there. I…” He bowed his head. “I tried to look back. Tried to get one last look of home before we were gone forever. But we went so fast, by the time I looked… it was gone.”
“Even though it was all metal and constructed,” Erika said brightly, “it wasn’t as cold as that sounds. There were all sorts of lovely places. Gardens and farms, of course, but there was a lake on the lower levels where people would go sailing. And there were libraries! Reading rooms, with lovely cozy cushioned seats. Colorful banners hung in the halls, and paintings, and patterned carpets. It was… really quite beautiful.” Her joy faded, and she bowed her head.
The fire crackled, little sparks breaking off from it, fluttering upwards, dancing in the mist.
“Anyway,” Enrique said, “we were still so small when we left. I’m surprised I remember so much, but even so… I don’t remember seeing anyone like the man you captured, or the girl in the eagle mask. I don’t remember anyone specific.” He looked at his sister, but she shook her head.
“Being on the road, just the four of us,” Enrique continued, “was… fun. For quite a few years. We grew up on the road, but we had each other, and our parents, so it was fine. They always had a bit of tension, a bit of worry, but we didn’t realize for a long time that we were actually on the run. We didn’t even realize why we left home until long after. Our first encounter with the Masks… before we knew who or what they were… was three years ago.”
“After we managed to escape them,” Erika said, “mother and father put together plans. They set their grand mission on our shoulders, to chronicle the wishes of the world and deliver them to Elysia. ‘Elysia is the hope of this Fractured world, and its Fractured people,’ they said. And then… they left. They thought we’d be safer apart from them. They thought… that the Masks were after them, not us.”
“And it seems like they were, for a while,” Tsubasa said. “Reunion only started coming after you recently, right? Even though your first encounter was three years ago.”
“That’s right,” Erika said. “When Roland saved us in the café, that was only the second time we’d run afoul of them after our parents left. And since then, they’ve been hot on our heels. So… something must have changed.” She bowed her head. “It… has something to do with what that butterfly girl said, doesn’t it? About us being… keys?”
“Artificial keys to Elysia,” Roland said. “She said that your parents made you that way.”
“And we have no idea what that means,” Erika said pleadingly. “I want to know as much as you.”
“There are things they were working on,” Enrique murmured, eyes on the fire in the center of the circle. “So many secrets they kept. If Reunion wants us, and the girl says that we’re artificial keys to Elysia, made that way by our parents… perhaps it’s true.”
“But how?” Erika asked, grasping her brother’s hand. “That doesn’t make any sense! We’re not keys!”
“And even if you were,” Tsubasa said, “we have to wonder what the point would be. There’s already a key to Elysia: Excalibur. The Promised King might be dead, but that doesn’t make Excalibur useless. At least, it shouldn’t. That would be a severe oversight on the part of whoever made the lock it fits.”
“There is too much we do not know,” Muirrach said. “But if Reunion is pursuing you now, and believes you to be keys to Elysia, then it seems logical that their ultimate goal isn’t the New Elysia they left behind, but the true Elysia lost for ages.”
“And the way they’re going about things tells me that them reaching Elysia would be seriously bad news,” Tsubasa said. “They must have gone after your parents first, thinking the keys were objects, not people. So the question then is what made them turn to go after you. Did they learn the truth — again, assuming what the Lady said is actually true? If so, how?”
“Do you think they…” Erika started, fear trembling in her voice. “Do you think they captured our parents? Do you think they might have… hurt them?”
“Let’s not worry about that before we have evidence to suggest it,” Tsubasa said, flashing a smile. “Maybe they got in a fight with your parents, and your parents escaped just fine, but gave something away. Or maybe they found information elsewhere that pointed towards you two, or reevaluated evidence they already had and came to a new realization. We don’t know enough. So don’t worry about your parents. They love you. They’re not going to let something terrible happen to themselves when you’re still out here waiting to be reunited. Right?”
“I hope so,” Erika said, bowing her head.
“What… would it mean?” Enrique asked, looking down at the grass. “For a person to be a key. For two children to be… a pair of keys.”
“That seems like a question for your parents,” Roland said, smiling at the twins. “So let’s save it for when we find them.”
“You think we can find them?” Erika asked, gazing hopefully back at him. “We’ve been separated for so long, and there’s been no sign or rumor of them anywhere.”
“You didn’t have Tsubasa and Roland on the case,” Tsubasa said, beaming. “We’re a pretty handy team, as you’ve already seen. And don’t forget about Muirrach! We’ll figure it out, one way or another. I may not be an official detective, but I’ve got the skills.”
“You’ve proven that on more than one occasion,” Erika said with a soft laugh. “Thank you. If we want to learn more… there is somewhere we could start.” She looked at Enrique, who nodded.
“We can go the Intersection,” he said. “Where we came to Wonderia, and then crossed into Albia. There was a cache that our parents left behind because we couldn’t travel with everything. They always intended to go back… and maybe they did. But if they didn’t, there would still be clues there for us to try and solve this mystery.”
“An Intersection?” Tsubasa asked. She looked to Muirrach, who shook his head.
“A theoretical concept,” Roland said, getting excited by the idea of it, recalling the fascinating dissertation by Vesper Brahe on the subject. “It’s a place where the realms literally physically intersect. It’s never been proven, though Maestro Brahe has come close. But if you two have experienced it, and know where it is…”
“Loch Reòsair,” Enrique said. “That’s where we arrived. That’s where we need to return to. Back to where it started, to follow whatever clues remain to the truth. The truth… our parents kept from us.” There was something conflicted in how he said those last words — a tinge of bitterness, and of longing.
“And to do that!” Tsubasa said, leaping to her feet. “We have to get out of mist-land, first. So… how do we do that?”
“With luck,” Muirrach said, standing, and Roland and twins followed suit. “Though, if all of us put our heads together, and investigate the issue, perhaps we can solve it. I have no idea where we’d start, though.”
“Neither do I,” Roland said. “And stay close together, be mindful of where everyone is at all times. It would be all too easy to get lost here. Let’s start just investigating the immediate vicinity —”
BOOM!
A huge, concussive blast resonated through the earth, knocking them all — except for Tsubasa, who amazingly kept her footing — to their knees. Roland staggered back to his feet, ears ringing, and looked around through violently swirling mists, trying to find the source of the disturbance…
And laid eyes on a door.
“A door!” Tsubasa cheered. “Luck comes to us in the end. That’ll get us out!”
She started towards it, but Roland put a hand on her arm. “Hold on,” he said, shaking his head to clear it. “That doesn’t look like a door to Wonderia or Albia.”
Doors between realms had a special kind of wooden lacquer, a warmth that resonated off of them in a lovely song, for those with the ears to hear. But this door was simpler than that, and no song came from its surface. Moreover, hanging on the door was a white sign, with a handwritten message on it in red, careful, elegant script: Welcome, honored guests:
But the names after had been erased, and below it in blue, hastier, messier lettering was an addendum: Nobody for now. Next stop, Haverston Hall! And around that message had been drawn several little stars and crescent moons.
“Fair point,” Tsubasa said. She smirked at the sign. “Whoever’s inside has a bit of character, though. Don’t ya think?”
But then they all jumped as the door swung violently open. Thick, choking black smoke churned out from the opening in a dense cloud. Roland and the others took a few steps back, waving away the edges of the smog. A moment later, they heard ragged coughing, and then a slight, humanoid figure came through the cloud, waving away the smoke with big, frantic motions.
The figure emerged from the smoke, revealing a girl who looked to be in her early teens, and dressed, well…
Oddly.
She had on an azure waistcoat over a buttoned up shirt, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, her hands smudged with grease and soot. On her right wrist were a pair of wristwatches, one with a white leather band, the other a black band. She had bright azure eyes, as if they shone with their own magical light, and azure hair cut in a chin-length bob. Atop her head teetered precariously, yet astonishingly never fell, a black top hat embedded with numerous clocks, each ticking away to completely different rhythms.
“Maxwell!” the girl called, looking back through the smoke. “You okay back there? Don’t sacrifice yourself for the repair kit, it isn’t worth it!”
“I’m fine!” called a male voice, followed by a series of rough, choking coughs. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it!” Then a second person came through the smoke, a man about Roland’s age, hefting a metallic suitcase. His round spectacles and red bow tie were askew, and his dark hair, tied back in a loose ponytail, was slightly smoking at the ends. The girl with the top hat rushed up to him, batting at his smoking hair, and put out the threat of fire.
“Looks like your pessimism wins the day this time, Maxwell,” the girl said with a sigh. “I was so sure we’d get past the Fugue without a hitch.”
Maxwell looked back through the smoke — ostensibly at the door, though the door couldn’t be seen at the moment. “I think she was overtaxed from breaking through the curse barrier,” he said. “Twice, to boot. Well, anyway.” He set down the metal suitcase — it must have been quite heavy, for it made a noticeable indentation in the soft earth — and adjusted his spectacles and bow tie. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I think. We’ll sort it out. Or at least you will. You’re quite the hand with her, Tock.”
“It’s a team effort!” the girl — Tock — said, pouting slightly at Maxwell. When she started talking again, the words came out rapid-fire, almost too fast for Roland to follow. “Stop being so down on yourself, you’ve been with her longer than I have, and you’re really excellent, and I need your help, I can’t do it all by myself! We’d better sort it out quick, we’ve got a schedule to keep if we’re going to get the Society on the right track. Getting Hayden and the others back home already took longer than we’d planned, and we had to break through the curse twice, because for some reason it was still intact, and then —”
And then she paused. She looked past Maxwell. She met Roland’s gaze.
“Maxwell,” she said in a soft voice. “We, um, aren’t alone.”
Maxwell whipped around, stared wide-eyed at Roland and his friends. “W-what?” he asked, blinking over and over again. “I… oh dear.” He straightened up, adjusted his bow tie again — this time setting it back askew — and suddenly froze right up.
“Oh, Maxwell,” Tock said, shaking her head. She stepped past Maxwell and held out her hand to Roland. “Not what either of us expected, I’m sure. But it’s a pleasure to meet you! My name’s Tock, and my delightful — and socially inexperienced — friend is Maxwell.”
“I’m… Roland,” Roland said slowly, taking the offered hand. Tock gripped his hand firmly, beamed a brilliant smile, and shook it once, twice, then let go.
“Right, then,” Tock said, nodding. “Introductions all around, and then… well, you’re as lost as we are, here in the Fugue, aren’t you?”
“Fugue?” Tsubasa asked.
“Isn’t that what it’s called?” Tock asked, looking back at Maxwell.
“That’s what the display said,” Maxwell said. He coughed again, then waved away tendrils of smoke that had started to swirl around him.
“Aîrchal,” Muirrach said. “That’s what we call it, at least.”
“Ooh, I like that!” Tock said. “Much more elegant. Okay, then. We’re all of us lost. There’s only one thing to do about it. Let’s pool our wits and get un-lost together, shall we?”