(continued from part two, preceding...)
***
The 'ping' returned.
El Guerrero de los Pantalones pulled up as soon as he was through the entrance to the Path. A pulse from Los Pantalones re-established (in the readings hovering in the periphery of his vision, shown to him by the interface integrated into his bronze-gold mask) the dimensions of the first chamber at once--roughly seventy square meters in area, shaped like a batwing that flared off into multiple smaller passages... and thick with what the first time he'd thought was dust.
It hadn't taken Esteban long to realize it was particles of something else.
Bones lined the pathways below. Any kind one might care to name, and more than a few that his on-board systems couldn't quite place because they were too strangely shaped, too impossibly big, or just too implausibly moving about and pretending to be warriors. The last kind, at least, were no longer present, though Esteban was sure the cutlass-wielding skeleton warriors had not gone far.
The Path of Bone had turned out to be a path of a lot of bones, and bits of bones, leading through jagged heaps of bones. Some of the bones belonged to large flightless birds, or wolves, or horses, or massively-antlered creatures that might have been moose if the weren't so huge. Some could have belonged to dinosaurs. Many appeared to have belonged to humans.
Cendra, who had read Richard Cartier's journal entries about his descent on the Path of Bone to the Charnel House over a century-and-a-quarter before, had warned him and the others. Cartier, the occult detective known then as the Dweller in the Shades, had not had much opportunity to investigate during his foray, but had said theirs was a particularly potent and malignant magic. He had not explained what he meant, other than to warn that going beyond the initial chamber meant an inevitable descent to the Charnel House, and whatever waited there.
Esteban forced his attention back to the cavern. The others had gone on ahead, though he belatedly realized they had not all taken the same passageways into the interior. Camila's surprise flight into the Path had upset everyone's plans, and what might have been a disciplined incursion had turned into a mad rush. Deliberately, he updated his on-board maps, and focused on the source of the 'ping.'
*Coco?* he sent a thought-word into the nectarisitic reaches. *That you?*
As he waited for a response, a sound from below reached his sensors. China Moroboshi had come through the gate, only to face--
Something crashed into his battle trousers, while simultaneously wrapping around his head. Alarms went off in his internal interface. The tentacles that had tried to attach themselves to Los Pantalones were repulsed with a costly burst of nectarisitic energy. With a quick reverse and flip maneuver, he slipped free of the attack on his head, only to see...
"Programmer!" Esteban yelled.
"*The!*" responded the top-half-of-an-oversized-bronze-and-gold-armored-suit-wearing person who'd attacked him. The menacingly awkward yet awkwardly menacing fusion of rococo-ornamented upper torso musculature and dangling unprotected (though now thankfully jeans-wearing) legs jetted by him, nectarisite tentacles zipping back into his chestplate. "Only not anymore! Call me El Esbirro del Traje!"
El Esbirro's tentacles lashed out again, this time aimed at Los Pantalones. Alarmed, Esteban focused on Los Pantalones' defenses, raising an energy surge that repelled the attack and made his thighs tingle in disturbing ways.
"So, El Guerrero!" called El Esbirro, as he hovered into view. The tentacles snapped back into El Esbirro's chestplate, giving Esteban a view of the face otherwise mostly hidden by the helmet.
"Hello, Pr... ah... Esbirro del Traje," Esteban answered. "I was worried--"
"*El*!" El Esbirro yelled. "*El* Esbirro del Traje! I mean, would you like it if people just called you 'Guerrero?'"
Esteban read the rising energy in El Esbirro's suit, and knew he was preparing for another attack. Momentarily, he wished Coco was with him, as the bronze-gold bonobo normally handled the minutiae of operating Los Pantalones so he could focus solely on the business at hand.
"I'm lucky some days if they stick to that," said Esteban. "Who let you out of your cage, anyway? Last I saw, you got taken by the new Dweller and her monkeys."
"Rescued, it turns out," the former The Programmer answered as they circled one another in the particulate-rich air. "They thought I'd gone rogue, but when they heard what I was doing and who was giving me my orders, they OH MY GOD IS THAT CHAPPELL ROAN???"
Esteban was a fraction of a moment too late to keep his scanning systems from looking for Chappell Roan, who proved to not be detectably present in the bone-filled cavern. Two small missiles shot out of the nipple-regions of El Esbirro's suit, striking Esteban before he could intensify his energy defenses. He spun as he flew back, smashing through a pile of ancient-looking bones before striking the cavern wall.
El Guerrero snarled and spit out a mouthful of what he hoped was just spit. After making a note to ask Coco next chance he got just *why* he had included in Los Pantalones a voice-activated subroutine to specifically scan for Chappell Roan, he blasted forward, swooping under the nectarisite tentacles El Esbirro had followed up his missile attack with and striking his helmet with an armored foot.
"AyyyyiiiiiiiiiIIIII!" El Esbirro yelled, as he cartwheeled into a group of recently-arrived skeleton warriors, who quickly were reduced to a pile of skeleton warrior bits. China Moroboshi, who had been menaced by them, gave him a quick wave as she plunged through the farthest and thinnest of the downward-leading passages.
Again, the 'ping' reached him. Cautiously, keeping the monitoring systems of Los Pantalones focused on the still-recovering El Esbirro, Esteban reached out to it's source.
*--come in, Esteban! Urgent!* a voice at once boyish and Robert Goulet-like echoed between his ears.
*Where are you, Coco?* Esteban sent.
*Still on Agent Lemon Rydell's scalp,* Coco reported. A small window featuring the bronze-gold bonobo's face appeared in the upper left of Esteban's field of vision. *He and his team are tracking Adam Seaborn and a group of dodos who are escorting ki Kazza Malissk through the *Path of Bone.* They are close to the Charnel House... oh, my, Este, you have to see this!*
Before Esteban could ask what 'this' was, or opine on if he really wanted to see it at the moment, a larger window opened before his eyes, temporarily obscuring El Esbirro. Light played across a row of extremely colorful and complicated designs, a riot of styles and designs that grew chilling when Esteban realized they were painted onto skulls.
Skulls that were flying about in the air, presumably directly in front of Coco. Which meant they were directly in front of Lemon. *Why* they were zipping about in front of him wasn't so clear, but judging from how quickly Lemon was looking from side-to-side and top-to-bottom, it seemed they were doing an effective job of keeping him from moving forward.
"Apples reported skeleton warriors were fighting in and around here," said Esteban. "Hell, I just saw a group get demolished. Are these--"
"Negative," Coco replied. "We encountered and evaded them. Este..."
Esteban heard the hesitation in the bonobo's voice.
"These are *children's* skulls."
Esteban gaped. The video of flying skulls Coco was transmitting wavered.
"Say again..." he told Coco without much conviction.
*All the painted skulls appear to be those of human children,* Coco said, *approximately nine-to-eleven years of age. I have noted many similaritiesssSSZZZZHHHRRZZZZZZ--*
Coco's voice abruptly stopped, as did the video he was projecting. Esteban looked down at El Esbirro, who had gotten to his feet but was still wobbling about some. If it hadn't been him cutting off the signal, then who--?
*Oh, Guerrero,* a new, more feminine voice said in his head. *When planting spies, you really need to check some aren't getting planted on you.*
The orderly set of monitor windows and control icons that hovered in Esteban's perceptions spun wildly out of control at that moment. Esteban's immediate reaction, to thrust against the direction he thought he was spinning, sent him into another pile of bones and the floor beyond. Before he could re-establish control, he shot up in the air and smacked the cavern ceiling.
*I have him, El Esbirro,* said the voice. *He is... fighting back. Contact... the Dweller!*
*Already done, Letha,* answered El Esbirro, who was no longer staggering. *Just hold on... there!*
Letha, thought Esteban, his mind flashing on his brief fight with El Esbirro that afternoon on the historic Ventura Beach pier--
"Venice Beach," Esteban interrupted.
*What?* El Esbirro asked.
"The author apparently can't keep 'Venice' and 'Ventura' straight in his head," Esteban went on, as he mentally tried to retake control of Los Pantalones. Even had the narrator say I used to be part of the Ventura Vengers, instead of the Venice Vengers."
[Esteban, El Esbirro, and what skeleton warriors were in the vicnity all paused and gave a sour look through the fourth wall at you, the reader.]
"Hey!" Esteban yelled. "Is that Chappell Roan?"
As Letha struggled to keep Esteban's battle pants from again scanning for the tragically absent singer, Esteban mentally triggered the countermeasures he and Coco had laid in to the security systems of Los Pantalones as a last resort for taking control back from an interloper.
A thumping disco beat caused Los Pantalones to shake. Several nearby piles of bones shifted as the merciless music disrupted their resting places. Nectarisitic energy flushed through both Los Pantalones and El Guerrero from head to toe, making his nerves crackle and his heart thunder.
Not even gonna talk about what it did to his spleen.
The bronze-gold macaque who'd introduced herself as Letha was there, microscopically-sized, on his scalp. Esteban thought of Lemon's hand, how it had caressed the back of his head during their kiss in Bonnie's bookstore early that evening. He'd been so focused on getting the micro-sized Coco onto Lemon that he hadn't even *thought* to check...
But wait, he thought to himself. Had Lemon done it deliberately, or had Letha been planted on *him,* only to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity?
He bound micro-Letha in a web of nectarisitic energy, cutting her off from his pants. Abruptly, the chaos in his vision ceased, and he could see the cavernous Path of Bone once more.
Esteban wanted to believe Letha had played Lemon, but felt, deep in his gut, that she hadn't. Lemon had known what he was doing, there in the bookstore. Somehow, no matter what, he always knew.
And if Letha was working with Lemon, that meant...
"Oh, no," Esteban said, as the realization descended upon him.
He took off into the air, increasing velocity as he aimed for the passage he remembered Miguel, Cendra, and the pack going through.
Before he could reach it, a black, swirling circle opened up before him. Unable to stop in time, he plunged through--
--and was suddenly in a red-green-and-orange-lit chamber that seemed to go on forever, surrounding a surprisingly modest-looking church-like structure in the center. Even as he tried to focus on it, to drink in details, it shifted before his eyes, gaining and losing towers and ornamentation. He looked away, trying to find the ground...
...and cried out when he fell away from Los Pantalones.
So dumbfounded was he that he fell for three seconds before remembering to helplessly flail. The floor of the cavern rushed up to greet him as he covered his face.
A few more seconds passed before Esteban realized he had not suddenly pancaked on the bone-strewn floor. Indeed, he was hovering nearly half a foot above it.
"We have him," said someone with a smoke-roughened contralto voice. "Track Los Pantalones, bring them to the encampment when they come down."
Esteban felt himself being rotated in mid-air, so that he was looking up.
The being he looked up at was barely discernible in the particle-rich, freshness-poor air. Esteban spotted a black-and-red symbol on her face mask... and realized who he'd been captured by.
"Dweller... in the Shades," he managed to say, as she pulled away his nectarisite-infused mask.
"Guerrero," the Dweller said. "Come. The Director will be pleased to see you."
"Cartier's... here?"
The Dweller in the Shades didn't answer. As El Esbirro del Traje flew through the black teleportation circle she'd conjured, and he felt himself lift from the ground alongside her heading in the same direction, Esteban felt his consciousness fading.
"El," he said, before passing out. "*El* Guerrero."
***
There was no end to the piles of bones, Rumiko Moroboshi-aka Psywave--thought. Great ragged stacks of them extended to the dark-shrouded ceiling of the offshoot chamber she and Bonnie were in. There were paths through them, winding circuitously toward... toward what?
Cendra had said all paths eventually led to the Charnel House, in the hours between when it rose and the Hour of the Wolf (or, roughly 3 a.m., local time). She had also said there was a nigh-impenetrable barrier closely surrounding the Charnel House at the center, one that could only be passed by either succeeding at a fiendishly difficult task that had, sadly, not been described by the entry in the recently unlost second volume of the Journals of Richard Cartier she'd read, or by making some kind of unimaginable cosmic sound, also undetailed.
Worry about that when we get there, she thought. For now, as there were potential enemies around every bone pile they navigated, it was best to concentrate and stay silent...
"Why won't you guide me *now,* you stupid tractor part!" Bonnie yelled at the Damn Thing, which she held before her like a dowsing rod.
...or as silent as possible, which at the moment seemed to be 'not at all.'
"Quiet," Rumi hissed. "You want to run into more skeleton warriors?"
"Pssh," said Bonnie. "Psywave, you remember what Cendra said Cartier wrote. 'Skeleton warriors just happen.' Like they just spontaneously fly back together out of these piles, pick up some weaponry that just happens to be lying about, and have a go at whoever's dumb enough to walk the *Path of Bone.* They're en-bee-dee." She whacked the grooved part of the Damn Thing. "Wake up in there!"
The Damn Thing... or whatever was manipulating it... had virtually pulled them along, from the _Subtler Than Light_ in Venice to the gate at Point Fermin, and literally pulled them along through several chambers, once they'd passed through the gate and were on the Path. Then, abruptly, it had lost whatever animating force had been making it move.
"I remember Dr. Gigawatt talking about what what we know of the Damn Thing's history," said Rumi. "Wasn't it a prison for some kind of psychotronic mental energy villain at one point? Ahhh... Gorgax, his name was?"
"Maybe," Bonnie replied. "He never said Gorgax could make it move around, though. Seemed surprised as we were, earlier. Plus... whatever's in there, I'm not getting a vibe of 'crazy villainous energy dude.' So... now what?"
'Now what' was a good question. The way things were going, the only way they were ever going to get out alive, never mind save Galaxy Hunter by getting the Damn Thing to her, was if she just spontaneously burst out of one of the piles of bones, and what were the odds of *that* happening?
She waited. Hunter failed to spontaneously burst out of anything.
"Worth a try," she muttered.
"Hey!" a voice called, from somewhere in front of them. "Who's there?"
"Shhh," Psywave said, motioning for Bonnie to stay put while she glided ahead, psychokinetic shields at the ready. "This could be a trap..."
She rounded a bone pile, and saw that it was... but not for her.
"Um, hi," said Moon Moon, from where he was suspended, ten feet above the cavern floor. "I was trying to get this, 'cause I always wanted a tooth, but... can you get me down?"
Rumi considered the muscle-bound werewolf, who hung from the lower jaw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull, his t-shirt snagged on one of the teeth he'd evidently been trying to acquire. He held another tooth, nearly as long as he was tall, and grinned.
She flew up to his level and reached out with her psychokinetic field. Moon Moon was a heavy-if good-boy, but not so much she couldn't lift him up a bit. In her mind's eye, the energy she projected was a wave that reached from her body to his, wrapping around it in a moment. Moon Moon's eyes grew wide, and his grin grew broader as he felt the unseen energy grip him firmly, lift him up, move him a bit away from the precarious position of the dinosaur skull, and then lower him to the ground. She descended as well.
"Thanks... uh... Psywave," said Moon Moon. "I was gnawing on a femur from a skeleton warrior I chased and lost track of where I was going. You ladies all right?"
"We're okay," said Bonnie, even as she glared at the superguy she didn't know was named Rumi. "And *someone* could've transported me *that* way coming out here."
"My control's not so great on high-speed flights," Rumi told her, biting back exasperation. "I can fly fast or psychokinetically carry a load, but not both."
"Ha," said Moon Moon. "She called you a load."
"She can call me whatever she wants," Bonnie answered, returning her attention to the Damn Thing, "so long as she gets me to Galaxy Hun--"
There was no warning. Three armored forms emerged from passages between the surrounding bone piles... but they weren't skeletons. Nor were those cutlasses they were carrying. One was behind Bonnie and aiming at her back before Rumi could blink.
"Nobody move," said the armor-wearing Reptiloid who had the drop on Bonnie, as their laser-rifle emitted a high-pitched, 'ready to burn a hole through whatever's in front' sound. "Tanzel, Stashe, cover them."
Two more armored Reptiloids stepped out of the shadows, though it was not yet clear which was Tanzel and which was Stashe. Their aimed rifles also made 'at the ready' sounds.
"You were right, Slith," said one of them. Rumi decided to call that one Stashe, as they had a weaselly kind of hiss to their voice, a 'Stashe' voice if she ever heard one. "They actually brought the Damn Thing with them. After you said they would, a-aaaaan' T'Shamka said there was no way even the humans'd be that cra-zeeee, an' you said you'd show her, and she said if they did she'd make you the deputy leader of the Order, like there was no way..."
'Slith,' Rumi thought. Did that mean...?
Before she could think of what that meant, she shut down the thought. Even with the anti-telepathy shields that had been integrated into her brain starting at a young age, she felt she didn't dare pursue it any farther. The strange, in-between place they were in now didn't follow all the rules from the outside world, that much was clear. And there were thoughts she didn't yet dare think too loudly.
Time to clamp down, like the Hunter Corps had taught.
"Slithis?" asked Bonnie, who, Rumi thought, if she had any kind of mental clamp, had probably let it fall apart from lack of use. "That is you in there, right? The hell you doing?"
The lead Reptiloid regarded Bonnie for a few seconds, then tapped his helmet. The faceplate glass retracted, and the helmet itself seemed to melt into the rest of the suit. Rumi instantly recognized the shifting multi-colors of Slithis's scales, the result of crossing over from one altiverse into another and passing through a large body of powerful, free-floating magic--temporarily lost by Shadebeam, who'd also crossed over--in the process.
She didn't recognize the look in his golden, vertical-pupiled eyes. Slithis had been through a lot over the years, even before he left 001SFSTORY and become a permanent resident of 000SUPERGUY and Shadebeam's husband, but he had never been this... intense. It felt as though someone else was looking out through his eyes... someone evaluating and judging them, even as she evaluated and judged.
"I'm serving our Hierarch," said Slithis, sounding flatter than Rumi ever remembered hearing him before. Bonnie, who Rumi knew probably had much more day-to-day experience with Slithis, having grown up in Malaga practically next door to him and Shadebeam, looked similarly puzzled. "T'Shamka, the Wise. T'Shamka, the Ascendant. T'Shamka, the..."
"...Expecting Us Right Now," said the third Reptiloid, who Rumi mentally assigned the name Tanzel, as it was the only one left. "So burn these two, take the Thing, and let's get--"
"Who did T'Shamka the *Wise* assign to lead this mission?" Slithis asked, his voice only rising when he emphasized 'wise.'
"Heh," heh'd Stashe. "You, Slith. You! HehHEHheh."
"So who gives the orders?"
Tanzel gave Stashe a cold look, and Slithis an even colder one, before answering.
"You... Aspirant Slithis."
"We will bring them with us," said Slithis, hefting his rifle. "The Damn Thing has chosen this... Bonnie... as T'Shamka foresaw."
"She what now?" Bonnie asked, even as she shifted to hold the Damn Thing between her and Slithis.
"And T'Shamka will want to question this one," Slithis went on, gesturing at Rumi, "to find out how she escaped the collapse of our Order's temple on Reptilos."
Rumi snarled, raising her arms as she gathered her psychokinetic energy...
...and stopped when both Stashe and Tanzel aimed their laser rifles directly at Bonnie.
"Slithis... damn it, no one's supposed to *know* that," Rumi growled. "We *agreed*..."
"What's he talking about?" Bonnie asked, looking at Rumi now with the same confusion she'd earlier directed at Slithis.
"I'd kinda like to know that," said Tanzel, directing a suspicious look at Slithis.
"This isn't just any superguy," Slithis told them, even as he leveled his rifle at Rumi. "She's the Galaxy Hunter that nearly ruined our plans on Reptilos... Rumi Moroboshi."
"Dammit, Slithis!" Rumi yelled.
"Rumi?" Bonnie asked. "I remember you... what the hell?"
Rumi sighed, then gestured at her facemask. "May I?" she asked, looking at Slithis.
He nodded, and she pulled it down.
"Whoah," said Bonnie. "I *do* remember you!"
"You should," Rumi answered, "I mean--"
"I never understood what you saw in my brother," Bonnie went on. "I thought maybe you had a concussion too many when you were out superguyin' with him."
"If only I could blame it on that," Rumi grumped.
Stashe made a hissing, weaselly laugh.
"But now I know why you were so rough with me flying," said Bonnie. "You never did like me."
"You were always spying on us," Rumi reminded her.
"Oh." Bonnie thought about it. "Yeah, I can see that now. Sorry about that."
"What did you mean, 'agreed,'" said Tanzel, in an attempt to re-center the conversation.
"When she's in front of T'Shamka, the Judge, who Hears All We Say, As You Well Know, So Shut It," Slithis said, "she will answer that question, and any others we have. Now, let's go."
He eyed Rumi, his pupils tightening into thin lines.
"Keep your lasers pressed up against Bonnie," he instructed. "This one won't use her psychokinetics so long as we hold her."
Bonnie looked at Rumi, and didn't seem happy when Rumi gave her a defeated nod. Bonnie started walking in the direction Tanzel and Stashe prodded her, looking as if she was furiously reconsidering her decision to come out to the Charnel House, and every life decision that had led up to that decision as well. Rumi couldn't blame her.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked Slithis, as the Reptiloid gestured with his rifle for her to follow. "What *happened* to you?"
Slithis's pupils widened briefly before returning to being tight and thin.
"The Knowing of the Glorious Truth of the Seven Engines happened to me," he said, at last. Rumi could hear the capitalization. "The Knowing of the Truth of Reptilos's Ascendance happened to me... just as they will happen to this entire galaxy. Now move."
Rumi moved. Slithis followed.
Her whole intent with concealing her identity behind a mask named 'Psywave,' she sullenly reflected, had been to keep the Scaled Order from seeing her coming until it was too late. But thanks to Slithis, who she'd once counted as a trusted friend... 'too late' had just arrived.
The 'ping' returned.
El Guerrero de los Pantalones pulled up as soon as he was through the entrance to the Path. A pulse from Los Pantalones re-established (in the readings hovering in the periphery of his vision, shown to him by the interface integrated into his bronze-gold mask) the dimensions of the first chamber at once--roughly seventy square meters in area, shaped like a batwing that flared off into multiple smaller passages... and thick with what the first time he'd thought was dust.
It hadn't taken Esteban long to realize it was particles of something else.
Bones lined the pathways below. Any kind one might care to name, and more than a few that his on-board systems couldn't quite place because they were too strangely shaped, too impossibly big, or just too implausibly moving about and pretending to be warriors. The last kind, at least, were no longer present, though Esteban was sure the cutlass-wielding skeleton warriors had not gone far.
The Path of Bone had turned out to be a path of a lot of bones, and bits of bones, leading through jagged heaps of bones. Some of the bones belonged to large flightless birds, or wolves, or horses, or massively-antlered creatures that might have been moose if the weren't so huge. Some could have belonged to dinosaurs. Many appeared to have belonged to humans.
Cendra, who had read Richard Cartier's journal entries about his descent on the Path of Bone to the Charnel House over a century-and-a-quarter before, had warned him and the others. Cartier, the occult detective known then as the Dweller in the Shades, had not had much opportunity to investigate during his foray, but had said theirs was a particularly potent and malignant magic. He had not explained what he meant, other than to warn that going beyond the initial chamber meant an inevitable descent to the Charnel House, and whatever waited there.
Esteban forced his attention back to the cavern. The others had gone on ahead, though he belatedly realized they had not all taken the same passageways into the interior. Camila's surprise flight into the Path had upset everyone's plans, and what might have been a disciplined incursion had turned into a mad rush. Deliberately, he updated his on-board maps, and focused on the source of the 'ping.'
*Coco?* he sent a thought-word into the nectarisitic reaches. *That you?*
As he waited for a response, a sound from below reached his sensors. China Moroboshi had come through the gate, only to face--
Something crashed into his battle trousers, while simultaneously wrapping around his head. Alarms went off in his internal interface. The tentacles that had tried to attach themselves to Los Pantalones were repulsed with a costly burst of nectarisitic energy. With a quick reverse and flip maneuver, he slipped free of the attack on his head, only to see...
"Programmer!" Esteban yelled.
"*The!*" responded the top-half-of-an-oversized-bronze-and-gold-armored-suit-wearing person who'd attacked him. The menacingly awkward yet awkwardly menacing fusion of rococo-ornamented upper torso musculature and dangling unprotected (though now thankfully jeans-wearing) legs jetted by him, nectarisite tentacles zipping back into his chestplate. "Only not anymore! Call me El Esbirro del Traje!"
El Esbirro's tentacles lashed out again, this time aimed at Los Pantalones. Alarmed, Esteban focused on Los Pantalones' defenses, raising an energy surge that repelled the attack and made his thighs tingle in disturbing ways.
"So, El Guerrero!" called El Esbirro, as he hovered into view. The tentacles snapped back into El Esbirro's chestplate, giving Esteban a view of the face otherwise mostly hidden by the helmet.
"Hello, Pr... ah... Esbirro del Traje," Esteban answered. "I was worried--"
"*El*!" El Esbirro yelled. "*El* Esbirro del Traje! I mean, would you like it if people just called you 'Guerrero?'"
Esteban read the rising energy in El Esbirro's suit, and knew he was preparing for another attack. Momentarily, he wished Coco was with him, as the bronze-gold bonobo normally handled the minutiae of operating Los Pantalones so he could focus solely on the business at hand.
"I'm lucky some days if they stick to that," said Esteban. "Who let you out of your cage, anyway? Last I saw, you got taken by the new Dweller and her monkeys."
"Rescued, it turns out," the former The Programmer answered as they circled one another in the particulate-rich air. "They thought I'd gone rogue, but when they heard what I was doing and who was giving me my orders, they OH MY GOD IS THAT CHAPPELL ROAN???"
Esteban was a fraction of a moment too late to keep his scanning systems from looking for Chappell Roan, who proved to not be detectably present in the bone-filled cavern. Two small missiles shot out of the nipple-regions of El Esbirro's suit, striking Esteban before he could intensify his energy defenses. He spun as he flew back, smashing through a pile of ancient-looking bones before striking the cavern wall.
El Guerrero snarled and spit out a mouthful of what he hoped was just spit. After making a note to ask Coco next chance he got just *why* he had included in Los Pantalones a voice-activated subroutine to specifically scan for Chappell Roan, he blasted forward, swooping under the nectarisite tentacles El Esbirro had followed up his missile attack with and striking his helmet with an armored foot.
"AyyyyiiiiiiiiiIIIII!" El Esbirro yelled, as he cartwheeled into a group of recently-arrived skeleton warriors, who quickly were reduced to a pile of skeleton warrior bits. China Moroboshi, who had been menaced by them, gave him a quick wave as she plunged through the farthest and thinnest of the downward-leading passages.
Again, the 'ping' reached him. Cautiously, keeping the monitoring systems of Los Pantalones focused on the still-recovering El Esbirro, Esteban reached out to it's source.
*--come in, Esteban! Urgent!* a voice at once boyish and Robert Goulet-like echoed between his ears.
*Where are you, Coco?* Esteban sent.
*Still on Agent Lemon Rydell's scalp,* Coco reported. A small window featuring the bronze-gold bonobo's face appeared in the upper left of Esteban's field of vision. *He and his team are tracking Adam Seaborn and a group of dodos who are escorting ki Kazza Malissk through the *Path of Bone.* They are close to the Charnel House... oh, my, Este, you have to see this!*
Before Esteban could ask what 'this' was, or opine on if he really wanted to see it at the moment, a larger window opened before his eyes, temporarily obscuring El Esbirro. Light played across a row of extremely colorful and complicated designs, a riot of styles and designs that grew chilling when Esteban realized they were painted onto skulls.
Skulls that were flying about in the air, presumably directly in front of Coco. Which meant they were directly in front of Lemon. *Why* they were zipping about in front of him wasn't so clear, but judging from how quickly Lemon was looking from side-to-side and top-to-bottom, it seemed they were doing an effective job of keeping him from moving forward.
"Apples reported skeleton warriors were fighting in and around here," said Esteban. "Hell, I just saw a group get demolished. Are these--"
"Negative," Coco replied. "We encountered and evaded them. Este..."
Esteban heard the hesitation in the bonobo's voice.
"These are *children's* skulls."
Esteban gaped. The video of flying skulls Coco was transmitting wavered.
"Say again..." he told Coco without much conviction.
*All the painted skulls appear to be those of human children,* Coco said, *approximately nine-to-eleven years of age. I have noted many similaritiesssSSZZZZHHHRRZZZZZZ--*
Coco's voice abruptly stopped, as did the video he was projecting. Esteban looked down at El Esbirro, who had gotten to his feet but was still wobbling about some. If it hadn't been him cutting off the signal, then who--?
*Oh, Guerrero,* a new, more feminine voice said in his head. *When planting spies, you really need to check some aren't getting planted on you.*
The orderly set of monitor windows and control icons that hovered in Esteban's perceptions spun wildly out of control at that moment. Esteban's immediate reaction, to thrust against the direction he thought he was spinning, sent him into another pile of bones and the floor beyond. Before he could re-establish control, he shot up in the air and smacked the cavern ceiling.
*I have him, El Esbirro,* said the voice. *He is... fighting back. Contact... the Dweller!*
*Already done, Letha,* answered El Esbirro, who was no longer staggering. *Just hold on... there!*
Letha, thought Esteban, his mind flashing on his brief fight with El Esbirro that afternoon on the historic Ventura Beach pier--
"Venice Beach," Esteban interrupted.
*What?* El Esbirro asked.
"The author apparently can't keep 'Venice' and 'Ventura' straight in his head," Esteban went on, as he mentally tried to retake control of Los Pantalones. Even had the narrator say I used to be part of the Ventura Vengers, instead of the Venice Vengers."
[Esteban, El Esbirro, and what skeleton warriors were in the vicnity all paused and gave a sour look through the fourth wall at you, the reader.]
"Hey!" Esteban yelled. "Is that Chappell Roan?"
As Letha struggled to keep Esteban's battle pants from again scanning for the tragically absent singer, Esteban mentally triggered the countermeasures he and Coco had laid in to the security systems of Los Pantalones as a last resort for taking control back from an interloper.
A thumping disco beat caused Los Pantalones to shake. Several nearby piles of bones shifted as the merciless music disrupted their resting places. Nectarisitic energy flushed through both Los Pantalones and El Guerrero from head to toe, making his nerves crackle and his heart thunder.
Not even gonna talk about what it did to his spleen.
The bronze-gold macaque who'd introduced herself as Letha was there, microscopically-sized, on his scalp. Esteban thought of Lemon's hand, how it had caressed the back of his head during their kiss in Bonnie's bookstore early that evening. He'd been so focused on getting the micro-sized Coco onto Lemon that he hadn't even *thought* to check...
But wait, he thought to himself. Had Lemon done it deliberately, or had Letha been planted on *him,* only to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity?
He bound micro-Letha in a web of nectarisitic energy, cutting her off from his pants. Abruptly, the chaos in his vision ceased, and he could see the cavernous Path of Bone once more.
Esteban wanted to believe Letha had played Lemon, but felt, deep in his gut, that she hadn't. Lemon had known what he was doing, there in the bookstore. Somehow, no matter what, he always knew.
And if Letha was working with Lemon, that meant...
"Oh, no," Esteban said, as the realization descended upon him.
He took off into the air, increasing velocity as he aimed for the passage he remembered Miguel, Cendra, and the pack going through.
Before he could reach it, a black, swirling circle opened up before him. Unable to stop in time, he plunged through--
--and was suddenly in a red-green-and-orange-lit chamber that seemed to go on forever, surrounding a surprisingly modest-looking church-like structure in the center. Even as he tried to focus on it, to drink in details, it shifted before his eyes, gaining and losing towers and ornamentation. He looked away, trying to find the ground...
...and cried out when he fell away from Los Pantalones.
So dumbfounded was he that he fell for three seconds before remembering to helplessly flail. The floor of the cavern rushed up to greet him as he covered his face.
A few more seconds passed before Esteban realized he had not suddenly pancaked on the bone-strewn floor. Indeed, he was hovering nearly half a foot above it.
"We have him," said someone with a smoke-roughened contralto voice. "Track Los Pantalones, bring them to the encampment when they come down."
Esteban felt himself being rotated in mid-air, so that he was looking up.
The being he looked up at was barely discernible in the particle-rich, freshness-poor air. Esteban spotted a black-and-red symbol on her face mask... and realized who he'd been captured by.
"Dweller... in the Shades," he managed to say, as she pulled away his nectarisite-infused mask.
"Guerrero," the Dweller said. "Come. The Director will be pleased to see you."
"Cartier's... here?"
The Dweller in the Shades didn't answer. As El Esbirro del Traje flew through the black teleportation circle she'd conjured, and he felt himself lift from the ground alongside her heading in the same direction, Esteban felt his consciousness fading.
"El," he said, before passing out. "*El* Guerrero."
***
There was no end to the piles of bones, Rumiko Moroboshi-aka Psywave--thought. Great ragged stacks of them extended to the dark-shrouded ceiling of the offshoot chamber she and Bonnie were in. There were paths through them, winding circuitously toward... toward what?
Cendra had said all paths eventually led to the Charnel House, in the hours between when it rose and the Hour of the Wolf (or, roughly 3 a.m., local time). She had also said there was a nigh-impenetrable barrier closely surrounding the Charnel House at the center, one that could only be passed by either succeeding at a fiendishly difficult task that had, sadly, not been described by the entry in the recently unlost second volume of the Journals of Richard Cartier she'd read, or by making some kind of unimaginable cosmic sound, also undetailed.
Worry about that when we get there, she thought. For now, as there were potential enemies around every bone pile they navigated, it was best to concentrate and stay silent...
"Why won't you guide me *now,* you stupid tractor part!" Bonnie yelled at the Damn Thing, which she held before her like a dowsing rod.
...or as silent as possible, which at the moment seemed to be 'not at all.'
"Quiet," Rumi hissed. "You want to run into more skeleton warriors?"
"Pssh," said Bonnie. "Psywave, you remember what Cendra said Cartier wrote. 'Skeleton warriors just happen.' Like they just spontaneously fly back together out of these piles, pick up some weaponry that just happens to be lying about, and have a go at whoever's dumb enough to walk the *Path of Bone.* They're en-bee-dee." She whacked the grooved part of the Damn Thing. "Wake up in there!"
The Damn Thing... or whatever was manipulating it... had virtually pulled them along, from the _Subtler Than Light_ in Venice to the gate at Point Fermin, and literally pulled them along through several chambers, once they'd passed through the gate and were on the Path. Then, abruptly, it had lost whatever animating force had been making it move.
"I remember Dr. Gigawatt talking about what what we know of the Damn Thing's history," said Rumi. "Wasn't it a prison for some kind of psychotronic mental energy villain at one point? Ahhh... Gorgax, his name was?"
"Maybe," Bonnie replied. "He never said Gorgax could make it move around, though. Seemed surprised as we were, earlier. Plus... whatever's in there, I'm not getting a vibe of 'crazy villainous energy dude.' So... now what?"
'Now what' was a good question. The way things were going, the only way they were ever going to get out alive, never mind save Galaxy Hunter by getting the Damn Thing to her, was if she just spontaneously burst out of one of the piles of bones, and what were the odds of *that* happening?
She waited. Hunter failed to spontaneously burst out of anything.
"Worth a try," she muttered.
"Hey!" a voice called, from somewhere in front of them. "Who's there?"
"Shhh," Psywave said, motioning for Bonnie to stay put while she glided ahead, psychokinetic shields at the ready. "This could be a trap..."
She rounded a bone pile, and saw that it was... but not for her.
"Um, hi," said Moon Moon, from where he was suspended, ten feet above the cavern floor. "I was trying to get this, 'cause I always wanted a tooth, but... can you get me down?"
Rumi considered the muscle-bound werewolf, who hung from the lower jaw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull, his t-shirt snagged on one of the teeth he'd evidently been trying to acquire. He held another tooth, nearly as long as he was tall, and grinned.
She flew up to his level and reached out with her psychokinetic field. Moon Moon was a heavy-if good-boy, but not so much she couldn't lift him up a bit. In her mind's eye, the energy she projected was a wave that reached from her body to his, wrapping around it in a moment. Moon Moon's eyes grew wide, and his grin grew broader as he felt the unseen energy grip him firmly, lift him up, move him a bit away from the precarious position of the dinosaur skull, and then lower him to the ground. She descended as well.
"Thanks... uh... Psywave," said Moon Moon. "I was gnawing on a femur from a skeleton warrior I chased and lost track of where I was going. You ladies all right?"
"We're okay," said Bonnie, even as she glared at the superguy she didn't know was named Rumi. "And *someone* could've transported me *that* way coming out here."
"My control's not so great on high-speed flights," Rumi told her, biting back exasperation. "I can fly fast or psychokinetically carry a load, but not both."
"Ha," said Moon Moon. "She called you a load."
"She can call me whatever she wants," Bonnie answered, returning her attention to the Damn Thing, "so long as she gets me to Galaxy Hun--"
There was no warning. Three armored forms emerged from passages between the surrounding bone piles... but they weren't skeletons. Nor were those cutlasses they were carrying. One was behind Bonnie and aiming at her back before Rumi could blink.
"Nobody move," said the armor-wearing Reptiloid who had the drop on Bonnie, as their laser-rifle emitted a high-pitched, 'ready to burn a hole through whatever's in front' sound. "Tanzel, Stashe, cover them."
Two more armored Reptiloids stepped out of the shadows, though it was not yet clear which was Tanzel and which was Stashe. Their aimed rifles also made 'at the ready' sounds.
"You were right, Slith," said one of them. Rumi decided to call that one Stashe, as they had a weaselly kind of hiss to their voice, a 'Stashe' voice if she ever heard one. "They actually brought the Damn Thing with them. After you said they would, a-aaaaan' T'Shamka said there was no way even the humans'd be that cra-zeeee, an' you said you'd show her, and she said if they did she'd make you the deputy leader of the Order, like there was no way..."
'Slith,' Rumi thought. Did that mean...?
Before she could think of what that meant, she shut down the thought. Even with the anti-telepathy shields that had been integrated into her brain starting at a young age, she felt she didn't dare pursue it any farther. The strange, in-between place they were in now didn't follow all the rules from the outside world, that much was clear. And there were thoughts she didn't yet dare think too loudly.
Time to clamp down, like the Hunter Corps had taught.
"Slithis?" asked Bonnie, who, Rumi thought, if she had any kind of mental clamp, had probably let it fall apart from lack of use. "That is you in there, right? The hell you doing?"
The lead Reptiloid regarded Bonnie for a few seconds, then tapped his helmet. The faceplate glass retracted, and the helmet itself seemed to melt into the rest of the suit. Rumi instantly recognized the shifting multi-colors of Slithis's scales, the result of crossing over from one altiverse into another and passing through a large body of powerful, free-floating magic--temporarily lost by Shadebeam, who'd also crossed over--in the process.
She didn't recognize the look in his golden, vertical-pupiled eyes. Slithis had been through a lot over the years, even before he left 001SFSTORY and become a permanent resident of 000SUPERGUY and Shadebeam's husband, but he had never been this... intense. It felt as though someone else was looking out through his eyes... someone evaluating and judging them, even as she evaluated and judged.
"I'm serving our Hierarch," said Slithis, sounding flatter than Rumi ever remembered hearing him before. Bonnie, who Rumi knew probably had much more day-to-day experience with Slithis, having grown up in Malaga practically next door to him and Shadebeam, looked similarly puzzled. "T'Shamka, the Wise. T'Shamka, the Ascendant. T'Shamka, the..."
"...Expecting Us Right Now," said the third Reptiloid, who Rumi mentally assigned the name Tanzel, as it was the only one left. "So burn these two, take the Thing, and let's get--"
"Who did T'Shamka the *Wise* assign to lead this mission?" Slithis asked, his voice only rising when he emphasized 'wise.'
"Heh," heh'd Stashe. "You, Slith. You! HehHEHheh."
"So who gives the orders?"
Tanzel gave Stashe a cold look, and Slithis an even colder one, before answering.
"You... Aspirant Slithis."
"We will bring them with us," said Slithis, hefting his rifle. "The Damn Thing has chosen this... Bonnie... as T'Shamka foresaw."
"She what now?" Bonnie asked, even as she shifted to hold the Damn Thing between her and Slithis.
"And T'Shamka will want to question this one," Slithis went on, gesturing at Rumi, "to find out how she escaped the collapse of our Order's temple on Reptilos."
Rumi snarled, raising her arms as she gathered her psychokinetic energy...
...and stopped when both Stashe and Tanzel aimed their laser rifles directly at Bonnie.
"Slithis... damn it, no one's supposed to *know* that," Rumi growled. "We *agreed*..."
"What's he talking about?" Bonnie asked, looking at Rumi now with the same confusion she'd earlier directed at Slithis.
"I'd kinda like to know that," said Tanzel, directing a suspicious look at Slithis.
"This isn't just any superguy," Slithis told them, even as he leveled his rifle at Rumi. "She's the Galaxy Hunter that nearly ruined our plans on Reptilos... Rumi Moroboshi."
"Dammit, Slithis!" Rumi yelled.
"Rumi?" Bonnie asked. "I remember you... what the hell?"
Rumi sighed, then gestured at her facemask. "May I?" she asked, looking at Slithis.
He nodded, and she pulled it down.
"Whoah," said Bonnie. "I *do* remember you!"
"You should," Rumi answered, "I mean--"
"I never understood what you saw in my brother," Bonnie went on. "I thought maybe you had a concussion too many when you were out superguyin' with him."
"If only I could blame it on that," Rumi grumped.
Stashe made a hissing, weaselly laugh.
"But now I know why you were so rough with me flying," said Bonnie. "You never did like me."
"You were always spying on us," Rumi reminded her.
"Oh." Bonnie thought about it. "Yeah, I can see that now. Sorry about that."
"What did you mean, 'agreed,'" said Tanzel, in an attempt to re-center the conversation.
"When she's in front of T'Shamka, the Judge, who Hears All We Say, As You Well Know, So Shut It," Slithis said, "she will answer that question, and any others we have. Now, let's go."
He eyed Rumi, his pupils tightening into thin lines.
"Keep your lasers pressed up against Bonnie," he instructed. "This one won't use her psychokinetics so long as we hold her."
Bonnie looked at Rumi, and didn't seem happy when Rumi gave her a defeated nod. Bonnie started walking in the direction Tanzel and Stashe prodded her, looking as if she was furiously reconsidering her decision to come out to the Charnel House, and every life decision that had led up to that decision as well. Rumi couldn't blame her.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked Slithis, as the Reptiloid gestured with his rifle for her to follow. "What *happened* to you?"
Slithis's pupils widened briefly before returning to being tight and thin.
"The Knowing of the Glorious Truth of the Seven Engines happened to me," he said, at last. Rumi could hear the capitalization. "The Knowing of the Truth of Reptilos's Ascendance happened to me... just as they will happen to this entire galaxy. Now move."
Rumi moved. Slithis followed.
Her whole intent with concealing her identity behind a mask named 'Psywave,' she sullenly reflected, had been to keep the Scaled Order from seeing her coming until it was too late. But thanks to Slithis, who she'd once counted as a trusted friend... 'too late' had just arrived.
(concluded in part three, following...)
--
Subtler Than Light #8 (c) 2025 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory
Subtler Than Light #8 (c) 2025 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory