Through The Looking Glass: Part Three

by Alicia McKenzie

Nathan continued to wander aimlessly through the maze. Time passed; how much, he wasn't sure, but it felt like forever. He had no sense that he was making any progress--oath, for all he knew, he was going in circle. There didn't seem to be anything here besides the hedges that made up the walls.

Well, there was the occasional rock. He didn't pay too much attention to them, though, because none of them were singing.

Yet.

The headache had ebbed back to something approaching a manageable level. Maybe it was stress, Nathan thought a little wildly. Really, he could see the connection. Familiar people didn't just--morph into strange creatures. Inanimate objects didn't talk. Really banal lyrics were NOT a good way to get one's point across, contrary to what everything he saw here seemed to believe. So, the more weirdness he encountered, the more it offended his basic sense of rightness.

Yeah, that was it. This was all about a fundamental conflict with the fact that someone had slipped reality a hallucinogenic drug or six.

It would be easier to convince himself that there was nothing to all of this if it wasn't so--real, on a psychological level. He'd always had a keen eye for symbology, but even if he hadn't, this place was basically shoving it in his face. This business with the evil Old Guy and the King who'd sacrificed himself--the King who wasn't dead, just sleeping--

Nathan gave a tiny, cracked laugh, and walked around a corner. "Here's to wishful thinking," he muttered.

Looking up, he froze, surprised. He'd expected yet another long green corridor, but there was actually a break in the maze here, a clearing of sorts, big enough to hold a small cottage with a thatched roof. For a moment, Nathan was dizzied by the double-image of the cottage in front of him and a remembered flash of the same image, on--the front of a postcard?

The second image vanished as quickly as it had come. Nathan took a deep, unsteady breath. A memory of a picture that matched what he was seeing--well, that supported the hallucination theory. He supposed it really did make the most sense. It was just that he had such a hard time believing that he had enough of an imagination to conjure up singing Creed-cats, Bishop's face on a stone door, or any of this.

There was a garden in front of the cottage. A typical English country garden, full of flowers and plants of all different sorts, all growing together. You could have walked around the edges and picked one hell of a mixed bouquet in just a few minutes.

Except English country gardens--plants, in general, didn't tend to be made out of techno-organics. Nathan stayed right where he was, staring rather wide-eyed at the garden as the taller plants swayed slightly in the soft breeze.

A T-O garden. And it looked like his T-O, too, silvery instead of the black and yellow of the Phalanx. Each plant, each flower was perfect in every detail except that. Almost fearfully, Nathan glanced down at himself, half-expecting to see the virus reacting to the garden's proximity. None of his previous experiences with other sources of techno-organics had been particularly pleasant, in the end.

But his own infection seemed to be stable. He didn't even feel it pushing more than usual against his telekinetic control. Still rattled, far from reassured, Nathan turned his attention back to the garden just in time to see what looked like bumblebees flying in formation, coming down out of the blue, blue sky to hover over the garden.

And they were pissed.

"You're in for it now!" one of them snarled in a tiny bumblebee voice. "I brought friends!"

A tall silver gladiola wobbled with laughter. "Oh, good," it said snidely. "More entertainment. Come on down. It's been such a boring day."

Nathan started to wonder how all the plants around here talked. After all, they didn't have mouths. Telepathy, maybe? Telepathic plants? The thought was briefly amusing, in a terrifying sort of way.

"We're tired of you terrorizing us!" another bumblebee shouted.

More laughter, from all over the garden this time. "Maybe you should find another garden, then," a cluster of what might have been violets suggested, almost demurely.

"Somewhere else to do that thing you do," some sort of fern put in slyly.

The bumblebees spiraled upwards, buzzingly angrily, and started to sing. In three-part harmony, Nathan noted faintly.

"You're not real flowers, evil things!
You didn't really grow!
Your creator is a foolish man
he'll reap what he chose to sow!"

The flowers were still snickering. They really did seem far too amused by all of this, Nathan thought. Techno-organic flowers with a nasty sense of humor. Wasn't that nifty.

They were singing back at the bees now, their voices gone curiously atonal. For some reason, it sounded--familiar. Listening shredded at Nathan's nerves and left him wanting to do nothing more than turn around and get the hell out of here.

The garden broke out in laughter again. "Take that!" a small bush of some sort roared up at the bees. "Miserable insects!"

"Yeah!" a snapdragon shrieked maliciously. "Who's the man, bees? Eh? Who's the man?"

One of the bumblebees flew in a circle around the other. "We need to regroup!" it insisted.

"Live to fight another day," another suggested.

Yet another didn't seem to like that idea. "I want to pollinate, damn it!" it squealed. "What's so wrong with that?"

The bumblebees continued to buzz at each other in distress for a minute or so, and then returned to formation and headed off, shrieking threats at the plants until they were out of sight. Nathan watched them go, assuming that the showdown had been postponed for now. Good for them. Epic battles rarely turned out the way you wanted them to--

The pain behind his eyes swelled warningly, and Nathan gritted his teeth, willing it to go away. He moved a little closer to the garden, cautiously, and saw what looked like techno-organic bees, caught between leaves or sitting on stalks. None of them were moving. Dead bees. Poor dead T-Oed bees.

I'm slipping again. "Anyone home?" he called, looking up at the cottage. The plants were resolutely silent. He was beneath their notice, he supposed. That was nice. He didn't really feel up to conversation with them at the moment, anyway. Something told him it wouldn't be pleasant.

There was no answer to his call for a moment. Just when he was about to turn and walk away, the door to the cottage opened, and Blaquesmith stepped out, peering at Nathan inquisitively.

The shock was just about enough to knock him on his rear, but Nathan managed to limit himself to a bit of a sway, quickly enough corrected. Blaquesmith, his mind gibbered at him. Blaquesmith is here.

He thought about it for a minute, and realized it made sense. Of course Blaquesmith was here. If he was hallucinating all of this, weaving all the reasons he had to be a Less Than Happy Person into one particularly whacked-out situation, Blaquesmith HAD to be here.

"Hello, there," Blaquesmith said, leaning heavily on a carved wooden staff. "Pleasant afternoon, isn't it?"

Nathan regarded him cautiously. Nothing and no one had been acting predictably so far. Blaquesmith being unpredictable was a scary thought.

"I--suppose," he finally temporized. Blaquesmith tilted his head at him, a faint smile playing on his insectoid face, and Nathan nearly cringed. "Look," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. Turning around and running wasn't an option. "I'm--not entirely sure what I'm doing here. I think I need--"

"Assistance?" Blaquesmith actually beamed at him. "Well, you've come to the right place." He took a deep breath, and launched into song.

Nathan wondered if anyone would really mind if he sat down and cried for a little while. "That's--nice," he said faintly. Blaquesmith. Blaquesmith singing. *I need a drink.*

Blaquesmith kept smiling at him. It really was rather unnerving. "Why don't you come in?" he said amiably. "We can sit down and have some tea."

Tea. Right. Miserably, Nathan started to look around for a path through the garden, not knowing what else to do. It was instinct. Blaquesmith said jump, and he did. Even after all this time, all this effort to break the pattern, it was an ingrained response. He hated it. And he hated him. Hated him and needed him, because look at what he'd done, trying to fight on his own--

"Right through there," Blaquesmith said, indicating what Nathan saw, when he got there, was indeed a narrow pathway through the techno-organic garden. Very narrow. The plants swayed on either side of it, almost as if they were beckoning him forward, and Nathan flinched.

Just plants, he told himself, and stepped out onto the path. He wasn't going to wander out into the middle of the garden or anything. It wasn't that far. He'd be at the cottage door before he knew it--

Something wrapped around his ankles and pulled. Before he could react, he was falling, toppling helplessly into the garden. The plants reached out for him, laughing.

Blaquesmith was laughing, too, brittle mocking laughter. "You were always so easily led," he called out. "Gullible as a child, boy--"

Something twisted in his chest, but he didn't have time to analyse what it was. The plants were wrapping themselves around him, squeezing tighter and tighter.

A thunderous noise drowned out the laughter, a noise that sounded as if the sky itself had cracked. Like a--sonic boom, Nathan thought faintly, his vision going dark around the edges as the plants closed so tightly around his ribs that he couldn't breathe at all.

Something slammed into him, and the plants screamed. "Gotcha!" he heard a familiar voice shout, ripping him free of their grasp.

Nathan realized that they were airborne, a split-second before he passed out.

to be continued...

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