Flex Ironthews's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Flex sat against the old oak and pressed a rag to his side. The wound still leaked, warm and slow. His palms burned where the rock had torn them. He could not climb again like this. Worse, he still had no way past the many-eyed beast. He rested and watched the mountain, waiting for the bleeding to stop. Ink creatures spilled down the lower slope. Rabbits drawn in black brushstrokes hopped over stones. Then a wolf pack came, all sharp black lines and flowing tails. They chased the rabbits across the fog. Flex watched a wolf close its jaws on a rabbit. The rabbit burst into a splash of ink and dropped to the ground. The wet mark faded into nothing. He laughed once, then winced. Painted death for painted prey. It meant nothing to him. He tightened the rag and got ready to limp home. But something stopped him. The wolves kept running, then thinned. Their black shapes went pale, like water poured into ink. One by one they faded and vanished. The slope went empty. Flex counted his own breaths in the quiet. Twenty. Thirty. Then new wolves came trotting down from the higher mist, fresh and dark, and began the hunt again. He leaned forward, pain forgotten. He watched three more times. Each pack ran, hunted, then faded after the same short stretch. New ones always came down after. The creatures could not stay off their pages long. They left their scrolls, roamed, and something pulled them back. If they waited too far from the paper, they simply ended. Flex sat still and put it together. The beast on the ledge never followed him past its alcove. It stayed with its mist and its scrolls. He had thought the monster too proud to chase. He had been wrong. It could not leave. It was bound to its pages, same as the wolves, same as the rabbits. He did not need to beat those many eyes. He did not need a blade that could cut scale. He needed to draw the beast out. If he could lure it far enough from its alcove, it would fade like the wolves. Then the scroll behind it would sit unguarded. Flex studied the fading ink until he was sure. A dark rabbit hopped near his boot, calm and slow. He reached down. His fingers passed through cool, wet lines, and the rabbit smeared and reformed. He could not carry these creatures. But he could carry the idea. He pushed himself up against the oak. The bleeding had crusted at last. He tested his legs and found them steady enough. The mountain was no longer a wall he could not pass. It was a bound thing with a rule, and he had learned the rule. He fixed his eyes on the high mist and started planning the climb that would end with the beast far from its home.