Flux Wanderrift's Arc

Chapter 2 of 18

The vault was sealed, and Flux still needed a way out. The pendant hummed in their fist, its map of the council's hidden fold glowing under the runes. Red alarm light swept the shelves. The jester scrambled up Flux's arm, all three eyes wide, and jabbed a claw at a low corner beyond the shelving. Flux followed the point. A portal hung there, thin as a soap film. It flickered, went dark, then flared again. The jester chattered fast and shook its head hard. Flux knew that warning. The seam was open, but unstable. Step through and it might close on them, or spit them into some dead, airless world like the ones that had killed two friends they knew. "We can't jump blind," Flux said. "We need to steady it." The jester tugged toward the shelves. Flux ran a hand along the smart racks that lined the wall. The shelves clicked and shifted on their own, sorting cases with cold precision. Every item the council feared sat locked behind glass. A carnivorous plant with spiral-painted leaves snapped at its case. Beside it, a cheerful many-headed creature offered bug-shaped cookies from a dozen grinning faces, its roots trailing off into nothing. Roots that trailed off into nothing. Flux stopped. That creature's roots ran through unseen dimensions. It lived across seams for a living. Flux smashed the glass. The alarm screamed louder. The many-headed creature tumbled free, faces laughing, roots spilling in every direction. Flux grabbed it and hauled it toward the flickering portal. "Reach through," Flux begged. "Hold it open." The roots understood. They snaked into the flickering seam and gripped its edges. The portal steadied and stopped blinking. But its color changed. It had been pale blue. Now it churned dark red, wrong, the shade of somewhere Flux had never planned to go. The jester swore and covered two eyes. A face formed in the portal's red light. Not a real face, but a swarm of tiny black fleas, packed into eyes and a grinning mouth. It mirrored Flux's own expression back at them, then split into a wider, meaner smile. A thread of flame licked from its jaws. Flux had no time to pick a better door. The shelves behind them locked shut with a final clang. Only this seam remained open, held by tangled roots, guarded by a swarm that wore Flux's face. "You want weird," Flux told the flea-thing. "I brought weird." Flux clutched the pendant, grabbed the many-headed creature, and pulled the jester close. Then they stepped into the red portal. The vault vanished. Flux was out, and free, and falling through somewhere new. The council's map still glowed in their fist. But the swarm followed them through, laughing with Flux's own laugh, and the roots that held the seam open now trailed behind them into a dimension Flux could not name.