Chapter 4: Chapter 4 – KNIGHT

The reality of it slammed down, leaving my knees shaking. This was no hallucination. This was not the kind of problem I could just box away in my head and worry about later. This was a real place, and it had opened up and swallowed me for a second time.

No time for panic attacks, I reprimanded myself. I had to focus on getting out of here before the monsters found me again.

More than that, I had to figure out what was going on. My weird new sense had definitely come from this place, and if I figured out why, maybe I could figure out how to never end up here again.

I stretched my senses out again and felt a humming stillness, darkness pressing into the corners of the empty streets. No sign of demons. Everything was dark and grey and quiet. I started to walk.

I used my sense to give me constant feedback of my surroundings. The sense pushed a few feet down each alleyway I passed, and I soon got an idea of just how labyrinthine this place was. Seen from above, it must look like an anthill.

Movement, at the other end of the road. I froze. Was it better to stay still, or try to hide?

I chose to stay where I was and a shadow drifted from the fog around it, head raised to the air. A demon, all right—it looked just like the one that had tried to jump Huang outside the sanctuary. It was bat-like, walking on its strange, long wings like an ape walks on its knuckles. Its head was oddly human-shaped and ringed with long spikes. It lowered its nose to the ground and started to move back and forth… sniffing.

I started to move, ever so slowly, into the nearest alleyway. My sense told me that the alley would continue straight and then take a hard right. I pushed it further. After the right it straightened and emerged between two buildings on the other side of the street. From there—

And just like that, the sense was gone. I bit my tongue in frustration as the world suddenly shrunk around me, reduced back to sight and sound. Damn it—this was not the time! It wasn’t like I wanted weird radar powers, but why did they disappear the moment they were actually useful? I should have known better than to trust that sense at all.

The bat was still moving slowly; it hadn’t sniffed me out yet. With no other choice, I backed further into the alley.

Just as I retreated out of sight, the bat gave a sudden shriek. I flinched and got ready to run, but a flash of light overhead made me stop. It wasn’t me the bat was screaming at—it was the giant feathered dragon shining like a light bulb as it flew overhead. Huang was back. He circled, then swooped down toward the demon.

I continued backing along the alleyway as the sounds of their fight carried, then turned and started to jog away. Behind me there was a final hoarse shriek, then silence.

I didn’t get far before the shining dragon overtook me, soaring above my alleyway. It landed delicately on one of the buildings, then hopped down in front of me, just able to fit. The giant creature dwindled and faded until Joshua Huang, the human, was standing there.

I crossed my arms tightly. “What are you?”

He looked nervous, his hands bunched at his sides. “I’m… okay, I don’t know if you’re going to believe me. But I’m just human.”

“That’s not human,” I objected. “Humans can’t turn into giant shiny gargoyles where I’m from.”

“’Shiny gargoyle’ isn’t how I’d describe that form,” Huang frowned.

“Tell me the truth,” I demanded, ready to run if he tried anything.

“I am, I swear.” He held up his hands. “Listen, I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d freak out, or you wouldn’t believe me or something. And I thought it could have been a fluke you got in here, that maybe you wouldn’t have to come back.”

“Well, clearly I’m not that lucky,” I grumbled.

“No,” he agreed. “Listen. This place… it brings me here for a reason. It brings me in to kill the demons. And to let me do that, it gave me that form you saw, the…” he made a face, “Gargoyle.”

I’ve never been great at reading people, but Huang’s expression was earnest. “I… It’s just a lot to accept,” I said. “With basically nothing else to go on.”

“I’m human,” he repeated. “You have to believe that at least.”

“I don’t think I have to believe anything.” Maybe aggravating the dragon boy wasn’t smart, but hell, why start making smart decisions this late in the game?

He let out a huff of air. “Okay, fair point, this is all very strange and scary. Look, there was something I wanted to show you yesterday, but you were too hell-bent on getting yourself killed to listen.”

I scowled at him, still considering running. “Okay, what?”

“In the Sanctuary. There’s an inner room that might… I don’t know, make this whole thing make more sense to you. It’s how I figured out my role here.”

I didn’t trust Huang as far as I could throw him, but he had saved my life twice, so maybe I should be giving him the benefit of the doubt—even if he had hidden the whole Gargoyle thing. And if there was anywhere I was going to agree to go, it was somewhere the monsters couldn’t get in. I nodded slowly. “All right, fine. Sanctuary again.”

“Thanks,” he said, a relieved smile breaking out on his face. “It’ll make more sense to you when you see the inside, I promise.”

He started off and I followed. I tried to push out my spatial sense as we went, but it was still dead.

“So, this place,” I said as we continued, “it changed you?”

“Yeah,” Huang agreed. “It’s not like I can turn into the dragon in the real world, only here in the Grey City. I think it’s a way to like… put me on even ground with the demons.”

“So it only changes you while you’re inside?” I’d definitely been using my extra sense in the real world without an issue.

“Well… the dragon part, anyway.” He sped up slightly, but I kept his pace.

“There’s more?” I prompted. “Like, some kind of sense or power that carries over?”

He gave me a quizzical look. “Do you have something that carries over?”

I shut up and he sighed.

“Okay, yeah. There is one thing for me,” he admitted. “The Gargoyle has a weird kind of sense that lets me detect the presence of living things. That’s partly how I found you both of these times. And that part does carry over into our world, just not quite as strong.”

“All right,” I said, suddenly sure I didn’t actually want to go down this line of questioning. I didn’t want to be like Huang, called here and changed and made to fight.

Huang brought us to the original location of the Sanctuary, white-leaved trees around it. Even though it had apparently teleported us across the City last time, it looked normal now, back in its original spot.

We were careful this time, scanning the surrounding streets and alleyways before moving to the entrance. I sighed with relief as I pulled the doors shut behind us, closing us into the soft, golden light and warm atmosphere.

Huang, too, looked more relaxed. “All right,” he said. “We’re safe.”

“Until we have to leave,” I pointed out. He shrugged and moved further into the building.

I followed cautiously. The carpeted hallway continued on pretty far, further than seemed possible by looking at the squat building outside, then opened up into a large room.

I stopped, taking it all in. If this building was actually a church, this wide-open atrium would probably be where the congregation sat. But instead of pews facing an altar, tables and chairs were scattered across the whole room. Stained-glass windows, glowing like it was sunset outside, occupied most of the ceiling, medieval-looking wall tapestries hanging below them.

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The tapestries showed images of city skylines and greenhouses bursting with leaves, modern images that seemed mismatched to the medieval style. The stained-glass ceiling also had images, exclusively of strange beasts like dragons. They were of all shapes and sizes, horns sweeping back, reaching wings interlocked together, talons outspread.

“Huh.” I grunted. When I turned to Huang, he looked as fascinated as I did, gazing up at the ceiling.

“It… changed,” he said.

“What did it look like before?” I asked as I moved toward the nearest chair to take a closer look at the furniture. Gothic-looking, with an ornate backrest—honestly less like medieval carpentry and more like a dining chair from the eighties. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the design of it seemed kind of familiar.

“Well… the tapestries with the cities on them, those are new,” Huang pointed out. “Also, it used to be just one big table in the centre, instead of a bunch of smaller tables.”

We were interrupted when the golden light suffusing the room flickered. A huge shape passed over the dragon windows, plunging us briefly into darkness. It was like being fish in a bowl with someone passing their hand over top. After just a few seconds, the shadow disappeared.

“Was that… do you think that was one of those demons?” I whispered. The shadow hadn’t been any recognizable shape.

“I guess it could be,” Huang said.

This guy really had something against yes-or-no answers. I turned to glare at him. “You are one hundred percent sure they can’t get in here?”

“If those shadows are dangerous, they haven’t been able to cause any damage thus far,” he said, fidgeting with his hands again. “Then again, things have been changing a lot since you got here.”

“Sure, blame it on me.” I was just trying to be contrary, but he raised his eyebrows.

“Not that it’s your fault, but it can’t be a coincidence that as soon as you arrive, things that have been the same for me for six months starts to change.”

“Yeah, blaming me,” I muttered. I moved further into the atrium, keeping an eye on the untrustworthy ceiling. “So, before I got here and everything got so confusing, what exactly did you do in this place?”

Huang shrugged, following behind. “It was just a safe place to hide when the demons got overwhelming. Kind of lonely, but peaceful.”

There was a room at the far end of the atrium, partially obscured by a wall of falling curtains. I found myself pushing the thick fabric aside and peering into a dim chamber where the light was dyed wine-red.

The room prickled strangely against my senses as I moved inside, like the shivers you get down your spine when you listen to a good harmony. The room was small, and at each corner, a statue stood facing the center. They were warriors: all dressed differently, from different countries and historical eras. One was dressed like an ancient Chinese soldier, bearing a straight sword; one looked a bit like a Viking with a round shield. The other I wasn’t sure of, but she carried a long spear and wore draping fabrics.

The fourth statue, though, quickly absorbed my attention. He was a medieval knight, wearing heavy armour and resting the tip of a sword against the ground. He carried his helmet under his arm, revealing a close-cut beard and curly hair.

He had my face.

Heart pounding, I took a half-step closer. You don’t normally see your own face when it’s not in a mirror, and there’s something strange about seeing a physical representation of it, something that makes it look alien.

I turned slowly to find Huang standing in the room’s entrance behind me.

“What the hell is this?” I asked quietly. I looked at the Chinese soldier again and saw, with both of them in sight, that it had Huang’s face.

“It’s us,” he said. “All of these statues were here when I first entered. I didn’t know for sure the knight was you when we first met, but seeing you side by side… sure looks like it, huh?”

I glanced at the faces of the two other statues, both women who I didn’t recognize. My eyes were drawn back to my own face, carved so lifelike out of grey stone. “This is supposed to explain everything to me?”

“Just think about it,” said Huang, leaning against the wall. “Let it sink in for a minute.”

“No, screw it. I don’t want it to sink in,” I snapped.

 “Camilo, come on.”

“No. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what these horrible things are—” I gestured vaguely at the statues, “And I don’t care! I just want to know how to get out of here and forget it ever happened. How do we make it stop?”

“We can’t!” Huang insisted, taking a step forward. “You are being stupid about this. You’ve been here twice; you know we don’t have any control over it. You know there are demons here that want to kill us. None of that is going to go away if you just ignore it.”

The anger came down like a hammer, all the blood rushing to my face. I wanted to yell at him, punch him, do something, anything to prove I had any semblance of control over the situation. I grit my teeth and forced myself to walk a slow circle around the room, waiting until my skin stopped burning.

I turned back to face him and saw he was turned defensively, keeping his distance. I let out a harsh breath. “Okay,” I said. “Relax. Just give me some space to think.”

He didn’t have to be told twice and swiftly withdrew from the room. Without all the arguing, I was quickly absorbed into the room’s silence. The statues stared blankly.

I investigated Huang’s statue. He stared solemnly ahead, one hand on the hilt of his sword. He looked exactly like Huang would if he tied his hair up in traditional style. There was no placard or carved message, just a soldier supported on a square base.

I turned back toward my statue and pushed past the shiver that went down my spine. Like the others, it was very well crafted, each link in its armour defined. I tried to methodically shut down the anger and panic.

A few minutes later, I exited back into the atrium, glancing at the ceiling in case of more shadows. There was nothing up there. Huang was seated at a table partway down the room, chin resting on a hand as he, too, gazed up at the ceiling.

He turned to watch me as I approached. I sat down across from him.

“So I had a couple of minutes to think,” I said slowly. “If the statues have been there from the beginning, that means someone, or something, already knew in advance that we’d be here.”

Huang shrugged. “That seems pretty likely.”

“I guess the fact that they’re dressed up like warriors implies something. Maybe that that’s why we were brought here—to fight. Or at the very least, someone knew that we would be fighting.”

Huang nodded.

“So.” I was proud of myself for managing to keep my cool thus far. “For whatever reason, both of us specifically were called in here. Oh, and you can turn into a goddamn dragon.”

“I don’t think the Grey City will leave you defenseless,” Huang told me. “It’s still dangerous, but the fact that I have another form means I can fight back. You will probably get something similar.”

I didn’t feel like going that far down the rabbit hole just yet. “Okay. All I’m saying is that we’re clearly in this together. So… thanks for saving my ass twice, and let’s try to figure this stuff out together. Deal?”

“Deal,” he nodded, sticking his hand across the table. “Sorry if I’ve been harsh. I think I forgot what it was like at first.”

There was still a chance that all of this was an elaborate trick, that I was making a deadly mistake by trusting Huang. But, if I didn’t have some kind of help, I was not going to last. I had to believe that Huang was in the same situation as I was. I nodded and shook his hand, making a deal with the dragon.

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