Chapter 30: Part 30

Warden felt Daniel fall unconscious again, far too soon and far too sudden for it to already be another night. His time must be running low. But in desperation, there was opportunity. Warden had more time to work on his trench and try to escape the prison the interloper had shoved him into.

His efforts the previous night had allowed him a miniscule amount of awareness. He was surprised when the voice and badge of his deputy did not make an appearance. He had thought it truly loyal to Daniel ever since his conversion. It had dutifully been destroying the city, from the sliver that Warden could examine. Every night, tearing down a little bit more of the interloper’s work.

Warden set to his task with a focus. If the creature was missing, he didn’t like any of the reasons it might be doing so. Above all, he hoped that Daniel had not learned to unravel a construct at the worst possible time. Surely Daniel could notice that the creature was helping him fend off the manipulations of an outside force? Warden pushed against the floor of his cell, creating a gap again. While the gap was fresh, Warden felt he could probably fit his head in it. He didn’t want to find out what happened if his essence got caught there when the gap started to refill, though. He waited. Agonizing seconds ticked by, measured here in the mindscape only by Daniel’s slow breathing and heartbeat. The gap flowed back, then settled. Warden pushed again.

Warden worked on it for hours, making the most of whatever tragedy had befallen his creator to render him unconscious. He was heartened when the sleep creature finally activated, slamming into buildings with gleeful destruction. As long as it was here, and Daniel was alive, and Warden was undestroyed, there was a chance that Warden could escape in time to stop this horrid trade deal from happening.

Eventually, Daniel’s mind began to stir. Pain crept up like a fungus, encapsulating even the foundational floor of Warden’s cell. Whatever had happened to Daniel, it had not been pleasant. Warden avoided the pain, and settled in to rest until Daniel fell asleep again.

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A few hours passed. Pain rambled around Daniel’s mind, growing and shrinking like a fungal tide. To Warden’s surprise, his deputized monster did not go to its rest when Daniel awoke. That was extremely odd; it was a creature of sleeping minds, and should not be active during the day. He couldn’t find out more from within his cell, though. Eventually, the pain began to recede, withering beneath a cooling frost of some sort of medicine Daniel’s body was processing. Daniel was still awake, conversing with someone. He seemed…unconcerned. For the moment. Somehow, he had escaped capture. Warden would ask about it once he was free.

As the pain receded, so too did Daniel’s mind relax. The medicines or potions or spells worked on him were making him tired. Warden rose and gathered his strength. Three sessions in one day was a boon he had not hoped for. He would escape. Even without a push, the trench was now large enough to admit his whole arm. He could feel the other side of the wall; there was a gap that would allow him to pass, provided he stretched his form a bit. He just needed to make the trench big enough for his torso.

Daniel fell asleep, and before his body even fully relaxed, Warden was pushing against his mind. Ever couple minutes, a new push, then an impatient pause while the foundation restored itself. Soon Warden could push his cheek to the floor and see under the wall.

While he was waiting for the trench to rebound, Warden noticed something new in the mindscape through his thin thread of awareness. Was…yes. That was Daniel, manifesting in his sleep once more. Warden ceased his focus on widening his hole. Daniel’s presence presented a new opportunity, one that was far more likely to end in Warden’s release. With a rush, he snapped the tendril of his thoughts into the cellars and far reaches of Daniel’s memories. He needed a signal.

He found it, in an old memory of games played with Daniel’s brother. A short tune, not even a proper song, but distinctive. The interloper had not touched these memories, and Warden was certain that Daniel would be able to tell. He memorized the notes. He drew his tendril of focus back to himself. He would need the energy to broadcast his signal.

Warden began alternating, pushing against the floor of his cell, then pushing the signal, the whistled tune, through the widened gap. Each time, the signal would grow a little stronger, as Warden could stretch more of his essence into the gap.

Daniel landed outside Warden’s prison, standing on the street. Warden looked up through the hazy walls with a spark of hope. Yes. Daniel had heard the signal. Now he just needed to find Warden underneath the illusion. Daniel was circling the building, tracing the song. He stopped on the side where Warden had dug his escape, staring at some aspect of the mind that Warden could not perceive. Yes. He knew.

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Then Daniel was gone. A split second later, he reappeared on top of the tower. Warden released his song. It had worked. But Daniel had not understood what it meant. Just that it was important. Warden feared that Daniel had forgotten about him; the interloper had taken great pains to make it seem like he was Warden, and not a new creation. If Daniel didn’t know that Warden was down here, he would not be driven to free Warden. Daniel took in the city, much like he had the first time he had unknowingly visited Warden’s tower. Feebly, Warden played the song one last time, then began to dig anew.

Wait. He sensed clouds forming. Clouds of…boiling anger? Daniel was angry. It was  painful for Warden to brush his awareness across the clouds. He looked up, instead. Daniel still stood atop the tower, but now his projection had its fists clenched, gaze fixed on the sky with an intensity Warden had not expected. Carefully, he risked burning his senses to feel out the anger again, hoping to learn its texture.

Frustration was foremost in its composition. That made sense, Daniel’s last three days had given him plenty of fuel for that. Indignation and vengeance, those too were right in place. Hate was to be expected, woven through the clouds like rebar. But there were subtle flavors, accents of other characteristic. A fierce sense of…justice? Daniel genuinely was angry not just about what had been done to him, but about the purpose for which he had been manipulated. It was subtle, but…Warden felt a spark of pride for his creator.

He withdrew again, observing but not interacting with the boiling clouds. Daniel had a hammer, a blacksmith’s hammer, in his hand. Warden watched as Daniel raised it to the sky and spun the clouds of anger onto the handle and head. If the boiling vapor was painful for Daniel’s manifestation, he showed no sign of it. An instant later, Daniel vanished, taking his spool of raw anger and his hammer with him.

Warden watched the sky, to the extent that he could. Daniel had been up to something. Something…maybe not intentional, but deliberate. Warden wasn’t sure what, but he felt a grim sort of hope. After a while, the clouds of anger began to drive away, over one of the distant portions of Daniel’s mindscape. They did not dissipate, though. Daniel was holding on to his anger.

For over an hour, Warden sat in his cell. His escape had been abandoned, replaced by an awed examination of the spectacle. Eventually, he worked out that the anger was being gathered somewhere, possibly wound onto a massive spindle much like Daniel had spun it onto his hammer. Daniel was using it as fuel. Fuel for a new construct. Warden’s hope grew, until he had a maniac grin on his face.

Warden’s reverie came to an end when Daniel once more appeared on top of the building. The clouds of anger had long since vanished from the sky, leaving behind a sort of hollow reflection. After arriving, Daniel raised one hand skyward, then held the other in front of him. In his fists, he manifested something new. A weapon, though not as Warden had seen before. It resembled nothing so much as a farmer’s pitchfork made of pale wood and white metal. Flames flickered and danced between the tines with no fuel source to be seen.

Like he was striking a spade into the earth, Daniel slammed the points of his new weapon into the top of Warden’s tower. Flames shot out, dancing along the surface of the illusion, leaving cracks in their wake. Daniel raised his fiery pitchfork and slammed it down again. This time, the waves followed their old cracks, causing illusion-dust to fall them as the tower shifted and ground.

As he struck a third time, Daniel shouted to the sky, a wordless, angry sound. Warden felt the impact this time as the points contacted the roof. Flames didn’t so much dance as they surged. With a sound that would have woken mountains, the tower slowly began to fall apart. As it did, the flames of Daniel’s weapon lingered on each piece, breaking it down more and more. By the time they reached the ground, nothing but dust remained, and that slowly faded from the mindscape, no longer intact.

Warden brushed a massive pile of it out of his way, climbing the walls of the pit that had once been his cell. On the lip, he climbed out and brushed the rest of the illusion off. Daniel still stood where he had stood, though now it was thin air. He turned to look at Warden, and a brief flash of anger rippled through the ground before Daniel realized that Warden was not the interloper. Daniel lowered himself to land next to Warden, his pitchfork held at rest in one hand like a knight’s spear.

Warden spoke, for the first time since his imprisonment. “Thank you, Master Daniel. I had worried I would never be free to fulfill my purpose again.” Warden bowed. “You may call me Warden. I was your true first construct, until the interloper arrived and severed me from you. It would be my honor to resume my position as your guardian.”

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