My name is Freeman Harbinger, and I am a psychonaut. This means that I explore the depths of my own psyche, and the depths of the collective unconscious. psychonauts call this place the Shadowlands. Intentional descent requires a great expenditure of focus and will. When I wished to descend into the depths, I would have to meditate and focus. I would craft and send an avatar of my mind into the depths. But recently I’ve begun descending by accident, often while dreaming. And this is dangerous. The depths are not safe for visitors. Your body may be safe in the Bonelands of the real world, but your mind is vulnerable.
I was asleep. And I knew that I was asleep. But knowing didn’t help me. I stood in a cave of opalescent stone. The walls shimmered in the light of the bare candles that sat, scattered on surfaces about the cave. I was in the Painted Labyrinth. This was an incursion, and I had not begun the incursion consciously. I had descended into the depths of the Shadowlands while I slept.
And now I was in trouble.
It did not look like a real thing. It had the hide of a crocodile. The hide lay stretched across the skinned body of a lion and stitched into place. Pins and stitches and large metal staples protruded where the seams of the hide met. Blood and clear liquids bubbled from between the seams when the thing moved. Where lions have a tail, the thing had a huge long eyeless serpent. The serpent’s gaping maw opened to show teeth like jagged scavenged glass. Where lions have a head, the thing had a brass mask in the shape of a human face. A seem ran down the middle.
As I watched, the seam split open. Each half swung away to reveal the skull of an adult human with the face of a human infant pinned across the front. From the open mouth and vacant eye sockets three serpents emerged from within the skull. They barred their glass shard teeth and hissed a serpentine choir.
I knew it from my studies. This was a bakumera. The bakumera hunted artifacts and reliquaries. And I had absorbed one earlier. It wanted the artifact, and that meant me at the moment. I scrambled backwards. Thinking about my options. I had attuned to an intelligent blade known as Bloody Grin. But using that meant losing control of my body to the blade, and there was no guarantee I’d get control back once I lost it. I knew a few incantations, but nothing useful in combat or enclosed spaces. And I had absorbed the Cayce Lens. The Cayce lens was an artifact that stores things in the Infinite Library. Skilled users could also use it to travel anywhere. The Cayce Lens was my best chance. But since it had bonded to me, using it had become difficult and the results inconsistent.
The bakumera lunged, serpent mouths striking out. I flung myself back and tried to call upon the power of the Cayce Lens by visualizing my home in the waking world. I hit the ground, and the blow knocked the wind from my lungs. I couldn’t focus on the image of my room, and shuffled back on my elbows and heels. Fangs bit into my face and shoulder. The bakumera had me, and the serpents began to drag me back towards the beast’s body. I flailed and struck at the beast.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”
I lurched upright in my bed, arms out in self defense.
I looked around.
“Well crap.” I muttered.
When I choose to enter the Shadowlands, I do so with my mind protected. The way I had dreamed my way into the Shadowlands left me with no such protection. Dropping into the depths without setting up an incursion meant swimming in a shark tank. And that I had been swimming naked and bleeding.
“This is not good.”
I found myself muttering as I walked to my kitchen. I turned my kettle on and emptied two packets of soup into a novelty Cthulhu mug. I dry swallowed a caffeine pill and a taurine pill while I waited for the water to boil. Then I poured the water into the mug and considered my plight while I waited for the soup to steep. I watched carrot chunks the size of pencil erasers hydrate in the water. What could I do?
“No idea.”
If this was insurance, I would know. I knew my day job back to front. But in my night job, I was an amateur. But I hated my day job. No. That wasn’t true. I didn’t hate my job. Or rather, I didn’t hate my vocation. Insurance as a subject was challenging enough. I hated the grind of a day job in general. I hated the pointlessness of my industry. In a culture that took care of people, insurance would be unnecessary. But our culture didn’t take care of people. Put your nose to the grindstone or starve. And I had wanted out. I still wanted out. And wanting out had got me in this mess.
I needed a mentor. And I had a mentor. So it was time to call my mentor. I pushed my table out of the kitchen and placed the chairs upside down on the table. I retrieved a green dry erase marker from my office. Dropping to my knees, I drew a circle within a square on the linoleum floor of my kitchen. I then drew the runic symbols of the Living Four, one at each point on the square. I performed a ludic banishing ritual* and then entered the circle and sat cross legged. I intoned the summoning incantation for the Sleeper. That done, I directed my gnosis to the concept of my mentor.
I do not know how much time passed. But eventually, I heard a voice behind me.
“This is a rare occurrence. But not a surprising one. I assume I have been proven correct regarding your continued connection to the Cayce lens?”
I stood up and turned to face the Sleeper. They were wearing the body an elderly black woman with gray hair in tight cornrows, and milky white left eye.
“Yeah. I’m in trouble.”
“You are a psychonaut. That is where you belong.”
“What has occurred in my absence?”
“I went swimming in the Painted Labyrinth while I was dreaming and almost got eaten by a bakumera.”
“You are not skilled enough to navigate the Painted Labyrinth unsupervised,” The Sleeper said.
“I know! You’ve got to delink the Lens from me. Otherwise I’m going to get my brain eaten by a shale scorpion or a burrower the next time I cannonball down into the painted labyrinth after bedtime.”
“The Cayce Lens cannot be delinked from you while it has no other form. The Lens must be reforged. I have anticipated this. Go to the Outer Ring. I have contacted the Toolmaker. They will assist you.”
“What? No! You definitely have the power to do this yourself.”
“Of course. But that is an important lesson.”
“Then maybe he doesn’t want to continue with my lessons!”
“You don’t have a choice. The attuned Lens will almost certainly draw you into the Ring, now that you know that is where your solution lies.”
I shook my head and turned away.
“I have already arranged for short term disability leave from your place of service.”
“My job? How did you do that?”
“By posing as your psychiatrist.”
“So my job thinks I have a psychiatrist now?”
“You do have a psychiatrist.”
“But I haven’t told that to the people who pay me or give me my performance reviews!”
The Sleeper ignored my comment, “Go home and prepare for the Ring.”
I stormed out with no intention of going anywhere near the Ring. Instead, I bought an excessive amount of energy drinks, something called Insanity in a Can. And went home to try to stay awake and do my own research on my predicament. I owned a copy of the Ars Holistica Fragments. If any book would have answers, that was the one.
I don’t know how long I had worked when it happened. I was five energy drinks deep and the sky was dark. Fatigue and caffeine intake were getting the better of me. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked to see nobody there.
“Do you have the lens?” A voice asked.
I spun, but the room was empty. Something was wrong. I looked up and saw stars flickering through the ceiling. I was hallucinating. The void opened up above me. Wind whipped around me and sounds of the Outer Ring began to echo on all sides. My room was gone. And, as the Sleeper had said, I was once again standing in the Threshold of the Ring.
“Crap.”
A bald man in a blacksmith’s apron stood in front of me, “Do you have the Lens?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the twisted metal frame of the lens. I handed it to the man.
“This is the frame only,” he paused, “I am the Toolmaker.”
I smiled, “I had guessed.”
“I am here on the request of your teacher. As it is the Waxing Equinox, it is an auspicious time to forge an artifact. But we will need a lens with which to work. The Sentinel has such a lens. It dwells at the opposite end of the Outer Ring, in the Chessboard Room.”
I blinked. I knew what he was talking about. And I didn’t like it. The Sentinel was the guardian of the Chessboard Hall, a massive construct of steel and stone that destroyed everything that tried to enter the Hall. I had faced it before. All psychonauts had to get past the Sentinel and reach the Chessboard Hall. They did this to earn access to the Greater Realms. But dodging past the monster was a very different proposition than facing it down. And I had no idea about extracting its bloody eye.
“I know where the Sentinel is. You’re sending me to die. You know that right?”
“The Sleeper says you are resourceful. I trust you to find a way.”
“Everybody is so convinced I’m the protagonist,” I muttered.
“Then perhaps you should act as if you are.”
“Perhaps I should act as if I am!” I once again found myself muttering as I walked towards the Lotus Maze. “Well okay, what would a protagonist do? Wait, if I’m the protagonist, what kind of protagonist am I? I’m not the competent kind surely.”
I paused, and a disgusted look passed across my face, “Oh gods. I’m Rincewind. I’m the coward who always finds himself in danger and survives because more powerful beings find my struggles amusing.”
I shook my head, “Well, if I’m the loveable coward and the cosmic plaything, then I’m not defeating the Sentinel myself. As if there were any question about that. So I need a distraction.”
“My best bet is the Black and White then. There are always cadres of Knights in the Ring. So do I hope for the Knights of Unity or Purity? Unity. Nobody survives being purified, but you might survive unification.”
And so I slipped into the Lotus Maze and moved cautiously through the garden. Even during seasons of low activity, the maze was a dangerous place. Water bears, and Void Gnomon, and glasshoppers, all made the maze their home. And two of the three thought psychonauts tasted fine with ketchup. The story seemed to want me to proceed with my involved suicide plan however, as no predators emerged. And I quickly found a team of six Black and White. I couldn’t tell from my hiding spot to which order of knights they belonged.
“Not that it matters.” I whispered.
I paused, and readied myself emotionally for the stupid thing I was about to do. Why did it take so much courage to be a coward?
I stood up from behind the fallen pillar and waved at the Black and White, “Hello guys. I’m a psychonaut and wizard with an imperial bounty on my head. I’m going to storm the Chessboard Hall. Want to try and catch me?”
The knights stared at me. I turned and broke into a sprint.
“Here we go.”
“Halt! In the name of the King!”
“It seems I’ve heard that song before,” I whispered.
I didn’t look back, but could hear the sounds of men scrambling to their feet. And then I heard a bizarre ripping sound unlike anything I’d heard before. I looked back and then stopped abruptly. The Knights, seeing me stop, stopped as well and turned to look. I hadn’t noticed earlier what the knights were examining when I drew their attention. They had been examining a corpse. Judging from the tools and clothing on the body, I suspected that the body was the leftover shell of a psychonaut’s avatar.
The corpse had burst open, the belly inflating and ripping down the center. As the shredded bits of abdominal flesh wafted to the floor, a swarm of crystalline locusts rose from the cavity.
“I had to mention glasshoppers,” I said apologetically to the knights,”Now I’ve gone and given the story some nasty ideas.”
The lead knight cocked his head to the side and then turned back to face me.
I raised my eyebrows, “You’re still going to chase me aren’t you?”
The knight nodded.
“Well crap.”
I turned and began running again.
“Halt! In the name of the King!” one of the knights behind me yelled.
“You said that already!” I yelled back as I continued running.
One advantage I had, I knew the Outer Ring reasonably well. As a rookie psychonaut, I didn’t know many realms in the depths well. But psychonauts must master the Outer Ring in order to gain access to the major realms. And I’d at least done that. I wasn’t confident that I could survive the pickle I had dropped myself into. But I was at least confident that I wouldn’t die lost.
I vaulted over fallen stones and scrambled through gaps in broken walls, leading the knights towards the Chessboard Hall. The Outer Ring is laid out like a cross, contrary to ideas you may have formed given the name. The Lotus Garden sits in the center. The Threshold and the Chessboard Hall sit opposite each other. Void House and Stellar House sit perpendicular to the Threshold and the Chessboard Hall. But as I wasn’t aiming for them, I proceeded forward through the maze that was the Lotus Garden.
It wasn’t until I reached the northern Compass bridge, which led out of the Lotus Garden, that I heard signs of alarm from the knights.
“He’s going for the Chessboard!”
“He’s leading us to the Sentinel!”
I smiled and yelled as I ran, “Yeah, but you can’t stop with the glasshoppers behind us. Now can you?”
I hurtled through the archway that marked the entrance to the Chessboard Hall. Despite the name, the front half of the Chessboard hall was built from deep red stone. Six pillars ran down the room in two lines of three. At the end of the lines of stone columns stood the Sentinel. An enormous golem built from stone and steel. Technically though, legend said that the Sentinel wasn’t built at all. Apparently, it had once been a man. Although the legends disagreed on who precisely the Sentinel had been. Some claimed it was a previous incarnation of the Locust King, cursed for one of his many transgressions. Some said it was the Kudavbin King, the crown prince of the empire who fled and broke the succession. Some claim it was the Dreamwalker, the incarnation of the Storyteller destined to find the First Mother. Whoever or whatever the sentinel had been, it wasn’t happy now.
I skidded to a stop and slipped, falling on my tailbone and gasping in pain. Recovering as the Sentinel rose to full height, I scrambled on all fours behind the first pillar to my right. It wouldn’t protect me from the Sentinel. I knew this from previous experience. But it might cause the Sentinel to attack the knights first. I watched as they ran through the archway. The Sentinel did indeed focus its attention on the knights. It barreled through the pillars towards the knights. I tried to determine how I would extract the crystal lens mounted in its helm.
The Sentinel snatched a knight up and threw him into and then through the stone wall. Although admittedly what passed through the wall looked more like a fine red mist as it exited the other side. As I flinched in response, the Sentinel picked up a fallen pillar and swung it like a baseball bat. The swing crushed another knight and smashed through another chunk of the wall. Bits of stone floated out into the star filled void. I was still at a loss as to how I would proceed, when I felt the stone beneath my feet beginning to shift.
“Well, crap.” I muttered.
The Sentinel brought the pillar down on a prone knight in the center of the room. And the whole floor of the room sundered. The knights ran for shelter. Pieces of the room flew in all directions, sending me spinning out into the void of the Outer Ring. I clung to the stone, and tried desperately not to vomit.
As I found myself regaining my composure, I heard a voice directly ahead of me.
“Halt. In the name of the King.”
I opened my eyes to see two knights clinging to the same piece of stone as myself.
“Of course.”
The Knights pulled themselves to their feet. I cast about for an option. But the two knights were on me in a moment, and quickly overpowered me and pressed my face into the floor.
“You are guilty of treason and heresy against the empire, and in the name of the King, you will be purified.”
“Of course,” I muttered into the stone.
I waited for my avatar to shatter, and prayed my mind would survive the process. I waited for the killing blow. But none came. Instead I heard a musical hummin and the two knights began to scream in terror. Their hands released me, and I crawled to the edge of the tiny island of stone. Looking back, I saw the swarm of glasshoppers massing around the knights. I watched as the Knights fell to the stone and the glasshoppers began devouring the bodies. As they ate, they ignored me, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they finished with the knights and moved on to me.
I paused and belatedly realized I had no way of getting a lens off the Sentinel now. With no other options, I simply marveled at the glass bodies of the creatures that would devour me as soon as they finished their current meal. I found myself being grateful that I was at least going to die doing something interesting. Before I became a psychonaut I had always feared I would die of a heart attack eating a hurried lunch at a desk job I hated.
I stared at the eyes of the glasshoppers. The Toolmaker had told me to find a lens, and then told me where a lens was located. The Toolmaker never said I needed that particular lens. Only where I could find a lens.
I raised my leg and brought my heel down on the thorax of one of the glass hoppers as they swarmed over the corpse. The creature shattered, shards scattering across the platform. The other glasshoppers paused and turned towards me. I scooped up the glass lens that had served as the glasshopper’s eye. The rest of the swarm began to orient towards this new threat I posed.
Reached out with my mind, seeking a conscious connection with the Cayce Lens. Finding purchase in the darkness, I brought an image of the Threshold and the Toolmaker into my mind. The glasshoppers launched themselves at me, but I was already gone.
The Toolmaker looked up at my arrival. I noticed a second figure standing beside the Toolmaker in a hooded robe.
“Student.” The hooded figure said, and I recognized the Sleeper.
“Do you have it?” The Toolmaker asked.
“Maybe.” I answered, “It’s not from the sentinel, but it is a lens.”
I handed the Toolmaker the lens. They took it and turned the lens over in their palm.
“It will serve. Wait while I reforge the lens.”
I handed the restored lens to the Sleeper.
“There it is,” I said, “and I’m happy to be rid of it.”
“And still happy to be rid of me?” The Sleeper asked.
I paused for a moment and considered my options. I thought about PNQ Insurance and the job I had there. I thought about Dustman and about the drudgery of my daily life. I thought about the prismatic beauty of the glasshoppers. I had noticed this even as they had devoured the Black and White. I thought about the majesty of the void I had seen as I drifted out from the Outer Ring on a piece of broken chessboard.
“Do you wish to discontinue our arrangement?” The Sleeper asked.
I shook my head.
“I don’t think I can. I don’t think I ever could,” I answered, “and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to do so. I didn’t live before I met you. I don’t think most of us live when we exist in the Shallows.”
The Sleeper nodded, “once upon a time, you did. Once upon a time the Shallows was a tropical lagoon. It was a coral reef teeming with wonder and opportunity. The Shallows now exists as a bland monoculture. The Shallows now is a fish farm for the False King. If we win, that may change. No human mind can live forever in the Depths. Your sanity would not survive permanent habitation here.”
“But until then, I will fight,.” I said, ” I would rather die in the Shadowlands, than exist as one of the living dead in the Shallows.”
“I am pleased to hear that. To lose such a promising student would disappoint me. And more than your potential, you amuse me. I enjoy my interactions with you, Freeman Harbinger.”
I blinked, and was briefly speechless.
The Sleeper continued, “You should be aware that even though the Cayce Lens has been decoupled from your avatar, you are still attuned to it. And you may still call upon it. And the echoes of your previous more thorough connection will likely remain on your avatar indefinitely.”
I snorted, “Of course it is. Well at least I’m not going to dream myself into the depths again.”
“Not by accident, no.”
“What?”
“Later.”
The End
Life is a journey. But the journey is not improved by prolonging it. The journey is improved when it is more valuable: more joyful, more helpful, more impactful. The game is meant to be played. It is not meant to be prolonged.
The lie that the Hungry Empire preaches is a deception. This idea that death is punishment and a monster to be avoided at all costs. In convincing us of the evil of death, we become more willing to submit to the yoke of the empire. And so instead of living a good life of decent length, we endure a long and torturous existence in service to those who imagine themselves our betters.
Freedom is impossible for those who live in fear of death.
From the Ars Holistica
Professor Harbinger's School for Villains 