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Part 5 of 6

We live in a world where emotions can lift people from their sorrows as easily as drown them within. They cause you to strive for something better or hold you back, wielding control both unmeasurable and unmistakable. But what if, for some, emotions held a tangible power, if they could use the emotions of the world for their own benefit? What is the chance that someone would abuse that gift?

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Chapter 13 - Hopeful

Supper with the family. A farcical affair where three dimensional constructs displayed their one dimensional personalities. From Mr. Hambley, Amelia learned more about the cotton industry of the 1850s than she would ever need to know. Also more than Mrs. Hambley wanted to hear, as she ignored her husband and Eric’s younger siblings in favour of Barnabus, who fed her dream of one day moving to London.

This offered Amelia her lone relief from Barnabus's presence. Each day he followed her about, praising what she did and how she looked. Rather comical, but Amelia suspected the real man cut a less humorous figure. Handsome and dressed in the height of fashion, his accent and worldliness would doubtless seem exotic to a young woman pulled away from her family and home to her husband’s, just when he left to go off to war. Easy to guess the original Amelia proved susceptible to the cousin’s charm, doubtlessly proving the catalyst for Eric’s ongoing need for vengeance. If not a hollow shell of person, she would hate construct, instead she used him to drive her around in a buggy.

After all, any plan worth following required lackeys. And during her first family meal, one blossomed in Amelia’s mind.

The catalyst came from a comparison of the contents on her plate with those of her dining companions. As usual, despite Eric’s ultimate intention, Amelia’s meal would warm the heart of any dietician. Completely unlike the constructs’s meal of pork roast, potatoes, gravy, and vegetables soaked in butter. After days of foods meant for good health, with only a nod in enjoyment’s direction, the smell of hearty deliciousness almost made her drool. Yet, magicked into an existence as fake as those who ate it, she knew it offered zero nutritional value. Boring though she found them, her salad, fresh vegetables, and grilled chicken provided actual sustenance.

That reminded her how fresh food accounted for the number one problem when living in a pocket world. To grow crops it took someone who understood agronomy and optics, and who could perform dexterous magic in the creation of real soil and sunlight. A rare skill set that made it easier to source food from the real world.

However, nothing ruined the fantasy of escape into a magical world quite like grocery shopping in the real world. An inconvenience managed, like so many others, by specialists. Entire families and clans earned their wealth and power through contracts to supply magic worlds. They provided goods and food via dual sided pantries. One side accessible from the client world and the other from the supplier’s hub.

With minimum forays by Eric into the world in which he held her, while still receiving fresh food, it seemed he must use such a service. Which meant a pantry door existed, one through which Amelia might pass. Not like the door she discovered earlier that day in the sitting room of her suite, its existence confirmed with a bit of her precious magical energy. The door Eric used, the door through which she suspected he first carried her into this world. Though now, probably with a strand of her hair plucked from her unconscious head, secured against her use.

Yet a pantry door would rarely be locked. The best services offered contracts that allowed customers to secure their accounts against the world being fed, which required the ability to repossess. Hopefully Eric used such a service.

At that first supper, Amelia assigned herself a task. She would find the door. Only the question as to how the constructs would react, stopped her leaving the table immediately to search the kitchen. So she finished her tasteless meal, pretended to read for a few hours and met Beck in her rooms, where they performed the now familiar nighttime ritual before she climbed into bed.

But rather than attempt to sleep, she silently counted to thirty-six hundred and slipped from the covers. Via moonlight lit hallways she snuck down to the kitchen at the back of the house. There, with the light gone, her sight adjusted enough to create a murky gloom of shadowy objects. Fighting primal fears of monsters in the dark, she shuffled around the large room, tapping at walls. A tense circumnavigation discovered nothing, but how much did the dark conceal and cause her to miss?

No choice but to try again in the morning, with the light of day. Hopefully the constructs would permit her search or maybe they would not realize what she sought. Just as carefully, she traveled back to her room. Where, with a goal in mind, sleep came fast and held her long after she normally woke.

This positivity continued.

Nobody cared if Amelia spent her day knocking on walls, tapping the floor, or exploring closets. In fact, she convinced four members of the staff to walk into the wall, at the point she’d found Eric’s door, to ensure it did not serve as the pantry. Finished with the inside, she spent three days exploring the outbuildings and the warehouses at the pier. Again nothing, but Eric would understand the risk of such a door and hide it.

She needed to search further afield and felt rather clever when she convinced Barnabus to take her for a visit with her father. Though less so upon learning he would happily drive her wherever she wished to visit, be it the next plantation, farm, or village along the road.

In the initial days, she discovered only one item that did not belong. A link, but not a portal to the world to which she desperately wanted to return. Stuffed behind a Bible, in a rack on the back of a pew of the church where she became Mrs. Eric Hambley, Amelia found an old spiral notebook, a picture of The Police on the cover, complete with pencil stuck in its spiral. For who knows how long, she looked at the notebook, afraid to reach out, take it, and find anything written inside. Finally she replaced the Bible and tried to ignore the notebook’s existence.

An impossible expectation, as each attempted return to her search soon ended with the distracted realization that she could not pay attention to her task. Morbid curiosity barged into her mind and demanded recognition. To fight it, she fled, before normal, returning to the manor and a sleepless night.

During that night Amelia realized she would give in the next day and when she did, found herself unsure about how she should feel. When her eyes finally lifted away from words written with a flowing, neat hand, they settled upon the cross at the front of the church. Yet neither it nor he who it represented provided answers. Not that Amelia expected any from that direction, but Jan McDermitt, the writer of those words, once believed.

Maybe that is what made the three sheets of flowing script, the rest of the notebook remained blank, so heart rending. Rather than question why me, it documented the demise of belief.

Even worse, while she read, Amelia could not shake two of Ken’s memories. One night, after Dannika freed him from her molding, he allowed curiosity to override common sense. Wondering if he could notice something missed by the professional data miners, he read through sixteen police folders and found nothing beyond nightmares. From that evaluation, two pictures appeared in his mind. One, taken on a Saturday afternoon, football day in Norman, Oklahoma, captured a vivacious sophomore surrounded by friends. The second, taken by a police photographer on Halloween Day in 1982, showed no life at all.

But more than the remembered pictures, more than the read words, just sitting where Jan once sat, caught in the same ordeal she experienced, formed a kinship. Through this Jan seemed to speak, to ask Amelia not to accept a bitter lesson from the cross on the wall. To not demand something from it, but to recognize it stood for faith. And she found faith in herself as powerful as faith in some omnipotent being, one probably too distracted to pay attention to her woes.

Carefully she tore the pages from the notebook, each loop of the spiral popping free of its circle, tenuously wrapped around a thin coil of wire, like a sign of how she hoped to break free from Eric’s grip. Folding the pages once and then twice, Amelia placed them once more behind the Bible. If she failed and if someone else sat where she now sat, maybe that successor would benefit from the same lesson.

The rest of notebook she could use. Rather silly to randomly go somewhere and search, time for a plan. And a plan needed information, she would map out Eric’s world. Though not at the moment, for a time she needed to sit and remember. It gave her a moment to hope and trust in faith.

Well she did. Like George Lucas with his Star Wars galaxy, she guessed Eric would never be satisfied with his world. For in fifty plus years, with his skills and supply of magic, he filled a small county with dwellings and structures. She needed a talisman of faith to combat her own awe, felt towards her captor. Sting, Stewart, and Andy supplied this, guarding her maps and notes that tracked her progress.

Almost two months into her search, three months into her captivity, Amelia now worked her way through the second village on her map. Because of the longer trips, to and from, she found herself with less time to search before Barnabus demanded they return for supper. So the next morning, earlier than normal, she stood at the front door of Hambley Manor, basket holding lunch in one hand, the parasol she used for poking things in the other, and waited for his arrival with the horse and buggy. Fully prepared for everything the day could offer except to see Eric holding the reins.

Surprised, the least of her indignities boiled to the top, as she exclaimed, “You’re not dressed right!”

Hopping from the buggy he stopped, momentarily confused. Realizing the cause of her anger, he looked at himself, dressed in a tight black t-shirt, jeans, and a belt from which hung a sword and holstered revolver. So different from Amelia, looking pretty in a cream coloured and brown accented walking dress, complete with a matching bow with which Beck tied her ponytail in place.

“My apologies, I decided at the last minute to visit. It will not happen again.”

“Where have you been? Why are you here? You know about my search, don’t you? You can’t stop me from looking.”

“Caught in a real life gong show, calming panicked clients and organizing confused employees across two continents. I’m here because I sold the business, time for a new identity anyway, and they are no longer my clients or employees. Yes I know about your search, Barnabus is a dumb but useful watcher. And no, I don’t intend to stop you, since the possibility of your escape adds some missing spice to our affair.”

“Is there truly a door to find?” Amelia asked.

“Of course, if not, you would not have survived my absence, particularly so marvelously well. But it’s very well hidden, I doubt someone who took a month to think about looking will discover its location.”

“Very funny. So what happens when I find it? Will I be able to pass through? Are there guards on the other side who will stop me?”

Eric said, “Aren’t you the suspicious one? Yes you can pass through. And don’t worry about the guards. I use Benburgs, so they will feel outraged at my actions, if you run into any of their people.”

No surprise he used one of the oldest and best grocer services still in use, with a reputation for protecting their client’s identities in a fashion unknown even by the top Swiss banks. A secrecy accepted by the top magical cliques, because Benburgs subscribed to the regular set of cardinal sins of the magical community and never hesitated to out a client committing such a crime. The most egregious of which Eric broke with his murderous reaping. Amelia knew she could trust them, just as he would know they would help bring him down if she escaped.

‘If you’re not here to stop me, why are you here?”

“Maybe I just want to spend some time with my pretty wife?” Eric asked, to which he only received a glare in response. “Well I do, though I guess my pretty wife does not feel the same. However, maybe I could change her mind if I took her somewhere my idiot, though fake, cousin cannot.”

“The forest, you’ll take me to the forest?”

If she turned right, after exiting the gates of Hambley Manor, she soon came to a foreboding wall of trees. The one place into which Barnabus refused to go, telling her stories of desperate deserters and wild monsters. Immediately Hambley Woods jumped to the top of her search list and despite his pleas, she walked to it with the intent to explore, one day early in her search.

Unfortunately his warnings proved true. Barely did she enter the woods before a pair of men appeared, dressed like scarecrows, knives in hand, leers on their faces. Reminded of how many watchers of myth, who guarded a treasure or door, were actual constructs, she felt no doubt about the intent or ability of the two manufactured Confederate deserters. Amelia’s waning athleticism proved valuable as she ran all the way back to the manor, deciding not to attempt another incursion until she checked all other locations.

“Should I change my clothes first?”

“No, let’s go.” Amelia said, eager to explore the forbidden and not give him a chance to back out.

“Are you sure, I wouldn’t want you to feel awkward.”

“I won’t.”

“Is there be enough lunch for both of us?”

“Yes.”

“Let me check.”

Taking the basket from her, he lifted the lid, looked inside, and turned a dubious look towards her. Finding the glare still in place, he said, “Very well, let’s go.”

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Chapter 14 - Elated

How fucked up did your life need to become in order to feel more comfortable going into a dark, foreboding forest, with the man who planned to kill you, rather than entering all alone? One of many questions that filled Amelia’s mind, but the only one she answered while riding beside Eric on their way to the forest.

It came down to a matter of immediacy. Whatever lurked inside Eric, he tended to follow a time line. While whatever lurked in the woods might not care.

She also found herself enjoying the presence of an actual human, even him. To sense the warmth of a live body, to hear words not mapped out by a decision tree. It stirred the social aspect provided by the Heather part of her amalgamation, something withered almost to nothing under the burden of loneliness. While the Ken part, the Richelieu to Amelia’s Louis XIII, filled her mind with questions to ask, answers to obtain, and plots to scheme.

“I believe I went overboard.” Eric said, as the buggy rocked its way along the path.

“Pardon?”

“Hambley Woods. My Grandfather turned it into a mystical place with his stories. But since he was a gloomy old bastard, a mystical place filled with evil rather than wondrous creatures.”

“Barnabus told me similar stories.”

“I’m glad you believed them. Just as Grandfather used them to keep me away as a child, when it was just wilderness, I also wanted you to stay away, now that it is something worse.”

“Because that’s where you hid the door?” Amelia asked, surprised he did her one attempt. Away from his constructs, she maybe could do whatever she wanted.

“Because I made it into the place my Grandfather described.”

“A shrink would have a field day with you.”

“If I could only find my very own Dr. Melfi, I would happily submit. However, in this, I don’t need psychological help to understand myself. The truth is I need nightmares to conquer. And what better place than here to create my own, real life video game, full of villains and monsters for me to kill. Speaking of which, if I give you a command, follow it. It won’t be because I’m interfering with your search, it’s because I’m trying to stop something else from doing so.”

Unwilling to trust him, she first studied his face. When he did not look away and she found it clear of the normal wry grin or any hint of menace she nodded agreement.

“In particular, be prepared to get down and stay out of my way. It would be a ridiculous waste of effort to accidentally shoot you instead of whatever I am targeting.”

“Is it really that dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous. They’re my nightmares and as you pointed out, I’m messed up.”

Amelia asked, “Then shouldn’t I have a gun?”

While he ignored the question, she turned her attention to the approaching stand of trees. Eric’s warnings, his need to make the forest dangerous, having convinced her it held escape.

“How big is it?”

“Just under seven sections,” Eric answered.

“Umm?”

“You must be a city girl? Each section equals a square mile.”

Larger than she hoped. Too big to expect her to find escape in one search, which allowed her to banish the worry of how Eric would react if she did find the gate. Thus when they reached their destination, she ignored him while trying to decide how to proceed. When no stroke of genius bonked her upside the head, she decided to head straight for the center. That’s where heroes in a book would need to go.

Relying on Eric’s dubious protection, Amelia picked a space between two trees and entered. Almost immediately she grew uneasy.

She could draw upon multiple forays, by both her predecessors, into a wide variety of forests. From childhood romps with friends through neighborhood thickets too treks along trails carved for tourists through the great rain forests on the West coast. Yet none reminded her of Hambley Woods.

Despite the vibrant colours, it felt dead.

Mere steps underneath the trees and she wanted to leave. Yet though Amelia regularly looked over her shoulder to check on Eric, she continued deeper. The fields beyond him, disappearing from the gaps between the trees.

Soon, only the lack of trampled underbrush or broken branches implied she did not lead them in circles. By the same token, this did not imply they walked in a straight path.

“Eric, how long does your forest take to regenerate itself?”

“It depends on the damage done. Days if you ran through with no care, four or five hours to hide our passage, and much less for my lurking denizens. Is tracking one of your hidden skills?”

“Hidden skills?”

“I’m impressed with how elegantly you move, particularly with the way you are dressed. The way you part the underbrush with your parasol is particularly clever. All-in-all, amazingly ladylike...umm, that is your cue to curse at me to prove you’re not a lady. Don’t you watch movies? Myself, I’m a huge film buff.”

Unwilling to present herself as the audience for his attempt to disguise his true self, she continued onwards. Again she focused on the wrong. How, instead of rays of sunlight filtering through branches to create a speckling of bright and dark, the light permeated everything, almost like floor lighting. Or how she felt no temperature change, neither cooling from shade nor heat from unmoving air. But the silence stood out the most. Not even the sound of insects.

She realized how much she dreaded what the return of sound might reveal.

Thus Amelia found herself crouched, head turned questioningly towards her captor, before she fully processed the sound of a breaking branch. In turn, he spared her only a gesture to stay, his eyes flickering momentarily in the direction of the sound, before he allowed them to roam away from possible distraction. At the same time each hand moved through a motion as familiar as if he scratched his nose. Then, with a revolver, right out of a Spaghetti Western, in his left hand and sword in his right, Eric moved to put the bole of a tree at his back

And on his face she saw the same smile worn under the Zorro mask when he made the rose appear.

Every time his gaze momentarily settled, Amelia would turn to look in the same direction, wondering what he saw, imagining what he sensed. Then she no longer needed to imagine.

Amelia recognized the two figures immediately, the scarecrows she’d seen the first time she ventured here. However, this time they did not leer in her direction, but warily watched her companion. It sapped them of much of their power, turning them from frightening monsters into the deserters they emulated, the cloth of their uniforms more brown than grey, more torn than whole. Yet neither their appearance nor their hesitation removed all the danger they represented. Danger grew when two identical pairs, on each flank, appeared.

In the next moment, she learned what it meant to exist as a true predator. As soon as he knew what he faced, Eric acted. Raising his left hand, his finger squeezed the trigger, once and twice.

Unable to look away, Amelia saw blossoms of red appear at the chest’s of the two men on their right, those closest to their location, before one crumpled and the other fell backwards. The rest she only heard, two more shots, shouts, and the sound of running, underbrush and twigs snapping to mark the fleeing passage of the two who escaped. During those brief moments, her attention remained on the two bodies. So still. And though she tried to convince herself constructs did not live, she could not.

They reminded her of what she found while reviewing those sixteen police folders. Made her fear what may, one day, be found in the seventeenth.

She also sensed her companion’s excitement.

Apparently Eric did feel, he just kept his emotions under firm control. And those he felt strongest allowed her to label him, if not a psychopath, at least as a selfish, murderous prick. One could say evil, but that required her to accept he could not stop himself from committing such heinous acts. Amelia would not give him that out. He liked killing. Even just constructs. However, those emotions offered her hope.

Did they offer enough to cast the beacon spell?

In truth, it did not take much magical energy, but Eric, even while enjoying himself, remained miserly with his emotions. Worse, any attempt at a spell, for which a caster did not possess enough magic, would use burn everything available before failing.

Yet she wondered how long her rescuers would wait? Did anyone, even now, continue to watch for her beacon? Would someone spring into action if they spotted it?

She feared the answer to these questions might already be no.

It made her want to cast the spell immediately, to find out the answers. She would, if the reasons to wait did not weigh so heavily. No reason to chance failure, while she could still receive more from Eric before he left, maybe for another two months. Plus, if rescuers did appear, best not to invite them while her captor held weapons in hand.

These thoughts and the decision they formed provided only momentary escape from the sight of the corpses. Moments during which they lost none of their ability to horrify.

“Look away, Amelia. Look at me. Amelia!”

The second time Eric said her name, in a tone little different than he would use on his dog if it sniffed a dead animal during a walk, served to grab her attention. His shallow emotions, once more locked away, acting as a needed calming influence. A performance to make Cesar Milan proud.

“Well done, Amelia, you did exactly what I wanted. Do you want to continue?”

“I think so. Will they be back?”

“Something will spawn to replace them."

Amelia said, “I still want to continue.”

“Okay, where do you want to go? We’ve traveling parallel to the edge for the last while and it’s a long walk back to the buggy if we keep circling.”

“I thought I was headed towards the center?"

“City girl,” Eric said. “Follow the tracks of the two runners, they’re headed the right way.”

After a quick glance in the direction she planned to walk, Amelia stood and moved towards the underbrush trampled by the two deserters who fled. No need for an internal debate trying to determine if he wanted her to follow his advice or if she fell into a trap. Instead she took the path that would not lead past the pair of corpses.

Even a city girl found the trampled path easy to track. Yet Amelia’s pace slowed in comparison to before their violent encounter. Eric’s use of the term spawn brought to mind the MMOs Ken played, though even in the tensest moments, he never felt as anxious as she did now. It caused her to stop more often, watching and listening for Mobs. Where the surroundings once seemed abnormally quiet, the pounding blood in her ears now manifested invisible specters behind each tree.

Because of this, when the scream came from the distance, she ignored it, believing it too came from her imagination. However, Eric’s stealthy approach to grasp her wrist and clasp a hand over her mouth, stifling her reactive shout, felt all too real

Panic threatened, but he only whispered in her ear, “Quiet. I need to get you out of here.”

Not giving her a chance to question, he took off, in a direction almost parallel to the way they’d just came. His hand wrapped about her arm offering no chance but to follow. Before another shriek, louder and closer, added willingness to her steps.

The ladylike grace about which Eric complimented her earlier in the day disappeared. Clothing meant for civilization, manageable while walking through the forest, now proved a burden unfelt since her first days in this world. Her captor, her guide realized this the third time Amelia stumbled. Cursing her outfit, despite being entirely to blame for her wearing it, he pulled her into a small clearing and hurried across to a large tree with a forked trunk.

“Kneel down against the trunk of this tree.”

Goaded by his urgency, Amelia folded herself down onto her knees, the double breadth of the trunk hiding her from its other side. In place, she asked, “What’s going on?”

“Many of my nightmares are more dangerous than deserters. It’s a random spawn, but those who attack the others are always amongst the worst. With them, I prefer to take the role of hunter, but though you are wonderful bait, our pact makes me your protector today. Fortunately, since I don’t hold a death wish, I don’t allow them ranged weapons, but I will still need to face them. Best to do that where I have some room to move. Now quiet, I need to listen.”

Though ever logical Ken pressed for her to mention nothing stopped them from throwing any weapon, Amelia decided to follow Eric’s order. Again she watched him, trusting his senses more than her own, not even looking where he looked.

Immediately she noticed a difference. The absence of his fake smile removed the aura of unreality from the moment. Real danger lurked in the trees, her fear sparked into terror.

However, a smile alone does not indicate joy, particularly to a magic user. To these sensitives, the most extreme emotions, including terror, emanate from an individual with enough force to make expression or action meaningless. More than death, Eric fed upon terror. It made him strong.

At the same time, Amelia sensed the joy he felt at her terror. Understanding the morbid nature of his strength, she attempted to dampen her fear before she realized his joy also made her stronger.

The perfect negative feedback loop of corrupt emotion.

Momentarily their gaze locked with one another, before Eric’s head snapped around as something, multiple somethings burst from the woods around him. Their ferocity seeming so much worthier of her protector’s revolver than before, but he met them with only sword, one more substantial than it once appeared, in hand. Twirling past the chopping falchion of the first, he blocked the second’s blade, which left him open to a bash from the shield, a white hand painted on its center, of the third.

Until a shield appeared on his own arm. Spikeless, without a crest, and, like the armour in which Eric now encased himself, a dull black. Coloured no different than the bulky metal of his foes.

No matter who won this fight, he would still number amongst the League of Villains.

At no point did the beast men concern themselves with defense, trusting in the gauge of their armour along with the unceasing swing of falchion and thrust of shield to overwhelm their opponent. While he took the opposite approach, dodging or blocking, waiting for them to slow or present an opening.

The fight left Amelia forgotten, the trophy wheeled out for the winner. Until fingers, their dirty, horn like fingernails scraping across her scalp, grabbed a clump of her hair and yanked her from her crouch. In the pain and terror, she reached upwards in an attempt to free herself, but found the attackers massive wrist and large hand resisted her panicked fingers.

Someone else experienced all her pain and terror, but it energized him. Unlike Amelia, Eric remembered how many deserters he killed earlier and knew a fourth monster lurked somewhere. He just wished it still lurked, because he could let it take his toy. With a burst, he dashed through the three who faced him towards the forked tree. But he could not leave them his back for long, instead he threw his shield, like and oversized discus before he dove to the left, his revolver appearing in a now freed hand as he rolled to his feet.

The clang of the shield, against the tree, startled her assailant, causing his grip to loosen. Gravity, combined with her tug of war against his pull, dropped Amelia in a heap on the ground. Scrambling along the ground, she finally got a look of her hulking attacker as he walked around the tree. Greasy, black hair pulled into a scraggly top knot, his skin, where not covered by black metal, making it appear he’d been dipped in tar. His only ornament, a marking of a white hand, matching that on his brethren's shields, with the heel on his forehead and fingers down his face.

Scrambling away from his, her hand brushed against something. Her parasol.

When the Uruk-hai reached for her, just as Eric’s first shot sounded, Brennus's training asserted itself. The maelstrom of violence creating an environment where the spell belonged and Amelia’s body needed to react as it did. Only a clenched fist ignored the Boii's lessons, but since her fingers wrapped around the handle of the parasol, extending her reach by nearly three feet, he would not condemn. And the speed and force with which she thrust it forward, the accuracy of it's pointed, metal tip, zipping over a snarling maw into a yellow eye, would only bring praise.

In that moment she exulted.

---

Chapter 15 - Confident

Riding her wave of exaltation, Eric casually finished the two remaining attackers. Then, allowing his black plate to disappear, he walked over to nudge the one Amelia stabbed with her parasol. When he found it dead, he offered a giant smile, one in line with the feelings of pleasure and goodwill he directed her way.

"Another unexpected talent, my dear? I must remember you are not as delicate as you appear, though I usually don’t forget something I find so terribly exciting."

"I was just lucky. I didn't think, I just stabbed," Amelia said, worried her act of desperate self-defence invalidated the intent behind Brennus' training.

"Then you must be a natural. Are you hurt?"

"He scratched me when he pulled my hair."

"How beastly of him. But, otherwise, are you okay?"

"I think so."

When he reached out, almost a mirror to the Uruk-hai, she momentarily considered treating him in the same fashion. Except she suspected he offered her a test, one she could only pass if she ignored it. Meekly she handed him the parasol, which he switched to his left hand, presenting her with the right once more. Taking it, she accepted his help to stand, releasing his hand immediately to brush at the seat of her skirts before gingerly running her hand through her hair, checking for blood from dirty fingernails and brushing loose locks, escaped from their hairpins, back into a semblance of place.

Allowing her a moment to assure herself of continued health, Eric stabbed the ferrule of the umbrella into the ground, removing the signs of its encounter with the black orc.

But she could not forget, Amelia said, "I can't believe you have Uruk-hai for playmates."

"I told you I like movies. Ready to head back to the buggy?"

"We beat them. Let's continue onwards."

"Yes we did, but those screams we heard earlier means two more orcs spawned to take the place of the escapees from our first encounter. And with the death of these four, the cycle will soon begin again with who knows what."

"So my ability to search the forest is a mirage? You didn't mean to really help me."

Eric said, "There is a physical limit to the help I can offer. Sure we won, but don't let it go to your head. The adrenaline and the link we shared makes us feel powerful, but it is fool's power that can disappear at a moment’s notice. In particular, hand to hand combat saps your energy like no other. Best to go back, eat whatever the basket holds, and rest for a bit. If we feel better afterwards, we can attempt another foray."

"Just to be turned back again?" Amelia asked.

"Maybe. In truth, it’s a matter of luck. Not all my monsters are as quick to attack, some of them, specially the animals, only become aggressive when cornered. We just need luck with the randomizer."

"And they need to be killed before being replaced."

"Correct."

"Just the six of them?"

"In this part of the woods." Eric answered.

"So there are more? What chance do we have to fill the woods with non-aggressive mobs?"

"And plays video games too, can you be any more perfect?"

"Eric."

"That is the first time you called me by name, my beauty."

"Eric!"

"There is almost no chance we will ever experience complete freedom to explore the woods. But what else is there for you to do?"

A riposte more skillfully delivered than any against the three Uruk-hai he just fought. Its brutal truth severing the last thread of shared danger that connected them.

Amelia said, "Lead the way, I'm lost."

Before they broke free of the edge of Hambley Woods, the wisdom in his approach made itself apparent, as she found her mind drifting, the forest fading out of focus, which caused her to stumble in the underbrush. Only the arm that wrapped itself around her waist stopped a fall. An arm she swatted at in annoyance until it saved her from a another attempted spill to the ground. For the rest of the walk out of the woods and from there to the buggy, a decent walk away, she begrudgingly accepted its embrace, while welcoming its release when they reached the two wheeled contraption and its horse like horsepower.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Amelia? I will see what the cooks prepared.”

Given the unsteadiness of her legs, another good idea on his part, though with the seat of the buggy so high, she settled for the ground. Now safe from a fall, safe from all the monsters except the one who pretended to offer protection, Amelia felt the first shudder rattle her body. Just a prelude to the tremors that took control, an answer to the cold she felt, the relief at still breathing.

Eric draped the blanket from her picnic basket, the one she usually sat upon while eating lunch, over her shoulders. It helped. So did the bottle of water, at least the contents she did not spill from shaking.

"I'm sorry, I didn't expect that to happen."

"No worries, Amelia. The first encounter with brutal violence rarely leaves someone untouched. Consider yourself fortunate to be alive and uninjured, to be able to be shocked."

"How did you react?" Amelia asked, before she could attach reins to her tongue.

"I felt more powerful than ever before. If I knew then what I know now about how others react, that moment would have shown me I am broken. Would you like a sandwich, maybe some veggies? Eating will help return the energy you lost."

Not feeling hungry, she never-the-less took the vegetables from him. Maybe eating them would provide relief from his crazy.

It mostly worked. A distracted audience deterred Eric from speaking. For a time, while they ate, neither spoke. Not until they emptied the basket of everything except crockery and napkins did they briefly discuss returning to the forest. Something he recommended against and which she, feeling as exhausted as after any of her dance sessions with Dannika, no longer wanted.

Within the hour she stood underneath a hot shower and when she left it, she found herself alone. It made he remember her desire to escape, of the power taken from her awful host. So powerful a harvest that the beacon spell flowed from her desire as much as from her intellect.

But though she cast the spell again that night, no doorway, not even a temporary portal, appeared. Amelia remained alone on Eric's false world.

Why did she believe, just as Ken once believed, that if she could access enough magical energy, her life would improve? Did he not, despite access to more power than any mundane, lived in fear of school yard bullies? Just as she now, despite the energy taken from Eric during the fight with the Uruk-hai, greater and more potent than harvesting a month of Bieber concerts, life in fear of Eric.

The cynic in her understood someone always held more power.

Something with which the third, mostly silent member, of their triumvirate agreed, but she just did not let it bother her as much. The legacy of her high school softball coach, Ms. Babcock, queen of the pep talk, who convinced her team they could beat the State’s defending champion in their league tournament. And they did, Heather knocking in the winning run in the seventh inning for the big upset. While Ken worshipped at the altar of despair.com, she believed in the motivation it mocked.

Heather knew one sure fire method for losing, not trying. The single thing she would not quietly accept.

She offered a push to get the other two on board. By nightfall of the day after her first venture into the Hambley Woods, Amelia found herself believing along with Heather, but full of questions.

In one corner, she wondered what went wrong? Why did no rescue appear? Immediate, paranoid thoughts jumped to Julia's enmity. Maybe she exaggerated the success of her team’s progress. Or now interfered in its implementation. These thoughts Amelia brushed aside. For though she now realized the mischievous thought that helped lead Ken down this path held no value, Rebekka's child would be born before Eric finished his fantasy, she realized Julia did not hate him anywhere close to that much.

More likely, the lack of response came from a lack of readiness. If the spell only held potency for one hour, it would not surprise her to learn the resources to mount a rescue were not available. Which led to the attempt around the same time the next day.

That failure led to a more likely reason. The portal spell had not worked, a not unexpected result based upon Julia's report. Amelia remembered the success rate as if just spoken, less than one in eight times. Which just as easily could mean it worked something like one hundred times in eight hundred attempts, possibly in random clumps, not that a success happened every eight attempts. Nothing for her to do except to cast the spell as often as her magical energy held out. And to counter the first alternative, that no rescue team stood prepared to act at all times, she would send out the beacon at the same time every day. Give them certainty around which to plan.

One thing she could not allow herself to believe, that nobody watched. A thought that would defeat all the rah-rah Heather used to yank them from the doldrums.

Another part of her brain considered whether she should continue her search for the door to Benburgs, maybe it did exist somewhere outside Hambley Woods. After seeing some of Eric's forest guardians she would almost stake her life, had actually, that it held the door. But it made sense to ensure another door existed did not exist. Besides, as Eric coldly reminded her, what else did she have to do, other than go stir crazy waiting for his return, to take her back into the woods.

The question as to when that would happen filled the rest of her mind.

Four mornings later, an answer came when Beck did not appear with her normal dress. An olive green t-shirt, sleeveless, with a deep v-neck, and cropped to show her stomach. A matching pair of short shorts and calf high, black boots with buckles. The costume even came with a belt and attached holsters, a band around each thigh to keep them and the toy pistols they held from flapping about. Throw in a ponytail and the only thing missing from her Lara Croft outfit were the double-Ds. Not that most girl watchers would feel much concern about the minor difference.

A group including Eric, who did not want a repeat of her skirt enforced clumsiness, but definitely wanted to admire. She could feel his eyes on her as she led the way into a different part of the forest.

Yet he did not allow her to totally distract. When Amelia led them into an ambush, he moved at the same moment as a group of men, who looked like what she thought of as Zulu warriors, ran screaming towards them. Once more, as she dropped to the ground, as he met them with sword and shield, this time not donning his armour. Their ferocity and skills paled in comparison to those of the black orcs, but, stunned by the loudness of their shouts, she did not realize that fact until the violence splattered to an end and he led her in a detour away from the bodies.

This time she found it easier to convince herself, when momentarily safe from attack, that the bodies they left behind did not belong to real men. No symptoms of the shock that incapacitated her last time showed. Yet as they continued deeper into the woods the tension in her shoulders and neck grew worse, like the time Heather, wanting to make it home for Christmas, drove into a blizzard.

After two more attacks, she realized why Heather finally pulled into a gas station. Tension could hurt, drain all focus and energy from you. When it did, your body demands relief and, as she discovered, you could not deny it.

However, this time, after a break, she felt ready to enter the Hambley Woods again. This time they met dire wolves and her fears escalated to the same heights as during the previous Tolkien inspired attack. That finished her for the day, as she realized, just like training for a dance, she could not expect to perform a routine on her first, second, or tenth attempt. She needed practice, to attune her muscles to the new task.

It explained why Amelia took him to her bed when they returned to the manor, hoping to ensue he would return with little delay to allow her to practice. And while physically unsatisfactory for both, natural when only negative emotional attachments between the two, it worked. Though she silently thanked Ilina for sharing her story.

Besides, forgettable and horrible as she found the act, Amelia could not deny the charge it offered to her magical reservoir.

A reservoir she struggled to drain, between Eric's frequent visits. Besides the daily beacons for the portal team, which she decided she could afford to cast twice a day, Amelia recognized the value in the spell Dalton used during their field experiments. Daily she provided a view of their wedding portrait, he dressed in the Confederate uniform and she in her wedding dress, Mr. and Mrs. Eric Hambley engraved on plaque beneath, which hung in the main sitting room. She also cast the spell to show the sign at the entrance to Hambley Manor. Hopefully someone would see and maybe use the information to track her captor in the real world.

In case someone did not, she continued to look for the door, now with an added tool. A simple spell that acted similar to stretching a string across an entrance way. Initially set up in arcs radiating from each of the manor's doors, then spreading out as she tracked the arrival of food. Never finding the actual delivery construct, Amelia used the arrival of new supplies to extrapolate the direction traveled by the mule.

More evidence the woods led to Benburg's.

And when needed, she renewed the anti-fertility spell Dannika once taught a squeamish Ken. Bad enough to sleep with him, but she did not want an impossible to ignore reminder when she escaped.

When, not if.

For Amelia believed she would escape. She needed to believe, it kept her fighting.

---

Chapter 16 - Condemned

"Who are you?"

The question Amelia asked herself whenever she looked in a mirror. And with the lack of entertaining distraction, even non-entertaining distractions, she found herself looking in the mirror with greater frequency. Beside, nothing more important existed in her life than that question? Well maybe one thing, but only the elusive answer to this question seemed within her control.

Easiest to start with who she was not.

Not Heather Theis. Neither Amelia Hambley nor Amelia Walker. Not even, eleven months after her transformation, Kenneth Cabot. Nameless, but not faceless, thus the mirror. Maybe it hid the answer?

The face, the body, they belonged to her. True, Heather provided the template, but passing time moulded her confused psyche to comfortably fit within. That is why, when she looked in the mirror, seeing the pretty woman, knowing who lived inside of her no longer felt wrong.

Unless you looked into her eyes. There the wrong lurked. Holding an answer she did not like to admit.

She existed as a mannequin. Whoever Eric wanted her to become, she became. No matter how intricate her hair or elaborate her costume, she dressed to play the role he expected. But never a major role, that he reserved for himself. For her, at most a bit part. Maybe no more than an audience member called on stage as part of his magic show.

For over time, Amelia learned thoughts about his betrayal played a lesser role in the creation of this nightmare than she first thought.

Instead she now understood how much Eric adored his own magnificence, so much so that he needed to share it with someone. Yet he tempered desire with enough arrogance to imagine how others, powerful others, could feel threatened by him. It required him to take his one man show, The Marriage of Eric Hambley, so far off Broadway it required a new world. One where the Royal Command Performance required the audience attendance rather than the performers.

Her.

Eric needed someone to witness his cleverness, to get terrified by the monsters he defeated, to let him show off. Until the final act, when he would became the monster, it almost made him whole.

Like a theater students, watching her friends perform, she gave her all to support his show. The one time she did not occurred on a ridiculous day, with him dressed as Batman and her as Catwoman, which led to her laughter when he tripped over his cape while fighting a ship and ocean less pirate. Miffed at this response to his moment of imperfection, despite escaping any injury through a quick roll away from a flashing cutlass, Eric did not return for two weeks. Long enough to expend all her hoarded energy.

While he never required her to wear the uncomfortable latex catsuit again, his absence taught her a lesson. Amelia needed him. She could no longer survive in a world alone, could not handle the inane chatter of the constructs. It gave her a better understanding of how someone could stay in an abusive relationship; sometimes the need overrode the knowledge that violence lurked.

Amelia remembered the pictures. She knew what waited.

But though outwardly his mannequin, she continued to hope for escape. Because she, not Eric decided what it meant to inhabit her body and psyche. Amelia, Ken, Heather, or whoever she became, could not allow herself to forget that truth.

So when the mirror now asked who looked back, she answered with a simple me, No matter how she dressed, be it as plantation princess or heroine from a game or comic, the mirror showed her.

Today looked like heroine day. A white t-shirt and black skirt, both so small they should only be worn in a virtual world, be it a pocket world or on a gaming console. Fingerless gloves, of red and black, stretched above her elbows, red hiking boots covered her feet, and the distinctive suspenders did nothing. Eric did love his buxom, brunette game ladies; she often found herself dressed as Lara Croft, Chun-Li, or his current favourite, Tifa Lockheart.

Dressed as the last of these, Amelia cursed the feeling of excitement in her belly. She would not be alone today. Sure she would likely feel terrified at some point, angry at others, finally ashamed when they ended the day with crappy sex, but at least not alone.

One final adjustment of her dolphin tail emulating hair do, Beck never let her out of the bedroom until perfect, then she headed for the kitchen to pick up the lunch basket. However, instead of getting the horse and buggy from the barn, she found her captor sitting in a chair at the bottom of the stairs, paying more attention to his revolver, which he twirled about the index finger on his right hand, than her descent. The distracted look on his face made her catch her breath in worried fright.

Too far away for him to hear, but Eric sensed her pulse of worry. That brought an approximation of the normal, bemused smile to his face, as he waved a soothing gesture in her direction.

"Why don't you take a seat, Amelia? I would like to talk in comfort."

At least he did not pat his lap, expecting her to sit there, as he'd done multiple times before. Still Eric did not go unrewarded, since she could not help but flash him when she took a seat wearing her too short skirt.

"It appears your friends are getting close."

Another response she could not hide. Excitement, replaced by more fear when she realized it may provide incentive for him to finish her now. The gun suddenly appeared to grow more substantial in his hand.

"I've placed tags on certain pieces of information. A number of those were recently triggered, though fortunately only things that hint at my history rather than my present. There are questions being asked in the solitaire community, but I won’t worry too much about that, the smart solitaries, people I deal with, are usually unwilling to speak to your type."

"My type?"

"A member of a family, coven, or clan. Whatever you call it. Speaking of which, you never mentioned to whom you belong?"

"The Samodivas," she said in a moment of not quite recklessness, wondering if he knew what that meant.

"Good to know my guess is confirmed. Scary bunch of bitches to have chasing me, but they won't get anything from my friends."

"I'm surprised you murderers are so tight, they always give up their buddies on the First 48."

"Group snobbery does not become you, my dear. Particularly since you would find most of the great murderers come from your type, so much easier to stay hidden when you’re part of a bigger thing being hidden. I'm rather unprecedented, so much so my friends have no idea what I truly am. Most would turn me over if they knew the truth. But for now, they see me as one of them, a solitaire who helps them stay out of harm’s way, particularly from the predators, like the Divas."

Remembering how that nature, widely attributed to the Samodivas, impacted Ken's decisions, Amelia did not argue. Bad enough for the Cabot's, powerful in comparison to most, how would it be when alone. Besides she needed to ask something of vital importance.

"What are you going to do?"

"That is what I found myself considering when you arrived."

"And?"

"I suppose I could throw myself upon your mercy. Would that work?"

"Maybe."

"You really are a terrible liar. We both know you cannot control everybody. I’m guessing my last victim was one of your sisters, so at a minimum I will need to pay for her death. Maybe if you’d been switched around, I would believe, because, unlike you, she proved an excellent at lying. Not that she showed your spunk. Once she encountered the monsters in my woods I couldn't drag her back.”

Amelia said, “It can be terrifying. Both the monsters and trusting you.”

“Your willingness to be afraid is one of the reasons you’re my favourite Amelia. That and how you hardly talk, it’s no surprise I’ve spent more time with you than probably all the others combined. But it doesn’t matter, obviously mercy is out. You can't ensure it for me. And it doesn't exist in me for you."

The pistol no longer twirled about his finger. Instead Amelia stared into its cold depths and, of all things, felt relief. Horrific as this end would be, she often imagined worse.

But the gun did not fire.

"If I ended it now, I could attempt to run. Change my appearance, become someone new. It would be easy, I've done it many times before, have prepared to do it again. But after all the energy I put into this fantasy, what a failure. I don’t think I could live with myself if I did not get everything out of our adventure together, better to shoot myself in the head right now."

"I won't stop you."

"Funny girl." Eric said, then paused to gather his thoughts. "I'm sure you figured this all out?"

"You're wife cheated on you with Barnabus. You found out and this is where I grow less sure. Did you kill her and now like to relive it? Or did you do nothing, come to regret it, and now try to punish her through us?"

“After the war, I often traveled for business. One such journey ended early, when someone almost caught me in the pursuit of my pleasures. So I returned to Hambley Manor, late one evening, before anyone expected me home and proved my suspicions true. Barnabus and Amelia in my bed, not in flagrante delicto as they say, just asleep. Not even curled together.

"I cannot remember what I felt. Maybe angry or betrayed, possibly even satisfaction to be proven right. I do know I turned my back on them, walked from the room with the intention to return to my horse and disappear. But out on the landing I spotted my parents, summoned by some parental sixth sense, prepared to avert the disaster of my finding out about Amelia and Barnabus. In that moment, I realized everyone in my home knew me as a cuckold and I've never handled embarrassment with much aplomb."

Remembering the incident with the Batman cape, Amelia could echo agreement. But she did not need to say anything while playing the audience to his soliloquy.

"That knowledge seared away all familial connection and...no, I should take it a few steps further back. They probably suspected something about me, not because I killed puppies or what have you, I think they just knew, maybe I reminded them of some similarly fucked up ancestor. Whatever the reason, the one lesson I remembered from my father, this from a man who could make another’s ears bleed from talking about cotton, is how all life is important. He made me a disciple in this pact with humanity. Rather a farce when you consider what happened at the plantations all around us. But I never thought about that, instead I cherished the idea, even while not agreeing with it, since he made it our shared secret. Even after thriving in that horrible war, which daily put lie to the truth of that pact, I felt something akin to shame about continuing to kill. But when I saw my parents that night, the shame disappeared.

“The exact chain of events now vary when I try to piece it together. I must have returned to bedroom, woke the two, told Amelia to run and forced Barnabus to get his sword. He showed bravery, I will give him that, confidence as well. Yet confidence undeserved, his bravery for naught, he died as easily as any of my prior victims. That ended my life as Eric Hambley, but not as a free man. Fear bought my continued freedom, as I cowed the entire household with dire threats. They allowed me to leave with money, food, clothing, and two horses.”

"So you let Amelia go and now try to avenge yourself on her through others?"

"I expected she would run all the way to her father's home. She’d lived here or nearby her entire life, how could I expect her to get turned about in the dark. Yet the silly girl got lost outside her own door, not figuring it out until she reached Hambley Woods. Even worse, why did she stay on the road, trudging back in exhaustion? Exhaustion that disappeared the moment she saw me riding towards her. Suddenly terror burst from her like someone turning on a 1000 watt bulb. She ran. That triggered the wolf in me, I need to chase her. I’m glad I did, because it felt fucking glorious.”

In that moment, as he stared past her, a look of fond remembrance on his face, Eric may as well look like alien, so impossible did she find him to comprehend. Anger at betrayal she could understand, but this eclipsed emotion. The oenophilia describing his favourite bottle of wine, the aesthete remembering a poem that spoke to him in a time of need, the connoisseur remembering his last great meal. Amelia did not know how to respond and his waiting silence told her he now expected her to join him on his stage. Tired of his games, still unconcerned about her own safety, she decided his show needed a dose of truth.

“You sick fuck, you get off on terror. Don’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” Eric said. “Something about it sets my heart all aflutter.”

“And so all of this?” Amelia asked,

“If there is one thing never in short supply, that would be terror. In particular, war offers more than I can consume, though you may be surprised to know it is as a medic where I'm most fulfilled. Even the stupidest or bravest fear their own mortality when injured."

"Well they should fear it with you looking after them."

"You're ignoring irony, my dear. Or at least I think it's irony, the know-it-alls on the internet have left me paranoid to use the term. The thing is, I am a very good medic. I have lots of experience, don’t feel the emotions to get mentally borked by the ugliness, and if they die, I no longer can get off, as you so elegantly stated, on their terror. And think about the thanks they direct in my direction if they survive or the hatred from others I saved to live the life of a cripple. It really is a win win for me. I get to wallow in what I enjoy, at the same time growing more powerful while doing so. It should be enough, but I can never forget chasing Amelia."

“So you killed sixteen girls, and plan to kill me, to satisfy your greed?”

“Is it that many? You know I rarely think about any of them, because none of them inspired me with anything close to my first Amelia. I’ve often wondered why, but only now, as the noose closes in upon me, am I allowed to experience an epiphany, See, I never felt anything for them, I may as well have spent my killing prostitutes like all my unimaginative fellow serial killers. But how many times have you offered me your terror? It's like spicy food, it clears my senses, makes me feel alive. Damn, you'll be spectacular to hunt.”