No, rather than make a random guess on teleporting, we’d be better served by finding a place to hunker down. I looked around, eager to find some form of shelter, something that would shield us from Reverb’s voice. I didn’t see anything nearby except the walls of the passageway.
Walls! I suddenly thought.
Once, in the recent past, I had managed to temporarily escape the effects of a villain’s weapon by taking refuge within a wall. With nothing to lose, it was certainly worth seeing if lightning would strike twice. Mentally crossing my fingers, I dashed to the nearest wall, phased the two of us, and stepped inside.
Chapter 34
Reverb’s voice sounded three or four more times while we were in our makeshift foxhole, rattling the walls on each occasion. In total, his verbal assault (for lack of a better term) probably lasted no more than a minute or so, but felt much longer. Needless to say, I stayed put — still holding Ursula — until well after the last time his vocals sent tremors through the place. In fact, we didn’t stick our noses out, so to speak, until a familiar voice gave the all-clear.
“You can come out now,” I heard Rune say in a somber tone, his voice completely unexpected. “It’s over.”
Feeling relief, I did as suggested and left the relative safety of the wall, with Ursula still unconscious in my arms. (It didn’t occur to me until later that it could have been a trap — someone pretending to be Rune in order to lure me out — but fortunately, such was not the case.) I then made the two of us substantial again, and brought my pain reception back to normal.
In addition to Rune, Endow was also present. Upon seeing Ursula, she rushed toward me, maternal concern etched on her face. Considering what had happened the first two times she’d heard Reverb, I half-expected Ursula to be bleeding from her eyes. Thankfully, she looked no worse than she had when I had stepped into the wall with her, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. (I had tried using my healing power on her when we were in the wall, but — unsurprisingly — I couldn’t get it to work.)
I was about to explain to Endow what had happened, but didn’t get a chance because the next second she and Ursula were both gone.
“What the…?” I muttered, startled by their sudden disappearance. Was this how people felt when I unexpectedly teleported out of a room?
“She’ll be fine,” Rune said, interrupting my thoughts. “Endow will take care of her. But right now we need to go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
“Reverb’s dead,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I need to show you where he died.”
“No, wait,” I uttered anxiously. In response to the expectant look I then received from Rune, I gestured at my clothes — in particular the areas where Ursula’s blood stained them. “I need to change.”
Rune’s eyes appeared to glow for a second, following which he announced, “You’re good.”
Glancing down, I saw that the bloodstains were indeed gone. In fact, my clothes looked as though they’d just been dry-cleaned. Nevertheless, I couldn’t simply overlook the fact that I’d just had someone’s blood on me. Basically, despite the spiffy appearance of my attire, I just didn’t feel clean.
“It’s not enough,” I declared. “I need a shower.”
“Later,” Rune said, in a tone that would brook no naysaying. Then he snapped his fingers and we vanished.
Chapter 35
We popped up in what could have been the field where we’d first appeared in Permovren — if one could overlook the massive crater that hadn’t been there when we’d initially arrived. It was a concave depression, about fifty feet in diameter and maybe five feet deep at its lowest point. In essence, it looked as though someone had taken a giant spoon and scooped out a good portion of the ground.
Pinion, Mariner, and Static were already present when Rune and I showed up, standing in a group near the edge of the crater. After we joined them, I stood there for a moment, waiting for them to fill me in.
After a few moments, I finally said, “If anyone wants to tell me what happened, I’m all ears.”
“The killer struck again,” Pinion replied.
“So I gathered,” I stated with a nod. “I was hoping for a little more detail.”
“It started in the castle,” Mariner noted, “then moved out here almost immediately.”
“We assume that was Reverb’s doing,” Rune added.
“What — moving the field of play?” I asked. “Is there some advantage to being out here?”
“Only if you’re not an Incarnate,” Pinion chimed in.
I frowned, unsure of how to interpret what I’d just heard.
“There was a good chance that Reverb’s voice would have killed anyone in the castle,” Pinion explained. “Not wanting to harm any innocents, he seemingly brought the conflict here, where he could fight with less restraint.”
“Not that it did him any good,” Mariner chimed in as he glanced up at the sky.
Following is gaze, I glanced up but only saw normal sky — a sure sign that Rune’s glamour (or whatever he’d done) — was still in place as far as I was concerned.
“His effigy’s gone?” I guessed.
“Correct,” Rune said.
“And once again, I suppose we don’t have a body,” I surmised. Rune confirmed this almost immediately with a nod.
“Did any of you sense anything this time?” I inquired.
“Of course,” said Static. “As with Gamma, we knew where in the castle Reverb was when the conflict occurred, as well as when he shifted it here.”
“Well, if you sensed it, why didn’t any of you come to his aid?” I asked.
There was silence for a moment, then Rune intoned, “It’s not as simple as that. Contrary to how it appears, we’re not all just sitting around waiting for you to solve this for us. We’ve got other duties to attend to, ongoing obligations to fulfill. We aren’t always in a position to just
