Chapter 47.3

“What do you suppose she meant by ‘maintenance?’” Lynnria asked awkwardly.

I expelled a flummoxed raspberry through my lips.  “Search me.  Probably some ‘forbidden’ nonsense having to do with your Core.”

“Bunch of keech, ye ask me,” Jax said.  Then, taking a few deliberate strides backward, she grumbled, “Lets be on with it.  We got our own mess to sort.”

“Right.”  Arx kicked aside the remains of the table Lynnria had broken.  “The bird was about here, I think.”

“Aye, and that bint in the dress were over by yer statue, Arxy-love,” Jax agreed as she sidestepped that direction.  “Here abouts, I’d say.  Now what do ye see, lass?”

Lynnria shook her head, bewildered.  “Well, the fog pulled together a lot over by you, Arx.  But it’s still pretty spread out in the middle.”

“That don’t make a lick of sense.”  Frustrated, Jax again put hands to hips then turned to look up at me.  “I be standing in the right place, ain’t I?”

“Let me check.”

Quickly, I trotted over to the painting for a second look, and the woman was indeed by the right-hand statue.  So then why isn’t Jax’s fog coming together?

Pondering, I scratched at where my beard should have been, reminding me of my unfortunate set of mutton-chops.  Neither of the Dolilim had said a word about it, one way or the other.  So they were either indifferent—likely—or they had not wanted to hurt my feelings—far less so.  ‘Guarded’ was not a quality I would ascribe either of them.

Also, I was the axiomatic definition of ‘hot’ in their eyes, just as a matter of my Class.  Which was all the more reason for me to shave.  I could not be responsible for fostering a poor sense of taste onto my girls.

But that was neither here nor there.

The woman in the painting had not been depicted with any sort of features, which could have been a reference to the haze of a puzzle we were facing.  However, from her posture, she seemed… unsettled?  Perhaps uncomfortable to be there?  Like she did not know anyone at the party.  Alone and lost in the crowd.

And it’s called ‘Where am I?’

“Jax, I don’t think this woman is even where she’s supposed to be,” I called over my shoulder.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, the painting doesn’t tell us where you need to stand,” I explained as I returned to my spot by the landing.  “We’re going to have to figure that out on our own.”

She sighed.  “And what be the point of making us do that?  I ask ye?”

I had to agree.  While this puzzle’s eventual goal was more than abstruse, solving it was not so much difficult as it was tedious.  There was a reason hardly anyone over the age of twelve engaged in rollicking games of Marco Polo, after all.

*****

“Yeah… I think you’re getting closer,” Lynnria reported some dozens of minutes later.

“Way back here?” Jax asked, out of sight.  From the sound, she was somewhere to my right and beneath the lip of the mezzanine.

“I think so.” Lynnria frowned and starting gesturing with her hands.  “Can you go back even more?”

“Not without… aye, hold on.”  There followed a series of thumping noises, followed by a metallic clang, and what sounded like an entire porcelain tea set smashing into oblivion.  “That better?”

From her face, you would have thought Lynnria was in physical pain.  “Yes, but… couldn’t you have just moved it to one side?”

“Nay, the whole of it were stuck fast.  Had to chop it through,” Jax replied reasonably.  “Alright, lass.  Me back’s to the wall.  No going further lessen ye want me to go through that, too.”

“Okay… try moving a little to the right?  No, that’s worse.  The other way?  Okay… okay…”  Abruptly, she gasped.  “Oh!  I can almost see something!”

“Yeah?” I prompted.

“It… kind of looks like that woman with the yellow dress.  Only made of clouds,” she reported.  “It’s still a bit lumpy, though.”

“Huh.”

For a few moments, those of us that could see one another traded uncertain glances.  Nothing had physically changed that I had seen.  There had been no sudden chimes to let us know we had solved anything, and if a treasure chest had dropped from the ceiling, I had missed it.

But then I heard a murmur from below, “Hel-lo.  What have we here?”

“Got something, Jax?”

“Aye, Master.  Be a Keyhole in the floorboards, sure as I’m standing.  Blighter were hidden under the table.”

I thumped the handrail.  “Finally!  I swear, how hard would it have been to just tell us to look under the furniture?  Hold on, I’m coming down.”

I turned and headed for the stair but, before I had taken more than a single step, I heard, “Whoa, there!  The wee knapdarloch be trying to run to ground!”

My weight settled onto my left foot while the right of my face scrunched up in confusion.  I could normally translate a solid ninety to ninety-five percent of Jax’s brogue with nothing more than context clues, but whatever the hell that had been had completely jumped the rails.  I might have even thought she had slipped into some unfamiliar language had I not known that to be impossible.

“I’m sorry, what is trying to run?”

“The Keyhole, mate.  Jumped near a full span, but it’s stopped now.”

“Well, that’s…”  I blinked a few times.  “There’s a slang term for a Keyhole?”

“What are ye on about?” she called upward.  “Ain’t ye never heared of a knapdarloch?”

“…Should I have?”

She snorted in disgust.  “Be the tangle what happens when a critter gets a mess of shite stuck to the fur in back of its arse.”

My mouth slowly fell open as my brain ground its way through her explanation.  “You called the Keyhole a dingle-berry?”

“Well, it weren’t supposed to move, now were it?”

Lynnria looked approximately in Arx’s direction.  “Is this what passes for normal conversation around here?”

“When we aren’t trying to get into one another’s pants,” Arx agreed affably before turning.  “Go back to where you were, Dearest.”

Wordlessly, I retraced my steps.

“Knock me… that be a strange thing to see,” Jax reported.  “Blighter be pulling through solid wood like a bug on water.”

“What about when I move?” Arx asked, putting actions to words.

Jax sucked in a sharp breath.  “Aye, love.  Shot straight up the wall when ye did that.”

“So… if the Keyhole moves when we move, doesn’t that mean there’s the possibility we might open the thing in the wrong place?” I said.

“What happens if we do that?” Lynnria asked.

“Consequences,” Jax pronounced with an air of finality—and in a clear echo of something I had once said to her.

Ah, yes.  The ever present possibility of failure.  And now the puzzle’s tedium was made clear.  It was not just a simple matter of finding the Keyhole.  We had to also position it in the correct place.  If we did not…

Well… consequences.  What those might be were an unknown, but I could imagine a host of scenarios ranging from wasting the Key to getting the lot of us sucked into a black hole.  It was the kind of situation that just begged for some sort of randomized, behind-the-scenes table.

“Lynnria,” I said slowly.  “You said that Jax was the only one whose clouds looked like anything recognizable, right?”

“They did, yes.  But she must have moved again.”

“You’re thinking we have to get this perfect,” Arx surmised.  “But how?  Both of our positions are as clear as we’ve been able to find.”

I tapped on the handrail for a moment.  How indeed?  One person above… and two below.  Hmm… maybe double-check the painting?  Couldn’t hurt.

Nodding, I trotted back over.  Jax, of course, was no where near where the woman had been standing.  That just left the flower—and its precarious perch on the railing—and the birdcage…

Which was sitting on a table.  The real-life equivalent of which Lynnria had accidentally reduced to kindling.

“Arx?” I called down, hoping this was not what I was thinking.  “Could you try lying down?  I want to see if that affects anything.”

“Like this?” she called, out of sight.  I had to suppose she had obeyed.

“That made it worse,” Lynnria reported.

I closed my eyes and ran my fingers down the center in my forehead.

“Chebs…”