I woke back up in Lady Liu’s house. My head still felt like it was splitting in two, but I was awake again, and I judged that to be a good sign. Boddy had dozed off in an arm chair in a corner of the room. He must have asked someone to bring it here, because it hadn’t been there when I fell asleep. Dim but adequate lighting was coming through an open window opposite Boddy.

There was a card folded over the back railing of my bed. I reached up and pulled it down. A small red circle dotted one corner, like a button. I opened the card and read.

Mister Corners, I have found you a suitable instructor who can explain the basics of thought construction to you. When you next awaken, press the red circle on this card and think the word “Summons” with vigorous intent. I was assured you would know how to do that.

I wish you a speedy recovery. Little Cousin has been very worried about you. Youngest Grandson sends his wish to play video games with you.

Regards,

Ai Liu, Mistress of the House of Inheritance

Your ally.

 

I felt Warden stir, as if he was also reading the note through my eyes. It was a physical relief to finally know that the illusions and misdirections planted by Rookie were either destroyed, in the process of being destroyed, or under careful observance. Loyal was there too, in her own way a much greater defender than Warden, despite being just a deputy. She seemed to enjoy her new shape and her new name. I was just glad it meant she wouldn’t be assailing me every time I slipped from ‘awake’ to ‘not awake’.

She didn’t participate in any of the illusions built in your mind. Warden offered, answering a question I hadn’t fully formed yet. Nor do I think she was aware of the exact nature of your task. The latter is a bit more difficult to say with certainty, though. I was already imprisoned by that time.

Okay, so Lady Liu was possibly an unknowing victim of Carver’s plans. At the very least, she wasn’t secretly a thought constructor who had planted Rookie and iced over all my concerns and my ability to connect the dots as to what my task meant for those plans. I decided to risk it. Even if she wasn’t being honest, anything I could learn would be helpful. Also, I was more than a little excited about the prospect of getting magical training in a secretive psychic power that I apparently had.

I pressed down on the circle. Warden added his voice to my own mental shout, SUMMONS! Then I tossed the card across the room.  It flapped and flopped and eventually clipped Boddy on the ear instead of his nose like I had been aiming for. It worked though, he was up in an instant, revolver drawn and held low by his side as he took in the room. After a cursory scan, then a more thorough check into the corners, he turned to me. His expression was blank, but his posture said ‘I’m annoyed. Make me not annoyed and I won’t leave any bruises.’

“Easy, Boddy. It’s just me in here. That was easier than climbing out of bed.”

“You could have just called out at me.” Boddy returned to his chair, keeping his revolver carefully pointed at the floor but still in his grip.

“Yeah well, hindsight is perfect, but I am not. Thought you should know, the constructor arrived.”

“I know. They manifested that card that you just threw at my face. Dropped it off about an hour ago while you were sleeping.”

“Well, I’ve sent for them.”

“Must have been Sneaky Cousin to not wake me.”

“The card had a summons attached to it. I used that.”

Boddy nodded. “That makes more sense. So they’ll be on their way, then?”

“Well, in theory. Assuming I focused enough while making the summons. And assuming they’re still nearby. This is the Lane, they could be just about anywhere here or anywhere on Earth right now. Might take a while for them to reach us.”

Boddy grunted. Apparently that didn’t warrant words because it was so obvious preschool hobs (at, I assumed, roughly age 50 in realis time) would know about it.

“I have more good news, too.”

“That was good news?”

“Well, it approached it. Better than we’ve had in a while. ‘More or less’ trustworthy is better than ‘pointing a shotgun at me’, at least in my book.”

Boddy shrugged, then nodded. When he didn’t speak, I continued with my good news. “I made a weapon, today. A real one. I needed it---”

“What kind?” Boddy interrupted. “Sorry?” I replied.

“What kind of weapon did you make? Handgun? Rifle? Maybe something old fashioned? Bow and arrows? Sword? Lightning bolts?”

“No, though let’s circle back to lightning bolts later on. I made a pitchfork.”

“A…a pitchfork?!” Boddy seemed offended. I guess he was a professional; using a crude farming tool was probably beneath him.

“That’s right. It’s also a torch at the same time.”

“A pitchfork. The kind you use to get rid of hay that horses shat on.”

“This particular one hasn’t been used for that, but the same general shape, yeah, I guess.”

“Daniel, that’s a terrible choice of weapon.”

“Whatever,” Just because he couldn’t see the genius in it didn’t mean the torchfork wasn’t awesome. Pitchtorch? No, torchfork was better. “It’s symbolic of revolt or revolution. It was what I needed right now, not necessarily what I’m going to make my signature weapon.”

Boddy nodded. “I see it, now. Makes sense, considering. I’ll give you some proper defense training if you’re still alive and welcome on the Lane. Then you can make a good weapon for multiple situations.”

“Cool. Anyway, I was getting to the actual good part. See, I found a big illusion in my mindscape while I was out. Huge. Tower-sized.”

“Do you know what it’s hiding?”

“What it was hiding, yes. I destroyed it. With the torchfork.”

Boddy leaned forward. Yeah, that had got his attention. Destroying towers was the sort of thing ‘real’ weapons could do, right?

“What it was hiding was my Warden. The original one, the one I made that night I went to the House the second time. You weren’t there, but I think I caused a bit of a stir by throwing a tantrum, so maybe you heard about it?”

“Yeah. So you freed your first construct, then? Why is that good news?”

“Well, for starters, he knows who made Rookie.” Boddy broke into another one of his grins. “And to continue, I got some answers on why my second construct was acting so strange. Turns out, Rookie never helped me reintegrate it like I thought. Warden was the one responsible for that. And he deputized it. Literally. With a plastic deputy’s badge from some field trip when I was seven.”

“So…ever since you passed out on the Lane and we took you here the first time, Rookie’s been under attack by that thing?”

“Every night while I slept. It’ll be even harder, now. Warden and I reshaped it. Well, I reshaped it. Warden kept a look out and said some encouraging things.” I’m not sure if a figment of my own creation formed in my own image giving me a pep talk counts as narcissism but I’m choosing to believe it doesn’t. “It’s not a monstrosity anymore.” I considered for a second, then amended, “Well, it’s still pretty monstrosity-like. But it isn’t cruel, and it has nothing to do with sleep. I call it Loyal. It’s a sort of…kind of like a well trained pet. Or a hunting hound? Not in shape, but in…personality. I couldn’t change its core being, but I was able to shift it a lot. It’ll take the sleeping shifts, Warden will take the daytime shifts. Now that I know how to manipulate my own mindscape, I should be able to prevent any further intrusions.”

“That, and you have two dangerous entities and a weapon you can manifest now.”

“Yeah, and that. So frankly, our situation is better than it has been since I signed the contracts. Even if we didn’t know how bad things were back then.”

“You said you knew who had built Rookie, too?”

“Yeah. It was Archie.”

“There’s never been a hob or any other being of irrealis with thought construction abilities.”

“Well, it might be more accurate to say it was a woman pretending to be Archie. Have you ever seen Archie’s human guise?”

“Once or twice. Sometimes she goes to the realis for research, and one of us Boddys usually goes along to keep her safe.”

“Describe it.”

“I dunno. Looks human.”

“Old? Tall? Short?”

“Young. We’ve actually had trouble getting in to some of the more…sensitive libraries because she can barely pass as a working adult in human appearance. Uh…shorter than my form, if not by much. My human guise is pretty tall, though. For a hob.”

“The woman who came to visit me was an adult, if a young one. And, more importantly, she was more than six feet tall. She was taller than I was, actually.”

“That wasn’t Archie.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was Carver’s mercenary constructor. She was there to plant Rookie, glass over any of my foibles about taking the job, and seem like she was on the up-and-up the whole time. It worked, too. I didn’t know that thought construction was a thing until three weeks later, so Rookie had plenty of time to work without my awareness.”

“What about the Archie I know?”

“Never met her, but I suspect that either she’s been replaced by a thought construct that looks an awful lot like her, or she’s in on the whole deal and permitted Carver to send his hired brain tamperer in her stead.”

Boddy pulled off his stocking cap to scratch the top of his head.  “I hope she’s okay,” was all he added to that.

“Anyway,” I started. “I bet that freelancer is still---”

I was interrupted by a knock on the guest room door. I shared a glance with Boddy, who moved his revolver to a polite, but still active, position. “Come in!” I called back to the knock.

The man who entered was lean, almost unhealthy thin. He had a full sleeve tattoo on one arm, and a series of three-pointed stars irregularly spaced along his forehead and one cheek. “Mister Corners?” he asked, his voice deep and mellow, in contrast to his rather thuggish appearance.

“That’s me.”

“Lady Liu has asked me to do a little training for you. Cover the basics of construction. Why don’t we start with what you’ve managed to figure out on your own, so I can tell you which parts were a bad idea and which parts were a terrible idea?”

Something in his tone made me ask, “And which parts were a good idea?”

“Nope,” said mellow-voice, a hint of cheerfulness caught in the word. “I’ve been at this a long time, Mister Corners. I’ve taught a dozen new constructors. Not a one has ever had a good idea without training, myself included. The fact that you’re sitting here before me in one piece means that you’ve not had any catastrophic ideas, which is about as much as could be hoped for in a newbie.”

“Okay. I need some guarantee of secrecy, though.”

“I’ll show you my contract. Lady Liu is the only one who gets to know any details of my work. It’s standard procedure for someone like me.”

“I may ask you to keep some secrets from her, too. Could I hire you myself?”

He sized me up, took in my little box in the corner, then Boddy, who had relaxed incrementally over the conversation, and now had his revolver in a rest grip, though still in a grip. “I doubt it,” the constructor said, eventually. “My rates tend to be pretty high. This is a full-time job, you know?”

Boddy cleared his throat at that point. We both turned to look at him. “Mister Daniel, I think you may have overlooked a simpler answer. Lady Liu has a reputation for integrity. If you just ask her not to pry into certain information, she’ll respect it.”

The tattooed man nodded. “Yeah, I can work under those terms, as long as the Lady is aware of them.” He extended his hand. It was painful to roll over enough to shake it, but I did it anyway.

“Alright, secrets kept as Lady Liu allows. Even from Lady Liu. Now, tell me everything you can remember about constructing.”