Chapter 14 – The Choreography of Bedlam
The laughter didn't come from a direction. It came from the air itself, bleeding out of the mist like humidity.
Uzo stopped, his boots sinking into the mud. He raised a fist, signaling Ronnie to freeze.
"Don't breathe the mist," he whispered. "It tastes like copper."
"Blood?" Ronnie murmured, gripping her chain-dagger until her knuckles turned white.
"No," Uzo said, his eyes scanning the impossible geometry of the trees. "Old pennies. It's a Conductor's mist. They're setting a tempo."
Snap.
A twig broke. Not near them but right above them.
"Scatter!" Uzo roared.
He shoved Ronnie to the right just as the canopy exploded.
Three figures slammed into the earth where they had been standing a second ago. The impact didn't sound like flesh hitting mud; it sounded like bowling balls hitting a wooden floor. CRACK-THUD.
The Tumblers rose.
They were lanky, their limbs too long for their torsos, clad in the diamond-patterned suits of the House of Clown. But it was their movement that was wrong. They didn't stand; they vibrated.
One of them, wearing a mask painted with a weeping frown, tilted his head at a ninety-degree angle.
"The Audience..." he shrieked, his voice glitching like a broken record. "...is... impatient!"
He launched himself at Uzo.
This wasn't normal speed. It was burst-movement. One second the Tumbler was ten feet away, the next his knee was driving into Uzo's chest.
Uzo barely brought his spear shaft up to block.
BANG.
The force lifted Uzo off his feet. He flew backward, crashing through a thicket of ferns. His ribs groaned under the impact. This wasn't human strength; it was hysterical strength.
Ronnie didn't wait. "Hey, ugly!"
She swung her chain. The weighted blade whistled through the air, aiming for the Weeping Tumbler's neck.
But a second Tumbler this one with a Smiling Mask caught the chain mid-air.
Caught it with his teeth.
Ronnie's eyes went wide. "You gotta be kidding me."
The Smiling Tumbler bit down and yanked.
Ronnie was dragged forward, her boots carving furrows in the mud. The third Tumbler (The Laughing Mask) cartwheeled toward her, heels spinning like axe blades.
"Let go, Ronnie!" Uzo shouted, scrambling to his feet.
"Not a chance!" Ronnie yelled.
She didn't pull back. She ran with the pull.
She vaulted into the air, using the momentum to fly straight at the Smiling Tumbler. She drew a secondary knife from her boot.
"Open wide!"
She drove her knee into the Smiling Tumbler's face, shattering the porcelain mask. He released the chain, stumbling back, spitting out shards of ceramic and blood.
But he didn't scream. He giggled. A wet, gurgling sound.
"Spicy!" the Smiling Tumbler choked out.
Uzo was back in the fray. The Weeping Tumbler was on him, unleashing a flurry of strikes.
Left jab. Right hook. Low sweep. High kick.
Uzo parried with the spear, the wood clacking rhythmically against the Tumbler's hardened shin guards.
Clack-clack-whoosh-clack.
It was a dance. The Tumbler was fighting to a beat a chaotic, frantic rhythm that Uzo couldn't match.
Every time Uzo tried to counter, the Tumbler moved off-beat, bending his spine backward like a contortionist to dodge a fatal thrust.
I can't fight him with speed, Uzo realized, ducking under a spinning backfist. I have to break his rhythm.
The Tumbler jumped high, aiming for a skull-crushing heel drop.
Uzo didn't dodge. He stood his ground.
He dropped the spear and raised his palms.
He didn't use a spell.
He used the martial art of the House of Mystery The Void Palm.
As the Tumbler descended, Uzo stepped forward, into the danger zone. He struck the Tumbler's chest mid-air not with a punch, but with an open palm push.
But at the moment of impact, Uzo whispered:
"Rest."
He channeled a fraction of the Lexicon's silence into the strike.
It didn't blow the Tumbler away. It simply stopped his momentum.
Kinetic energy vanished.
The Tumbler dropped like a stone, dead weight, landing awkwardly on his neck.
CRUNCH.
"One down!" Uzo yelled, retrieving his spear.
"Two to go!" Ronnie shouted.
She was fighting two at once now. The Laughing Tumbler was hand-walking, kicking at her head, while the injured Smiling Tumbler was swinging a massive, comically oversized hammer he had pulled from nowhere.
Ronnie was fast, ducking and weaving, her chain acting as both shield and whip. But she was getting tired. The Clowns didn't breathe. They didn't tire. They just kept coming, fueled by madness.
The Smiling Tumbler swung the hammer. Ronnie rolled, the hammer smashing a crater into the mud next to her head.
"Hold still!" the Clown shrieked. "I'm trying to fix your face!"
Uzo charged to help her, but the trees around him suddenly shifted.
Roots shot out of the ground, wrapping around his ankles.
"What?" Uzo slashed at them with his spear, but the wood was hard as iron.
From the canopy, a slow, sarcastic applause echoed.
Clap... clap... clap.
A new figure dropped down, landing on a tree branch twenty feet above them.
He wore a ringmaster's top hat and a coat made of stitched-together human skin. He held a baton that glowed with sickly purple light.
The Ringmaster.
"A valiant effort," the Ringmaster called out, his voice booming like he was speaking into a megaphone. "But you're missing the point of the performance."
He pointed his baton at the two remaining Tumblers.
"Tempo Change: Allegro."
The purple light from the baton shot into the Tumblers.
Their muscles bulged, tearing their diamond suits. Their veins turned black. They let out a howl that sounded like a distorted trumpet.
They moved so fast they blurred.
The Laughing Tumbler vanished.
Ronnie gasped as a fist slammed into her gut before she even saw it coming.
She doubled over, coughing bile.
Before she could fall, the Tumbler uppercut her, sending her flying into the trunk of an oak tree. She slumped, motionless.
"Ronnie!" Uzo screamed, tearing at the roots binding his legs.
The Smiling Tumbler turned to Uzo. He wasn't smiling anymore. His jaw unhinged, revealing rows of needle-teeth.
"Your turn, Nameless."
Uzo gritted his teeth. The roots tightened, crushing his boots. Ronnie was down. The Ringmaster was watching from above. And a monster was rushing him at impossible speed.
Taijutsu wasn't enough.
The spear wasn't enough.
Uzo closed his eyes for a micro-second, feeling the Lexicon burn against his hip.
He had promised not to use the Unword unless he had to. It cost too much.
But debts are meant to be paid.
He opened his eyes. They were pitch black.
He didn't try to break the roots.
He looked directly at the rushing Tumbler and spoke a syllable that made the mist recoil.
To survive this, he wouldn't just have to fight.
He would have to break the rules of the game.