Between

Episode 14

Episode 14

Philo marched along the spiraling main street of Upper Shard. Beside him slithered Rill, whose presence was enough to freeze most onlookers into angry or terrified silence. As for Rill herself, she seemed to be having a disagreement about whether she was giving Philo the silent treatment or not. Left-Rill was fully committed to giving him the cold shoulder, even if she happened to be missing the operative piece of anatomy. Rill was quiet, but it didn't seem to be quite so targeted. Right-Rill, on the other hand, continuously leaned aside to Philo to whisper questions.

"So did you live near the ocean in your world?" Right-Rill asked.

"Well, yeah. I guess Philly is pretty close to the Atlantic," Philo said.

"Were there hydras it in?" she whispered.

"We are mad at him, remember?" Left-Rill hissed. "How many times do I have to remind you?!"

"I never agreed to that. I was only mad at Trixie," Right-Rill said.

He shook his head. It was just now becoming clear how little interaction with the other fetchers Rill was willing to tolerate. Trixie the demon, who despite her rough exterior seemed nice enough, had taken him to have a memory treatment while Rill slept. When they returned to find the serpent awake, she and Trixie had nearly come to blows.

"Out of curiosity, if we hadn't left when we did, what exactly would you have done to Trixie?" Philo asked.

"Oh, that's easy. Tails around her legs, so she can't fly away," Rill said.

"I bite her right wing," said Right-Rill.

"I bite her left," said Left-Rill.

"Shake shake, tear tear," the three of them said together.

"Once her wings are off, she's not going to be able to get away," Rill said.

"If she's got her hammer, I bite the wrist that has it," Right-Rill said.

"I bite the opposite leg," said Left-Rill.

"Coil coil, squeeze squeeze," they harmonized.

"Then keep going until we hear—" Rill said.

"Whoa, whoa! That's a little graphic. And specific," Philo said.

"Thanks! We've been planning it for a while," Rill said proudly.

"Usually we don't need a plan, but fetchers are tricky. Better safe than sorry," Left-Rill said.

"You know, I realize I'm new, but I think if fetchers could just stop holding grudges with one another, they could probably be a lot more productive and happy."

"We'll start working together when all of them start working together with us," Left-Rill rumbled.

"That's not really in the spirit of the suggestion," Philo said.

"Then stop making stupid suggestions," Left-Rill snapped.

Philo stopped short as the road seemed to end. They had reached the sheer drop at the tip of Upper Shard, where the castle known as Spearhead sat at right angles to the rest of the bizarre orbiting sliver of stone. Gravity, Philo knew, would follow the road, and thus the face of the wall he appeared to be standing atop was actually just more ground waiting for him to step onto it. Knowing that didn't really help to undo the decades of experience that rather firmly asserted that stepping off the edge of a cliff was a bad idea.

Rill slithered over the edge without slowing, only turning back when she noticed he hadn't followed.

"You want us to carry you?" Right-Rill asked.