Rabbits(122)

Xana’s quest in the book is fairly straightforward. First she must pass three tests: The Cavern, The Gauntlet, and The Gate. Once she’s made it through those three challenges, Xana is supposed to enter The Labyrinth and fight her way to the center. There, in the center of The Labyrinth she’ll have to battle and defeat her final foe: The Man in The Tower.

Yeah, it was quite a coincidence.



* * *



—

There were a glossary of terms and some additional maps in the back of the book—including a roughly sketched map of the area where the climax of the story takes place, a city in the coastal province of Other Poseidon called Oudwood. This rough map of Oudwood was something that Xana carried with her and included the markings and notes she had made on her quest to find The Tower.

Those markings looked very familiar.

On the map, Xana had traced the three points of the triangle that made up the first part of her quest: The Cavern, The Gauntlet, and The Gate. Up near the top of the map, surrounding the apex of the triangle, she’d drawn a circle representing The Labyrinth. In the center of The Labyrinth, The Tower.

“It’s The Moonrise,” Chloe said.

Here it was again—the symbol from my elevator dream, and the logo of the Gatewick Institute.

“A man in a tower and The Moonrise symbol; there’s no way either of those things can be a coincidence,” Chloe said.

“Coincidences are nonexistent in Rabbits.”

“You sound like the Magician.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I could tell that Chloe was thinking about what had happened to the Magician in that Super 8 movie.

I put my arm around her and she leaned her head against my shoulder.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“Shit, I was just going to ask you the same question.”

At that moment, all the lights and appliances in Chloe’s apartment flickered on and off a few times.

“Does that happen a lot?” I asked.

“Nope,” Chloe said. “Glass of wine?”

“Definitely. And I think, while we’re drinking, we should probably go over The Horns of Terzos again—in detail,” I said.

Chloe poured us each a glass of Malbec, and I started going over everything we’d written down the first time we’d read through the novel.

“The editor doesn’t exist, and neither does the publishing imprint,” Chloe said as she sat back down beside me on the couch.

“There has to be a clue in here somewhere,” I said.

“Maybe we should try something else?” Chloe asked. “We’ve been staring at this stuff for hours.”

I looked away from my computer and rubbed my eyes. When I opened them again, I found myself staring up at a gift I’d given to Chloe for her birthday. It was a map of Washington State drawn in the style of the maps of Middle-earth that Christopher Tolkien had illustrated for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

“What?” Chloe could tell I was thinking about something.

“In the Mordecai Kubler novel, Other Poseidon is made up mainly of Washington State, right?” I said.

“Yeah, so?”

“So I have an idea,” I said. “Is that printer on the network?”

“Yeah, why? What’s up?”

I pulled out my phone, took a photo of the map in the back of The Horns of Terzos, adjusted the brightness and contrast, then sent that image to Chloe’s printer.

“Can you bring up Seattle on Google Earth?” I asked.

Chloe started typing while I jumped up and ran over to the printer. Once the page had finished printing, I pulled a rolling chair over to where Chloe was sitting. She’d loaded a map of Seattle from Google Earth, which I adjusted until it was the size of the fictional city of Oudwood from the novel.

They were a perfect match.

It looked like Mordecai Kubler had used an accurate map of North America for his fictional land of Tsippos, and by extension accurate maps of Washington State for the Province of Other Poseidon, and Seattle for the city Oudwood.

“Up here you have The Labyrinth,” I said, pointing to the circle at the top of the triangle on the map of Oudwood, “and there, in the center of The Labyrinth…”

“Holy shit,” Chloe said as her eyes followed my finger. “It’s WorGames.”

“The Tower,” I said.

“Do you think this shit might be real?”

“Look at the bottom-left-hand point of the triangle.”

“Is that the building where you found that weird graffiti behind the dumpster?”

“Sure is,” I said.

I pulled out my phone and dropped four pins in my map application: the exact locations of the three points that made up the triangle or pyramid, and the point in the center of the labyrinth, then I handed my phone to Chloe.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Our map.”

“Fuck me, are we really doing this?”

“Whattaya think?” I said. “Win the game, save the world.”





41


    AN UNKINDNESS


In The Horns of Terzos, Xana begins her quest at the bottom-left-hand point of the pyramid, journeys to the right corner, and finally ends up at the top. In the novel, the highest point of the pyramid is known as The Gate.