Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 8 - SENTRY

For a split second, I felt like I understood everything. The entire Grey City spread out in front of me, its every secret and purpose plain to see. But, like a dream, it slipped swiftly out of my memory before I could make sense of it.

I was floating in a void: a vast, white space. My spatial sense provided zero feedback, as did the rest of my senses. I wheeled around uncertainly.

"What did you do?"

The way I turned to face the voice was strange, as if I'd somehow managed to turn around more than 360 degrees, but I soon saw Huang in the void as well. Huang the human stood on a small platform, and above him Huang the gargoyle loomed, mimicking his stance.

"Me? What's happening?" I demanded. "I'm guessing this isn't how it worked for you last time."

"Well, no," Huang said, rubbing at his temple. The shape of the dragon above him mimicked the motion exactly, raising a talon to its head. Something about the shining dragon seemed off to me, as if it were a puppet only somewhat responding to a puppeteer, its movements a little delayed and awkward. "I shouldn't be surprised, though. Just stand back..."

Huang closed his eyes and the white void around us suddenly thrummed with energy. I tried to step back but, looking down, I realized I was standing on a similar platform to Huang's without anywhere to go. I whipped my head back to check for weird puppet monsters looming behind me, but there was nothing.

The humming energy changed pitch and, below us, the white void started to shift. I watched in amazement as shapes began to form out of the whiteness: physical, jagged shapes like a cityscape. It was like standing over a model city, though the scale was difficult to parse. Was this... the Grey City?

The buildings only seemed to form partway and remained white, but within the half-formed city two bright lights appeared—one gold, one green. I squinted—they were at the top of a large, sharp tower.

"That's us," Huang said.

"Wow," I said. "So this is it. You're detecting life."

"Watch this," Huang said, raising a hand as if to conduct a choir, the dragon-shape doing the same. The cityscape below us shifted, and suddenly we were looking at a different part of the Grey City. The shapes were so vague it was difficult to identify, but there were fifteen or so white lights lurking around a flat area. I realized that we must be looking at the waterfront, and the demons that were guarding it.

"And there are most of the demons," Huang said, frowning. "That's all I got. Nothing we don't know already, unfortunately."

I crossed my arms and frowned. "So, how do I try?"

"Just try to use your sense and see what happens," Huang suggested.

That seemed like weird advice—the sense wasn't really something I used, more like something that just existed. Still, I tried to feel for the place where it usually was. It had gone utterly blank when Huang had activated the tower, and still didn't seem to be back with me.

"Uh... yeah, I got nothing," I said after a few moments.

"Don't try to force it," said Huang, putting his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. Imitating this, the ghostly dragon behind him placed its talons on its knees in a somewhat adorable way. "Take your time."

"Okay, but I don't—" I stopped talking, because my sense had suddenly started working, and something had just clicked for me.

The sense wasn't necessarily tied to any part of my body like sight or smell would be, but the feeling of it did seem to relate to my physical self... I perceived the sense as resting in my spine. I could lean into the sense and intensify it, or lean out of it to "close" it down a bit. What had been a struggle for so long was suddenly effortless.