78 Keys by Kristin Marra

much less the world. I have no idea what you mean by ‘lines.’ And something called the Malignity? That sounds like a disease, and if there is anything that scares me off, it’s disease. One time in college, I got a roaring case of mononucleosis and since then—”
    “Enough!” She did a convincing, if jerky, eye roll. “You have no choice in this matter. Everything is in motion. Remember, human, what the cards have taught you. Go away. Use your skills for what they were designed.” I saw her hand flick. I was hurled again against the pillar behind her, and everything went dark for a couple seconds.
    Then I was standing, facing a stone wall. Actually, my nose was only an inch from it, and I stumbled backward. I tripped over a large loose stone and fell with a vicious bang on my tailbone. I lay groaning and stared at the fake blue sky of the Theater. Convinced I had cracked a vertebra or two, I yearned for an icepack.
    The synthetic blue sky was partly obliterated by the wall that rose above me the distance of maybe ten or eleven stories. It was old, or at least it was manufactured to look old. There were green and orange fuzzy lichen patches dotting the wall. The structure replicated an ancient keep where castle residents would gather for protection and fight off invaders.
    “It is one of my best creations, damsel. What do you think? Does it pass for the real thing?” Pento was standing over me with a proud grin.
    “So help me up, already, and I’ll give your work a critical review.” I held my hand up, and he grasped it with his gloved hand. When I stood, I inspected his glove for a moment and asked, “Hey, Pento, do you have fingernails?”
    “Do I have fingernails? I did not need any to build this tower. It is completely stone…or like stone.”
    “No, not construction nails, fingernails, like these.” I held up my hand to show him my usually bitten nails and lurched. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
    “What is troubling you?”
    “Where are my fingernails? Goddamn it, Pento, I need my nails. I can’t touch anything without fingernails. It gives me the willies.”
    “I cannot create what I have not seen. I am not sure what you mean by ‘willies.’”
    “Is everyone in this…this Theater like us? No fingernails, no breath, no whatever is supposed to make us alive? Make us human?” I was holding my hands straight down at my sides, avoiding the possibility of seeing my nauseating fingertips again.
    “Oh, that other one, he whom you saw on the beach. He creates his share of things, like the swords, but I do not look closely at them. Maybe they have these…fingernails.”
    “So do you create the High Priestess too? Is she a product of your imagination and carpentry skills?”
    “The High Priestess? You must mean our Lady? Oh, no, no, no. She gives me leave to create the Theater. I am hers, her ally, her knight.” He did a twitchy imitation of a proud soldier.
    “And who is the other knight allied with, the one with the big nasty sword?”
    Pento shook his head, confused. “Who is he allied with? You should know. You must know He-Who-Comes-Before. If you don’t know him, all my work is for naught.”
    “He-Who?” A metallic clanking shattered our conversation. An enormous sword shot from the tower and clattered within a yard from where we stood. I looked up just in time to see an ironclad knight pitch backward over the edge of the tower and crumple on top of the sword. He didn’t move. It was the same knight I’d encountered on the beach, the one who was going to execute Laura Bishop.
    “Get me out! Get some help!” The shouting came from above. I looked up again. There she was, blond hair tangled, eyes wild, yelling something. I focused finally and heard her shout. I turned to Pento. He was gone.
    “How do I get up there?” I hollered back as I started running around the tower, looking for an entrance. Finally, my chance to meet Laura Bishop.
    There was no door, no stairway. The fallen knight