B.T.V. -- Session 16 Epilogue: Gods and Monsters

The Equinn, or, Back and There Again







There we are in the “Vault,” as Axewing has dubbed it, him, me, Sybermane that is, Shadowjack, Dantalion and the Pernan Thermocles and his white dragon. Quite the motley crew. The clown show continues. Don’t get me wrong. I count myself among the clowns. Gothic arches stretch overhead, topped by crystal domes. Three chairs sit empty in the courtyard between the three domes.


“This is quite the strange place,” Thermocles announces unnecessarily. He looks at his dragon. Not quite attached at the hip, except maybe metaphorically. Yes, I know it’s a big word, and yes, I know what it means. “Why do you wish to be here?”


“It’s an unfortunate necessity, I suppose,” Jack grumbles. Take it as read that every time he talks, he’s either grumbling or griping.


“I find it quite impressive, I meant.” Yep. Thermocles and his magical tele-transporting dragon. I think he’s probably seen quite a few impressive things. Maybe he’s trying to suck up. He does claim to be our servant.


“Don’t mind Jack,” Dantalion suggests. “He’s in one of his moods.”


“When isn’t he?” I ask.


“Are there, is there…,” Thermocles stumbles with his phrasing. “There can be people here. I advise you to be ready for anything.”


A redundant warning, what with everyone else in our little clown show being immortals, but what the heck, the kid is trying.


“I suppose we must invoke…,” he ventures.


Axewing cuts him short, addressing Sybermane. “Are you able to call upon your Khons so we can get to the truth of the matter?”


“Nope,” I reply all nonchalant like. “He contacts me.” Seriously. Does he think I’m going to use my connection to Khons to summon him to some kind of interrogation? What kind of Gods do these mor…men serve, that they think deities are at their beck and call?


“These things often work both ways,” Jack suggests. Grumbles, really, but I’m not going to keep using the word over and over and over….


“Not with me,” I say, shrugging. Jack answers with a grin.


Axewing, finally remembering he’s met Khons too, reaches out with his mind.


“Ah. You’ve already got here.”


Not Khons, but Benedict, had spoken that. The Tai-pan is with him.


“Ah. Benedict,” Dantalion responds. These guys say “Ah” a lot.


“Is this Khons?” Axewing asks, before figuring it out. Next to Benedict he sees the Tai-pan in his black and purple garb.


Benedict introduces Lady Dantalion to the Karrion of Tai-pan. Wait. The Tai-pan of Karrion. Yeah, that’s it.


“And this group gathered, they are the Obsidian?” Tai-pan asks.


“Two-thirds of them, yes,” Benedict confirms. “The others are not to join us? I would have thought all to be here.”


Axewing, as usual fixated on his own needs, changes the subject. “It seems one of our number was responsible for the slaying of Anhur, and we are here to confront his master.”


A door squeaks and squeals open. Someone has to have rigged it that way. Hinges that noisy wouldn’t have worked at all. From the central tower, which is enclosed, we don’t see a door, but we door see the bearded Master coming toward us. Not Khons, of course, but another Master. He looks quite dapper, and wears a militaristic suit, very tight and with little ornamentation, and black leather gloves. He carries a book in one hand.


Jack grunts. He does that when he’s not happy. Which is a lot of the time.


“Ah.” Seems the Master, too, is obsessed with that word—hmm, is it a word, or a noise?


“Master Benedict. You have left your tower?”


Does he mean one of the three towers here, I have to wonder. What is Benedict’s relationship to this Master? Other Master. Okay, The Master.


“I thought it important. I understand these individuals have made a demand upon the place.”


“Are you sure it is important?” Benedict asks Axewing.


“Yes. Are you the caretaker of this place?” He’s talking to The Master now.


“Ah! The very idea! If you would, do what you must do.”


“I would appreciate it,” Benedict acknowledges.


“For future reference, you can refer to me as The Master.” Told you that was his name. Now he’s gone straight into a villainous cliché, and I figure I’ll need a lot of time to figure out if he’s just that, or somehow more. “You have come about the matter of Khons, I understand.”


“We must know the truth of an assassination,” Axewing answers him. For the record, I already told him I put a shine on his God buddy. Now Axewing really, really wants to kill me. It’s only the influence of the others that’s keeping him from doing so post haste. Instead, he wants to demand an explanation from Khons, who ordered the death. Good luck with that, I figure.


“It can be arranged,” The Master replies. “I will take care of the details. But let us move on.”


“Please,” Benedict implores. Well, imploring for him. “My arm is bothering me today.”


Does he mean his real arm or his false arm? Really, I need someone to make these snide asides to.


Tai-pan suddenly sends a knife hurtling toward The Master, seemingly aiming for book, and succeeds in knocking it out of his hand. The Master watches it happen dispassionately. The books tumbles to more than 10 feet away, spinning across limestone tiles. Tai-pan dashes for it. The Master just stares as that happens, not particularly worried. Tai-pan picks it up and reads the title, which I can see is “The War of the World.” The cover doesn’t include the author’s name.


“The Mainstays, you mean,” Tai-pan comments as he opens the book.


“You really shouldn’t read that, unless you’re ready to learn things you might not want to learn.” Taipan closes the book and tucks it inside his robe, and The Master smiles at him as if they are sharing a secret. And maybe they are. “Now, then. Khons, yes?”


Dantalion nods. “We must learn what this means, yes.” She’s as eager to kill me as Axewing, but has better check on her emotions that the alleged “simple barbarian.”


“And you’re all in agreement?”


“We’re all here,” Jack answers.


“I don’t understand,” Axewing complains. I’m using that word instead of whinges. A barbarian whinging doesn’t really whinge. Maybe grumbles, but that’s Jack’s forte, so I’ll go with complains. “Khons was here before. Why are we going through this process?”


“You don’t understand the vagaries of Time,” The Master instructs. “Had you been here earlier, you would have been easily able to talk to him. That is no matter. I am a Gallifrean.” He smiles benignly at Axewing, and it still looks predatory. “I can tell, it is known to me, you have been with my rival, a competitor. I will look the other way, though technically I should take umbrage and be most irascible at the moment.”


Irascible. Yes, I know what that means too. I don’t use it myself often, but I like the way it sounds.


“I have been with the Doctors,” Axewing allows. “As an Obsidian, it is my right to do so. You are a fallen Doctor. Or corrupted.”


“We can’t all be heroes. Some of us have to get our hands dirty from time to time. I deal with the things that are unseemly. The Doctors can’t bring themselves to do so. Someone has to take care of these things. That is why I am the Master. Now, without further delay….” He pulls out a pocket watch and examines it. “Yes, we only have a few moments left to us. And then things should be as it was.”


And that’s a clue we’re about to time-travel, or something like it. Everyone feels odd for a moment, and then we’re in a tavern. I see a painting of a white cat over the bar, and know we’re in Atrix again. My office is right across from The White Cat. Everyone has come along, except The Master and Thermocles and his dragon. Looking around, the others gawp at what appears to be a crowd dressed in technological fashions. Artificial fabrics, pants with many pockets, coats with asymmetrical pockets, and so on. It’s not quite as it seems, though, but I’ll wait a bit for them to get used to their new surroundings before I tell them. I’m trying to keep it to a minimum. I understand the need for the Obsidian to be whole, so I’ll check some of the smart-assery for now to avoid a fight with Axewing and Dantalion. Though you’d have to think, if I could kill their God Anhur, I should be able to deal easily with them. I’m not ready to test that theory yet.


Benedict looks at Sybermane. “You’re horn’s showing.”


Now, here’s an example. I could have looked down at my pants and rearranged them as if in embarrassment for the obvious laugh. Instead, I just think for a moment, and realize it’s the white horn. Fine for now. Not sure why it manifested on its own, but there’s bound to be a reason. And I’m not as concerned as I was when I was last in Atrix with keeping my horn to myself, only manifesting it when I needed to assassinate somebody. Yes, those were the days I could assassinate someone. Darkness took that power, and I don’t feel like it’s back. I just shrug back at the warning, which Jack had echoed, though with a laugh.


“If you don’t mind, I don’t mind,” Benedict concedes.


“It’s a very handsome horn,” Dantalion observes. Hello, I think.


Benedict continues, “It’s just that Sybermane here is known to the locals, and they are not aware of this. It has been some time since being here.”


“I travelled extensively,” I add airily.


“I take it now that we’ve been brought here, you have some method of contacting your God here,” Axewing says peremptorily.


“Nope,” I reply.


“I am somewhat surprised we are here,” Benedict says, and he begins pondering. It’s never good news when Benedict has to think about a new circumstance. “Can someone order us drinks?”


“What exactly are we doing here?” Tai-pan inquires. Everyone turns and looks at Ben. Jack loudly cracks a knuckle.


“I’ve got a feeling this is the world of Axildusk,” Jack comments. “It’s coming back to me.” “Quite right,” I confirm. “It’s the original, as I remember it.” I don’t think it is, though. Not exactly as I left it. Something is up, and that Something is The Master.


Benedict says, “I must put a fine point on this. You understand it is both a world and a Realm. This is the worldly side. This is one of the nine Mainstay worlds, Axildusk.”


So we’re back on that side, I think. Interesting. Again, though, I keep my thoughts to myself. “Oh, I suppose I’ll do it,” Dantalion harrumphs, though in a very attractive manner. She motions a server over. “These gentleman will have drinks.”


She orders something hot for herself. I think of suggesting chocolat, but maybe that is only in Parisia, when I visited it with Osric and Finndo. She also asks for an ale for Axewing.


“I’ll have my usual. A dark porter, if you don’t mind,” I say when my turns come. Glancing at the picture of the cat over the bar, I’m suddenly struck by how reminiscent it is of Sana, who I had met in the Playships in Adhrilanka only a short time earlier. My time, not real time, or The Master Time, or whatever.


The server returns with the beverages, including something in a ceramic mug on a saucer. “There you go. Anything else?”


“That will be all, thank you very much,” Dantalion tells the admiring server, who seems reluctant to leave her side, but does so.


“I’ll put them on your tab,” the server tells me as I leave. Okay, so they do remember me. This must be after I was in Atrix the first time.


Tai-pan takes out The Master’s book, and sets it on the table, staring at is. Benedict’s eyes momentarily flick over it as well, before turning away. Axewing picks up his mug and takes a long drink, then looks at me.


“So, Sybermane, you say you remember nothing of the event.” Here we go.


Only we don’t, because the doors burst in, and a group of four Dusken Ghosts stride in, as usual standing out by being out of place in their garb. They wear the robes of ancient warriors, and helmets with tall crests. Not horsehair, I hope. I never looked too closely, just in case. They hold large round shields, and spears with a technological appearance to them that can be separated into a slender longsword and a fighting staff, and wear skull-like facemasks, individual teeth lighting up from time to time. They’re unusually tall for humans, standing seven-and-a-half feet tall, 10 with the crests on their helmets. I recall that the Ghosts are rumoured to recruit only the very tallest of humans, but I’d always suspected some kind of manipulation by the Surgeons. Don’t ask, very grisly. I’m trying to enjoy my porter here.


One stares at the table, and makes eye contact with me. This might be someone I know, so I stand up and walk toward them.


“Something up?” I ask when I get there.


One—I’m giving them numbers to keep them separate, they never gave their names—sized me up by looking down at me. I’m wondering what they’re doing in the city. The Ghosts are the military defenders of the city, not its police.


“We are…we are hunting someone. We may have lost him. Did you see anyone come in?”


“I don’t think so,” I answer honestly because, as I’ve mentioned, I can’t be bothered keeping track of lies to ensure they’re consistent. “Can you give me a description?”


“A very pale, gray-skinned alien. He really shouldn’t be in Atrix at all. He’s a Dusken Shade, you see.”


“I’ve never heard of them being in the city.”


“They have their own place, don’t they.”


‘”I would think so.”


The guards argue over whether or not I should know that for certain, when Two asks, “Haven’t you heard of Sybermane? He was in all the papers. This one is a local hero, aren’t you, Sybermane?”


The last comes with a helping of sarcasm.


“Hero’s a little generous.”


“Yes, you’re probably right,” Two agrees. Asshole. No, wait, they’re all pretty arrogant. Cultivate that attitude, I think.


“You’re Sybermane?” Three asks incredulously. “I thought you’d be taller.”


“I get that a lot.”


Meanwhile, back at the table (thank my sensitive Equinn hearing, I’m pretty much keeping an ear pointed their way in case they decide to take me out), Dantalion asks, “He is critical to what we need to do, isn’t he?”


“You mean Sybermane?” Axewing replies distractedly.


“Yes. We’ll be at a loss without him. I fear he might be about to be taken away. They look like guardsmen to me.”


”He’s not going anywhere until we settle this matter,” Axewing declares, and they stand as one and start coming my way. This should be good.


Three looks down from his superior height, first at Dantalion, then Axewing, and then, more lingeringly, at Dantalion again.


“Do you have a face under that helm?” Dantalion inquires innocently. I don’t mean innocent-like. Actually innocently.


“Sure I do. Why? Oh.” He pulls off his mask and helmet, and turns out to be quite good-looking, sporting a moustache.


“Ah. You’re human enough then.”


“Human enough for what?” Three asks, managing to keep most of the innuendo out of his tone.


“We are just making sure Sybermane here doesn’t need any help.” She gestures at the Ghosts. “These are quite fearsome helmets you wear.”


Three looks quite proudly at his helmet. “It’s not everyone who gets chosen. Oh. You mean the skull.” He’s actually fairly quick on the uptake.


“Yes. It’s rather….”


“Are you the guards of the town?” Axewing interrupts.


“We are the guards of Axildusk.” Three isn’t happy to have his chat with Dantalion end. “Can you direct us to the Temple of Khons?”


I can’t help but snort. Temple of Khons indeed. I’d say my ass, but he’s my God and all, so…. Three asks the others, and Four enters the conversation for the first time.


“The Temple of Khons…It’s got a Dusken ring to it.”


“I suppose it might be in Dusken Town you have to look,” Three adds. “This is Atrix. The real city.”


“Do you know this Dusken Town?” I’d say Axewing asked me that, but really, the tone made it a demand.


“It wasn’t what you call a friendly place,” I warn. He’ll ignore that, I’m sure, so I say it.


Dantalion’s not that bad an egg, and she’ll be by the barbarian’s side. Barbarian my ass, by the way.


“Would this place be more likely to be inhabited by this God or his acolytes?”


“It’s a place of shadows,” I tell him. Axewing’s not happy with me. By the way, that’s something else I won’t bother to keep repeating. What he really need is a good therapist. Maybe somebody in Vien. That’s a lovely place, by the way. Doubt it still exists.


“Since you serve this God, surely you know something. You seem quite uninformed. Do you serve this one haphazardly, or lack devotion?”


Now he’s trying to be insulting. That’s cute. The answer is, of course, both, to an extent. I’m not so much a worshipper of Khons as a servant. Dedicated, not devoted. Humans are entertaining, but they’re always trying to anthropomorphize other races. Yes, I know what the word means. Yes, it had to be explained to me by Osric a few times before I got it. I don’t expect humans to act like Equinn. Why would they expect Equinn, or Vast, or Veer, to view the world they do? Dantalion, ever the peacemaker—I say that, but I’ve seen her in combat, when she’s not—motions toward the Ghosts.


They’ve been listening, but One takes the hint. “”I don’t think these are going to be of much help to us.”


Three offers to Dantalion before they depart, “I have my number here.”


“Do you?”


He pulls out a disc, does something to it, and then hands it to her.


“Am I supposed to reciprocate?” she asks.


“It’s been known to happen,” Three says, absent only the leer.


“We’re very new to Atrix. But Sybermane here isn’t,” Dantalion replies.


“She’s a friend of yours, is she?” Three asks me, in a not quite hostile and challenging way.


“I’ve only just met her,” I tell him, which again, true enough.


“Where will you be staying?” The Ghost asks.


“My office.”


Three is the last to leave, and Dantalion holds the disc out to me. “What does it mean, I have his number?”


Again, I think Dantalion is the main reason that Axewing’s not attacking me at any given moment, so I say, “ As I recall, you can use it to communicate with him.”


Apparently, I can’t keep all the innuendo out of my voice.


“You are a very odd individual,” she observes. No, I’m an Equinn, not human. “Is there something I did that is a local custom that would make him think….”


“Men are more forward here,” I suggest, dancing around the real meaning of the disc.


“You call him a man? He struck me as more of a Veer. The height. The cheekbones.”


Ah. Okay, this time I’m using it. So, the cheekbones. Something there after all, though I’m sure she’d deny it. She’d seemingly missed the moustache, too.


“Here, there are way to enhance physical forms,” I tell her.


“Like the Jenoine!” she declares, as if a lightbulb has gone off in her head. Okay, a really bright lantern. She probably doesn’t know what a lightbulb is. “Modifying people.”


“Not a bad idea,” I agree.


“Do you know of method to contact this Khons?” Axewing again demands of me. Interrogation isn’t his strong suit. What a one-track mind. Then I realize he means Jack.


“Who, me? Do I look like a Messiah? I am of Shadow. But I overheard mention of Dusken Town. I could take us there, if you think it worthwhile. But should we first exhaust Atrix, since that asshole sent us here?”


“Really, Jack,” Dantalion chides. “Must you use such terms?”


“I forget myself, frequently,” Jack admits.


“Could we all go back to our drinks?” I ask. I’d like to finish my porter, but Benedict is impatient. “Unfortunately, there isn’t time. We’ll have to go to the Kiosk. A place where one gathers information.”


I remember the Kiosk. A round building in an open square, a counter running around its perimeter. I’d consulted the owner in the past who, in return for some of the local currency, could be persuaded to part with sensitive information about Atrix and its inhabitants. Benedict leads us out of The White Cat and heads toward the Kiosk. I look momentarily at my office across the way, and shudder a bit. Shadow mine. Explanation enough. Also some good memories, though, like my friend Avery Trance, a bartender who was abused by a customer, her hands broken, so I killed him at the moving pictures. There was Ritok, too, the former Ghost, now going by Archment, and Larius the Copper, and that hapless snake-oil salesman. What was his name again? Monford.


“He struck me as something of a Veer,” Dantalion repeats. Someone’s a bit obsessed.


“No, as far as I know, he’s human.”


We see a couple of service cyborgs amble by. They sweep the streets to keep them free of corrosive Shadow, which otherwise would eat away the pavement and buildings, among other things.


“It’s the building up ahead,” Benedict says as we enter the square and catch site of the Kiosk. It’s painted to seem like a pavilion, stripes running up the roof to its peak.


“It’s essentially a newsstand,” I explain, though I don’t think it makes much of an impression on most. They can see a variety of publications behind the counter, mostly the daily papers, a few with glossier covers.


“Some of us don’t know what a newsstand is, Sybermane,” Benedict scolds. “You should know, having spent time in their milieu.”


Yep, just the pedantic dick that Osric and Finndo had described.


“They’re immortal,” I protest. “Have they never spent time in a technological world?”


That’s when I explain that while Atrix might look technological, it is actually powered by magic. Benedict taps on the counter with a disc he seems to have obtained somewhere. He’s obviously solved the problem of having local currency wherever he goes, since the disc serves that purpose too.


“Good morning,” an employee greets, a bit gruffly, in the style of Atrix. “What can we do for you?”


“You don’t know me?” Benedict asks, somewhat startled.


“Should I?”


“I thought my image might have been circulated. But I can accept I might not have been.” He looks thoughtful again.


“What is this place?” Dantalion asks the employee.


“What do you mean?”


“What is it you sell here?”


The employee shrugs. “We sell news documents. Periodicals and journals, for educational purposes, madam.”


Dantalion, pulling up her furs with both hands, asks, “Is there a particular item that sells better than the rest?”


“The dailies usually sell the best. Are you interested in something in particular?”


She pulls out silver coins and puts them on the counter, but the employee’s reaction seems dubious.


“Not good enough?” she asks.


“I thought you were joking, ma’am.’


“Ah. No. This is the currency on the world I’m from.”


Jack holds up a disc. He’s probably stolen it, I figure.


“Like this?” Dantalion asks, gesturing at the disc.


“It might have some money on it,” Jack answers. “I don’t want to insult you or anything. If there’s money on it, the Ghost might have been offering you money for….” He stops, seemingly stumped by how to proceed. “To put his….”


“For your favour,” I interject hastily. Even Axewing helps out.


“There’s likely no monies on yours.”


“Hmm.” Dantalion stares at Jack.


The employee has returned from checking one of the coins.


“I’m afraid, Madam, this is not really acceptable currency here. This is just silver. It’s not a means of exchange here. Perhaps you have some other metals.” The actual currency is Echoes, if you’re wondering.


“No. I don’t have a cart full of it.”


“I thought it was unusual of you to offer the silver.”


“Here. Use mine,” Jack offers.


The employee asks what she wants. After a moment’s thought, she says, “I know. A guide book to the city.”


“I don’t know if we have it in book form,” the employee replies, but goes to check.


A teenaged girl passes by, rubbing her hands in excitement, and goes over to an older man Sybermane recognizes as the Kiosk owner. He sees me trying to catch his eye, nods, then continues talking to his informant. Unless it’s his daughter asking for money for new clothes or something.


Benedict finishes his ruminations and asks, “Where are we?”


“The lady here has asked for a guide book to Atrix,” Jack answers.


“Yes, that would be useful. I think there are many complications here I am going to have to tell myself to ignore. Otherwise I will find myself drawn into Atrix and its complications. A city after your own heart, Tai-pan. Quite a conurbation.” Okay, that’s a word I don’t know, but I figure it out by context.


“I was here only briefly,” Tai-pan says. “ I was going to ask Sybermane where his office is.”


“Across the alley from The White Cat,” I tell him.


“Has anyone stopped to consider we’re on a mainstay?” Axewing asks abruptly. What do you know. He does think sometimes, and doesn’t just act on his emotions and impulses.


“It hasn’t struck me at all,” Benedict replies drily.


“Is this not considered an opportunity for us? Sybermane, why don’t we retire to your office?” Yeah, when I hear the word “retire” from someone who wants to kill me, it makes me sad. Also, when does a barbarian say, “retire to your office.” Next he’ll be asking for port wine and cigars. Though I do like port wine…usually with cheeses, though, not cigars. My nose is a bit sensitive to the smoke.


Benedict taps the counter again with his disc. The employee returns and glares at Benedict. “I don’t want you,” Benedict tells him. “I want him,” pointing to the owner.


“But I’m working this arc,” the employee complains.


“I don’t really care. Fetch him for me, will you?”


Soon after, we are joined by the owner.


“Ah. It’s you,” the owner says. See? Ah again.


“Yes. I have decided to return.”


“You’ve been gone a while. What is it we can do for you?”


“We have need of the Kiosk’s secrets.”


“Oh. Alright. Yes, I see. Very well. It’s lunchtime everyone.” The employees stop and stare a moment, but then lift the counter counter and head out into the surrounding city. A minute later, the Kiosk is deserted.


“Well, come on in.”


“Ladies first,” Benedict offers.


“Fuck that,” Jack growls—not a grumble or a gripe for a change—and enters ahead of Dantalion, who appears a bit perturbed.


Tai-pan goes next, and then the rest of us. I make sure Dantalion is between me and Axewing. See impulse control above.


“Jack has chosen the right route, unsurprisingly,” Benedict observes as our shadowy fellow disappears into an office in the hub of the building.


“Tell me, Jack,” Tai-pan inquires. “You’ve been in this city before, so you have contacts, yes? What’s the feeling of Shadow? I assume you can sense it. Is it distant or is it active?”


“Distant enough not to feel the clutch on your heart when it seizes you.” That’s awfully poetic for Jack.


“I’m trying to figure out the state of the Mainstays. If this section of the Mainstay is active, perhaps we have routes for… were there every any profanes in Axildusk?”


“Wouldn’t you know that better than I would?”


“Not really. Most of the time I’ve either been on the run or on the run.” Ha! That’s a good one.


“It’s professional hazard,” Jack concedes. “What’s it worth to you?”


”Well, you are just a thief.” Jack nods. “I’m looking for an actual Profane, not a fiend.”


“Fiends are really common, I guess. You need a higher authority.”


“Yes, either one from the Queendom, Thale or the Confederacy. I would prefer nothing from pandemonium. I’d just end up having to kill it.”


“I quite like that one.”


“Figures.”


“It’s really the name. They took everything into account. What’s a Thale, anyway? Pandemonia tells you exactly what it’s about.”


“Tell me, did you have any association with the Courts of Chaos?” Right. That was a bit of an obsession for Tai-pan, who I knew as Maldon Sax. Wait. He was Profane, but doesn’t seem to be one now. What happened?


“You’d have to check the wanted posters.”


“Something tells me you knew my uncle. Before the accident, of course.”


Jack asks, “Who’s you’re uncle?”


“Bosphor.”


”Bob? Bob’s your uncle?”


“I said Bosphor. You’re quite interesting in your connection to the Canticle stuff. Science I think they call it. You’re able to see both worlds, yes?”


“Thanks to Shadow.”


“Yes. Shadow and Time.”


Everyone manages to get inside an office area, and the owner opens a trap door in the floor, one I’d noticed on an earlier visit. He motions to Benedict.


“There you go. This is the last time, I’m afraid.”


“Really? You would risk that?”


“I don’t have the wherewithal to do these things without compensation.”


“It would be dishonest of me to suppose my funds would be good here.’’


“You don’t have any money here. I checked.” Ha! So Benedict’s cash in every world wasn’t a perfect system.


Benedict concedes his future is too uncertain to take on debt he might not return to repay.


“You’ve obviously travelled to Atrix from another world,” the owner observes.


“Yes, something like that. We are at the verges of the Constellation.”


“You’re more than welcome it use it,” the owner says, pointing at the trap door, “But this is the last time.”


“If I return, I will bring sufficient funds,” Ben vows, then heads through the trap door, now open, and down a spiral staircase.


”He’s leading. That can’t be good.” Jack sound worried. He’s displaying a rainbow of emotions today. For him, that is. Jack follows Benedict, then Tai-pan, me, Dantalion and Axewing.


“A most unusual staircase. It bears the weight of all of us, yet it sways,” Dantalion tells me. I’d already noticed.


“I wish you hadn’t said so,” I admit. “There are many peculiarities in this city. Many of them are entertaining.”


We reach the bottom of the stairs, and find a corridor. Benedict continued to lead the way. The corridor looks quite modern, but the blue lighting is cast by what look like ordinary torches along the walls. It could be moonlight, ghostlight or just light. I can’t decide. It does seem to show up a lot in that hue.


We walk for half an hour. Benedict isn’t being particularly surreptitious, but isn‘t making a lot of noise, either. He stops abruptly and turns on his heel to face us. “We should be where we need to be.”


“What’s the nature of this place?” Tai-pan asks.


“That’s a very good question. One I can’t answer. I believe we have been transported in a fashion, and when we make our way above, we will find we’ve been moved.”


“I believe I may be of assistance at this point,” Jack offers.


”I’m sure there is a reason you are here,” Benedict condescends.


“You make it hard to like a fellow.”


“I make most people uncomfortable.”


“I believe sorcery is required.”


Dantalion leans into Axewing. “He doesn’t seem like the type.”


“His affiliation is with shadow,” he answers.


“But his manner is gruff.”


“He might be called common.”


I look around. “Don’t insult the common.”


Jack then launches into what seems like an incantation, starting with, “Oh ancient archives, great infrastructure of less underground status, existence of the hymnal, magic in its textual and contextual forms….” I lost interest.


“That sounds almost Dwarfish,” Axewing remarks, drawing a rebuke from Jack.


“Do you mind? I’m trying to do a fucking spell here. In the vexel points, the PGM of secrecy, the…” and it just gets more confusing from there. He goes on for a bit and then stops.


“Is that it?” Ben asks.


“What do you want me to say? Abra-fucking-cadabra?”


“I’d kind of like it if you did that,” I chip in.


“I chose wisely when I gave up any sorcerous intentions in my early life,” Benedict affirms. Then we see a swirl of Shadows above us.


“When it descends, we might ascend,” Jack informs us.


“Is it a portal?” Axewing asks.


“No.”


“A mechanism to let us reach the surface?” Benedict ventures.


“Yes. You have Shadow to thank.”


“A most unusual collection of words,” Benedict muses about the incantation.


“You heard words?” Jack asks, in what I think was mock-surprise.


“Well, yes, I did.”


“What words?”


“I think you mentioned Olympian, demotic, litany.”


“I actually thought he was making it up, to be honest with you,” Taipan guesses.


“Each would have heard different words,” Jack admits.


“You said something about an amulet of Arabians?” Dantalion inquired.


“Yes,” Ben agreed. “You mentioned something about voodoo, a rather tribalistic form of magic. I suppose a wise magic of shadow, not easily understood.”


Tendrils reach down and Jack grabs one, starting to spiral upward. I follow suit, then the others. We break through the ceiling, and soon after find ourselves standing on a street, tall, modernist glassed buildings to either side of us. The light in Dusken Town is as dim as I remember it.


“You’d be more at home here than these others,” Jack tells me. “To me, Shadow is more than a passport here.”


Ben confesses, “I have never visited here. Dusken Town is off-limits, although it’s not. Those who are normal, as I am,” I give him a look, “Let us say those of us considered of prime material, do have a place here called the Solidify.” The other parts of the town are Grace, of the nobility, and Wisply, for commoner Dusken denizens. “They would be more akin to yourself, perhaps. Tai-pan. A collection of ne’er do wells.”


Axewing again demands of me, “Which of these districts do you suppose we should begin the search for your God?”


I point out that there’s no guarantee we’ll find Khons here, that The Master, who sent us here, might not have taken Axewing’s desires into account. He is unhappy at that suggestion, and doesn’t hesitate to express that.


“There are people about us,” Dantalion chides in a quiet, urgent voice.


“Forgive me,” Axewing asks. “I forget myself at times.”


“I can well imagine.”


Jack grunts.


Tai-pan looks at Benedict. “Are you still leading?”


“Always, and often to my chagrin.” He’s got to be nervous. I think that was actually a joke. Two women stroll by, which doesn’t faze me, but some of the others recognize them as Jenoine.


“This would be an example of what I was referring to about the people who are welcomed in the Solidify,” Benedict tells us. Quite an expert for never having been here. Though I expect he set up some kind of information network when I knew him as the “Night Manager” at a hotel in Atrix. “Not all are like this, but all would be equally capable of causing consternation. We had best assume we are acting…,” he looks at Ax and Dantalion. “We will need to ask you to forebear from your usual declarations and proclamations. The usual heroic stances you take might be impolitic here.”


“Yeah, keep your mouths shut, or we could get into real trouble here,” Jack says more bluntly. “Shadow rules this place. You are not of shadow.”


“But we have Sybermane,” Dantalion insists. That was nice of her. I’m not even going to have a snide thought. For now.


“First we must get our bearings,” Ben instructs. “We must know where we are, if we are to strike out for other areas.”


“The Wisply can give permission to enter their area, the Shades and so on,” Jack growls.


“It is a most interesting place. A city like no other.”


“Interested in owning some property?”


Tai-pan interjects, “I would depend on what Shadow charges in tax.”


“It is a place of much ensorcellment, this,” Jack points out. So’s all of this Axildusk, I think. But I expect he’s reminding the others.


“If your means of getting here is any indication, we’re in the deep end,” Benedict counters. “I don’t quite understand this path we’ve taken,” Axewing groans. “We’re going deeper into places of Shadow, but we’re searching for the light of the moons.’


“What exactly is the purpose of finding this Khons?” Tai-pan asks, sensibly enough.


“They’re upset because I killed Anhur,” I tell him, making sure I use a casual tone.


“There are still Gods?”


“I like the Gods,” Jack butts in. “They have much to commend them. Items of value.”


“Tell me, Shadowjack,” Benedict frowns, “How is it your manner…when will it begin to return to the other end of the spectrum?”


“It is hard to say,” Jack growls.


“Is your present condition useful here?”


“It got us here. I am as I must be wherever I am.”


I hadn’t noticed that much of a difference. Who doesn’t change to suit their environment? Then I glance at Axewing and Dantalion and the answer is right in front of me.


“I suppose it doesn’t really enter your consideration from moment to moment.”


“I believe we are near the Gate,” Jack points out, trying to get things going again.


“The gate to what?” Tai-pan asks.


“In Atrix, it is known as the Harkenstone Gate. But here, it is an inn.”


“Ah,” Ben says. “An inn.”


“Not the inn?” Axewing asks, putting stress on “the.”


“Not the inn,” Benedict confirms. “I doubt very much they are the same.”


Tai-pan chooses that moment to agree with me. “I think really Sybermane has a point, and his point is, you Obsidian screwed yourselves pretty good. Why didn’t you just kill The Master when you had the chance?”


“We were simply delaying the off,” Dantalion answered. The off? The woman has some more depth than I realized. “We are trying to control ourselves.”


“In fairness,” Axewing adds, addressing me, “We are doing this for you. Otherwise you would have to take retribution as you see it.”


Well, there’s a threat if I ever saw one.


“Didn’t you say a little while ago, ‘We enemies enough, without making more?’”


That pisses him off. Good.


“I’m quite willing to speak to you on the act you committed, and what it implies, right here! Do not push me!”


Off a roof, maybe, I think. Wait. He’d probably just call in Defiant. I miss my black horn. We hear a loud report from where Jack had just disappeared up the street, as he sought the inn.


A small explosion has knocked masonry off the corner of a building. Jack had turned right around it only an instant later. Axewing dashes—if you can call a lumbering barbarian as “dashing” when his pace is at best half my own, but then I’m an Equinn—toward the corner. Jack comes reeling back into Axewing, hands over his face. Axewing pushes Jack behind him, to shelter him.


“Saved by the retort,” Tai-pan says. That’s clever. Good for him.


Axewing realizes that Benedict has moved up alongside him. “Move forward eight feet.” Axewing does so, and sees someone hiding behind another corner, further ahead and to the left. Only a bit of him is exposed.


As Benedict crosses the street and starts moving forward beside the building there. Axewing does the same on his side, attempting to distract the stranger. Tai-pan and I stay back, both to watch the festivities and scan the rooftops.


“These champions of good,” I tell Tai-pan. “Such sensitive feelings.”


“We all have things that motivate us,” Tai-Pan replies. Hmm.


Axewing sees the partially-concealed figure shift to look away, and appears to be doing something with his face. Axewing moves into the centre of the road, with the idea of walking past him. The stranger turns, and seems to have a headless spear with a technological look to it. He also has a chain on his belt, and a mask on his face. He stance makes him look utterly confident, right up to the point Ben skewers him with a longsword, taking him under the chin and upward through his brain. The stranger leaps back even as he dies and falls to the ground, his spear rattling on the pavement.


“A Bit,” Benedict announces. Sybermane and Tai-pan move up to join him, as do the others. “It is one of those we are pitted against,” Dantalion says.


“I told you,” Jack says. “The town is full of such.” Funny, I can’t remember him mentioning the word “Bit” at any point.


“Our enemies abound,” Benedict agrees. “Or should I say yours?”


“Why are you with us?” Jack demands suddenly.


“I’m with him.” Benedict points to Tai-pan.


“I’m with him,” says Tai-pan, pointing back.


“My question stands,” Jack declares. “Why are you both here? I don’t get it.”


Ben answers. “Let us suppose for a moment you are able to think like I can. If you were able to, you would know you needed to be here, so I am here. And this one is with me.”


“Let me get this straight. You’re here because you think it’s a good idea. Anybody could say that, at any time.”


“Those who are gifted with Time stand next to you,” Benedict points out.


“That’s true. They’re mixed in this like you are?”


“Aren’t you?” Benedict asks of Jack.


“The Bit.” Jack decides to change the subject. “They are, they stand with….”


“Naming him as you are suggesting is unwise,” Benedict cautions.


“But he is the one who caused the flood?” Jack refers to an inundation that destroyed a previous Realm, and specifically to the Mule.


“Yes.”


“They’re manipulated at the moment by The Master. The one you just let go.” Tai-pan means the Bit, of course.


“The Master would not have appeared if he thought his life was in any danger,” Benedict says. “He has the ability as the other Doctors do to know if something would result in him being attacked.”


“If such is the case, how are we to deal with such a one?” Axewing asks.


“In this case it’s hard to know. In general, one would have to ensure his assuredness was a mistake. I believe only the Doctors can deal with The Master, because they have the same makeup. The one you met recently. The nemesis of the Master.”


“I have met only one of these Doctors,” Tai-pan said. “If this is another, this is one we will have to work through?”


“If you have one gifted in calculations and Time, that might be useful,” Benedict points out, alluding to Asmodeus. “And this one wasn’t present at the meeting. It probably would have made The Master’s appearance more unlikely.”


“So that, at least, is a great asset to us,” Axewing states. “The fact that we have one among our party gifted with such calculation.”


“Asmodeus is certainly as you all are, most important,” Ben answers. “To suggest The Master is not a threat would be unwise.”


Tai-Pan says, “It should be understand by all, The Master manipulates not just the Bit, but the Hunt and other things. He is perhaps one of the cornerstones of an alliance between Monstrous and Darkness. Certainly he is deeply involved.”


“Here we are in this city if you will, where the Bit and these Jenoine walk the streets together,” Dantalion declares. She looks at Axewing. “This is a place of…a fortress for them, perhaps. When they acknowledge their coalition.”


“By your own words, if this is such a place, and this is where we have been led to find Khons, what does that mean?” Axewing asks.


“Can I just point something out?” Sybermane injects.


“You’ve got the horn,” Jack quips. Yeah. Don’t quit your day job.


“Don’t Bit usually operate in pairs?”


“He’s on the roof,” Jack says. “I thought you wanted him.”


I shrug and, seeing where the Bit lurks above, go to the wall of the building and starts to quickly scale the height.


“Look at that horse go,” Tai-pan chuckles. That’s two.


“I’m not sure that’s the wisest course,” Benedict judges. “He think he might be pushed off as he arrives. It would be a typical and sensible stratagem to employ.”


“I suppose Sybermane knows best,” Jack defends me, but not with what you could call confidence. Assclown. Not quite three, but getting closer. I do reach the top and, just before cresting the roof, see a Bit looking down at me, with some sort of sawed-off projectile weapon pointed at me.


“You are the Sybermane,” the Bit says, with what sounds like more respect than from the others below. Maybe that’s why people sign up for the Bit.


“Oh. You’ve heard of me, have you?”


“What are your doing with those others down on the street.”


“Well, let me get up so we can move back and I can explain,” I offer. He backs away and settles on his haunches, as do I after clambering onto the flat roof. He draws a line between us with the barrel of his weapon. It looks ritualistic.


“They’re disgusting. The woman especially,” he comments with some feeling.


“They’re upset because I assassinated Anhur, if you know of him.”


I can feel the frown from behind his mask.” “I know him well. You have reason to enjoy the Faere?”


“Not yet,” I reply cryptically, being uncertain.


“You are quite interesting, Sybermane of Shadow.”


“I like to think so.”


Behind the Bit, I see Maldon climb atop the roof.


“Why did your partner attack Jack? And why did he miss?”


Tai-pan starts to step toward the Bit from behind, but the masked assassin must hear him. He swings around on his haunches and starts rolling toward the wall I had climbed up, while Maldon dashes toward him.


The Bit reaches the eavestrough and swings himself over. Tai-pan comes to a halt on the edge and watches. I join him, and when the Bit is halfway down, Tai-pan steps off the edge and plummets downward, blades coming out of his cuffs. He uses one to catch the eavestrough and correct his course so when he flies by the Bit, he is able to insert one blade into the other assassin’s spine at the neck, checking his descent for just a instant before the dead Bit releases his hold on the wall. They fall together to the street below, but Tai-pan contrives to be in a crouch atop the corpse as they land.


I climb down more normally.


“Did you learn anything before you killed him?” Jack asks.


“I was about to,” I tell him, “When Tai-pan attacked and killed him.”


“I just had to,” Tai-pan admitted. “It’s been a while. It’s like not being with a woman for a long time.”


I stare at him. “I’m an assassin. What the fuck are you?” Then, after a brief pause, “Of course, when you get a shot, you have to take it.”


“In the future, we should have some sort of signal of when to go and when not to,” Tai-pan says, and I nod. True enough, if we work together again.


“Now, Jack, have you got your bearings, or whatever it is you do in Shadow?” Ben asks.


“You want me to do another incantation,” Jack grumbles. We’re back to that.


“He said something about the Faere,” I tell them.


“Faere,” Jack says. “Like the Rakshasa fire. That gives me an idea. Come with me. Let’s see if things are what they’re supposed to be.”


“I understand Faere was hidden for great lengths of Realms, and then brought back by Anhur Ra and dispersed,” Axewing reveals. Back to Anhur, though even I think I’m being a bit unfair at the moment.


“Yes,” Ben responds. “Is there a reason for this lesson?”


“Just that we understand, there was a Phoenix fire as well.”


“Yes,” Ben says. Just assume I’m always adding “drily” for him.


“Well, now that we’ve established that…,” Jack adds impatiently. He leads us up the street some fair distance, and we arrive at the verge of a square.


“This is Shades Square, where the Solids and the Shades can do business,” he adds.


“These Shades, they are creatures of Shadow?” Tai-pan inquires.


“Yes. We need to be aware this Dusken town is theirs, not ours. Solids do not rule this place. They are given permissions to walk here. If the Shades feel at all threatened, they can remove the air you breathe, and so on.”


“I assume being amidst Obsidian we have some licence here?”


“Only in that you’ve been warned not to pull any shit,” I offer bluntly.


“I have less to fear, for I at least will be given opportunity to give an explanation,” Jack states. “Enjoy breathing shadow.”


Ben asks, “Why have you brought us to this more difficult place, then?”


Jack motions to his left. “At the end of the street, there is a temple.”


“A temple? A place of worship?”


“Finally,” Axewing claims. I can’t let that pass by.


“I’m going to take a guess here and say its not to Khons.”


"No,” Jack answers. “It is to Faere. You mentioned it. It gave me an idea. It reminded me. Perhaps it is worth investigation. I will go first, alone.” He looks at Tai-pan. “Unless you…?” “I’ll go,” I offer.


“While not gifted with shadow myself, I suppose it is wise you attend one another,” Benedict observes. It is a long way off. Perhaps a quarter of a mile. “Should you have need of us, it would be some time before we arrive.”


“I might have to summon you, then,” Jack allows.


“Through shadow? I am used to that, at least.”


“I can’t do that,” Tai-pan notes, and offers to come along as well.


“We’ll have to rely on the fact Shadowjack is more at home here than you. And if there is a threat, he’ll still be standing,” Benedict replies.



















The warriors left behind, I walk along the front of a building along with Jack and Tai-pan toward the Temple.


Tai-pan whispers to me, “Just to you know, if anything happens, I will have your back.”


“I’m not sure I like that,” I chuckle. It can have a double meaning for an assassin.


The Temple has two entrances, huge, tall doors, and we have come to the nearest.


“I suppose we have choice here. We could split up and take both entrances, or simply use one,” Jack says.


“I don’t really have an objective,” Tai-pan answers. “I suggest we stay together.”


“Once inside, we will run into acolytes,” Jack warns.


“The longer we’re out here, the higher the percentage we run into a Shade. I suggest we take the first,” Tai-pan recommends.


We follow that advice, and leaving the murk of the square, we find the interior of the Temple lit by very red, riotous braziers of Faere. The warmth is difficult to ignore. A bald acolyte with orange robes, trimmed with yellow silk, comes over to meet us.


“Greetings. Welcome to the temple of the Faere. What is it you have need of today? Come, we are all children of the Faere.”


“We are interested in learning more of your religion,” Jack says. The priest looks us over, then does a double-take as he realizes our very diverse appearances. He recovers himself quickly, though.


“You are seeking guidance, perhaps. You do not wish to join the religion as a member?”


“Not yet,” Jack says.


“Well, guidance can be provided to those who seek it. Then you can choose to make a contribution to the temple. Or if you find advice poor, you can just leave.”


“But if we find things useful, we can stay?” Jack inquires.


“Yes. You might wish to remain here. We call it Sanctuary.”


“From what?”


“The Shades. The world outside it can be difficult.”


“How is it you are here?” Jack presses.


”That is something of a proof of what I say being true. The power of our God.”


“The God of Faere?”


“Yes.” He takes a good look at all of us. “Of course it has a name. Its name is Anhur.”


”This one definitely needs the most guidance, but we certainly need a little bit,” Tai-pan says. “We all need guidance, my child. Some of us recognize it more than others.” He turns to me. “Your race is a Quinnial. I have read such things exist. In Andibulere. Upon the Flows.” I’m not sure I got that name right, but it sounded like Andibulere and, since I am supposed to be from there, I don’t ask him to repeat himself. I file it away for future reference.


“Do come along then. We will see to your guidance, shall we?”


He leads us along a corridor, a brazier every 30 feet or so. The air is extremely dry, and I can almost hear a crackling in my ears from my hair and skin drying. We enter a more modestly-sized room, featuring a pair of stiff-backed chaises, and motions to us to sit.


“I will be along presently to take you to the Holy of Holies.” He leaves.


“Just a point I should make,” I say, making an excuse in advance just in case. “I don’t actually remember killing Anhur.”


The others stare at me, but then the Acolyte returns, looking slightly embarrassed for some reason.


“Go on,” Tai-pan encourages the priest.


“If you would be upstanding and come with me? It’s time for your guidance.”


Tai-pan and I exchange snide looks. As if any of us would be considered “upstanding.”


The Acolyte takes us into the next room. Instead of an altar, we see a very elaborate staircase leading downward, into shadows. Jack looks at Tai-pan.


“It is real Shadow,” Jack says.


“Are you suggesting I stay here?” Tai-pan asks.


“That’s your decision. Shadowstuff is most…powerful. It might be best for we two to go on alone. If we have need, we might call for you. Come along, Sybermane.”


Come along indeed. “Everyone treats me like their horse,” I whinny. It’s okay if I’m the one making the jokes.


We disappear into Shadow.



















Axewing is in the square, and then he’s not, consumed in Shadow. He finds himself in a rustic building, more like what he is accustomed to versus the glassed structures of Dusken Town. Wooden beams hold up an unpainted ceiling looking like rough clay. The floor is dirt over stone, but then, scraping with his boot, he realizes the fine soil is actually dust. A rough-hewn window is made out of clay as well. A sort of yellow to orange light enters through the opening, and he is alone.


Looking around, he sees a wooden table, wooden chair, wooden bowls and , you guessed it, a wooden fork and spoon, but no knife. Shelves have some wooden canisters on them. The chamber is perhaps 14 feet square and, seeing a wooden doors, he walks to it and opens it, but doesn’t step out immediately.


Beyond, he sees the ground covered in large stone slabs, like inside the building but without the dust. The terrace extends perhaps 75 feet before dropping off abruptly. Beyond that, he sees different rocky needles rising to varying heights, topped by plateaus, some holding more buildings. Above he sees a distant roof, almost obscured by darkness. He’s in a cavern. He steps out, and hears a distant rumble from below he can also feel through he soles of his boots, like rushing water. He goes to the edge and looks down, and sees a violent river roiling along between some of the outcroppings, which seem to rise form a solid mammoth piece of stone. No buildings are below, but there must be some way to get from one pinnacle to another.


Finally, a sense of familiarity triggers a memory, and he realizes that this is Anhur’s underground realm on Zomb. The God’s seat of power would be somewhere to his left, and then left again, down the gorge quite a way. Climbing up and down pinnacles would be exhausting and dangerous.


Axewing concentrates on Anhur and his servants, and a massive figure appears out of the shadows behind him, glowing a ghostlight blue. He carries a Royal Khopesh, emblematic of the Veightal, its hilt a bird of prey image, like the sword of Ra the King. Axewing lowers his head. “Noble Guardian. I am Conan Axewing. I have found myself in this realm of Anhur. I am at a loss with his departing. Can you guide me?”


“Why should I guide you?”


“Because I wish to understand how it is he is no more, if that is the…”


“What do you mean, he no longer lives? He is a God of Faere. Why do you not ask him yourself, supplicant? If you say you are who you are, then you will have means to reach him. If you are not, then, well…”


Axewing calls out to Anhur Ra, and thinks of him as an ascendant God of Faere. “This is Conan Axewing. I have served you as I have served the Veightal. I have learned of your passing, and now come to see you in your new risen form.”


He reaches into his cuirass and pulls out the Ankh there.


He sees the guardian transform, into a Battering Lion, a servant of Anhur, carrying smaller twin khopeshes. Then he reverts to his former appearance, and then back and forth, flickering between the two.


The Ankh becomes incredibly hot in Axewing’s hand, and it begins to burn, but Axewing stoically endures the pain. The second form beings to stabilize, and replaces the first. The Lion stares at him.


“Who are you?” he demands, raising the khopeshes.


“I am Conan Axewing. I am an Exemplar, servant of the Veightal.”


The Lion crosses the khopeshes in front of his chest and bows his head.


“Can it be you? Could you have changed so much? I am Roland of the Battering Lions.”


“It has been Realms of times since we last met. I have…changed.’


“You have come to witness what is to be befall the Veightal.” He sounds hesitant.


“What is to befall them? That is a dark telling.”


“There are things happening. We must quickly travel to the throne. You are an Exemplar. You must have the means to reach where we need to go. Summon your mount.”


Axewing does so, and hears Defiant’s scream, the way the Gryphon opens a portal of sorts to his rider. Defiant descends from the shadows on the cavern ceiling and lands, and bows his head toward Roland.


“You have summoned a servant of the Gods? How is it so?” Defiant demands.


“Because we are needed to witness. We need to go to the place of Anhur, who has become the God of Faere.”


“I will wait here,” Roland offers.


“Get on,” Defiant peremptorily orders the Lion, and Roland does so. They ascend and fly along the gorge, then land on a causeway leading to Anhur’s Sanctum.


“We must enter the Sanctum,” Roland urges. “Come.”


As they enter through an archway of two standing stones and a lintel, Roland again flickers between his current and former appearances. He halts dead in his tracks.


“Why have we stopped?” Axewing asks.


The Guardian turns to look at him, his mouth set grimly. “How did we come to be here? What is the meaning of this?”


“I was led here. I must continue.”


“You shall do no such thing. This is the inner Sanctum of the God.”


“I have no wish to hurt you,” Axewing laments, even as they being to fight. Axewing uses his Gift of Unerring Swing, his axe smashing into Roland’s neck. The Guardian shouts his outrage, and his Royal Khopesh goes wide, but then arcs back into Axewing’s hip.


Then, the Khopesh stabs into the upper part of the Armour of Time, and is caught in the strip of Void that inhabits there. Roland releases the blade rather than be sucked in. He flickers again, and Axewing thinks of Roland as he should be. The Lion stabilizes, now with only one smaller blade, and looks confused.


“What just happened?”


“You transformed into a Guardian I attempted to pass. We came to blows.”


“We must go to the Sanctum.” Roland resumes his march inward. They come to a chasm that divides a great chamber, plummeting down into molten lava. Across the divide, Axewing sees Anhur Ra.





















All of a sudden, I’m in a large, rocky chamber divided by some kind of lava flow. I can see Anhur from his side, staring across the chasm at Axewing and an impressive looking figure holding a khopesh. Shadowjack, I realize, is beside me.


“What’s this?” he asks.


“Fucked if I know,” I reply truthfully.


Then, in my mind, I hear Khons speaking. “Now is your moment! Take the strike!”


I dutifully remove the fine wooden box I have carried for some time in the pack on my back, but before I can open it, the Spectral Blade, the Bane of Gods, (that’s my description, nothing official), spraying out colours like a prism, appears in my hand. I manifest the Corne of Moonlight.


Anhur towers perhaps 50 feet above me, a massive figure, his head rising even higher.


“What are you doing?” Jack demands.


“I obey Khons’ command. The time is to strike.”


“But this is a God of the Veightal?”


“But Khons is not a God of the Veightal.”


Then I look at Jack. “Wait. Didn’t I kill Anhur already?”


“You’re asking me?”


Khons again demands urgently, “Why do you delay? Strike!”


“I did this already. Why am I doing it again?”


Benedict appears across the chasm, while Dantalion does so beside Axewing.


“He lives!” Axewing cries.


“Your dream,” Khons reminds me. “Your dream?”


“To be a God,” I answer. I’d told Anubis-Set that, in a rare moment of personal ambition. I take a step toward Anhur, then stop myself.


“But that was my dream before. Before I became a Khrescent again. That was a dream I told this to Anubis-Set. Is it you my lord, or is it him?”


Anhur turns to face me.


“I am Khons!” I hear. In an instant, I realize what has happened. This isn’t the present. The Master has sent us into the past. This isn’t the second time I have slain Anhur, but the first. I flip the Blade to catch its point, then hurl it upward at Anhur. It sinks into the God’s chest, and I hear a bellow of pain. I immediately begin to step into the Astra, to shield myself from any repercussions.


Anhur’s chest opens in an eruption of volcanic strength, huge gobs of fire and lave exploding from his chest. I manage somehow to avoid being struck by any of the flying death, while Jack dives away, swearing mightily.


Axewing screams, a cry of a soul in anguish and rage, and throws his axe toward me, using another Gift, “The Throw on Invincible Skill.” However, by the time the weapons arrives, passing through where I had been, I am in the Astra, safe.


The cavern echoes with the screams of a multitude of feline creatures at the death of the God. I see a tiger-headed figure in scarlet military uniform run out of an archway behind me, looking distraught at the deflating body of Anhur.


“What have you done?” the newcomer shouts. “You have killed him!”


“Don’t look at me,” Shadowjack denies, as I return to the Material.


I can see Axewing is even more in anguish than the tiger, and the barbarian sinks to his knees. Dantalion looks aghast.


Roland begins to flicker again, but stays in control.


“It has come to pass, as it was fated by the Doctor,” the Lions utters under his breath. “But that means….”


Axewing hears a crackly, “Come in, come in, can anyone help me? This is Blackjack One. Come in, over.”


Benedict steps over to the kneeling barbarian, and shakes him by the shoulders. “Axewing! Snap out of it man! You had best return!”


Tai-pan hears a voice. “Maldon. Maldon Sax?”


“Yes?” he answers, puzzled. No one is supposed to be able to make mental contact with him.


“Could be. If nothing else, I could probably reach him.


“It is I, Frobwusten.”


“Where are you, my friend?”


“Behind you?”


Tai-pan turns and seeing the fiendish Rakshasa who was his Brazier, embraces him. Frobwusten seems startled by the gesture.


“So he’s come through,” Tai-pan declares.


“He?”


“Yes. Shier Khan.”


“Yes. I have come from this one.” The tiger looks nonplussed. “A strange Rakshasan. Very powerful.”


Tai-pan, this time truly in his mind, hears, “Sax! Damn you man, answer me!”


“The debt is paid,” Tai-pan answers, believing he is hearing from Khan. “I am most….”


“What is the matter with you? It is I, Ipnacre.”


“Yes. We are on Axildusk, on the Mainstays.”


“Where in the hells are you?”


“On Axildusk,” Tai-pan repeats.





















Then a slow clapping begins, echoing around the Sanctum.


“The Master,” I declare, without looking to see if it is true. I know we are no longer in the past, but in the present.


The Master strides out of the shadows, and a bridge now connects the two sides of the chasm. He crosses to the middle, stopping clapping only long enough to wave at me and Shadowjack, and the Ambassador of Cats, as the tiger-headed officer will turn out to be. He beckons us, and I walk over to the bridge.


“Are you right, man?” Benedict asks of Axewing. The barbarian reaches an arm up, so the Amberite can help him to his feet.


“The Master,” Benedict states. “I see it now for what it is. These are things that were lost to us, Axewing. Let us get this explanation from the horse’s mouth.”


Once again, not funny unless I’m telling the joke. That’s three for sure, but hardly the place to protest.


Benedict marches determinedly to the middle of the bridge, the others from that side following. I keep my distance for now. Dantalion looks like she’s trying to steel herself against the loss of Anhur.


“Let’s join the party,” Tai-pan tells Frobwusten.


“I feel as if we should. Who is this one? He is most nefarious looking.”


“He is a fallen Doctor. He is an enemy.”


“If the Doctors are the masters of unreality, is he The Master of reality?”


“A master of unreality, I believe, but one that works for Monstrous and Darkness.”


The Master announces, “How very well played. Are you satisfied?” He turns to Benedict and Axewing.


“So this is not something that just happened. This is something that happened,” Axewing says.


“It is this one’s history, and yours.” The Master motions to everyone at that end of the bridge.


“How is it done?” Benedict inquires.


“The matters of Time are things the Principality are more aware of then I.”


“But why!” Axewing demands of me. “Why? Why has this been done?”


I decide it’s safe enough to go until the bridge, but stay a few feet back of the rest.


“Why does anything happen?” The Master replies. “One might ask why you were born?”


“This was a matter of choice,” Axewing says determinedly. Yeah, like he would have refused an order from Anhur to slay Khons, had the tables been turned.


“It was a command of my God,” I answer.


“There are orders given that should not be given,” Benedict observes. I wonder when the last time he was disobeyed and am pleased by the result.


“I was ambitious,” I admit.


“My master is gone,” Roland laments.


“I am not certain how it is you have manifested,” Benedict tells him.


Roland flickers, but then stabilizes again in his Battering Lion form.


“That’s a Jenoine,” Jack says of the Guardian form.


“I do believe you are correct,” Benedict confesses, and appears once more to be thinking.


“How could a Jenoine be here, guarding the vault of Anhur?” Axewing asks.


“Why, indeed,” The Master says drolly. He motions toward Anhur’s corpse. “This one was constrained by its presence here. If it had survived, it would have become damaged. Khons sought the only avenue available to removing the threat from Anhur.”


Benedict tries to clarify, “Are you suggesting that if Anhur had lived, he would have been taken by the ones who took Roland?”


The Master folds his arms across his chest in answer.


“Would you know how it was done?” Benedict persisted. “Should we all be fearful?”


“Some are susceptible and some are not,” The Master answers.


“And Anhur was susceptible.” Benedict looks at Axewing.


Frobwusten says quietly to Tai-pan, “This God, as they call it, it could have been more. It could have meant more to this Realm.”


“We have no interest in Gods,” Tai-pan dismisses.


”I beg to differ, master. It is most interesting. The power the Jenoine have can overcome even a God. It is not the killing. It is the controlling. That is obviously their skill. What of the Thoughts?”


“Our enemies would not be worthwhile if they were not….”


“Could the Thoughts be susceptible as well?”


“As far as Thoughts go, Frobwusten, we trust in ourselves only.”


Axewing now addresses The Master. “This talk that you say of what Anhur may have become, you sound as if it a good thing, what has happened to him.”


“Good, bad. These are concepts I don’t deal with.”


“The loss of Anhur is a loss. There is no benefit to this. The only ones who will benefit will be those who sought to control him. I do not know if I even believe this. Perhaps it is a manipulation. Perhaps you are lying to us. Perhaps this Khons is lying. Perhaps this Khons seeks to replace Anhur, or the Veightal?”


Anubis appears at this moment, and points at Sybermane. “The knife! Give it to me!”


Crap. The Spectral Blade. This doesn’t look like Anubis-Set, but if it is…. I sprint toward Anhur’s body, while Anubis, after an instant, does the same. I am an Equinn, so I arrive first. I reach out toward the God’s body, seeking the Blade.


“Sybermane! Stop!” Anubis cries


I freeze, my hand only inches from Anhur. What might touching the corpse of a God do to me? Anubis arrives at my side.


“Why do you hesitate, mortal?” he demands.


“You said to stop,” I lie.


“Sensible man. Step away from the body.”


I do so, and Anubis reaches into Anhur’s mantle, retrieving what he sought.


“At last. The Spectral Blade."

I dive for the Blade, thinking to take it away until I am sure which Anubis I’m dealing with, but he pulls it out of my way as I go sailing by. I roll to one side.


“I could really use a good dagger,” Tai-pan murmurs.


I run toward Anubis, trying to be quiet as he stares at the Blade.


In his mind, Axewing sees Bast, the leonine goddess, appear, looking at the knife as well. She has a solar disc behind her head, emblematic of the power of the Veightal. He sees the Faere of the Phoenix surrounding her, and recalls she was wounded in an attempt to kill the Mule, at the end of a previous Realm. She and two other demigods had gone to face down that enemy. “Holy Bast!” he cries. “How can I aid?”

She turns to look upon him. “Noble immortal. What is this place?”


“It is the sanctum of Anhur, who had become the god of Faere, who was recently slain.”


“I sensed an opening. Is it a portal for us?”


“Can you come through?”


“I can. To what?”


Back to business. I circle Anubis to get a shot at the arm holding the knife. I manage to hit him with my Jhato, but he only turns to look at me, smiling wickedly. I swing again, wounding him, and blood flows.


Axewing tells the Goddess, “He hears you, Bast.”


“I need to know what to do. I am without my Ra.”


“You need to come through. You need to manifest.”


“Are you the Ra?”


“Anhur Ra was just slain,” Axewing tells her mournfully.


“Then I will be the Ra. I am not worthy.”


“You must be worthy! You are the only one.”


In his mind, Bast becomes more solid, as the flames around her roar upward. The disc deepens in colour, becoming brighter and redder, and takes depth, becoming almost a sun. She arrives, and inclines her head toward Axewing, who kneels, and Benedict.


“We welcome your return,” Benedict says.


“It is good to see you again, Prince of Amber, and you, noble Exemplar… Anubis! Brother!”


Tai-pan has begun moving toward Anubis, planning to attempt an assassination, I guess because he wants the Blade.


Before he can do so, the blood flows down from Anhur’s wounds onto the Blade. It explodes in a variety of coloured shards, and the God cries out, first in pain and then exultation. Obviously, I pull back. Too late if it’s Anubis-Set.


“He grows!” Bast declares. Various incarnations appear around the first Anubis, nine in total standing in a circle.


Tai-pan slides to a halt, and grumbles, “Why do these things always happen to me? The power and glory is there, and then it’s gone.”


As he bemoans his fate, the nine incarnations clasp hands and become one, much to my relief.

Transcribed by R.Perry