Mariana
Jacob Dark
A girl with the sun in her hands. A man who sees ghosts. And me, the villain.
The goldilocked rays cut through the clouds on a peaceful morning in Earlsville, and Mary's windowsill hosts three strange pillowy creatures. Tired waking eyes take in the milky shapes and she assumes she's still asleep.
Pushing the window open with a limp hand, the one on the left addresses her:
'Greetings, friend!'
She swipes her glasses off the bedside table, pushing them on her nose.
'Who are you? What are you?'
White salamanders with toffee-brown eyes, about twenty centimetres long. The middle one introduces them:
'Quermillay, Quermithay and Quermissay, emissaries from lovely Selador.'
'Cellar door?'
'An ancient shrine, impossible to reach except by the most treacherous path through a dense and dark forest. We've been sent from its marble rocks to meet you.'
'Why?'
'Well, you've been chosen!'
'For what?'
A knock on the door.
'Mary!!! You're gonna be late!!!'
'I'm coming!!!'
Turning her attention back to them, the third one speaks:
'The Wizard's Anthology. You've been selected to wield it.'
She scratches her head. This is a weird dream.
'And what will it do?'
'Give you power undreamt of by any human. We'll be bringing the items to you over the course of seven months.'
'Starting with this.'
Quermillay drags over something kept behind the window frame. A small bottle of blue glass filled with a cloud of purple fog.
'The Wizard's Mist. Within this cloud is a Genie who will grant as many wishes as you desire.'
She's read Arabian Nights before.
'Any restrictions?'
'The genie won't hurt anyone, won't let you get hurt, and won't let itself get hurt. Three rules.'
'Simple enough. But what if the rules collide?'
'Then you can choose who suffers.'
The creatures leave and Mary freshens up, the vial in her pocket.
Downstairs, emerald-eyed Emery greets her with the usual question:
'Word of the day?'
She thinks.
'Genuflection. The act of bending one's knee.'
Mary's always got a word for the day. Her mind is a river.
Her older brother's at the stove, clad like a warrior in his best red Kiss The Cook apron.
'Pancakes?'
'You betcha.'
Caster sugar, golden syrup and a knob of hot butter. Mum's away on a business trip so he's on breakfast duty.
Emery notices something's on her mind.
'What's up, bunny?'
She looks up from her food.
'Nothing! Just thinking about school.'
'I know when you're lying, Maria Joanne Tagstern.'
She doesn't respond. He tentatively decides to leave it.
The sun removes the clouds from her lemon face. Light fills the room.
A few blocks away a booted trenchcoat makes his way up a flight of stairs. His hat hides his head, a shock of hay hair with amber at the tips.
A nose like a woodpecker with a five o'clock shadow pasted to his jaws. His greased moustache curls up like a pair of spectacles under his nostrils. The trick is peanut oil.
Grey eyes take in the door. Unassuming, concealing what's transpired inside. Taking a deep breath, he gloves up and enters.
A soft maroon carpet. Yellowed walls, dim orange lights. And then there's the smell.
Five men. Or what once were men.
Disfigured beyond recognition, each with a right hand missing. One in a bathtub filled with ice, two on the floor, their blood soaking the carpet. The others are in the guest room, slumped on either side of the bed.
These apartments have never seen such brutality. He feels the need to mask the stench.
'Darf Ich hier kaugummi kauen?'
The question is directed at lead investigator Alphonsus Aloysius Mackey, who still has his sharpness despite sixty years.
His boss smirks.
'You may.'
Sometimes he slips into German. It's a blessing his peers understand him.
Popping a wad of Billy Blind's Boysenberry Bubblegum in his mouth:
'Why're you down here?'
'I felt obligated. Our town's never seen such a crime.'
'Where're the others?'
'On their way. I'm assigning you a partner for this case.'
'Who?'
'Adrian Aster Thomas. New guy from out of town. British, but not Anglo-German. You'll need to cut down on the Deutsch for his sake.'
Mister Thomas arrives, an oak tree tarred with crow feathers. Leaving his black jacket outside the room, he approaches him with a smile.
'Adrian.'
'Heinrich von Zebaoth.'
His friends call him Henry.
They match in height. Chocolate eyes, soft bristly beard, goose nose. Shaking hands, Heinrich notices his steel grip, paired with a strangely kind smile. The effect is odd but welcome.
'Whatcha make of this, Heinrich?'
'I'll need to see the bodies first.'
He approaches the nearest one, his glassy eyes like milk-soaked grapes. Noticing a mark on his left limb, he gently turns it over. What looks like a 'T' with the arms bent down, forming an upright arrow or spear. Three of these symbols line the victim's forearm like road markings.
Visiting each cadaver, he notices they're all marked.
'Runes.'
'Of any particular organization?'
'One that I know of. The Soehne des Zerberus, or SZ.'
Mackey chimes in:
'Heard of the buggers. Some secret group that wants to revive Old Norse religion.'
He nods.
'They worship Ziewas, a god of war whose right limb was bitten off by a monstrous wolf.'
'Well, that explains the missing hands.'
'A murderous cult in our peaceful Earlsville. Not news to bring home to me missus.'
'Don't worry, Mackey. They're a small group, and quite recent. Easy to quash.'
Adrian concurs:
'We could probably round up the unsubs in less than a month.'
'A month's a while, son. Not sure how long we can keep this away from the public.'
St. Martin's is a small but comely school, its beige walls and brass gates like some relic frozen in time.
Mary's day is as usual. Get to classes, avoid bullies in the hallways.
Some people in this world are rotten for the sake of it. You can't attribute their personality to a rough past, bad childhood or genetic predisposition. Tabitha Cleary is one of these people.
'Your pervert brother not coming today, Mary?'
Evading her like the bubonic plague, she finds her locker and nervously opens it. Stuffing her books in, a thought strikes her.
She fishes the ampoule out of her pocket, gently shaking it like a snowglobe.
A small creature makes itself visible in the dust. A snow-white rhesus macaque with large stone-blue eyes and a red peach-shaped face.
'What's your name?' she whispers.
'Grandson Comprehending Emptiness.'
'Mind if I just call you Sonny?'
He nods.
'What do you wish?'
She thinks.
'I wish rats would appear in Tabitha's locker.'
A wish that wouldn't directly hurt anyone. The rest of the day takes an interesting turn.
While the medics wheel Tabitha out, covered face to shins in bite marks, Mary goes home early.
Her house is simple, tan bricks and white painted timber. Inoffensive and small, like her.
'How was school?'
'Not bad. Tabitha got attacked by some rats.'
He raises an eyebrow but thinks nothing more of it.
'I would say I'm sorry for her, But I'm feeling petty today.'
Mary goes up to her room, its blue walls welcoming and familiar. This is a weird dream.
Lying on her bed, facing the ceiling, she considers throwing the Mist away.
'Something like this is dangerous.'
But something else urges her to keep it. Something ancient, hidden behind a veil of mind.
Weeks have passed. Heinrich and Adrian are at their desk, peeling through stacks of files.
Heinrich runs through what they've gathered so far:
'The SZ have chapters in Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the UK, with each chapter run by a priest or priestess accompanied by a small group of clergy. Their MO is simple. Find suitable victims, drug them, mark them and kill them via amputation. Victims, or Opfer as the cultists call them, are physically healthy men in their thirties, of any ethnic background.'
'Doc says the drugs used are xylazine and detomidine, stuff found at vet clinics.'
Ayalah Stephryn, or Doc, is their local medical examiner, a former MSF nurse with a love for scotch eggs, Border Collies and true-crime documentaries.
'Some Zerberusse will be meeting tonight at Mirrich Park. Five p.m.'
The SZ conduct their ceremonies on Tuesdays. Heinrich glances over the most recent victims, their morbid photos covering his journal.
'I'll never understand the rationale these arschloecher use for human sacrifice. Whether the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Romans, Gauls…these types of zealots don't seem satisfied with hurting animals, so they hurt animals of their own kind.'
'I imagine it has to do with the power we've ascribed to ourselves. The Babylonians believed people were made from the blood of the god Kingu, and many other cultures believe humans are in some way divine, hence the 'potency' of our lifeblood.'
'It's amazing what a grandiose sense of self will justify.'
Adrian closes his file, considering Heinrich.
'From my time here, I've come to conclude you see things strictly in black and white.'
'Fair observation. For me there are only good or bad people, no in-betweens. You're either doing the right thing or its opposite.'
'People are often more complicated than that, but I understand where you're coming from.'
They grab some bagels and leave. Adrian's getting his weapons, Heinrich's getting a nap.
Being with Erin makes him feel like the world won't blow up. The trust involved in being so vulnerable, asleep and defenceless in the presence of someone else, is something he's had to learn over time.
Waking up, he counts the dimples on her face. Two on each cheek, one on her chin. Her eyes, spider nebulae, glow with a starry blueness. She wakes up, smiling.
'What's on your mind?'
He considers.
'How no one found you sooner.'
'Dating's complicated when you're AMAB.'
'That shouldn't be the case.'
He gets up, food on his mind.
'Stullen?'
'Sure.'
He fixes some coffee and sandwiches: ham, gouda, canned pineapple.
'Voilà! Toast Hawaii.'
They sit on the bed, watching the news with meals in hand. Their tabbies, Schroedinger and Egg, snuggle at their feet, footballs of cuteness.
'What's on this evening?'
'A cult. Bunch of Viking enthusiasts.'
'Since when?'
'The first murders were done around May fifth.'
'Less than a month ago.'
'I'm going with a team tonight for a crackdown. Maybe stop them in medias res.'
'Why not stop them before?'
'We usually find the sneaky bastards when their deed is done. In this case we need to catch them in the act. Those we've taken in after always have an exit strategy.'
'Pills?'
'Potassium cyanide. Two implanted at the back molars, ready with a single bite.'
'Sounds very organized for a small criminal assembly.'
'I suspect this group is larger than we assume, its branches in many industries.'
His alarm goes off.
'Time to suit up.'
'Come home soon.'
He kisses her.
'Will do.'
'And be careful with these guys. Cult encounters never end well.'
'It's 2015, darling. We're not in the dark ages.'
The sun dives behind the hills. Officers have surrounded the park.
Heinrich takes the east, accompanied by Thomas, Doyle, Schmidt and Meyer. Covering the north are Weber, Byrne, Murphy, Bauer and Mueller. A team of ten covers the southwest: Connor, O'Brien, McLoughlin, Fischbach, Schulz, Becker, Kent, Sullivan, Hoffmann and Donnell. Three cars are on standby.
Heinrich steadies his breathing, his SIG Sauer P229 at the ready. He shouldn't feel so on edge, but for some reason he is.
The park is a crude square, with rusty gates on each side, each entrance kept by two officers and a Belgian Malinois. At its centre is a monument called the Algernon Stele, or 'The Slab' colloquially, an inscribed granite block detailing Earlsville's history as a former settlement dedicated to Kowentina.
The cultists surround the Slab, at the base of which five men have been placed, bound and gagged, eyes half open.
The Gotti, high priest, holds in his left hand a rust-crusted ritual knife. His arms are outstretched like some perverted eagle and the devotees are preparing for the Blut. Unlike other cults, they wear regular clothes.
He begins his chanting, to which the group of thirty answers with the traditional poetic responses:
'Im namen Zies, rufe Ich!'
'Ungerecht handeln? Er kommt!'
'Seine vielen Gesichter, gott des Krieges!'
'Alle menschen werden folgen dem Gesetz!'
'Ziewas der Einhaender!'
'Gehen wir zurueck zu
unserm ausgangspunkt!'
'Oh opfer, der kampf mit dem grossen Wulf!'
'Eine Hand zu verlieren, es genuegt!'
'Alle fuer das Groessere Wohl schuetzen!'
'Oh herr Fenrer, immer falsch verstanden!'
'Zie Hymerssohn, du hast gerufen.'
'Du lehrst uns zu finden Mut unsern!'
Before the slaughter begins they move in, guns ready.
Heinrich shoots out the Gotti's knees. He's not taking any chances.
The rest of Ziewas' clergy make their escape, greeting bullets on their way to the gates.
Heinrich pursues a priestess making for the stele.
'Stop!'
She reaches the Slab, striking it with what looks like a mistletoe branch. The six-foot-tall stone begins to glow, and a magenta light erupts from the centuries-old monument, throwing everyone to the ground.
A mind-twisting doorway forms from the blinding colour, and Heinrich finds himself being pulled. Before he can fight back the portal drags him in.
Mary wants to ignore the strange new toys she's been given. This Saturday she's going out with friends.
Sandra, Lakshmi and Siobhan meet her at the local café, Dame DuLac, and decide to see a movie and do some window shopping.
Emery stays back. He doesn't feel like it today.
Standing shirtless in front of his bathroom mirror, he considers himself.
Too skinny, too fat. Too tall, not tall enough. Losing his hairline, getting acne. Ugly nails, ugly teeth, ugly nose, ugly facial hair.
'I wish…'
Sometimes he feels like a prisoner in his own body. Sometimes he feels like a stranger to himself and wants to be someone, something, better.
He doesn't see himself as others do. Someone who wasn't made to fit in, but to stand out. Not every day is a rainy day, but when it does rain, he's sinking.
Today he won't let this shadow swallow him. He will focus on himself, what makes him happy, and choose light over darkness. A bowl of ice cream and a sappy telenovela? Why not. The love that you achieve in this lifetime will fight for you in the end.
He will learn to love himself eventually. For now, he's taking steps to go back to where he began. To where he was before the world bore down on him.
School's been good since Tabby was sent home for an extended medical recovery. Today Mary's seeing a friend, ignoring the voices nagging at her to use 'them.'
Slattery is the crazy old affluent greybeard whose ghostly house people speed past on their walks. His kids have left the nest and his better half has passed on, so Mary finds herself paying him visits once in a while.
His mansion-like house is a gallery of decadent oil paintings, primal lithographs and some contemporary art. Whale-sized red carpets cover the floors, a mahogany staircase facing the door and leading up to a room with a grand piano and table set with fine glass.
On the stairway's left is a room housing a fireplace, its accompanying chimney like a brick vine winding up through the roof. Plush green chairs, old but habitually kempt, face the flames, a stool beside each supporting a fat stack of newspapers and magazines.
Slattery occupies the second chair. He always leaves the first for Maria, who warms herself by the hearth gratefully.
'How's school been, lass?'
'Quite good. Things have been strange recently. New, I would say.'
'Speaking of new, I have a little something I'd like to show ya.'
'Show away.'
He leads her to a room where a recent painting has been hung.
'I got this copy cheap from an auction. About two million quid.'
The imagery is a bit unsettling, but Mary notes the skill behind the work. It's one of Goya's Black Paintings.
A monstrous bronze-skinned giant with wild flowing ashy hair, down on one knee, with clenched hands grasping a smaller figure he's ravenously eating.
'Saturno Devorando A Su Hijo. Cronus Consuming His Son.'
'How do you interpret it?'
'Most look at the picture and simply see a depiction of a Greek god-monster. A symbol of war, disease, famine, time. I see something more skin-deep. Only one of Saturn's offspring was left uneaten. Only one of Goya's children survived to adulthood. Francisco felt guilt over the fact that the universe let him live and most of his children didn't. He saw himself as a monster, something that was violating the natural way of things. This is a self-portrait.'
'Why do you have it above your dinner table?'
From where it hangs the cannibal Titan seems to watch them, his eyes filled with panic and shame.
'I have a sick sense of humour.'
She sips some of Slattery's hot coco in the living room while he turns on the projector, resting on the fireplace's mantelpiece and fitted with reels of black and white movies he and his love used to watch together.
This time they see Creature from the Black Lagoon. When the movie finishes Slattery gets up to fix some tea and biscuits.
'Chamomile?'
'I think I'll have an oolong, please.'
They sit in silence, listening to the birds outside. Their sound makes her sad.
'What's wrong, dearie?'
'I think, like Goya's monster, I consume everybody else's time.'
'Ya don't. Don't say that about yarself.'
'But I do! Mum's barely at home, and I think it's 'cause she can't stand me.'
'Maybe it's yar brother she wants time away from,' he jokes.
'I've always felt like a black sheep. What if I never belong anywhere?'
'Ya will always have a place here, and I'm sure with many others. Strangers are friends ya've yet to meet.'
'Or enemies you've yet to make.'
'Lemme tell ya something…'
He leans forward a bit, his beard hovering over his teacup.
'I was born and raised in a time when people like me were shunned. We'd be declared mentally ill, beaten up, or killed. So like a lot of folks did back then, I hid. And I hid so well that happiness couldn't find me. Finally my dad tossed some money at me and told me to piss off forever, so I did. And I didn't bloody look back.'
He pauses for a bit. A name that's painful to utter.
'When I met Joshua, he showed me that I was worth something. That I was worthy of love. That I wasn't some monster, some abomination, but that there would always be someone who would understand me.
Sure, we had to pretend to be friends so we could adopt children, but mum's the word. We're all doing our daily battles, and the war of life is easier when we as soldiers support each other.'
'I miss Josh. He was deserving of you.'
'I think ya've got it the other way around. But the point I'm making is that ya're never truly alone, Maria. Even when ya feel like it.'
He leans back. She feels like she can trust him.
She tells him about the salamanders. About the weird magical relics. About her supposed selection. Slattery nods along, trying to take it all in. He knows she wouldn't lie about any of this. Mary's not that kind of person.
Being a former ceremonial magician himself, Slattery fetches a tome from the library. The Mysterium Potentiae Dei, a medieval translation of a Syriac treatise on exorcisms, supernatural beings, alchemy and the sciences of the time. Its coffee-black cover is old leather that smells like a belt soaked in vinegar, the yellow pages dusty with hints of lavender.
'Take this. It's the best I've got, and may help ya figure this whole thing out. Seems yar online Latin lessons will pay off!'
'You're smart, man.'
'Smart as a wet bag of hammers in a hurricane, but thankya.'
He smiles.
'It'll be alright. Whatever this is, ya can figure it out. I know ya will.'
She hugs him.
'Sean Aiden Slattery, I wish you were my grandfather.'
He chuckles, a wizardly Santa Claus.
'Family is who we choose, Maria, not what we're born into.'
They've been visiting this place when given the chance, gradually learning the ways and speech of the locals and drawing connections with the SZ in their world. Obviously Mackey and the others haven't been informed. Heinrich has taken to calling this otherworld the Crossroads, Adrian the Rat-Lands.
From their interaction with the officers, it seems the strange bipeds have encountered humans before. Evidence of this is found in the library, Botakanda's stash of codices and scrolls hosting an outlier.
'Look here, Adrian. A book written by a human.'
Its cover is burgundy, a goatskin journal from the twentieth century.
'Who's the owner?'
'From the endpaper, Professor Sadock Ischyrus Theophilus Rudolph Abelard Mahworss. A philological scholar and anthropologist originally from Leipzig.'
'Let's just call him Professor Sadock.'
'It seems the Professor paid this place a few visits. His entries are in Upper Saxon but I can translate most of it.'
He scans the pages.
'January 25th, 1905. They call themselves the Minisoh, or the People. I have designated them Mustelahomo procyonides.
The Procynes are a simple species, living in matriarchal tribes of a few thousand, scattered across this biodiverse land like colonies of bees and sharing a common language and culture. I came across them a month ago when the Stèle de Auxgrenons, named so for Saint Grannus the Moustached who brought the faith to the pagan community of the time, seemingly turned into a passage of brilliant purple light while I was on my evening walk nearby, drawing me in with the force of a euroclydon. Through stepping on odd runic shapes stamped into the ground of my arrival spot, I have found a way to traverse between the worlds.'
'Like us.'
He continues:
'The Minisoh are a strong and ancient kind, with only one fear: a dreaded deity they call Tiewus, or something to that effect. The Possessor. From what they've told me, I can discern this divinity belongs to a neighbouring nation of monstrous beings they term 'Daemons', or 'Jachko' in their native tongue. I have designated them Canihomo virlupus. The Procynes have been at war with these 'bad spirits' for what appears to be centuries. Further research is required. Sadock M.'
'He left out some details. Like how these buggers smell like detergent.'
'And how they lay eggs like monotremes?'
'And how they've got some wacky gods of their own.'
He thinks back to a previous encounter. They had just arrived in the village when a painted clay statue was brought in from another settlement, carried on a wooden palanquin.
An elderly Procyon with blue eyes, mounted on a white horse-like creature with a trident in his left hand and snake in his right, clothed with a white turban and white robes, his fur golden and belly-length beard like fresh snow.
'At night his steed turns light blue, his trident to a bowl of fire, his turban to a crown of five cobras and his snake into a sword, symbolizing his wrathful aspect,' one acolyte explained.
The dualistic deity's presence is seen in 168,000 temples, or deyyagedaroh, across the Crossroads. The image was moved around, given due reverence by everyone in the village, and carried to the next settlement.
'What was his name again?'
'Sooniyam. I believe it means Zero or Nothing.'
'Why would they worship something named Nothing?'
'Botakanda told me that all deyyoh, male and female, are simply manifestations of Sooniyam. Perhaps the idea is that all things emanate from him. Everything is sustained by this being, and so he is the only real 'thing' in existence, everything else being an extension of him. He is nothing because he sustains all things, the ground of all reality.'
'A bit too complicated for my taste. I prefer gods that can be understood.'
'Well, anyways, it seems this cult of Dehwos, or Ziewas, has been around a bit longer than we assumed. It was probably imported into our world.'
'But we don't even know who runs this whole thing. It could be anyone.'
He flips through the journal.
'The Virlupi believe their god operates through a physical vessel, called the Hregni, or Wanderer. This vessel walks the land like a ravening wolf…the rest of the text is blurry.'
'But we have a good starting point. If the vessel is a person here, all we have to do is find them and kill the snake at the head.'
Their investigation on Earth has been good. The British chapter of the SZ has been neutralized, and any new splinter groups are currently being tracked down.
'I say we head back for now. There's something I want to look into.'
He's noticed something at the bottom of the endpaper. A second name.
The third gift is bestowed. A yellow silk handkerchief lighter than a hair strand and more strongly knit than a chain of iron.
'The Wizard's Satin. It allows its user to travel across dimensions. Despite their appearances, none of the Wizard's Anthology can be destroyed.'
'Dimensions?'
'Worlds parallel to each other, of which there are countless.'
She decides to test it out. This Sunday she heads out to the Range.
An abandoned sand mine decommissioned when the environmental effects of the process made themselves evident. A desert on the borders of Earlsville, facing the northern woods a couple of miles yonder.
The objects can be activated through simple gestures, as she's figured out. The Gem has yet to be used, but she's found time to experiment with her genie.
'Sonny, I wish for a fence to surround this area.'
A new aluminium structure springs up around the sandy dunes like an alien tree, isolating them.
She takes the hanky out.
'Uh…Sonny? Do you know how to use this?'
'Just shake it. Imagine you're a matadora flagging down a bull.'
She holds the cloth in front of her with one hand, picturing a Cretan ox charging towards her.
She flicks the handkerchief and is whisked away with a flash of green light to a world unlike ours.
'Miss Gardner…'
'Just call me Izzy.'
'Izzy, we recently found this.'
He opens his laptop bag, taking the journal out. It's small enough to be held in one hand, large enough to leave open without holding the sides.
Her eyes widen.
'It was gifted to your great-grandfather. Ulixes Ethelbert Gardner.'
She chooses her next words carefully.
'So you know about the place?'
'We've been there a few times.'
They discuss the diary. Adrian makes himself comfortable in the kitchen, finding a kettle.
'Professor Mahworss was a close friend of great-granddad's, and went missing not long after giving him the journal.'
'You suspect foul play?'
'Maybe. All I know is my grandpa tried to find the diary. Now it's finally returned.'
'This place, what do you know about it?'
'I know it's been torn between two factions, one of which serves a…'
'One-handed war god?'
She nods.
He details the recent rise of the SZ.
'This being they serve, Teevaz or whatever they call him, is a real entity. And he's a very real threat.'
'Whether or not he exists is beside the point. We're just focused on arresting all those involved.'
Adrian enters the room, armed with a buttered crumpet.
'We're looking for the vessel of Ziewas.'
'If there's anyone who can locate them, it's the Elder Millennial.'
'Who?'
'One of the racoon-people. Old enough to remember what their world was like before their enemies appeared. Supposedly they know everything.'
'Where can they be found?'
'Not too sure. But Ave can help track 'em down next time you go.'
As if on cue, a copper-haired woman as tall as Heinrich emerges from the dining room, her belt holding holsters hosting a pair of Glock 17s. Judging by the bulges at the bottom of her jean legs, she's also concealing. A pair of aviators hide her eyes, her red and black tartan flannel shirt like a kilt from Clan Brodie.
'Meet Ave, her sunglasses giving her the sobriquet. My butler.'
'Butler?'
'Also secretary, bodyguard, chef, accountant, bandmate and fellow biker. She knows a thing or two about finding people, and has been my ear on the other side.'
'You won't be coming?'
'Maybe later.'
'But you won't have your security during that time.'
She chuckles.
'I may be a simple clinical psychologist, Officer Tsevaot, but I also know my way around a weapon or two. My father was a civil rights activist.'
'Fighting oppression before it was cool and when it was dangerous?'
She grins.
'I'm heading out for some air. Back in five.'
Adrian joins him outside. He hands him a cig.
'I don't touch the stuff, sorry.'
'How're you feeling?'
He looks concerned.
'This is a lot. A few months ago my life was normal. Now so much information…so many new things are pummelling me at once. Alien worlds, magic, ancient gods, talking animals. And I can't even talk to anyone else about it because it's all so…'
'Crazy?'
He nods. Adrian sits down next to him on the stairs. He decides to bring up family.
'My stepsister would say that one good friend is worth more than a thousand half-friends. Wise stuff for a seven-year-old. In this instance, you have me.'
'Siblings have ways to temper us and smooth our rough edges.'
'You have any?'
'Hildegard. Or Hildebrand as I would later know him.'
'How old is he?'
'He would be thirty this year.'
'I'm sorry.'
A dark cloud settles on him, but Adrian rests a gloved hand on his shoulder and some of the pain eases.
'The doctors gave him six months. Hildy struggled with it but never complained. I think in some ways I was relieved when he finally left, 'cause he wasn't in pain anymore.'
'That's understandable. I lost my grand-aunt to Alzheimer's, so I know how hard waiting it out can be, for you and for them. All you want is for their suffering to be no more, and wishing the inevitable would come sooner than later doesn't make you a worse person, but simply human, with all the frailties that entails.'
He reminisces.
'After the funeral my dad and I were heading home in his old Honda Civic. I was driving, and I Wish It Would Rain Down started playing on the radio.
Jefunne von Zebaoth was not a man who cried, and because of him neither do I. But that night I heard him hold back tears. I realized I was doing it too.
We sat there, watery eyes and lumps in our throats, unable to express what we were feeling, but feeling it together. I didn't need him to cry, and he didn't need me to speak. That night we were both in the same boat, maybe for the first time.'
He stops himself.
'I still wear this.'
He pulls up his right sleeve, revealing a pink rubber wristband with faded red letters: Ich Trage Dich Bei Mir.
'Got it printed a week after we bid him goodbye. The tenth of October has always been a rough time for me.'
'Would you say you do this work for him?'
'I want to believe he would look at my life, what I've accomplished so far, and be proud of me. Life's meaning is not to live forever, but to leave things behind that will.'
Adrian moves closer, their shoulders touching.
'Exactly. Change can hurt, but it can also bring newer and better opportunities. Right now you're going through a lot of changes, and that can be overwhelming. I want you to know that you're not alone in that, and that all things, good and bad, can work together to achieve a grander purpose.'
He smiles. It seems someone's cutting onions next door.
'Thanks, Adrian.'
He stands.
'Now, let's get back to it.'
The Crossroads have no deserts or wastelands. They would almost be paradisal, some Eutopia, if it weren't for the invaders.
Ave is a retired bounty hunter and has developed strong connections with the Kankunaa tribe, neighbouring Botakanda's Rateya nation. They make a quick stop at Matriarch Dola's place, and she provides the Millennial's location in riddle:
The Earth is combing her hair, fallen leaves like ochre snow on another autumn day. Seasons change and much of Mary's life has as well. Today she receives the fifth gift. A white crystal tetrahedron filled with bubbling red fluid. It seems to pulse and ebb, a stone heart taken from a golem's chest.
'The Wizard's Blood. It allows its user to heal any sickness.'
She considers using it on herself. Her mind has been bombarded with strange thoughts these last few weeks. She sees herself becoming a new person, and not a nice one.
She can glimpse into the minds of those around her, and often finds herself sickened. You'd be surprised how many serial killers a person can walk past on the street.
One night she holds the Blood to her chest and shakes it.
'Heal me!'
Instead the object opens her mind, showing her something from the past.
Over a cavernous battlefield fourteen shadows hover, amorphous and rumbling like thunder. Beneath them an army of soldiers, numbering in the millions, walking corpses with rubbery skin and mouldy flesh peeling off their dried grey bones, mounted on pallid feline beasts belching yellow fire from their flared nostrils.
A storm looms behind them, and on the other side a host of giants ready for battle. Country-sized colossi with lions' heads and hissing asps in place of legs. The largest among them is their commander, a mace in his hand to lead their charge.
The two armies collide. Hours happen in seconds. In the turmoil the shadows are struck down, falling to the earth like lightning-tailed meteoroids. She wakes up.
Today is the day. The Elder has gathered the tribes to a valley near Frithdeivos, the Gorge of Dismay.
The citadel is made of concrete, its walls spiked with sharpened femurs and bricks held with pozzolanic ash from the nearby volcanic ranges.
Heinrich and Adrian have been gifted weapons. Relics from visitors to the realm.
Newana hands him a sword made of pure lonsdaleite, blessed by the Telchines.
'The Machaira of Mamlon. From a friend.'
A blade forged 4,543,000,000 years ago by the mage Alastor, gifting its wielder with the intelligence of Mimon, might of Aktaios, energy of Megalesios, resilience of Lukos, bravery of Ormenos and quickness of Nikon.
Its name is carved on the hilt with Mycenaean glyphs:
'Enuwalios?'
'I believe it meaneth Warlike in one of thy human languages.'
He holds it like a newborn, admiring its beauty and antiquity.
Adrian is given an obsidian scimitar carved with burning white letters.
'Infernus in me habitat. Hell lives in me.'
'This belonged to a banished monster, long forgotten. It stealeth vitality from its victims, and hath no moniker.'
He considers its brooding shape, like a void refined into a crystal.
'Melanohelius. The technical term for a black hole.'
Tabby's back. She roams the hallways like nothing's changed. Her wounds have mostly healed, with mild scarring around her jawline. The months have changed her physically, but not emotionally.
Spotting Mary with books tucked under her arm:
'Going somewhere, weirdo?'
Mary turns around. Something primal and old rises inside her. The hallway constricts.
'You bully people because your mother neglects you. She has commitment issues stemming from severe anxiety.'
Her face turns to stone with shock.
'I guess we're not too different in that regard, broken families and all that. You want to feel in control, as most of us do. But push me around and I won't be so sympathetic.'
She walks away, head held high for the first time in years. Strength follows her.
Emery, meanwhile, is having lunch with Marcus Hayworth. His friends call him Six for his cricket hand.
'How's work?'
'Pretty good, actually. There's a deficit in the Earlsville cashier industry, so I've been willing to accommodate this tragic scarcity.'
He sips his caramel mocha, hazel eyes seeing through Emery's.
'I've been working at Hermahas' recently.'
'The shoe place?'
'Sneakers, sports socks, you name it. A good gig for the discounts.'
The conversation gradually shifts to dating.
'You still single?'
'Not had the time to go out. Also, I'm…not feeling very confident about my prospects. I've not been working out, and I don't really feel attractive at all.'
'You kidding? You're a baddie! I'd...'
He pauses.
'Actually, just realized I've never really asked you. You a friend of Dorothy?'
'Maybe. I dunno. There's a lot about me I haven't figured out.'
'Fair enough. Took a while for me too. You'll find yourself in time.'
He looks at Marcus with mixed feelings. A part of him considers their friendship immutable. The other part…
'My sis has been dealing with stuff. She won't talk to me. I don't know what to do.'
'Maybe take her for a movie? Just sitting next to each other for a bit, even in silence, can break the ice a little.'
'Will try. I don't think she'll bite, though.'
'Family's complicated, man. But you should find your joy in what's happening today, 'cause that's where it lies. Just take things slowly and you can mend the bonds.'
He speaks from experience. He can always hate his brother more, but never love him less.
'Wanna head to the courts? We could shoot a few hoops if you like.'
'I might head back now, Mark. But thanks.'
'No worries. Take care of yourself, you peng ting.'
He winks with that wolfish charm of his. Emery feels his face warming up.
At home Mary decides to freshen up. She brushes her hair, gives her teeth a second clean and gargles some peppermint wash.
Something moves in her mirror. She looks over her shoulder.
'Mind playing tricks.'
Returning to her hygiene, she's startled by a giant face. What appears to be a genie, but with the feathers of a Mandarin Duck in place of fur, and five glowing malachite eyes.
'Who are you?'
'Tuphael. Custodian of the Wizard's Anthology.'
'You've been with me this whole time?'
'Since you obtained the Mist, yes.'
'Why are you revealing yourself now?'
'Your power is growing, Maria. Soon you will have the entire collection, and when you do, you need to make sure all obstacles in your life are dealt with. Starting with your dad.'
She raises an eyebrow.
'It's time to write him a letter.'
She finds a pen and a pink A4, and decides to write to the man who almost destroyed her life.
She breathes. Clears her head. Pen touches paper:
The armies are prepared. Weapons at the ready, the Elder gives her speech:
'Siblings of many nations, we gather here to seek justice. For centuries of genocide and cultural extermination. For forced compliance by a power that hateth us and pisseth on our values and traditions. For the imposition of a lifestyle we did not consent to.
Whether we win or not, you all shall be remembered as the ones who marched on the Enemy's headquarters. So fight for the future of every child yet to be born, and for every child they took from us.'
They bring out the war-drums and begin a chant:
'We want freedom!'
Badum-dumdum!
'We want freedom!'
Badum-dumdum!
The women have adorned themselves for this battle in traditional Minis makeup. They've blackened their teeth with pitch, coloured the veins in their hands to make them stand out, concealed their lips with river clay, plucked their eyelashes and shaved their eyebrows to make their foreheads look bigger. Well, humans can have silly beauty standards too.
A hooded figure approaches the Elder, Ave and the officers as they stand facing the armed hosts. They remove their guise.
Heinrich turns.
'Izzy Gardner. Here for the show?'
'Ave told me where to find y'all.'
She smiles, the fighting fire of her ancestors alight in her eyes. She's come armed to the teeth like a Spartan phalanx.
'I'm here to make history.'
Five p.m. With the suns dimming, the attack begins.
Ave, Izzy, Heinrich and Adrian accompany the Elder as she heads for the city's eastern side. She's planning to kill the big kahuna, General Londhregs, called the Vessel of War.
Botakanda and her fellow matriarchs lead the tribes in an arrow formation. Some are mounted, most go on foot. Thanks to visits by humans of the past most of the tribes have developed muskets and blunderbusses, which their enemies aren't smart enough to replicate.
The Enemies make themselves known, savage howls heard from behind the walls. Preferring warm and humid climates where they can feed on anything that moves, their fortress is a self-sustaining jungle.
Guards burst from the city, umbral hordes like hornets ready to ravage a new hive, mounted on giant steeds resembling elephant birds. Their leader, Lieutenant-General Hildolf, rallies their forces with a war cry, raising a spear tipped with a fresh Procyon skull:
'Nth ho Deivos!!!'
The Yakkoh are a savage species, merciless and fearless, enjoying blood as much as wine and water. They anoint their bodies with ointment and wear enchanted girdles which grant them the shape and nature of wolves. So long as they wear the belts they are practically unstoppable.
Today, feeling cocky, they come out without their special items, clothed with the wind.
Tall, lanky canine beasts with combs like roosters and crocodilian tails tipped with tar and crackling with sparks. They set their tails on fire to use as extra weapons, and because they think it looks cool.
Male Yakkoh are born with a protective iron carapace covering their faces, some strange mask nature forgot to discard. Their weak spots are their exposed eyes, snouts and mouths, and the sensitive veins under their armpits. The brutes secrete viscous venom from their fangs that smells like almonds. Ropy brown fur covers all parts of their bodies except for their palms, feet and faces, giving them the look of tarantulas from a distance.
Hefty black bat-like wings crown their spines, vestigial but still menacing. Their howls sound partly avian, and they possess six spindly limbs like beetles. With four they run, with two they handle weapons.
Half of their army is undead, forming the infantry. The drogriz, again-walkers, fallen soldiers they drag off battlefields and reanimate via secret means.
The dog-headed daemons dash across the valley, maws mewling for massacre. Armed with arrows, clubs and nets, they ram the attacking army like a tsunami with teeth.
The assassination team, meanwhile, has slipped into the city unnoticed. All defences are focused on the Minisoh, and the General is lounging in his lofty tower, its bricks made from crushed bone. The Yakkoh rulers are instinctual cowards, and have no obligation to die with the soldiers they send.
Through esoteric arts the Elder lifts them on a hand of wind, slowly but surely taking them to the window at the spire's top. Heinrich, a fervent acrophobe, shuts his eyes.
They reach the gap, hopping in one by one with weapons drawn.
This room is large enough to hold four apartments, decked with fur carpets, scented candles and oil lamps to mask the smell of bodies.
'An entire orchestra could play in here…'
'The Yakkoh like everything big. Compensating, I believe.'
Their chat is silenced by a shadow rising from a legless bed in the corner, its frame made of tungsten. Fourteen feet tall, six thousand kilos of muscle and fat, Londhregs the Slothful awakes.
His master has done experiments on him, warping him beyond what even the most monstrous Yakka should look like.
A second body has been stitched to his back, intravenous graphene tubing connecting their circulatory systems. His mouth has been sewn shut, vocal cords ripped out, limbs sawn off, eyes gouged.
Newana has heard of such treatments. Using surgically-attached host bodies as nutritional supplements, leeching off their blood and adrenaline to be twice as strong. The host, barely alive, functions like a permanent biological battery-pack.
The victim groans, unable to move and unable to scream. Londhregs reaches for a horn of mead on his bedside table, not noticing the pint-sized posse in his room. With eight great gulps he finishes the thirty gallon jug, letting out a welkin-shaking belch.
The Elder decides to face him head-on. There is little honour in attacking an enemy unarmed.
'Hregs ioddoio!'
He turns, mead dripping down his matted canine beard.
'Grvshrivir grlifrizirn. Drovrigliz ergrifliksth.'
He laughs at the threat. The death-givers have come for him? Surrender or perish?
'Ohin dni thvo mrnnvoksith. Nth ho Deivos!'
The beast grabs his labrys, decorated with teeth and phalanges.
Heinrich shoots at his legs, the bullets ricocheting like rubber on cement. Human projectiles can only go so far.
Londhregs swings, knocking Ave into a wall. She responds with a crossbow, nailing him in his left eye.
Adrian doesn't move. He can't fight.
Newana strikes with a spear, its diamond tip almost piercing his blubbery skin. He responds with his axe, the two locking blades.
Unsheathing Enuwalios, von Zebaoth swipes at the tubes, severing a few of them. The host moans gratefully. With Newana having the General's attention he manages to slice off a leg, acidic white ichor spraying everywhere and singing the carpet. The machaira glows with bloodlust.
Izzy, ever the strategist, decides to use his weight against him. She grabs a stray tube and yanks it, catching Hregs off balance.
Pulling the rug in front of him, he falls back, hitting the floor and shaking the tower. The impact can be heard from the battlefield.
Tearing Adrian's sword from his frozen hands, she jams the blade into the arrow-exposed eye socket before he can get up, twisting it till she feels the scimitar reach the cranial cavity.
With a chop she picked up from Kravmaga, Izzy slams Melanohelius through the General's skull, brain matter oozing out like ground beef. The killing blow.
Heinrich assesses injuries. Ave looks like she has some broken ribs, Newana has a snapped wrist from holding back Londhregs' axe, and Adrian has recovered from his initial paralysis.
'Izzy! You were brilliant! I swear Bienenwolf himself had seized you.'
'Or Boudica.'
Exhausted, she sits down and does some breathing exercises. Four seconds in, four out.
Outside it seems the Minisoh are succeeding. Their enemies have underestimated them, with specialized ammunition designed to penetrate Yakkoh hides turning the tide. The trick is titanium infused with fermented Yakka blood.
'Well, let's not polter like ghosts. The battle's still on.'
They make their way down the tower, the Vessel's cadaver already starting to stink.
The weeks have been good. Even the voices have faded.
'Anything dropped recently?'
'Season five of Arryx the Metalfaced.'
'Sure.'
They stream it, watching the six-legged robotic apes battle with their eternal foes, the military of the House of Ickermann.
Rotes Heringsbier, Master of the Elemental Doctrine, makes his usual appearance, decked in his Jacobean-inspired futuristic battle suit. He is the series' handsome deuteragonist, helping the eponymous main character with their exploits across the galaxy.
'There's no way he'd be this big in real life. Nine and a half feet tall and 750 pounds canonically, but he's built like a baseball player.'
'Well, they had to make him big so he could carry his big-ass sword.'
The popcorn's finished seething. He gets up to take it from the stove.
'Want a soda, Em?'
'I'm good.'
And she means it. For the first time in a long time.
Later that night she hears the familiar window knock. Quermithay greets her:
'Hello, young one! Here's your final gift!'
A baton made of glass. Looks dainty, but she knows better.
'The Wizard's Wand. It allows its user to travel through time and create alternate timelines.'
'I don't want it.'
'What?'
'I've had enough of this. There's no point in having power if I forfeit my wellbeing for it.'
The salamanders eye her quizzically. This was not how things were meant to go.
'Well…we'll leave the Wand here in case you change your mind.'
'Don't hold your breath.'
The custard creatures leave, sliding down the drainpipe like drops of cream.
The Wand rests on the windowsill, glowing with power. Power. She's sick of power.
Shutting the window, she rests. Hypnus wraps her in his wings.
The battle was, all things considered, a success. With their vessel gone the Yakkoh retreated into the city, feeling his presence leaving them.
Frithdeivos was breached. By the time Heinrich and his group made it to the tower's base, those left of the armies had killed all the guards. Their heads will be piled outside the city's walls in a pyramid of shame.
'The snake's head is crushed.'
Botakanda fought valiantly. She now rests with her predecessors.
A new zeitgeist has manifested. Calendars will be reordered, places renamed, culture restored.
The humans have been given the honour of naming the week. Adrian suggests going with Earth's conventions:
'Our week has the names of planetary gods. Sunna, Moni, Tue, Weden, Thur, Frigg, Saturnus.'
'It would be more appropriate to refer to Sooniyam. He seems to have granted them victory.'
So some of his local manifestations, aligned with the suns, are assigned to days: Sakolawa, Delungrajal, Angahara, Bada, Brahaspati, Sikura, and Senasura.
The Crossroads also gets an official designation: the Island of Tribes. The Elder adds a new word to the Minisoh language: Henarik. Hero.
Matriarchs Kotaka and Walkaparuballaa of the Kadira and Mahabaada tribes decide to host the funerals.
In the Gorge trenches are dug. Bodies numbering in the thousands are rubbed with lime juice, and trees are chopped down and hollowed out. A fallen fighter is placed inside each tree, wrapped in white cloth, along with three open coconuts and a bundle of firewood for the afterlife journey. They are buried with their weapons, an opened and unopened coconut at the foot of each grave. Over the graves cacti are planted. This area will remain off limits for two years.
The Minisoh believe every dead member of their community returns as a Naeh-yakka, an ancestral spirit. Invoking Bilindi and Kande, manifestations of Sooniyam as King of the Dead, they request peace for the departed.
Their work here is done. Heinrich and the others make for their arrival spot.
'Case closed. Now we can pick off the dregs of the SZ in our world. With the brain gone, the body will die.'
He will miss this strange place. But life calls him, and he must answer.
They leave the Island, the liberated land on its way to restoration.
By James Slattery and Levity Thistlethwaite, TEC
Updated 5:55 PM GMT, Thu May 05, 2016
Psithurism. The sound of wind in the trees.
Today I listen to this sound as I write what I hope will be a testimony. Something the future generations can see, if we ever have a future beyond this.
It's been five months since the attack of some alien force we've yet to name. The threat manifests as a being some call a witch, others a deity. Swarms of creatures from another world plague our cities. Every day thousands are slaughtered, mutilated for no apparent reason. Seas have been turned to blood.
We are not alone in our struggle against the invaders. Strange creatures resembling our planet's racoons have been appearing, offering their assistance to our military to defeat what they call 'old foes.' Isidora Gardner, former clinical psychologist turned translator for the military and dubbed the 'Rose of the Resistance', has explained that these invaders are attempting to bring their leader into our world. A fate, she says, that would be irreversible.
Dying has been complicated. The Sorceress, as I will call her, has the power to keep people from perishing. Whether it be decapitations, drowning, starvation, or even old age, those she curses are incapable of eternal sleep. The scholars are calling it Thanatopheugo, the 'fleeing from death.'
This hex has proven particularly cruel for her military targets. A decorated general, Langford Oxbowe, attempted to take his life five weeks ago by diving into Mount Stromboli, and has been seen in the fiery lake's trap. When he is burned to death he simply reforms with a fully restored body to suffer the same agonizing demise, ad infinitum. No one has offered to take him out of the volcano for fear of incurring the Sorceress' wrath.
My editor, Levi, has also reported of a mountain-sized beast resembling a platybelodon recently appearing in the Atlantic Ocean, seemingly from thin air. This beast appears to serve the Sorceress, and has turned many cities into breadcrumbs.
But this additional threat has met its match in a second race of helpers from another realm, lion-headed anguipeds with paranatural abilities. Their ruler, called Quirinus the Grandwielder because his real name is too difficult to pronounce, claims to have slain fourteen of our enemies' greatest leaders, along with thousands more of their kind. The anguipeds and procyonids will continue to provide help until we have eliminated all enemy hordes, after which, they say, we're 'on [our] own.'
How do I close this? I used to write pieces about puppies being rescued from sewers or strangers doing kind acts that impact communities. My life, all our lives, were very different five months ago.
I suppose all I can say is that time is a rectifier. We have survived two world wars, we have survived plagues and famines, we have survived natural disasters and events that would have made a weaker species extinct. We will survive this.
Always look to the sky. When mired in doom, the future can only get better. Maybe that is hopeful of me. But I've never found Hope to be a bad friend.
We will overcome. As my dad would say: Ya're never truly alone.
Sincerely,
James.
The Bee-wolf
A monkey's paw
Zealots
(Ϙ)
Meanwhile, Mary's windowsill is visited by her flimsy friends, bearing their gift.
It's a small orange octagonal stone, carved with archaic Phoenician letters: La-rabat la-Tanit, wula-adon Yamanu.
'The Wizard's Gem. It can transform into a mountain-sized colossus known as Joojma'jooj. Whoever owns the gem controls him,' Quermissay explains.
She places the gem under her pillow, alongside the vial. Something watches her as she sleeps.
Unfolding like candy wrappers
(Ϙ)
Heinrich is in a completely new world. He awakes on a muddy musky plain of grey grass, robed in salty mist on a cold hilltop.
Forcing an eyelid open, he groans to his feet, confused and tired. How long was he out?
Adrian is a few yards away, still unconscious.
'Thomas!'
He wakes him up, the gloves on his hands tightened with the temperature.
'The hell is this place?'
'I dunno. But I don't think we're on Earth anymore.'
He points to the sky. Like eyes on some giant wounded spider, seven suns stare them down, reddish and large like pimples on the face of heaven.
A soft squelching alerts them. They turn, guns drawn, to find something from the mind of Kafka.
Roughly anthropoid in shape, five feet tall, with a racoon's head, hands of a kinkajou, tail of a coati, feet of a ringtail, fur of a cacomistle, eyes of an olingo and ears of an olinguito. It wears a fluffy white robe skinned from some larger animal, walking stick in hand.
'Waadi! Mang yakkanaeh!'
Confusion from both sides.
'Oyaamok?'
Heinrich attempts communication:
'We are Hain-rik and Ey-drian. Hyoo-mans.'
The creature gets the gist. From here its alien language will be rendered into English, the old-timey Early Modern variety for ease of differentiation.
'Follow me. My home hath shelter for thee and thy friend, so long as you are peaceful.'
They follow the waddly beast, unsure of where else to go.
'We can shoot this walking rat if he tries anything funny.'
'D'you remember what happened before all this?'
'A gottin. She opened a…door. To wherever this is.'
At least that's his working theory. The human mind will always work to rationalize even the most absurd of things, and though Heinrich is a sceptic of the preternatural, he can't deny what's in front of him.
The creature leads them to a small settlement cradled in a valley surrounded by hills. Houses of mud and dried grass dot the area like lice on a sheepdog.
'I am taking ye to my chief. Mayhap they can decipher your strange speech.'
Similar creatures, young and old, watch them warily. Heinrich and Adrian have concealed their weapons, hands under their jackets.
The leader of this community is Botakanda. She's accompanied by her daughters, Makini, Ikinni and Kanda-Arini her successor, who also work as her bodyguards. Armed with crude spears and damascened swords, they sit around her like lily pads on a pond circling a central lotus, ready to spring into action.
By the power of the deyyoh, nature spirits, she addresses them in English:
'Speak. The gods grant me knowledge of your tongue.'
'We're here by accident. A way was opened into this place from our world.'
'And you seek to return? Nothing more?'
'Yes. Immediately. There's important police work that can't be neglected.'
'Well, your polees work can be returned to. Whoever brought ye here did so by the power of Dehwos, and we hold no concord with him.'
The name rings a bell.
'Dehwos?'
'The One-Handed Tyrant. A mad god of a madder people. Our enemies.'
'It seems our meeting may not be entirely coincidental. He is an adversary in our realm too.'
'So thou wilt return with thy companion?'
'There might be pieces to this mystery that can be found here. We'll be back.'
She nods gravely.
'So long as you are peaceful, we have no quarrel with ye. Okma, escort them back.'
Their guide leads them to their starting location.
'But how do we go home?'
Heinrich spots something in the damp soil. A Ziewas rune seared into the ground, emitting a magenta aura.
'I've found the way.'
Time and his sickle
Of dieux and hommes
Married to the stars
(Ϙ)
Heinrich and Adrian have found the address. A well-to-do modern brick-and-mortar in a cosy and well-managed neighbourhood.
'This better be worth it.'
'I have a strong feeling about this, Adrian. Very strong.'
He knocks. The tattarrattat is answered by a woman in a fuchsia-red motorcycle jacket and black travel pants, with grey hiking boots, a zebra-striped shirt and brown fingerless gloves, cherry-brown hair tied back in a practical bun. Her jade eyes assess them suspiciously.
'Yes?'
'Isidora Gardner?'
An eyebrow's raised.
'This is she.'
'We're officers Thomas and von Zebaoth from the Earlsville PD.'
They flash their IDs.
'We have some questions we'd like to ask you regarding some property we've recovered.'
'Well, I was about to go out for a ride, but I can spare a few minutes.'
'We may be here longer than that.'
(Ϙ)
This place is cold but calm, like the sea at night when the waves are snoring and the moon watches over his children.
Seven suns, each smaller than the other, blanket the land with a soft tangerine light, and all around her are miles and miles of grassland. In the distant east she sees what could be an ocean, and in the west what seems to be a collection of villages, spaced out by a few leagues.
Something startles her. She spins around in shock.
'Oh! Sorry! Didn't mean to surprise you!'
It's a genie, older than Sonny, with soft cotton hair reaching her knees. She sits on a floating book, a silver pen in her right hand.
'What's your name?'
'Crooked Nose of the Forest. Just call me Silvia.'
Her eyes are level with hers. A troubled look stains her face.
'Maria, there's…'
'How do you know my name?'
'That's not important. There's something you need to know. The objects you wield grant you immense power. I've tracked you down to warn you.'
'About what?'
'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
'I won't abuse these devices if that's what you're worried about.'
She shakes her head.
'There's so much I wish I could tell you. Just remember your heart. That's all I can say.'
Silvia vanishes.
'The Satin will take you to a specific location if you visualize it. Otherwise your destinations will be randomized,' Sonny reasons.
Confused, she decides to head back.
Blunderbore's Beanstalk
(Ϙ)
Weeks have passed and the voices are unbearable.
Maria distracts herself with schoolwork and binging soap operas with Emery. He knows something's up, but she's been silent about it. He tries cheering her up, passing the snack bowl.
'Word of the day?'
She takes some chips.
'Overmorrow. The day after tomorrow.'
That night she's greeted by her spongy companions. This time it's a quartz orb filled with crystalline blue liquid, bluer than a thousand seas of crushed sapphires.
'The Wizard's Teardrop. Its user gains access to the minds of all around them.'
Every book rewritten
'The feet of the World Teacher respite
On Butterfly Mountain's greatest height,
Where sweet-savoured breezes come at night
To chase away sleeping children's fright.'
They progress. Camping on the outskirts of the Munda tribe, Ave discerns the spot:
'There are five major mountains in this land. The furthest is about ten miles off. The clue was in the third line. Something to do with winds.'
She narrows down the options.
'Noticeably gusty mountains include Depotulam and Patabaeda. But places where the weather could reach the villages below…?'
She figures it out.
'There's one that fits the description. Lohkukurullaakanda, three miles west.'
'Then let's go to…that place.'
They set off.
(Ϙ)
Mary's been ignoring homework. Her head hurts and her sleep cycle's been out of whack for weeks.
Emery worries. They've been arguing frequently, something they've never done. He prefers to avoid conflict ever since dad left.
Today she's come home with a 'D' on her History assignment, her favourite subject.
'You've changed, Maria! I don't know what you're going through, but you're not the same!'
'Maybe I don't want to be the same! Maybe I'm tired of just being me!!!'
'You're failing your assignments, you've been acting out at school, you're staying up for days at a time and…'
He can't explain the last part. But it's like something is hanging over her.
'What will mum think?!?'
'Since when has she ever cared?!? She loves the bottle more than she will ever love us!!!'
'That's not true! You're upsetting me!'
'Then just shove another donut in your mouth!!!'
She stops. Too far. Seeing the horrified look on his face, she concedes and heads up to her room, slamming the door.
She grabs her pillow, soaking it with tears, wrapping herself under layers of sheets to feel like less of a burden. To feel like she can't hurt anyone else.
'I…I hate myself.'
Something outside her window smiles.
(Ϙ)
The mountains of the Crossroads are knuckles compared to ours, but they're still tall enough to prove a challenge.
The Giant Bird Alp, or Butterfly Peak, is home to the Ancient One. A matriarch with no tribe.
The Millennial has been around for one thousand and eight years. She's seen entire epochs pass, civilizations come and go, the lands shifting and changing, the arrival of the Enemies.
She's forgotten her original name, but calls herself Newana. Ghost.
They find her cave at the top of the snowy horn. A solitary fire warms a fur-clad figure with a mask covering her face, carved from a tortoise shell.
'Salutations, travellers. You can leave your weapons at the entrance.'
She has limited access to the Precellence, a cosmic 'mind' that archives all past, present and future events simultaneously, with every possible outcome in those timelines also mapped.
This is Outcome #11,664 of the present. She's reading an old scroll made from pressed leaves.
'What's that?'
'The Akunoluwage Katapota.'
Dictionary of the Computer.
'A lexicon?'
'As well as a grammar, yes.'
'Elder, we've come to seek information'
'The vessel is an old foe, like the wind they come and go.'
'You know who it is. Tell us.'
'Before I do, thou and thy friends must know some history.'
Looks of confusion.
'To ye it is but a police case to be solved. To us this conflict is something with far more weight.'
She tosses some dried herbs into the fire, changing its colour to a milky pink. The fumes fill the passage and they're swallowed up.
In the smoke Heinrich sees moving pictures. Flashbacks.
'We were a strong people. Our kingdoms touched the skies.'
Spiralling towers and palaces form in the fog, made of solid gold.
'United as one empire, we lived in harmony with nature and supernature, at peace with those like and unlike us. Until they came.'
The pictures turn black, and shapes of invading armies manifest, swallowing the golden pictures like termites on wood.
'They came across the ocean from another world, one neighbouring ours where their sun had died and their land was starved of water.'
The sound of screams. Men, women, children. Cities burning.
'Eventually they split us into tribes, turning us against each other by stoking manufactured conflict. We became subjugated. Our men became cattle to till their fields, our women became machines to bear their children. They made us wear their clothes, eat their food, speak their language, worship their gods. For four-hundred and forty-three years we suffered their abuse. Finally they left, but only to settle nearby, always ready to return.'
The smoke dissipates.
'The greatest crime they committed against us was the Bloodletting. Infants under the age of two were taken and offered to their twisted deity.'
She pauses.
'Fifty-three million three hundred and ten-thousand eight hundred and forty-three. For a year the ocean was red. We never recovered from the loss. Our numbers were significantly culled, and our language decayed. We've been rebuilding ever since.'
Adrian notices her trembling hands and recognizes the symptoms.
'War always ruins everyone involved. My great-grandfather neglected my grandfather. My grandfather physically abused my father. My father verbally abused me. Trauma can be generational. Post-traumatic stress too.'
She removes her mask. Her eyes are missing, scorch marks around her orbits like grotesque goggles.
'I once had a nation. My sisters, we would connect with the Great Mind and keep writings of all possible events. Now I alone have any knowledge of what hath been and can be.'
'We can help each other. If the vessel is dealt with, we believe the threat of Ziewas will disappear over here as well as in our world.'
'Thou speakest truly. But the vessel is not so easy to kill.'
'Who is it?'
'The vessel is everywhere and nowhere. A man and a tempest. The brother of killers and mother of thieves.'
'Where is it now?'
'Frithdeivos, the Enemies' main city. If you agree to join me, mayhap we can rally the other tribes to lay siege.'
'How many protect it?'
'Twenty thousand myriads. Fighting a losing battle. But worth the struggle if we may have one last stand. To fight for what is good, even when defeat seemeth inevitable, is better than letting evil hold its sway. I would rather die standing than live on my knees.'
Heinrich's a simple man. And sometimes simple people must make the toughest choices.
'Fighting an oppressor? Count me in.'
Adrian and Ave reluctantly nod along. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
A long eternity of a pause
(Ϙ)
For the past few weeks preparations have been made. The Elder has been moving the pieces for decades, and Heinrich and co. just happen to be here.
The Camacappi from the jungles, Kadira from the snowy caves, Mahabaada from the mangroves and Amberawasa from the swamps have agreed to join in the struggle. The other tribes choose to stick to the status quo.
'You will be given pseudonyms for this conflict. Thou wilt be Polacca, the female human will be Dandulehna, and Ehdriyan will be Welina.'
Every Procyon has two names: their true name known by the tribe, and their alias in the presence of strangers. Matriarchs have a special third name used to conceal their alias in the presence of enemies. Walahaa is a true name, Keriya is its alias, Haturaa is the alias of Keriya.
Gomeru-Uhala, aliases Botakanda and Botakabala, will be leading the armies. In total about twenty-four legions of men and women will fight.
'I'm unsure of this, Heinrich. Law enforcement shouldn't be getting involved in territorial disputes.'
'Think of it as a much more elaborate police raid. In this case we're in a very very large team armed with crude weapons.'
'And we're raiding a warehouse with two hundred million guards.'
(Ϙ)
Mary's seeking therapy. Earlsville has a bizarre stigma regarding mental health treatment, so she books an appointment online.
Dr. Cristoforo Gialaloddino is the school's wellbeing coordinator, and has ten years under his belt. His room hosts a green sofa on the door's left, bookshelves with boxes of files, and a tray of sweets on his desk for each visitor.
'Peppermint?'
'No thanks.'
'Take a seat, Maria. Or would you prefer Mary?'
'Either is fine.'
She sits. Despite leaving them at home, she still hears their voices. A tornado of bloodied knives. Thankfully the Mysterium, tucked in her bag, gives her a sense of safety.
'I want to first clarify that all information you disclose will remain confidential, unless I feel there is any possible harm to you or others that can be avoided through sharing such information with appropriate individuals. Your safety is the priority.'
'I don't have any ideations or anything, but…'
She struggles to describe it.
'I feel this immense weight on me. Like, I'm struggling to be happy and enjoy the things I once did. School is fine, life is generally fine, but…'
'You feel heavy?'
She nods.
'Mary, the feelings you are feeling are completely valid. In life we can have plenty of highs and lows. Tell me, have you been feeling low recently with no moments of relief? Like a shadow or something dark hangs on you consistently, and you can't shake it off?'
She nods.
Persistent feelings of sadness, loss of interest in once-pleasurable activities. He considers.
'I want you to know that you're not alone in this. Nearly three hundred million people on this earth struggle with some form of depression. It is not something to be ashamed of, but something that can be dealt with in time with the right care. There is nothing about this that you can't overcome with some help.'
'Would you recommend medication?'
'For now I suggest continuous counselling sessions to see if we can find cognitive solutions. I can't prescribe any treatments, but I can put in a recommendation to a medical doctor and see if they can provide you with fluoxetine or something similar, should the depression persist.'
A Jungian enthusiast, he looks for the source.
'What do you feel is the cause of your shadow, Mary?'
'I'm not too sure. I think maybe I just feel lonely.'
'Your family moved here recently, didn't they?'
She nods.
'A change of residence can often lead to feelings of isolation, which can contribute to depression. I understand not fitting in. My family's from Malta and the move was hard on all of us. But you can always find a support network.'
He hands her some pamphlets for school clubs. Chess, Boardgames, Philosophy, Basketball.
'I find that community can be a great help when dealing with depressive feelings. Humans are naturally social, and even the most introverted of us will seek a community online or amongst their family.'
'My brother and I have been fighting recently. I've said some things I can't take back.'
'But you have time to make things right. There is nothing broken that can't be fixed.'
Perhaps he is optimistic with that comment. But he's seen the power of words, to build and destroy.
'Change can be scary, but it can also be amazing when we have people who can change with us. Would you say you have a strong friend group?'
'Yeah. Maybe we're not in touch like we used to be, but we still say hi to each other in the halls now and then.'
'It's normal for friends to grow apart sometimes. But there will always be someone in your life you can turn to. At least from personal experience I know that is always the case.'
They continue their talk. Thirty minutes.
At the end Mary takes a butterscotch and thanks him.
'Dr. Gialaloddino…'
'Please, call me Chris.'
'Chris, this really helped.'
'I appreciate that. May I recommend a book before you leave?'
He hands her a science fiction novel with a creamy-brown picture of a camera-blurred face.
'Octavia Butler?'
'My favourite writer. She has a wonderful take on Change and how we can view it.'
She hugs the book to her chest, smiling like she lives in the trees and can turn invisible.
'Remember that depression doesn't care about things that are true or make sense. It just makes you feel the weight of the worst possible scenarios. But like all foes, it can be defeated.'
After the session Dr. Chris makes a call to his superior.
'Hey, Izzy. I'd like to make a recommendation.'
The sheen of trapping the lion
(Ϙ)
Mary checks herself in the mirror. Knotted hair, bloodshot eyes, yellowed teeth. She laughs.
'I've looked better.'
Her sessions have been good, when she chooses to go. Chris has helped her dig to the root of her problems. She feels a weight lifted off her shoulders with each meeting.
The problem is she's leaving out a lot of details regarding her current situation. Context that could aid her recovery. Then again, her situation is not exactly a normal one.
From reading the Mysterium she discerns these objects are what the text would call clandestina or 'secrets.' Items imbued with the power of higher beings to open gateways to the mundus perobscurus, or unseen world. They heighten all sides of their wielder, making their best parts better and their worst aspects even more malevolent.
She wants to fight the voices, but feels powerless. The siblings have stopped watching shows together, and stay in their rooms most of the time.
Emery still makes her breakfast. He knows she will overcome this.
Days pass like the wind over a frozen lake. Her amphibious acquaintances bedeck her with a new burden. A staff made of oak wood, as long as she is tall.
'The Wizard's Sceptre. It can summon beasts, control minds and allow its user to become invisible.'
'How the hell do I carry this around?'
'It can shrink to the size of a needle when not used.'
She holds it, feeling an ancient alien presence within. The sceptre shrinks to the span of her pinkie and she tucks it into her hair like a pin.
The voices get louder. She collapses on her bed, hoping sleep will silence them.
(Ϙ)
A statue of Sooniyam in his wrathful aspect has been brought out, carried by six devotees. The image is placed near the feet of the Elder, towering over her like a sacred tree.
Heinrich admires its composition. Just as the acolyte described, with some details he now notices. Two green cobras rest on each shoulder, two red snakes and a blue one ring his neck, three brown vipers bind each bicep, a red adder bangles each wrist, five russet serpents sash his waist and a black python clasps each ankle. With the five dark blue cobras on his head the number totals that of the lunar mansions. His tongue is also an asp, its pink head peeping out from his wine-red lips.
Newana makes an invocation, calling her friend through his old names:
'Sooniyam, father of matter and mother of energy, we approach thee with the hopes that thou mayest grant us victory. For centuries our Rival hath oppressed us, drawing us away from thy ways. Now, in thy Wrathful Form through which injustice is vanquished, descend on these soldiers and extend to them a piece of thy glory. Thine is the light and darkness, life and death, good and evil, all opposites. Thou art not in all things, but all things are in thee. So let us move for thee as we fight for true freedom against these unworthy adversaries. Kabalaehwa Bandaara, Gambaara Oddisa, Hooniyan Dehwataawa, hear us.'
She places the offering, a plate of white flowers doused with coconut oil brought from the beaches that hug the ocean, sprinkled with rose water scented with crushed camphor and gum benzoin.
The flowers are set ablaze with a lump of coal, their aroma drifting into the sky like butterflies winged with hope. Most likely they will lose.
But maybe, just maybe, they will win.
The horns of the moon
Dad,
It's been a while. I hope this letter finds you healthy and living your best life.
I'm writing because there are things I need to get off my chest. Starting with our family.
You always questioned my intelligence, undermined everything I did. I guess it was out of some form of envy. You were stuck in a mundane life and I was doing my best to make my dreams come true.
You called me stupid. Ugly. And for years I suffered it all, until three years ago.
In case you don't remember, I'd just won a poetry writing competition and got to travel out of town for the event. The venue was lavish, the people wealthy but friendly. I was so happy. I felt like I had achieved something meaningful.
When you came to pick me up on the final night, you called me obnoxious, arrogant and ungrateful. You were silent for the rest of the drive. My experience wasn't ruined, but sullied.
The next Sunday you stopped outside our house after service and blew up. You said you were ashamed to raise me. You said I was disgusting. I would have ignored it, but Emery was in the car. I don't care if I get hurt, but I get royally pissed off when people hurt him.
Which brings me to the things you've done to him. He has always wanted to experiment, to find himself on a sincere journey of self-discovery. You hated the fact that sometimes he'd leave home in a dress or skirt (which, by the way, he always wore splendidly).
The final straw came when he auditioned to be Cassandra for our school's Year 12 drama exam. For that month of preparation you stressed him out, saying he looked 'hideous' and that he was degenerate, reprobate and mentally ill.
He did a fantastic job, but of course you weren't there to see it. Afterwards you spent months trying to get him hooked on drugs he didn't need, and tried to send him to a quack doctor with no real qualifications who said he could 'fix' him.
I say this not because of what you've inflicted on me, but what you inflicted on my guardian angel: I hate you. Absolutely and perfectly. I hate you so much Hate seems to be what keeps me alive on days when your memory haunts me.
Imagine a billion bruises imposed on a grain of sand. You know how many grains one beach can hold? A quintillion. One followed by eighteen zeros. Imagine a trillion beaches, each filled to the brim. That's how many times I wish to beat you with a sledgehammer. Beat you till you were broken down into atoms.
But I still forgive you. I don't forget, but I've forgiven. Mum is taking care of us. Yes, she's not perfect. She's struggled with her demons. But unlike you, she didn't let them possess her.
We're fine, in case you're wondering. I hope that new woman makes you happy. I hope you live with the realisation that last year you lost the best woman you will ever know.
I hope you die as you lived. A small, cruel, weak man who never amounted to anything significant. We will surpass you by lightyears, and your memory will be erased the second you breathe your last.
Hell is too good for you. Love,
Mary.
She calls on Sonny.
'I wish to send this letter to my dad. I also wish he is compelled to read it fully. I also wish the letter will be indestructible. I also wish the words of the letter will appear in his dreams and nightmares every time he falls asleep for the rest of his life.'
'My command, milady.'
She then sets to deal with the obstacle of her mum at Tuphael's suggestion.
Her letter is as follows:
Dear Mum,
You are my rock. You have always believed in me, always known I could be great. It was you who put the creative spark in me and Emery, and always encouraged us to do our best.
You never let the opinions of others shape how you chose to love us. Even when the bottle became a struggle for you, you would always come through for our sake.
I know we've had our obvious differences. I have my quirks and general oddities, you have a dark past you escaped through your well of inner strength.
I just want you to know that I love you. More than there are stars in the cosmos. More than there are planets, souls, protons and electrons. I'm sorry for the times when I was more of an annoyance than a help. I want you to know that behind every great person stands a greater woman, and you have been that Woman for me and Emmy.
Get home safe. Love,
Maria.
She sends it.
'Now you must fix the relationship with your sibling.'
'I know what to get him.'
She makes her wish.
Later that day, while at his laptop, Emery gets a text.
'U FREE 4 A MVIE THIS WEEKND?'
It's Marcus. He responds:
'HELL YES.'
Eulogy for the sun
Magnoon
Sombrevie
(Ϙ)
Tragedy has a funny way of manifesting. It often waits for us to rest by the river of life for a drink before striking, like a crocodile with a zebra. For Linda Tagstern, née Alcubierre, it came as a diagnosis.
The past few months have seen her wandering the country, many countries, searching for time. That one thing good people lack and bad people have too much of.
Treatments are possible. But money is tight and she has two mouths to feed. Jude won't support her financially, and putting food on the table has been a war.
She's a realist. Papers have been signed. Her parents, though poor, are willing to raise them. She just hopes they will be strong enough when she breaks the news.
Mary's recent letter gives her hope. She doesn't care how it found her: it's one more good memory to take.
Her life has been great. She leaves behind two beautiful stars who will outshine her in ways she can only imagine. And she gets to spend some time with them before the bell tolls. Fate has been set.
But something has other plans.
'Mum's coming back next week.'
'That's great news. If only…'
'What?'
He's in her mirror, considering. He tells her.
The voices get louder. She smashes her makeup drawer, rips the posters off her walls, shreds a pillow open, scattering fluff everywhere. So this is why mum's been MIA.
Curling up into a foetal position in the corner of her bedroom, she wants to believe this is a nightmare she can wake from.
'It's not true.'
'She will have five more months. Unless…'
Tuphael's eyes glimmer. She sighs, tears blurring her vision.
'Can the Anthology heal her?'
'More than that, Mary. When together the collection grants its wielder a secret ability. The power to keep people from dying.'
She thinks about it, but not for long.
'Her life is more important than mine. I can deal with bad health if she gets to live.'
'Then it's settled? You'll accept the Wand?'
'I do.'
'We need to make it official.'
The genie extends a hand through the mirror, holding the Wand in the other.
'Take the Wand and shake my hand, Mary. All the power will be yours.'
'I'm not doing this for your damn power. I'm doing this for her.'
She takes the Wand in her left hand, shaking his right.
(Ϙ)
Heinrich's apartment is nice enough, if you ignore the obvious smell of peanuts coming from the bathroom.
'Sorry 'bout that. I keep jars of the stuff at the ready.'
'Completely understandable. A high-maintenance moustache only deserves the best.'
They pop a bottle. It's time to celebrate.
'To the closing of a months-long case, and to the adventure we had along the way.'
'And also to the beginning of new adventures in a better world.'
They cheer in traditional Earlsvillian fashion:
'Toddy-jumma!'
They clink and drink, Adrian sitting on the counter while Heinrich prepares his infamous toast.
'The trick is the butter. If you apply it after the bread has been toasted it gets runny and greasy. Not every enjoyable. But if you toast the bread already buttered, it soaks into the slices more evenly and has more flavour.'
'A bit risky, innit?'
'But worth the danger.'
The conversation turns to names.
'I've never actually asked about your surname. I've met a few von Schleswigs and von Loewensteins, but Von Zebaoth? 'Of Armies'? That's unusual.'
He smiles.
'I should be Heinrich von Bremen. My family's from there. After the Reichstag Fire Decree my grandfather, Andreas Theognis von Bremen, left the country for Britain in his early twenties. It was the starting years of the Regime, but he already knew the failed Austrian painter was bad news. He changed his surname to 'von Zebaoth' after a hymn by Luther, and met my grandma years later. My dad was born the year the Allies took Berlin. I was born in 1980.'
'My name is not too special. I was almost called Hormizd.'
'Hormizd? Are you Assyrian?'
'On my father's side. My mum's from Samos.'
Mackey has called to inform them that the SZ seems to be dissolving. With hundreds of arrests across the continent, the Brotherhood has been significantly shaken.
'With the vessel gone it's just a waiting game. I predict this cult will be history in a week.'
He turns to fetch the pineapple, cans of which he stores in a cupboard like gold.
Two shots ring out. He feels hot lead in his back. Everything goes black.
(Ϙ)
The deal is done.
Tuphael transforms with a whirlwind of colour, emerging from the mirror like a sword rising from a lake.
The creature in front of her is a nude hairless humanoid of ambiguous sex and age. Heavy gold earrings weigh its earlobes down, a gold necklace resembling an usekh covering its collar.
It has no face. Instead, ten yellow eyes in the shape of an upside down tetractys crown its chest. It has its right hand raised and the left pointing west, like a watch at three o'clock, a fanged mouth on each palm.
The figure sits cross-legged in the lotus position, floating on nothing, surrounded by a golden aura. It is both beautiful and terrifying.
'Who…what are you?'
Two voices, one old and one young, address her:
'I have many names and many forms. I have seen through many minds and spoken through many lips.'
'And what do you want with me?'
'Only what is best for both of us.'
(Ϙ)
Heinrich wakes up, dazed but aware. His hands and feet are bound, and he's on the floor, slumped up against the couch facing the telly.
A face walks into view.
'Adrian…why?'
He smiles. The officer removes his right glove, revealing a prosthetic steel hand.
'You should've wondered why I never took these off in front of you.'
He's confused. None of this makes sense.
'How long have…'
'Shhh. I'm doing the talking here.'
He takes a seat next to him, the setup like a student at a teacher's feet. Heinrich looks up at him. Adrian fishes a can of pineapple from his jacket.
'My father and grandfather left Iraq in the sixties to come here. They were fleeing persecution and were looking for a better life.'
He frees the tin's contents with Heinrich's can opener, eating them with a spoon.
'They found it. My dad met a great lady, had me. Years passed. All was well.'
He stops for a bit. Chews. Swallows.
'But good things aren't permanent. On the fifth of July, 1994, six in the evening, a gang of hooligans broke into our little store. I was twelve.
We held them off. My dad did his best. He had an old rifle that would miss as much as it could shoot. He got two of them, but another shivved him. By the time the cops came he'd bled out in my arms.
I ran. Left the sordid scene behind me and ran as far away as I could. When I couldn't run anymore I collapsed by a river. Realizing one of the bastards had stabbed me too, the blood pooling in my hands, I held my side and prayed I would live.
That was when the Sons of Cerberus found me. A local branch of the British chapter had been gathering at this river for a while, and noticed my bloody self whimpering in the distance. They treated my wounds, gave me food, washed me, nursed me back to health. I became a member soon after.
We have been around since at least the Roman era, though our roots go back further. Ziewas is a corruption of his original name, Deywos, the Sky King.
What the Slab won't tell you is that this settlement was dedicated to Mars Thingsus, the Roman form of Ziewas, before it was dedicated to Coventina.
We've done a good job hiding our movements. I've been an officer for about five years now. Months ago we happened to cross paths, and I've made sure you never got too close to the truth. For centuries we have been taking instructions from headquarters in Frankfurt, and this year the prophecy was fulfilled.'
'Prophecy?'
'The Vessel was chosen. Ziewas has a physical vessel for each new era, his hands and feet through which the abstract becomes reality. Our purpose this time was to usher in the vessel permanently.'
'But…we killed the vessel…on the Island…'
He laughs.
'Names can be deceiving, as you'd know. General Londhregs was the Vessel in name only. He was a servant of Zie, as the rest of us are, but his only special attribute was the psychic connection he had with his soldiers. A connection, mind you, granted by Ziewas.'
'So who is the vessel?'
'The answer is in their epithet. Professor Sadock made a linguistic mistake. Hregni doesn't mean Wanderer. It means Queen.'
(Ϙ)
'You now have unimaginable power at your disposal, including power over death, and I believe I can guide you in your choices. Make sure you use your gifts wisely.'
'So Tuphael…were the salamanders also you?'
'Not them, no. They're my servants. But I have been with you for the past seven months.'
'The Anthology, what is it?'
'Fourteen great warriors who died in battle, their essence kept for use at a later time. This year they were infused into seven items, two in each object, and you were chosen to wield this anthology. Generals Oion, Rlks, Eon, Oios, Hoiovoroth, Lon, Noneninenon, Iovon, Gododoz, Iovogododoz, Ksifesithothosithothov, Ksofoi, Zozosor and Hol, mightiest of soldiers.'
'Who did they serve?'
'Me, of course.'
Outside the birds have stopped chirping.
'This December, Mary, why don't you give the world the greatest gift it could have? A chance to be truly good, under stability and control?'
'My control?'
'I see no better candidate. You're fifteen, still oblivious to much of the world's cruelties. You have no agendas, no ultimata. Why shouldn't you be the world's leader?'
'I just want mum to be safe. To be well.'
'And she will be under your care. Why not extend your care to every person on this planet?'
That doesn't sound like a bad idea. She would never hurt anyone, after all.
'What do I do?'
'Let me in.'
'Um…ok. How do I do that?'
'Repeat after me.'
(Ϙ)
'But the Elder…'
'You think that old rat knows everything? True knowledge lies with Ziewas alone.'
'I wouldn't have taken you for a fanatic.'
'I'm a pragmatist. I don't care about who brings it, whether it be Wodan, Donner, Froh or Loge. So long as they can, I'm on their side.'
'Brings what?'
'Walhalle. The ideal world. Whatever you wanna call it.'
'And how will this world be made?'
'Well, first the Vessel opens a gateway to the Island. Then we move our armies over and they conduct a Blut. One so grand that Ziewas himself will be able to assume a physical form alongside his vessel. Then, presto chango, we have a better world.'
Heinrich turns pale. He can picture it. Cities burning, cries echoing across countries.
'Millions will die, Adrian.'
'And billions will be saved! Think about the bigger picture!'
'The greater good is not always the best option!'
'That's rich, coming from you. I thought you only saw things in black and white?'
'I do! And this is clearly wrong! Evil!'
'My friend…'
'Don't call me friend.'
'…people think there's Good and Evil in this world. That's partly true. There is Good which makes us do our best, Evil which makes us fight for greater forms of Good, and a third Absolute Evil which is a threat to both because it is pure Chaos and is all-consuming. The Greeks called them Agathos, Kakos and Poneros.'
'So what are you? Kakos?'
'To you, yes. But I believe I'm an agathic force, fighting for Good. Ziewas may be kacic, evil that contributes to higher forms of good, but he's certainly not poneric.'
'You don't know that. You're basing all your trust on someone you've probably never met in person.'
'We do that all the time, don't we? No one really knows the mind of another, but we choose to trust our friends and family because we can discern their nature from their actions. If a better world, a fairer world, is the end result, then that is justification enough for me. Even if I get my hands dirty so others can eat.'
'You don't need a supernatural force to make the world better. People are capable of change, and often will do what is right.'
'There's no such thing as the supernatural, only the natural we've yet to understand. And we can't rely on human altruism. The only reason people do good is 'cause the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards Justice.'
'Don't quote Dr. King at me. Your Ziewas is just a glorified version of yourself. You forget that all deities reside in the human breast.'
'Don't quote Blake at me.'
They sit there. Waiting. Heinrich with panic, Adrian with expectation.
(Ϙ)
She repeats the strange words as best she can, feeling something latching onto her.
The last syllable escapes her lips. The syzygy has begun.
Hands of shadow embrace her, the golden figure standing and grabbing her shoulders. His eyes turn to orbs of fire and his mouths bite her.
She screams, feeling something parasitic fusing with her.
Emery's afternoon was good. He and Marcus have been having lunch and seeing films every second Saturday, and Arryx: The Movie has just come out. The plan is to see it next week.
He hears a struggle upstairs. Mary's in pain.
Making for the steps, he stops at the sight of someone. Something.
A tall woman with the lower body of a snake. Her skin is corpse-white, her knee-length hair a sulphuric green.
A skeletal face with five purple eyes stares at him. He recognizes the features.
'M…Maria?'
Reptilian jaws move with agony, uttering a familiar name:
'E-ma-ree…'
But one she doesn't remember.
Mum always told them to be open to things that can't be explained. This is pushing it for him.
'What…happened to you?'
The lamia raises a taloned hand. An unseen fist grabs his neck and he is lifted three feet into the air.
She slithers her way down the stairwell, and he can discern her form more clearly.
Around her neck is a thread holding a vial of some kind, and an orange octagon, blue circle and red triangle are embedded in her chest. A yellow cloth holds her hair back like a bandana, and she wields a staff in her right hand and baton in her left.
'Genuflect!'
He falls on one knee.
A second voice, ancient and foreboding, forces itself through her larynx:
'Your sister is no more. She is my vessel now.'
'Let her go, you son of a...'
'Maybe I will grant her death after I'm done with her. Until then…'
She raises her other hand, and a swarm of wasps erupts from the kitchen window.
They swallow Emery as he screams for help. He's allergic, but she doesn't care.
When the movement stops the swarm disperses, revealing a maimed body.
She couldn't stop the voices. Her heart dies at her feet.
(Ϙ)
Adrian stands.
'She's here! Ziesa now joins her Ziewas.'
'Please stop this, Adrian. Stop it if you can, before it's too late.'
'It already is, bud.'
Heinrich feels faint. All this stress is making him nauseous.
Erin will be here soon. He just needs to buy time.
'You ever heard of the Raft Story?'
'The what?'
'The Raft Story. There's a Native American tale about a hunter who went to explore a river on his boat.
Hearing the sound of cascading water, he realized he was approaching a waterfall. With all his warrior's strength he fought to paddle back, but soon realized his efforts were futile. There was no one around to help him, and even if he latched onto a nearby rock or branch, he could only hold on for so long. The pull was too strong, and he couldn't jump out either.
Knowing there were no other options, he sat back and lay down with his head in his hands. He watched Grandmother Sun and her trip across Father Sky, the auburn leaves falling from the trees like earth-bound stars. He listened to the song of birds and the chattering of squirrels, the Wind and his three brothers serenely blowing around him. The sound of the Water, the Birth-giver, lapping at the sides of his boat.
He knew what awaited him, but he decided to enjoy the ride rather than let fear possess him.'
He stops, tears in his eyes.
'Life is not perfect. Bad things happen. Things we can't rationalize. But we exist for each other, not for the universe. We do our best on this earth, living our lives as well as we humanly can, so when we finally leave there will be those left who say: They lived a good life. They left behind a good legacy. They are now a star in the sky.'
He feels warm streams pouring down his face.
'When my brother left I was angry at the world. I kept asking: Why him? Why not me? But in time I learned that he was not truly gone. He lives in my heart, where no sickness can reach him. He always will. And life, though imperfect, is still worth living even with his absence.'
Adrian sits down. Doubt moves inside him. A still small voice telling him to do the right thing.
'I believe this is the right thing to do. And if Ziewas is as powerful as he claims to be, you and your brother will wake up in a new world.'
He aims the gun at his friend's head. His eyes are muddied with tears.
'I will see you then, Henry.'
The Earlsville Cornet
Living in a new world
Part two of the Cosmic Trilogy, focusing on events in Dimension XI in the year 2015 CE.
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