Introduction:
When I started writing this I didn't know where I was going as such the story starts in medias res and while it does reference the past both in setting and flashback, and gestures to a greater world its rarely specific or detailed. This is somewhat intentional, there are more stories in this universe forthcoming and I view this as an ongoing work. That said I think a minor summary of the plot may be in order. So here goes.
"Sent into a mysterious glade on an intitiation ritual by a powerful organization known only as The Order a young mage by the name of Oez, who hails from the anachronistic Azul Isles must endure a series of trials while he searches for a secret treasure."
Table of Contents
Part I: E Unum Pluribus
Shnick! blook!
I turn to see her. She twists in a snarl and snicks the vines with her blade.
Shk shk! The thorny nest shrivels away even as the pieces piercing Ves's calf tighten around her leg.
"No… please! I swear, I won't... Just please… please!" She shrieks half naked as she falls to a knee. I catch her before she crashes to the stony dirt.
"I have you!" I gasp.
"Just like you had Rex?" The vindictive mouth on her forearm hisses between sneering teeth.
Whole and human we were once. Now twisted and altered, she more than me. All in the name of the Order have we initiates come and so much have we lost.
"Shut up!" She desperately garbles as she slaps her forearm. As she does the teeth snap at her fingers.
"You know he's right." The eyeball on the back of her head resonates through the glade.
"Please!" She burst into tears
A rustling crowd of whispers floods my eardrums. A breeze glides by and there is a sound of clicking insect limbs and the fluttering of bird wings. I drop her as I feel a squeeze in my heart.
"He's going to fail!" My own neck eyeball resonates. She sobs and curls up.
The dark fog invades around us and we welcome it. I summon my will and batter against it.
"Why are you here?" A murmur of voices. With a tear my will implodes. I know the answer of course I'm just tired.
I relent and collapse, weeping as I do. I pull her close.
"Hold me." The rigid bumps on her back pull me with a laughing and eager tickling quality.
No! I shouldn't. I don't want to. She moans an indecipherable alien moan as I struggle. Fingers guide, I've handled the bones of the dead but its nothing like this gooey mess of hers. I repress the urge to recoil. I pull her close by the naked exposed bone of her spine, then sob as the symphonic fog dances against our sanities.
Part II: Amused Wood
Her lips warm against my head.
"It was never going to be ok Oez." Her tear streaked face. "It was never ok."
"We can do it Ves, we've made it this far. Don't give up now, we have to be close." I plead as her hands become smoke.
"Did you hear that?" She turns as if she can't hear me.
"Stay with me Ves! Please I'm scared." I whimper.
"It sounds like salvation." She looks away.
I hear nothing, an ambient silence all around I reach to grab but it goes through her. Wet smoke I want to hold her, but I can't.
"Oez?" She looks confused "ooze?" It's like she's looking through me.
"Don't do it Ves. It can't take us if we stay together."
"It's so beautiful, I always wanted…" she breaks off.
"Ves?"
She can't hear me. I know. I can't bear to be alone, please Ves stay.
"I'll be back. Stay here Oez you're not going to starve as long as I'm here."
Shuffle! shuffle! shuffle!
The toes of the trees creep and I am alone.
Titter titter goes the amused wood. Gone forever she is.
Part III: Laws Preserve
Moss.
It's not food but it stops the growling in my stomach.
I waited through the night until dusk. Its not possible to see the sun through the fog, I'm not even sure there is a sun anymore. When the jittering sounds began it was time to leave.
I can hear them around me, sometimes I catch a glimpse, they're playing with me like cats. I think whatever they are they might have even been cats at one point.
A village! I see it in the clearing ahead. Were they steering me here?
I don't want to go. It looks normal all of it. Part of me fears it is normal. Not everything in the glade is… well its not all bad here but that makes it worse in a way.
For a moment I think it may very well be normal.
"Rum-dchk-chk-chk!" A motor roars from behind I trip and stumble turning as quick as I can my staff at the ready.
It looks like a human from the neck down. Walks and acts like one. The engine block head is the only thing thats not right. I've seen worse, its annerving all the same.
He points at me, and a jagged sound something between guttural speech and a lawnmower emits from his engine head.
My heart throbs as I slowly stand easing the staff but still keeping the spell I have ready to unload.
"Food?" I implore tentatively rubbing my stomach. It has a stomach surely it needs food. But what do people with engine blocks for heads eat.
It points at me "Grrmft!" Black smoke billows with this response. Is this anger?
"I don't understand. Are you asking my name? Oez my name is Oez, who are you?"
He approaches quickly and I hold my staff out warningly. He brushes it aside and shoves me.
"Aank! Whawrk!" I stumble back frightfully keeping my footing but stepping in mud.
"I caution you b-b-by the rites and laws of soil and air I will dispatch you!" I stutter.
A series of chainsaw like noises he emits, easily distinguishable as laughs despite whatever else I may not be able to decipher.
He hisses a rattle, points at me then points at something behind me. I cast a glance quickly keeping my eye on engine head and my staff ready. A shack near the edge of the village. I see several figures moving in the background barely perceivable through the fog. Women, men, children, and I'd bet not a one has a human head. All engines? Likely.
I hate this place.
"No threat I mean you! Hospitality I beg, please do not-" I feel a writhing in my leg and lose stability.
Pieces of metal twist and his expression changes. I never thought an engine block could look angry. "Gr-gr-grgrGOE, GO!" It bellows in plain mechanical speech.
I don't want to fight a village I can feel the gazes of other engine heads now. I let the tip of my staff erupt in radiant light, nothing dangerous just a demonstration of power.
He approaches, indifferent, shoves the staff aside grabs my arm and begins dragging me. I struggle but he is strong.
"R-r-release me, I will-" he throws me at the shack door and I collapse in a pile inside.
I raise the staff and whimper back to the closest corner I can feel the tears and I struggle to breathe as the anxiety seizes me.
"Hrk-hrk-hrk!" He stutters and points again I hesitate to look. He approaches like he's going to hit me and I cower.
"Uk-gwa! Jk-jk-jk!" He points again.
"Do not make me do this!" I sob.
I need Ves I can't do this. Slowly I turn. And see it but I don't understand. A dead engine woman naked from the chest up. 'WHORE' carved cruelly into her bare breasts a mix of blood and mechanical fluids. What kind of fucked society is this?
"I don't-" he slaps me in the face.
"Shok-ka!" He rumbles
"Please!" I raise my hands to protect my face, "I don't understand."
"Kill him." My neckball whispers. "Kill him or die."
Shrieking noises and he shakes me. I close my eyes and let go. The spell finds its mark, I know it has, even with eyes clenched shut. Laws preserve me.
Shpluk! Thood!
Blood and flesh. Scrap and oil. He is gone now.
Quickly I go as quickly I came. I shall go hungrily from here. They stare as I flee.
Always watching, never alone whether tree or vine, feline or motor head the glade knows. It always knows.
Part IV: A Bridge Stays
Trip and stumble
Trip trip all along the path.
I'm getting weaker, thinking does not help but it cannot be stopped. Olives, warm fresh pita bread, dates and figs, cheese and fish what I wouldn't give for mother's pita bread.
Trip trip.
Drip drip.
Water?
To the right.
I haven't seen or heard the feline creatures since the village. It's uncomfortable where did they go? Why have they stopped?
I move towards the source. Through the fog I see it. Orange with a layer of film over the top. It snakes like a creek but no water runs. A bridge over it, dark and mossy some boards rotted.
This isn't water, its bacteria. Oh there may be water in this primordial ooze, but not something I want to drink. No fish either. Maybe I could transmute it or distill it to something drinkable.
Drip drip.
Soft splash of a drop. From high in the canopy it came hidden in the murk above. What it is, I do not know. Mesmerizing swirls it makes in the dead creek. It looks like patterns on a quilt.
The film reseals and the drops fall again. Serene, quiet. This bridge is wrong.
Queeya!
Sheet metal? maybe a bird? From across the bridge. I rise not daring to touch the ooze. This creek is not to be crossed. It is wrong.
"Oh first love when to that place we came,
A bridge of me you made
Jubilant my heart we crossed and what was twain now is twined!" A sing song voice emanates from my neck.
"Why sing eyeball!" I shout slapping at my neck.
No reply.
I know those lyrics, A Canticle for Birth. The fishers wives' used to sing it on the eve before their husbands voyages.
"It sounds like salvation." Another verse. Ves was singing it too. I didn't notice. Why that song?
Cross the bridge?
You will never be free from it if you do! A piece of me warns.
I'll never be free anyway, this place keeps. Older than ancient, stretching endless never changing. Always changing. Here at the center.
I touch the bridge rail. My heart is racing.
"A bridge stays." The neckball speaks.
"A bridge sees." I counter. My heart sinks but my resolve hardens.
I take a step. Laws forsake me.
Part V: Up and Down
Spongey soft rotted and saturated wood bends under foot. The feeling of grimy green moss and gritty dirt along coarse wood as my hands glide along the railing. I go carefully across.
On the last step I feel it.
This…
This is something else. The laws are stronger here, if I took the time I could weave more spells, but whose laws would I be taking? Eight and thirty there have always been. Eight laws and thirty rites. In every city and every kingdom, each league and each nation always bound to the eight and thirty. Here though? Here is different, these are not familiar laws, from where is their well spring? What purpose are they?
Spellweaving is out of the picture. I will not use these alien laws, I assure myself.
I go forth following the winding stoney path upwards.
Quee!
No bird, I'm certain of it. It's sheet metal. Darkness climbs with me now I will have to stop soon, just as soon as I find the metal.
High above, atop a hill. Cellar door creaking in the wind. Up and then down. A solitary cellar, up so high, how queer. So much wind and yet unmoved is the fog.
I don't want to go down there, little light. It might be safe though, protected and warm. A good place to sleep maybe. I've come this far. I strike a match and descend. Some shelves and leaves blown in from above, bare cinderblock walls.
Jars!
Food perhaps.
Broken jar, Unsealed jar, Nothing but vinegar jar.
Final jar what will it be.
Pickled… acorns?
No not acorns but something like them.
A tentative bite. Taste like roasted cashews. Soggier with a pickled beet taste. Not my first pick, but a veritable feast compared to the last few days.
Oil lamp in the corner on the shelf near the jars. I light it, close the cellar and lock it from the inside then lay down for the night.
"It sounds like salvation." I whisper to myself.
The verse stings like home. I could have been archmage for the fourth regiment. Should have been according to Arik. Has it really been two years? I remember it so clearly.
~ "Don't be a fool boy. Glory calls your name, and you want to piss it away for what? The order? Bah" he spits.
I roll my eyes and he slaps a rag against the table.
"It's my choice by rites."
He grumbles.
"It's a stupid choice, nothing but mystic bums." I grab his plate to wash, "What does Pollux think?" He quickly changes tactics
"Pollux supports me like you should."
"Bah! The only thing I support is more ouzo. Pour me another glass." ~
What would you say now Arik? Probably I told you so. Maybe you're right. It's not over yet though.
No water, pickled acorns, and what of the bridge what price shall I pay for that? No doubt I shall learn soon enough.
I unfasten my cloak and lay down pulling the cloak close to my chest like a blanket though moist from mist and blood and mud. I give it a tight squeeze and inhale deeply, his smell is mostly faded from it and mingled with a dozen other scents but it comforts nonetheless what of you Pollux, what would you say? Something witty no doubt something to make me smile, but you are not here, no one is, for now I am alone and I must rest and think no more.
Part VI: Tit for Tat
Dreams are not alone. A time, a time before this there was when sleep was in solitude, but now there are multiple. The neckball and several others they are inside with me. Dream together. Shared, and what is shared?
Home, a full healthy human body before the changes. Long stretching beaches, and behind a city of white and blue. Young men and women cruise the city in convertible cars with two tone paint jobs and tail fin lights blasting rock n roll music. Proud young Hoplite warriors most of them. Dotted along the beach are beautiful naked sculpted bodies glistening in the sun.
Now obscured all of it. The neckball stirs. Now dark.
"Oez knows!" A reverberating deep and rumbling voice from all sides.
And now an altar before me.
What of this altar An offering? A sacrifice?
"Oez knows!" The voice bellows again.
I approach.
A sudden wind and it is gone. I'm awake, shivering. The lamp is out but now an oppressive white light washes in from the frame of the cellar door. I close my eyes as quickly as I open them. Blinking I see it between the frame of the cellar door silhouetted in the blinding light.
A gangly and humanoid body. Lynx like pointed ears and clawed hands, digitigrade feet. Behind it more of the same, more and many more.
The Catlings have come.
"Oez knows!" It growls.
I sit up carefully and slowly. It moves further in and I see its face. Matted unkempt fur on face and body. Pointed teeth lined in a jackal grin spread from ear to ear. Blood red eyes with pinprick pupils. It reminds me of a jester.
"Ohs nose." It repeats.
I really don't.
"I am Oez." I respond.
"Zeenx knows!" It hisses.
"You are Zeenx?"
A slight nod.
"Oez goes, Zeenx knowzzz."
"Why have you come?"
"Zeenx knows, Oez goes."
Not the most eloquent communicators.
"You know where I'm going?"
Another nod.
"That doesn't explain why you've come."
"Zeenx shows."
He flicks his hand upward, talon-like claws spread out like the leaves of a deathly fan. Each claw a sickled dagger crusted in dirt and dried blood.
It flutters in from behind: the source of the oppressive light. It stops and hovers above his claws.
Shrouded in light, no details minus the small feet and the insectoid fluttering of wings can be made out.
Faerie.
"Give, take, Zeenx shows, Oez goes!" On the last word it hacks and coughs. Its claws scratch the air as it moves to cover its mouth.
"A trade?" I ask.
It's eyes narrow with pleasure and despite how improbable it seems the grin becomes wider. "Yesss."
"What would you have? I have little I could offer."
Lust in those eyes as they focus on the object of their desire. He points a sickled finger at my staff. I suppress the urge to recoil, but tighten my grip around the staff.
I could of course weave without my spindle any tailor or spinster worth their salt can sew with naught but thread, needle, and fabric. So to with magi. The product would however be of a considerably muted quality.
"Why would I part my staff for the fae?"
"Foood." A low grumble and then a murmur of "Food!" "Food!" "Food!" From a dozen catlings in the background. The chief catling snarls and silence returns.
So desperate the hour. Pinioned like some offender of The King long before his demise. Before the liberation.
"I see no food."
He turns his head towards the fluttering light. "Speak!" A hissing rasp that drips with contempt.
"I know the way, but I will not take you." The whisper of a thousand voices each one a different color in my ear. The speech of a prism.
"Not the best offer." I counter.
Clck! Chk!
Light sputters and darkness flares not a creeping thing this dark: a force unto itself. Sickles now bladed bars of a prison cage. Flutter is now twitch and a soft light emanates from that collapsed little black body. Eyes like spears stab at the poor faeling.
"Oez goes! Zeenx knows!" No smile on his face, a twisted tangle of fury it is at this defiance.
"I- I- will not!" Sputters the voice of a decrepit old man from that little caged corpse.
Thlooth! Shplip!
A pulse of dark.
A wing spat upon the floor. Zeenx's teeth gleam. The faeling sobs.
Noises like a record played backwards now sliding from Zeenx's mouth.
The faeling sobs harder.
Speech.
Zeenx is speaking. What lawless language is it? Why does it call?
"Oez knows!" The neckball proclaims loudly. My heart pounds and the attention focuses back to me.
"I Oez of the Azul Isles by the rites of soil and air accept this trade." I toss my staff at Zeenx's feet.
My last best weapon. The Amber Thistle. A tool of renown, an instrument of power and an old one at that. Passed from wise master to apprentice generation after generation. Each carved rune, and symbol a testament to a living sacrament etched as much in the soul of time and space as the wood. Each sacrament the legacy and life's work of a wise master. Thirty four sacraments in total. There are more impressive spell spindles than this back home, but not many.
The faerie falls. No sound as its limp body strikes the ground.
With uncanny tenderness and care those claws grasp the heart of their desire. Ecstasy written across each inch of the catling's body and face. His smile returned.
After a moment he gives me a courteous nod (a bow perhaps?)
"Oez knows." Reverent almost.
"Zeenx goes." I reply suppressing my disgust.
He turns to greet his kin. A chorus of chittering. Zeenx screeches a heart shrilling shriek. A roar. The roar of a king.
They flee. Into fog and into dark. Away they go, with haste towards the bridge they must go.
These laws are not their laws, these lands are not their lands. Hostile to them these laws are. They have gambled to treat with me. Go they must, before the retribution finds them, and go they do with power in their grasp and wind in their feet. With them a line of wise masters go. What terrors shall they knit?
I scoop up the faeling and deposit it into the empty jar. I have treated with Tartarus now I must treat with Arcadia.
Oez knows.
Perhaps I do.
Part VII: Three for three
I set the jar down and sit down opposite it.
"I will not treat with you Oez, child of glass." The prismatic voice returns as the old man vanishes.
"You have little choice faeling."
"What would you know of choice?" The light sings.
"Ask your king."
A laugh like soft waves upon the beach. As it begins to push itself up in the jar.
"You are my quarry. Our mutual horror thinks you worth a line of wise masters and apparently so do I. Make not a fool of me Pan's child or I shall make it your last folly."
I reignite the oil lamp.
"The fiend is but naked desire sewn to flesh, it knows nothing of wise masters or sacraments. It saw but power in its domain and conspired with forces its superior. It knows nothing of my worth. I am useless to you. You have traded carelessly." It rises only to sit and cross its legs. A shimmering of shapes it is. A kaleidoscope of odors. Reality is confused around it. No minor wound did our catling inflict.
It bleeds like thoughts.
"Lies." I say plainly.
"You speak your desires. Ambrosia itself would not satiate the hole in you. You are the thing at the edge: the thing which devours. I am bound by the eight and thirty what could I offer you here in the place below? It is as alien to me as it is to you."
"You are clever I give you that. I could force you by the eight if need be but the hour is not yet so dire. Even here you are bound by the eight, they are of you as much as they are me, more so perhaps. Yet still you bleed, and around you warps."
I feel it inside more than I see it, an assault on the external senses and the internal components of my mind.
"My point exactly." I reply.
"You could return." The desperate old man's voice surfaces again.
"I have paid with kin and kind, country and compatriot, blood and sanity. Earth and sky flee. And now power takes its leave, fiends rise and laws fade. Do you insult me fae?"
A flurry, painful to experience, impossible to comprehend. "I beg of you Glassling the bridge has not yet drawn. Pollux awaits!"
A phalanx wreathed in the glory of war. Powerful Pollux bathed in blood and gleaming bronze.
"A bridge stays! Tempt me again and I will rip the other wing!" I spit.
Mother before she left. Smell of fresh pita bread. Cold perspiring coca cola on a warm day as waves lap at the beach.
My hand rises and descends into the jar. "Last wing it is!"
My arm stretches and stretches and stretches and- the fae always out of reach.
"Tear away! You think you've tasted beyond the edge of sanity? Taste of the madness of a desperate fae!"
More than mere illusion.
Anger flares.
"By the rites we killed your king by the laws we became him! We who are beyond the iron and steel you would test?" I continue to reach the arm neverending. "Test and test again the children of glass! We shall both perish beyond the eight and thirty!"
I continue to reach, counting each second. Three minutes I wait.
Finally I speak: "By the law of sight I know thee!"
My arm shortens quickly back to normal length the faerie is within reach.
Surrender.
My fingers clasp on the wing, velvet soft.
"Mercy, by the blood of the witch. For the fealty and the love I bore thy mother I beg of thee mercy!" An array of voices pleads.
I release my grip.
"Your wing was never in danger from me faeling."
I smell the snort of his laughter. Lemon drops.
"A test?" He inquires.
"By the blood of the witch."
"You have her cunning."
I nod graciously.
"You didn't come here by happenstance." I say.
"No." He replies.
"For what did you come? And I'll have no more lies, I do not wish to harm you, but I am hungry, tired, far from home, and short on patience."
There is silence for a moment as he thinks.
"You tell me." He counters.
I raise an eyebrow.
"It is you who has brought me here. The below is dangerous to my kind we dare not go and yet you have brought me."
"You are addled."
"The things beneath I see. Laws I touch without thought. Everything you have learned is to me as breathing to you. You have brought me here and now it lurks."
F-f-f-f zick snick! Zick snick!
"Oez knows!"
A chill. We are not alone here. Motivations intangible, It feels like dust. An object am I.
"I must flee glassling! Three for three by the laws I can do no more, and then I shall go. Acceptable?" Like static it fizzles reality is uncomfortable. Panic is the faeling and in me it resonates like wood to harmony.
"By the rites I accept."
"I cannot go, but the lights will guide. Do not let them out of your sight."
I touch three fingers to my forehead.
"When to the chalice you come leave it behind. Look and be one."
It? What is 'it'? Nevermind not enough time fingers to forehead.
"Fates and laws but by the blood many things are possible. The cost is high a bridge stays but a snake circles. Remember this and all may not perish."
What the fuck does that mean! No time.
Heart thumping. It comes. The faeling is ripping me apart by sheer accident. He must go.
Fingers to sternum.
"A trade is honored." He shrills.
"A trade is honored." I agree.
Darkness, faeling gone, but beyond the cellar a faint glow.
Part VIII: Pollinator
It's cold now, foggy breath cold.
The light is pulsing, dim streaks illuminate the cellar. I move to the stairs and step out.
This isn't the top of a hill. I'm back among the trees. The wind howls. Not the empty howl of a desolate winter wind. Wind with life. Emissaries of the thing that lurks? Prisoners?
A glowing orb casts circles which dance in the fog. I want to dance with them, but the orb is up ahead. It's a winding path upward… no not up, down… wait maybe it's just straight and level?
I take a step and my head swims. Its disorienting to move. Dust, it feels like dust.
So cold.
Is that the faint hint of a melody?
Another step. Lights. Something about the lights. I need to follow the lights.
A sneeze racks me. I open my eyes. No! Its fleeing so fast, its getting smaller!
I begin to run after hand outstretched. Don't! Please don't leave. I'm sorry!
Achoo!
I tumble over a root and into cold thick mud. My fingers feel brittle from the cold, I'm shivering now and making irregular breaths it's getting so hard to see through the fog, its never been this dense before.
I get up. Odd shadows flickering across transform the world into a barcode.
It hurts, I can feel it in my chest, and now welling tears in my eyes. Why do I want to cry? It's getting closer. The lurker it's here. It's in the dust… no not dust.
Pollen!
Not fog either a thick miasma of alien pollen. Blanketing everything.
"Do not let them out of your sight." The Fae's voice rings in my head as the light begins to shift colors.
Its getting further.
Sht! Crt!
Broken branches, footsteps in the wood.
I scramble up in a sloppy mess, and begin to hobble forward towards the light.
Why am I crying? The pollen?
Yes, partially. Something else though.
No time to think about it. Light! Only light nothing else!
It's so beautiful, but its angry at me. Why is it angry? I didn't mean to do it oh beautiful light! I swear!
An ominous low hum.
It doesn't believe me, its fleeing.
Tht! Shtsh!
Rustling of leaves and sticks.
It's going to catch me. I want it to catch me. I want to die, why not die? I deserve it.
Snap the fuck out of it! You are Oez son of the Witch! A Seeker for the archives! A wielder of the laws!
Trip and fall again. Headfirst into a tree it smarts. Now I am shaking and crying uncontrollably.
Empty. Mere words. The light knows, Ves didn't make it. Why did I think I could survive? Just let it end please.
Fthump.
Now sight. Sight behind as much ahead. The neckball, until now it has only been an irritating commentator. I could not see, but now it stirs. As large as trees, distance unknowable but the lurker moves clumsily meandering towards me.
Lumbering and broken, reaching and flailing arms uncountable, twisting swirling head an uncanny addition, mere mimicry, it has no understanding, this the eyeless pollinator. It moves with indecipherable purpose and now sudden feeling in me. I want to die but something else pulls, this is not the place and that is not my doom. That hulking life maker, it is behind. A bridge stays but a promise is made.
I'm up, crying still but new determination. You belong to me light!
Patches of the path stretch seemingly endless, others I am upside down. I move forwards and the landscape stretches sideways. Faces in the trees one after the another, there one moment gone the next. Truly alone but never alone things off to the side hard to see move. Laws are truly strange beyond the eight. The light shifting in color, near then far, now something else. What was that? How did it do that?
Colder and colder, thicker and thicker the pollen.
Run and stumble, hobble and stretch. You will be mine light and then I will dance with you! It is playful and moody.
Holy will, be unending.
I'm shivering freezing cold. The lurker is close, not clumsy or meandering as I thought. It knows laws I do not.
The melody grows stronger.
Theres a large clearing up ahead, it's… frozen. A lake. Now much dark, the light has dove through the sheet of ice. Plunging and plunging deep below.
No! I will not stop! A rock near the lakes edge.
Lift and smash!
No use it's too cold, the ice is too thick. Not even much of a crack.
The neckball sings.
"In the days of yore when I was but a maid
I dreamt a valley cold,
And wept a sorrows old
When to that place you came, you filled my soul with coal.
Now that hole is foal and I am but asleep."
"To tartarus with your song eye ball!"
Alien laws, but some familiar. Spindle or no, spells are needed. Something quick.
"In the days of yore when I was but a maid
I dreamt a valley cold,
And wept a sorrows old
When to that place you came, you filled my soul with coal.
Now that hole is foal and I am but asleep."
The neckball sings again. Damndable thing!
No! Wait, perhaps there is reason. You filled my soul with coal, yes a symbol. A canticle for birth again, Symbols are engines, but an engine needs fuel.
But from where? I have not woven in advance and while cheap parlor tricks may subdue even a powerful fae this is not a fae.
Think Oez think!
"In the days of yore when I was-"
"I get it you infuriating-"
A low screech but backwards the pollinator sings strange life. What does it want with me.
"Now that hole is foal and I am but asleep"
Hole is foal? Pregnant, yes! Thats it. Pollen! Pollen is power, pollen is fuel, the ingredients for life for potential. I'm practically bathing in kinetic energy.
Trees sway menacingly all around the lake. From the neckball I see it: the lurker, no… three lurkers, or perhaps one in three directions. It makes no difference it is on the edge of the lake. A song of life it sings a chorus of hideous others join. Trees and winds and countless others beyond senses but all heard in a cacophony of madness.
I'd prefer a stick, but stone must suffice. I pick it up and begin the enchanting.
"You filled my soul with coal!" I sing as I close my eyes.
I feel a vibration as the stone quivers from the compacting pollen.
"You filled my soul with coal!"
Another shuttering vibration, this rock is not a good sponge for this energy. Its weak and shallow. It has no business being a focus. But a focus it shall be.
A crescendo of fury from tree and lurker, and a rumbling as a lurker moves to ice.
"You filled my soul with coal!" I bellow with absolute intent I feel the power of it hit me like a wave on the beach, not some ripple but a full on hit, it shakes me and I feel it in the neckball most of all. It rings like change.
"You filled my soul with fire!" I scream and slam the rock against the ice.
Ice and rock and fire fly.
And now splashing stabbing cold. A sting on my brow where a shard cuts. I am below now, silent and free.
The light it's so close now. I turn to dive towards it, ready and free.
But no. I feel a tug on my cloak.
No! Fuck you! I will not be yours!
The lurker pulls, I'll be above the ice again soon.
I can see it now mesmerizing and hypnotic. I wanted to dance with you light.
It thrums and sways as colors shift and rings flutter. My mind is a flight.
Collapsing and collapsing in on itself I'm gone. All of it is gone. I'm there but not.
***
Back, back Into the past I see it.
Naked. Eye to eye. Graduation night, the island is rejoicing in its own debauchery. Tomorrow at least four will be dead from some predictable and preventable means. Graduation is always that way. Ouzo and wine, peyote, and coke. Orgies and beach parties, driving drunk on the winding shore roads.
Not Pollux and I. Naked and alone only wine and a small feast. Together in his parents beach house. Open doors a dim flame in the fireplace. Pollux sweet and strong.
My finger twirls his calloused palm. I take a deep breath tingly and happy, post orgasmic lovers snuggles. A small smile and he pulls me closer.
I never want to leave the safety of his arms, but tomorrow is our end. Tomorrow he becomes commander and I leave, I leave to find the Order.
Thinking about it makes me want to cry. A stroke through my hair.
"Not tonight Oez, we're celebrating." He says anticipating my swell of emotions.
"Do you think I'm making a mistake?"
"I think you're an insatiably curious hot mess." He teases.
"I'm being serious."
"So am I."
I look away and sit up.
"Don't do this Oez." He says pulling himself up and putting his hands around me. "One last night just for us remember?" His lips caress my ears.
He's right. I'm the selfish one, this was my gift to him. He doesn't give a damn about traditions, I do, or at least that's my excuse. He and I both know better, it's me. Our romance isn't taboo, not yet anyway, but its bordering. Battle brethren often share more than the field of combat, Pollux has brought uncomfortable suspicion upon us. Thrice he hath turned down maids of merit.
"I've loved you since the day you stole that other boys sea shells." I tell him twisting to look back and smiling.
"I would have stolen all their sea shells for you." He replies in a flat rumble.
"I'm sorry." I'm crying now.
Waves lap at the shore as lights like diamonds twinkle, a blurred watery vision they become as tears well.
He pulls me close warm and powerful, olive skin smoother than pollished bronze, but oh so much softer and sweeter in its warmth.
"I wouldn't love you if you weren't leaving."
He squeezes and I want to die. My nature pulls but-
"All I want is you." I reply.
"Your dishonesty is cute because it's sincere." He wipes a tear away.
We make love again and again that night. Sweet feasts, cool waves, drugs and philosophy even. When I leave the next morning he bestows me his cloak. Its far too big, but that makes it all the better, makes me feel small like I'm still wrapped in his arms.
A cloak to remember him by.
A cloak that pulls. The moment has gone.
Back to the surface the lurker pulls.
No.
Down to the depths.
I love you Pollux.
Goodbye.
I unfasten my brooch and descend as the cloak is pulled away, pulled into the life maker.
Down, down to the deep. Down to the light, it's so close now.
No, I was wrong, I'm going too far. I'm sinking down, down so far. It seems out of reach. Arm stretched please light, please. Into dark. Far far below.
I want to swim to it, a thousand brain freezes in the back of the head. Twitching uncooperative fingers.
A hole is foal.
Part IX: Life
Alive. Still here somehow.
Hot. The water is hot, but my head is above it, resting on some solid surface.
My head throbs. I open my eyes, I'm half submerged and nude. Where have my clothes gone?
I feel sick and everything aches.
Oh I think I'm gonna-
I manage to puke outside the water. A mess of soupy acorns.
A hot spring, that's what I'm sitting in. I pull myself up and rise out of the water. The air is humid and warm. This isn't the lake, it's not even the forest. Not the one I was in anyway. A forest still, but different.
Impossibly high black walls stretch endlessly up, three of them, enclosing me in a triangle a few miles wide. Above a shimmering radiance, like stars that married water, and below that float the ruins of old stone buildings and rocks, paths floating, spinning in the air no doubt by foreign laws. All around me though on the ground level a mossy forest, primordial and neutral.
A light drizzle is falling no clouds in sight.
Different, not just the place. Me, I'm different.
I reach to touch my neckball, sealed shut.
It hasn't closed since it first appeared. I rise out of the water slowly and come to stand near a strange tree. Liquid in a hollow of the tree suspended by invisible forces reflects, I see myself in it. I look the same minus the swelling gash on my head.
More than the neckball.
A powerful feeling, I feel whole. I touch my sternum with both hands and take a breath. Something is right, so right, harmonic even, air in me, pure energy and life. I could dance with joy but I feel a little wobbly.
Is this it? The reason I've come?
Perhaps.
"Moo-oop boop!"
I turn startled. Headless with tall shoulders extending about to where the head should be a strange gollum of earth and root. It looks surprised by me then turns and runs.
"Ooooop!" It cries.
"Wait!" I shout back reaching a hand out and follow. I begin to run, but slow down immediately. I'll make myself sick again.
So childlike it was, if a gollum can be such.
I lose track of the gollum quickly, the way it weaves in and out of the trees and hidden paths. Faster than it looks.
Brrderder chee chee chee!
Birds. Not one, but many. I see a few fly by, they land and start again with another melody of cheeps and chirps. I could cry tears of joy, its the most normal thing I've experienced since I entered the glade.
I suppress the swell of relief inside me remembering to keep focus. I should remain cautious especially if I feel safe.
Through the trees I see it, a building. Detail grows as the trees thin and I approach. An eclectic mish mash of architectural styles, lacking elegance but not beauty. A truly odd if balanced thing.
The size of a small law house all and all. Stained glass windows, pillars and mossy overgrowths. A tree has fallen against the building, but done little damage. A small staircase leads to the main entrance.
Knock? Enter?
What to do, and what of my gollum friend? He did not enter here I would have seen I'm sure of it.
I knock and call out. Nothing.
I try the handle. Locked.
I look around for other doors.
Tric, drik, shhh, shh
Running water, a stream leads back to another building a short walk away.
Clean water? Food maybe?
One way to find out.
Not a building I realize more like a structure. No roof, stone brick, circular in shape with strange slotted windows and an arched entrance.
I enter. No floors just earth. Several fruit trees. Water pours from one of the walls and spirals to the center in a neat stream bleeding off occasionally to little pools or small irrigation systems for miniature gardens.
This place is holy, I can feel it.
Busted through a section of the circular structure it sits. An old fashioned steam shovel, like none I've ever seen, blue and smaller than it should be only about the size of a shed, attached to the end of its arm sits a strange black box. Oddly shaped the base of the steam shovel is and a little warped with crab like wooden legs to hold it up overgrown with vines. Hanging outside the shovel's operation center are some ugly clothes scuffed with coal and dirt. I put the clothes on begrudgingly. Then take a look back at the steam shovel.
Something about it…
Later, for now food.
A smorgasbord of fruits and veggies from the gardens and trees, and cool crisp water as fresh and clean as glacial melt. Delectable and succulent I could eat all day.
I eat more than I should, hopefully no more vomiting. Eating too much when starved is a bad idea.
There's a nice spot in the center of the building. Moss and vines. Like a nest. Having finished I move to examine it.
Mrrowaw!
A metallic creak and moan. The shovel is moving. I turn and fall into the nest, arms rise instinctively to protect face and torso. No magic shall save me now.
I wait for my end, but it does not come.
I lower my arms, the shovel has walked closer to me on its crab like legs and lowered its arm. At the tip where the shovel should be, instead held by a series of stone hands is the box.
But it is no black box. A camera longer than any I've seen and where the lens should be a blue eye. It looks me up and down.
Click! Click!
Blinks like it's shooting pictures. An expression of curiosity?
Mmyak?
It inquires with a metallic creak.
It lowers its neck.
An offer: you need help getting up? It seems to ask.
I accept and grab the large metal arm, it pulls me to my feet.
"Yooo Ooop!" The gollum comes running in unusually long arms waving above its headless body. It stops abruptly at the sight of me. Screams an ooo of some variety then turns around to run.
Rrrrruuuunnnk!
A low invasive and frightening rumble from the steam shovel and the gollum stops. Drops its arms dejectedly and begins walking back to the steam shovel.
Slow comprehension, begins to dawn.
I've seen this scene before.
You stop this instant! We have a guest, now behave yourself.
No words but that's what's happened. Mother and child.
Perhaps soil and air have not abandoned me.
"You're a god." I say she turns to look at me apologetically, "No, not a god, a Kami."
The gollum comes to sit poutily by her side.
"Both of you, two bodies, two minds, one spirit."
She sits, and the gollum kicks dirt clearly frustrated by the reprimand.
"I am Oez. It is good to meet you." I offer a slight bow.
The shovel bows its head kindly.
***
I'm unable to pick the lock to the building, I sleep in the nest with Earth child. I vomit in the night I must have eaten too much.
***
There's a cycle.
Day and night, but it's different. Dark and light, but sweeter. It's been several days.
I thought it was because I ate too much. Then I thought it might be the head injury. I'm still nauseous and prone to vomiting. No fever, but something must be going on.
No luck with the building.
Mother sky is helpful. When I look away she's able to complete incredible tasks. Tasks she shouldn't be able to achieve, but such is the way with Kamis I suppose.
Earth child follows me in my daily investigations. His curiosity and wonder is a joy to me, he can be a bit much sometimes, but I like teaching him.
***
A few more days.
Still susceptible to bouts of sickness. A small growth from the neckball, a plant of some kind.
I've done a walk around the perimeter. No way in or out the black walls impenetrable, and yet animals clearly enter and leave. Deer I saw a day ago. Now nowhere to be found.
Earth child knows his environment. He showed me a way up. Among the floating ruins and the changing sky paths.
There I find it.
A small section of the wall carved with three sigils.
Bridge.
A pregnant woman. (I recognize it as a fertility totem from the southern tribes.)
Ouroboros. The snake which eats itself.
A snake circles. That faerie may prove useful yet. These sigils mean something, I sense it. This is the place just beyond that wall, through these sigils what I have come for.
I consider it a long while but nothing comes to me. I descend and begin to gather things. Many ingredients there are here, not so sparse this place is. Rich and fertile.
My mother was an excellent chef. It was in her cooking she first learned to weave spells and it was over a stove and in the garden where she first taught me the same.
I cook at night. Mother Sky sits patient and happy, an occasional metallic creak from her. Earth child is fascinated by the process. Its fun to do something normal and see someone amazed by it all. his hands and his head are invisible. Neither of them needs to eat but they do, it's good bonding.
The building remains closed.
***
More days.
The neckball plant grows ever so slightly.
Mother sky is trying to tell me something. I don't understand it.
The building door was open, I had given up on it. A library not quite so vast as the the archive of my home but far more exotic picks on any shelf.
A Brief History of Time
This Stephen Hawking, an old law man. A novice he seems.
The sigils still sit in my mind. They are the way out.
***
A box full of white sticks with blue tips.
A strange morning greeting, from mother sky.
***
Pregnant.
I touch my stomach. The pollen. What strange laws.
Errrooonk.
A kind creak, she is comforting me, or attempting.
Earth child touches my stomach too.
Woozy. No words, just amazed silence and confusion.
At least I know why I'm vomiting.
Part X: Family
So many questions. I'm no doctor, but I know men don't get pregnant…
Except I am.
Bridge, Pregnancy, Ouroboros.
What does this mean?
I want to be alone. Earth Child makes to follow me, but Sky Mother stops him.
At the hot spring.
I take my time stripping down. I don't look any different. I suppose I'm not far enough along, but I know it's there, inside me growing.
I ease in, the hot water feels good.
I rub my lower abdomen where it must surely be located.
Thoughts sprawl across possibilities like ink in water swirling in all directions at once. Seldom a comfort in those swirls. Nauseous and petrified.
It's not human. It can't be, not entirely.
But its mine. My child, my baby, and I will take care of it as my own.
If hallowed laws in hallowed lands beseech me a child, a child I shall have.
***
Morning sickness is worse than the worst hangover. Also why is it called morning sickness? As far as I can tell its certainly not restricting itself to only ruining my mornings.
I feel terrible. I yelled at Earth Child. Sky Mother was understanding, but I still felt guilty. I'll make it up to him tomorrow. There's a stick that would make a nice wand, I can teach him.
I found a TV in the library, I wonder whether Earth Child and Sky Mother have ever seen one. Only two channels, national geographic and something in a foreign language, its nice for background noise and zoning out. I could definitely use some zoning out.
***
I'm not getting sick as often.
I've been tracking the passage of time. 3 months.
The neckball plant grows into a patch of vines that begin to encircle my body. With clothes on you can't tell, but I can see it when I bathe just a small bump barely noticeable. The archive becomes my home, theres a bedroom all the clothing in the closet is loose and flowing stuff better than the dirty rags I was wearing. Suitable for pregnancy as well, no happenstance this I think.
Weaving magic here is difficult. The laws are not familiar. I'm good at what I do, but even I am struggling here. I crafted some spells but their effects were quite weak.
I climb to the place in the wall with the sigils every so often. I look for knowledge in the books. I'm thinking of how to leave less and less.
I am concerned with how I am supposed to give birth, I do not have the proper equipment to give birth. Then again I didn't think I was equipped to get pregnant either. Hopefully there are ways besides surgical removal. Laws only know how such and surgery would go with only Sky Mother, Earth Child, and myself.
Books on pregnancy, books on babies, religious books. Anything and everything to help me understand what I should expect, have there been any cases like me? None in the archives I can find. Research on achieving what I came here to achieve is now secondary. I want to be a good parent, odd circumstances or not I love my baby. It fills me with joy to know someone is with me. I am their world, they depend on me and I do not want to let them down.
Besides I like it here.
I taught Earth Child how to fish a few days ago.
Sky Mother is teaching me how to sew, and not just rough patchwork as I know but nifty tricks and minor tailoring. She made a onesie for the baby. Blue and white.
I sense hidden wisdom in each lesson, much like my own mother in some ways is she.
A family.
Sky Mother, Earth Child, and Oez.
It feels nice.
***
I don't climb up to the wall anymore. I don't want to risk falling and losing the baby.
I've begun to show, my belly is round the vines around my body have blossomed into flowers.
It's a boy.
No way to be certain, but a mother knows. (I did wonder whether I should call myself a father, I'm a male afterall, but it just doesn't sound right.)
I sing lullabies. The baby kicks every so often. Each movement inside a magic more impressive than any spell.
We sit in the holy structure. Doing laundry. I stand to start hanging things to dry.
"If it's a girl I'll name her Ves I think she'd like that."
Fhooo!
A cheerful billow of steam from sky mother. Despite the lack of speech she can be quite the conversationalist.
Glowing isn't that what pregnant women are supposed to do? They glow, thats what they call it right? When a pregnant woman is happy she's radiant and glowing?
Anyway I'm glowing with happiness.
"I'm glad you approve, I wish you could have met Ves. She was so strong and proud. Tough as nails, but she had a good heart. She looked out for me in particular, I never understood why." A tear wells.
Click! click!
She blinks.
"No I'm fine!" I say as I begin to cry. "Its just the hormones, I'm so moody lately."
She leans her camera head against me. I smile and wipe away the tears.
"Anyway it doesn't matter, I know it's not a girl, I just know. But I don't know what name I want if its a boy. I thought about Pollux but it just doesn't feel right."
Fffp fffp fffp chee!
"Yooop doop doop doop Ooooo!" Earth child is chasing birds they fly away only to land again when he runs to chase other birds. He looks like he's having fun. It'll be a handful with two kids but sky mother is quite capable. She's been doing this mother thing a lot longer than me.
"Sky mother?" She looks at me, "Can I ask you a favor?"
Rrryoook.
An affirmative creak.
"Will you look out for my baby? I mean, if anything were to happen, not that it will… just... Well my mother had to go when I got a little older, I understood. She left me in good hands just... I want to make sure my baby is taken care of no matter what. I think I could be a good mother, but, just in case."
Man oh man I am moody.
Her arm the one her camerahead is on pulls/shoves me closer to her. Her version of a hug. I hug one big crablike leg. And then feel him slam into me with his body. Earth child wants in on the hugging action.
"That's right you as well my little rapscallion." I say pulling him into the hug myself.
***
Later that night Earth Child snuggles beside me while we watch TV. He lays his head against my belly and holds his hand there waiting for a kick.
"Ooooo!" He exclaims when he feels one.
Strange perhaps, but what family isn't. I love them and they love me.
Part XI: Blossom
Fthh ru-chk krrk ch ch
Dreams, Dreams are not alone.
Kaliedoscopic tumble from one to the next. No not tumble, not always, sometimes both or more. Mech heads. Lights and vines. Bugs, serpents, blood and books. Black suns and old trees. Warmachines and open skies. So many and more cascade and overflow back and forward.
Which one though, which one is you? And what do they mean?
Oez knows!
Do I? I feel it, but it scares me.
The reason I have come. Altered it is.
Krk krk thh
Roots move fast.
I begin to roll awake, but am pulled back by the vines.
Into everything. Soft and hard, solid or liquid. Doesn't matter, grow, grow.
The belly was beginning to impede movement anyway. The roots make it near impossible.
I never want to leave bed. If I don't get up though roots grow deeper. So many holes in the mattress. Ruthless roots.
Anything for Iksander I suppose.
Iksander, a good name for a boy. Came to me one night when I was telling Earth Child the story of Iksander the liberator.
I pull and struggle, roots and vines protest, some break and shrivel. Like glue for flesh. Eager vines grasp and wrap, dive and stab. Getting more wood like. I rub my belly. It's almost time.
Always tired now and occasionally on edge.
I'll miss this time, but I do long to have it over. To hold my babe.
***
Clothes are tattered garb now. Vines do not respect boundaries.
I want to be useful, but Mother Sky doesn't let me do many chores anymore. I initially fought her on that but I'm too tired to disagree. She still lets me do cooking and sewing, never far from me is she though, just in case I suppose the logic goes.
Earth child gets bored more often without me to play with now, I can tell. He behaves well. He's eager for a sibling.
***
Took what I intended to be a short nap in the garden
Th th th th shk shk shk
Deep, deep down woven so vast so fast. Can't move now, roots bind. Restrained.
The neckvine, I feel the petals of its blossom on my neck.
Legs bound together, arms still have some movement, vines will find purchase though. And then pinioned I'll be.
Shwree Queeya
Mother Sky comes to sit behind me. I don't see Earth Child. I'm glad for both. Heart seizing, fear inducing moment before the inevitable plunge. The night before a test amplified to boundless infinity.
She sets her camera head down separating it from her shovel's arm to face me. I feel her stone hands on my shoulder. Comforting, yet still silent tears roll down my cheek.
Krrk krrk a moaning in the wood.
A long sobbing shriek of pain, I wail. Sky Mother makes a series of reassuring creaks as she strokes my head and shoulder.
Constricting vines.
Agony splits in my head. Numbing and painful where vines squeeze.
This is the beginning.
***
Sweat and struggle.
Hour on hour.
Dark walls stretch, red skies above. Blood they seem to me.
Arms like branches. Vines to stone, hung I am, as if upon a cross. Fruit on every branch. Birds come. Mother sky by my side always.
Up. He's moving up. Sternum stretches. Chest swells. Smaller than my belly makes it seem but still uncomfortable as he ascends.
Deep breaths and push. Thats what my mother used to tell the women. Not me. More like stretch and fight.
Through the blossom he will come. Hard to breathe, hard to cry. Exerted muscles, pulsing pumping in my head and neck.
***
He comes. My head hangs down. He's at the blossom. Stretch and pull my body strains at the binding.
Aching for freedom. Sob with pain.
Pain to pain, blood of my blood. Together and now separated.
I cannot swallow with babe in neck.
I feel I shall die.
Excruciation and blackness.
And now...
He is free.
Falling.
No.
Not falling, gliding. Vines from ropes to hammock. Gently laid upon new flowers like beds I come to rest. Soupy mess of salt and water upon my face, upon all thy body.
Brought to me now by Mother Sky the fruit of mine labour. Sweet Iksander. Tears of jubilation.
He cries light. And I nuzzle him close. A mural of many colors his body is upon which sits a head of piercing light. A stained glass boy he looks, but soft and human with odd textures. A fitting birth for a glassling, beautiful he is to me.
I hold him long, whimpering wordless sounds of love. Mother Sky takes him. Sleep now.
Part XII: Change
Vines will remain for days and days around my neck. A brace, something to help. My birthing of Iksander may not be the norm, but recovery it still requires.
On the next morn Earth Child holds Iksander.
"Ooooo-oooo."
"That's right." I say smiling as I sit beside them.
***
Iksander does not eat at first, it concerns me.
Mother Sky and Earth Child teach me. In the center I must stand. Vortex of earth, water, and air. Close my eyes. Feel the vibrations and the warmth.
A beam of it concentrated like fire and thought bathes over us.
Different every time, powerful energies these. Laws here begin to make sense. Iksander fights it sometimes.
Birds and flowers and bees. So many they come. All for him I know.
Black walls.
No.
No longer a triangle. Now only a single circular wall, at the center of which sits the holy structure.
At night he shines like a star, casts colors and illusions, visions.
He wakes me frequently. Psychic assaults against my mind. I am not prepared, but I will learn. Tireless nights and frustrating days. And despite an odd diet dirty diapers, always dirty diapers.
***
Months or years I cannot tell, he grows so fast, too fast it feels. The dilemma of parenthood: the delight of raising, the pride of success, but the sadness of each fleeting moment, the desire to hold each one and cherish it til endless time.
Earth child and he are great playmates. Fights occasionally but mostly glee.
Precocious in many ways. Old he seems. Far too old for his age, yet still the world is anew to him.
Through Iksander I see lines never imaginable before. Where once my spells were weak in this place, now grow stronger. I have begun to teach him the art of weaving the laws as once my mother did for me. I wish she could see him, more potent than any wise master she is. They would do well together, Iksander and she.
And yet even without the weave, Laws by instinct he knows, no doubt the birthright of his father, that lumbering pollinator. Fire is to him as if it were his own hand.
Speeches unknown he speaks. Birds. Birds especially, a commander of them he is. When first I saw him leap from the tree I nearly died of fright. Flight is his though.
Not only his father, traces of myself in him I see. Pensive, and reserved, lonesome sometimes. It fills my heart with ache some nights. He is still small, I put it from my mind.
The archive he loves book after book, voracious is his interest. When something has caught his attention he speaks and speaks his strange and endearing bird-like speech.
For all his peculiarity, still just a child he is. My child.
***
Curiosity is his nature, and bigger he grows.
Too much like me he is.
It has taken me time to learn his speech and his ways, his mother I am. Yet still he exceeds me in many things.
Excited he was to bring me and happy I was to indulge my happy son. Until now.
Here they are. Unchanged, waiting.
The sigils in the wall he has found and things which I have left dormant arise.
"Shbwa?" He inquires.
***
No more lullabies to me are sung. I've returned to it since the muse will not sing.
I miss the neckball, how once I loathed it. Now what an ally it might be.
Regardless the song matters, I know. It speaks like fates to me. The final verses.
In dreams like gardens grew
Old and new
Shattered shared
Sweet waters, light blossoms
It sounds like salvation
But on a winter wind you tossed
Away you went and now a bridge that was,
Remains, remains again.
True love a coal grows cold
A soul old
Burn burn tinder ash
Grow grow and return
Oh true love return
Return, return again
***
I've tried and tried again, figure it out or let it go. But it sticks like gum or graffiti to a desk. Bridge, Pregnant, Ouroboros.
More I've tried to drive him away from it. Yelled at Iksander and demanded as a parent he stay away.
Jealousy.
He seems closer to it than me. I want to take it from him.
Retreats and withdrawn from me sweet Iksander grows.
And then I hate myself.
A bridge stays. A parent dies. A child flies.
Useless and furious.
Pain and sadness and love.
So why I remain?
It feels like death more than death.
Sky mother has tried counseling me, earth child wants nothing to do with me. My little family feels broken and I am the source of its agony. Defenses are up, I've never been this way before.
I want to weep. A bridge stays.
***
A triangle again. No longer a circle.
Further down farther away
Inconsolable pain, greatest pain.
He has gone I know. Through the wall he went.
***
Days and days
Tears and tears
To the wall I have gone but it stings like isolation. Sealed itself once more after his departure. Touch it. Desperate hands, frail slender fingers, this the closest I can be to him. Last he knows of his mother is my weakness, crippling and lament.
I failed you Iksander. I just wanted you to stay a little longer. You've gone so fast.
Branches grow bare, chandeliers they are. Never a winter here, but now grows cold. Sky mother has tried to reach me to bring me out, but I shrug her off. Earth child it hurts to see him.
Drag and drag
Moment to moment why go on?
Part XIII: Toss and turn, slam and break
Dreams are cobwebs dusty old and susurrous.
Once curiosity and fear they inspired.
Darkness everywhere, Altar in the center an illuminating glow. It pulls my mind like gravity.
"Oez knows!"
I don't, but I will.
Step.
Bdud shk. Dook dook.
Sound of a footfall and echoes
Another step. Quieter this time.
Shk, shk
Sandy stone.
Fuf fuf
No doubting it this time those weren't echoes. There's someone here with me.
Step.
Whith ith thith
Ineffable whispers like spirals. Each step a speech.
A place for surrender here.
Step after step, the stranger knows. He sees.
Furors of whispers harmonize. Darkness glows and pulses a force all its own. Swirling vortexes bathe me, ichorous and bloody warm. Bone chilling.
Energies. I've known them before. Memories are pain, these beams are not the same as with Iksander but of the same principle they are made.
"Oez knows!"
Hand on the altar, rich cream color, of old bone it is made. Stained with blood, littered with gold, dim flames burn aside.
We've all come here, every one of us. Each one a treasure given. Bittersweet.
Ffuuf tthth uth.
I turn away from the altar.
The stranger robed in black. Quiet greeting. We know what's to be done he and I.
Awaken with tears and a start.
Hole-y mattress of the archives.
I've been mopey too long. It's time to leave.
***
Sky mother, earth child know.
"I'm going to miss you so much."
Tears and heavy breathing. Mother Sky pulls me close, earth child holds tight in a hug. Precious family, not in vein, never in vein.
Packed and ready Sky mother shows me a book. Scrap book a record of all the families that came before all the mothers she's taught and tended to, each child. Countless, so many and there we are at the very end. Photo of us all, Iksander had only just learned to walk, Earth child holds him on his lap, as I look over his shoulder serene, Mother Sky's head missing. Her head took the photo.
I smile. At least there will be more. More families more children, more mothers. Beautiful kamis.
Earth child approaches a wand held out, offering. I helped him make this, we carved it together. It's a rough job not elegant or pretty but effective, he was so proud of it.
"I couldn't, its yours."
"Dooo-ooop ooo ooo." Insistent.
I don't want to take it, I don't want him to forget me.
I take it fighting back tears. One more hug.
"This will be yours again one day I promise it brother child."
"Ooo!"
Turn and walk away don't look back. Be strong.
***
Csh shhh fsh!
Water? New water. A waterfall on the way to the wall. Eerie fog returns.
Head in the direction of the water.
Shallow pool with a small bonzai tree near it. Not a large or impressive waterfall, far more beautiful wonders in my homeland. Steady little creak and small tributaries. This water vain is young.
Crk sbk aak
Spitter spatter of water on rock.
Then I see it.
Breathing stops, world spins in my head.
Impossible.
Dagger.
Her dagger.
Ves.
Wet stained rock but above the pool it is. Near the bonzai.
I approach slow and grab it. Below the pool I think I see an eye.
Look again.
Ripples play tricks, just a rock.
"Ves!" I look around.
It's a hopeless endeavor I know, but I don't want to believe. Gone she was. Now close she feels.
"Ves!" I run and look.
Search and search.
Ominous and watched. Something has changed. Laws are altered again. Familiar but outdated.
This dagger is not chance, belong to me it does. Alien and strange. An ally. A partner in crime.
***
The triangle is opposed now. No matter how far I walk always at the center I am.
Moving with me it is.
It senses my treachery.
I must get to the sigils, but how?
***
"I cannot go, but the lights will guide. Do not let them out of your sight." Words of the fae echo in my head. Best bargain I ever struck, even the wanderer might be jealous.
Fog is clever but water stars, those glimmering diamonds above speak truth. Patterns, but only up high.
Abandoned the soil I have. The paths and ruins are chaotic and fickle with uncertainties. It is a dangerous path but the walls grow closer. The sigils burn in the mind I will be there soon. Cannot stop though the walls have many ways and are always set upon me.
***
At the sigils I stand.
Anchored myself to this place by ancient rites and song. Walls protest but submit they must.
I'm going through here today.
It feels heavy.
"Fates and laws but by the blood many things are possible. The cost is high a bridge stays but a snake circles. Remember this and all may not perish."
The words of the fae in my head. I do not know how Iksander left. I don't need to I'm going to cheat.
A knife. A cut. Blood.
Smeared against the wall, and then…
Nothing.
Too simple, I had hoped, but no fool this wall is. No matter, the blood is the key, Iksander's blood, my blood. Of this I am certain, I will leave here and soon.
***
Blood laws. Dangerous weaves, forbidden weaves in many places. The practice is old, I never played it much, seemed unnecessary and risky more oft than not. I knew my trade salves and binds as well as any other, every so often a nip, a prick, or slick was necessary.
Never like this though sigils like snares. Wolves paws.
Gnaw, gnaw.
Yelp and scrabble, hobble and drain. Vicious slow way to die.
I heard tales of such from the shepherds and herders of the south. Always made me queasy. I feel like those poor wolves.
Forearms like totems, carved and etched.
The three sigils on the wall on one forearm, Iksander's name on the other plus a dozen other runes and symbols, triangles, circles, the number three etc. etc.
Blood loss gruesome to behold but not at grave levels yet.
Many a song verse even a potion or two have I attempted. Nothing but a messy canvas to show.
Spatter, splash, streak, and smear.
Red on black and still stubborn closed. Laws are not amused by cheats and thieves, but I will break them.
Arms wrapped with cloth grow dark with saturation. Hands are shaky, its getting dark rain I smell. Haven't looked back since I left. Walls would bring me back with ease if I but gave myself to their tyranny. Miss the hearth and comfort of Mother Sky and Earth Child.
Sit and rest, think again.
So tired...
Aches where I've etched. A tingle a burn on the skin.
I feel soiled and grimy, too much blood laws. Makes me feel sick in the pit of it all, here at the the center. I wrap my arms around myself and sit. I'm repulsed by it all.
Drift and drift…
***
Druuunggmmmm
I feel it as much as I hear it. Tangible and strained, thick and tense. Like electric vibration. A gate of vipers ready to strike it feels.
I don't want to open my eyes.
In sweet dreamless oblivion I have slept.
Now, cold and wet.
And something else, something I don't want to see.
Uhhhhyuz yzz!
Thrumming sound.
Slowly my lids roll open.
It looks the same. Except that opaque rustle of white on the wall.
Did it move?
Uhyuz yzz!
A glowing shine from the opaque and then a dim fade back into the wall. It's a body on the wall… no behind the wall.
Ggzz yzzz!
A guttural electric hum bristles with anticipatory impatience.
Push myself up and stand. Dizzy. Blood laws, blood loss.
Uzz nzz.
I know that sound.
Zzz fzt!
That voice!
Shaky drippy red hand to dark wall.
No sound.
White opacity stretches.
A hand pressed to my hand.
The stranger knows.
Walls rumble. A low growl.
White hand pushes wall stretches a human contour and I am knocked back.
Walls like laws do not break easy. Foolish and dangerous it was to tempt them thus. Had to know though, eager to touch it. To touch the stranger.
Stranger is wise.
Heart flutters.
I stand.
U-u-u zzt
A stuttering exertion from the stranger.
Uzz! Uzz! Uzz-zz-zz! Zz!
Elongated and modulated a bending of laws incredible to behold. As if titanium to malleable tin was made.
"Oez!"
Barely recognizable warped beyond human speech, sonorous. A remonstration of will against law and wall.
I know.
Walls bend.
Thrrrrr Uuunng!
A reverberating anger.
Hand on dagger gripped. The stranger waits, other side of the wall. I approach and stop short. Reaching slow the dagger high.
Everything is imploding walls sense the violation.
Fast I must be, and yet precise and careful.
A bridge must stay, if careless I am though…
A stinging sharpness on my neck as I carve again. Sightless hands must cut the sigil, the Eye. The I.
Whb! whb! whb!
Sound of my heart, a thundering race of fear and flurry.
But hands are steady.
It will eat me. Deformed and twisted, strange smattering of color and now teeth, teeth as big as houses. Walls no more except for the gate, sigils do not fade. A true nature I do not understand all around.
It is done.
Knife drop.
A scrabble to grab the wand and raise it. Aimed at the center of the serpent.
"Oh true love return
Return, return again!"
Chk dk fk thth thth!
Vines never grew so fast. The wand is gone a plunging pain as ruthless roots dive into my neck. Yanking pull.
White hands on forearm. In and in.
Falling in as angry walls attempt to pull me back.
A thd fp!
Part XIV: Of Kings and Bread
Yaw, pitch, and scritch.
Hands fritter in frantic fancies.
Things reach and stretch
A thd fp!
Solid surface.
Prostrated, eyes closed.
Dryu yuu yuu dyuu dyuu!
Music.
Slow breaths, slow.
Hysterical reverberation of nervous energy bounces and expands inside begging for release. Released in each breath.
Balance returns. Eyes flutter open.
No separation, it is me and I am it. Always was it.
Melodious, reliant, organic.
Cogs and cogs, magical little tinkery things. Endless in truest sense. Each thing a perfect reflection and representation of itself.
Ancient and sacred, marvelous cathedral-esque and clocktowerish abounds and permeates. Machinery and cosmic tapestry of colors dance like little mechanical song boxes. This kaleidoscope of laws, make wise masters children with sand castles at low tide.
Escherian distortions, no up, no down, just a defined there and here.
Slowly I move to push up.
Hands.
No hands, no forearms.
Gone.
Jagged bone and flesh, tatters.
Devoured. Blood laws, blood loss.
No fear. No sorrow. A bridge stays.
Eyes close again. Inside. All around.
The stranger, the neckball returned to me.
In me, of me.
Light and power from the root of my Qi. Calm and knowing I let go, allow it to show. A radiating cascade outwards, from center to limb, an emanation of new illumination. A bridge stays, but a bridge is crossed.
Futh thck thck vk.
Ruthless roots are mine.
Eyes open. New hands. Pliant but strong timber.
I push myself up, an exuberant fullness and serenity singing in me.
Now anew I survey, this the land of all.
Upon the tooth of a giant gear I stand. An island to itself this tooth, connected only by a spoke to the center of the gear. Not merely a spoke, a bridge.
Casting a glance I notice it. All the nearby cogs and teeth.
Each tooth a unique surface and each connected to the center by a spoke, a bridge. Ornate bridges of incredible designs every style and type imaginable; a wider look around they're everywhere a vast expansive mural of endless bridges. Shifting bridges are cogs and songs.
Ryu doo ta doo
Like organ music.
But upon where I stand something is wrong a brokenness. This cog is wrong. Bridges are missing, islands float and collide or grind, some bridges are worn down.
Of the worst bridges there are fires, blackness and stars. Black tendrils stab and smash through board and brick, strut and cable. Strips of void are narrow swallowing ribbons, they whip as if by wind to eat away at precious things.
This the reason I was selected, the reason I came. This place, this power, this wrongness.
I wish you were here Ves. It's more than you could ever have imagined.
But I am not a member of the order and I never will be. I have cheated their initiation. Failed to live according to their oaths and stolen power.
I do not care. I have come now to find my son. Order be damned.
I begin to walk across the spoke, and notice them. Figures on every tooth. They walk in perfect cadence with me towards the center of the cog. The faint outline of the king's throne at the center of the cog grows more clear with each step.
Some figures into black nothing are consumed, others aflame are lit, some a hobbled mess. All to the center we go. Strange and sometimes horrifying mirrors of each other.
Would this place really be better with your fates oh king? His husk of a skeleton more clear upon his throne.
At the edge we stop.
Turn and look.
Fwhoop.
In unison all turn to look like dominoes we are. Each one my face. Each one my body. Another step. Off the bridges we go, around the axle we gather.
Closing ranks an occasional Oez is missing some bathed in fire.
Bwathh droo droo dum dum
Perpetual music with each cog click.
Enclosing the circle we continue to step, barely a sliver's space between us.
That corpse upon his chair.
Dk crk.
His head tilts to fix me with a stare. Hollow eye sockets cream white skull set by a crown of laurel.
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-" A simultaneous speaking of each Oez each a slight difference in tone but still a mirror.
"the final rite." we finish together.
Impossible to read, no expression on fleshless face. He rises. Surveys each one of us slowly.
Stepping aside to the throne he gestures.
It is ours.
We move to take it.
Crk thuum!
Flash of white hot energy, cast asunder we are.
Chiow chak fum!
Lightning licks and dances, coils like snakes arc all around. Thunder and thrums, cracks and sparks. Our syncrocity broken, an Oez scrambles, another falls into the vast everything, another engulfed by the pulsing power. Quick and precise I pick myself up.
I see it.
The throne is rising.
Run and dodge. Jump over a fallen Oez. The throne is ascending too fast, it'll be out of reach soon.
Ruthless roots like anchors I fling.
Thth thth chk!
Roots go deep and now what is earth may fly with it. Below me now a scattered field of Oezs fight and flee. It's difficult to interpret the chaos. The king is gone. The cog is broken, decaying and falling into the everything all around.
Climb and struggle. Atop I finally sit, and breathe a sigh of relief.
I'm coming Iksander.
***
Ascend, ascend and ascend again through light and dark. Colors and scents beyond reckoning.
Across beginning and end, straight passed the middle.
Beyond and before each law, each land, each king. A mind shutters, a mind is free, a mind is gone.
And yet never to the apotheosis to come.
***
Immortal life after immortal life. Til at last a tumbling shaking turbulence.
Fade and fade, to rise again.
Return, return again.
A snake circles.
***
Flk chh ch srk.
Crackle of a small fire. Comforting homey smell of smoke. And…
Pita bread.
And more: lamb meat, dates, spices, herbs, and tea.
A chill outside, but the warmth of a good blanket. Roots do not run, on stone I lay.
Open eyes, suspicions prove true.
There she sits flowing robe, a small camp fire. Humble it looks far more than it seems. The witch, my mother. Atop a large boulder we are and beyond the sea twinkles in the dawning light of a new day.
"Come and sit." She invites.
I push the covers off with wooden fingers. Then I see him a flight on wind. Noble and graceful he glides.
Full grown. Wings like prisms, each feather like the glass ornamentation of a chandelier. His head as bright as a second sun.
My son the bringer of new hopes. The promise of strange truths. What bridges shall you make?
Tears and joy as I come to sit by my mother.
The order will come, there will be more hard days ahead, but for now pita bread and family.
Afterword
Two years ago after a drunken night watching The Color Out of Space with my best friend I began writing this story. At the time I only wanted to play with my writing, and see what kind of Cronenberg and Lovecraftian disgust and horror I could conjure I could not have predicted the story that would follow, nor all the directions it would lead drawing inspiration from elements of Silent Hill, The Dark Tower series, and several others. Throughout the story was littered with onomatopoeia as I meditated on the way things actually sound in the real world and what the limits of the Phoenician alphabet were. I tried for the first time to create a song, and attempted something approximating a rational if murky magic system somewhat inspired by Dresden Files and Tolkien. By the time the story was done I had somehow gone all over the place Mycenaean Greeks and 1950s Americana smashed into one culture mythic rites related to the laws of physics as perfectly understood in a far flung future when the gods have been thrown down and man lives in a triumphant if very very confused world, all while I tried to grapple in my own way with Nietzsche's Will to Power and the Ubermensch. All with a queer lead with a gay romantic back story and a male pregnancy. Reflections of real world folk, myth, and religion directed me to wonder about the nuances of different spiritual entities. Further still were interpretations of my own childhood memories. I suspected while I was writing it that I had created something special, but also that I had created something incredibly niche, and perhaps not as well written as I should like. Still 2 years of all the stories I've ever written it remains my favorite, if for no other reason than it is more sincere expiremental and original than anything else I have ever produced. If you enjoyed the story please let me know and thank you for reading.
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