by Tiger Gray
He could see Randolph up ahead, his back turned. The astral realm enfolded them in blue-white silence, paths stretching away into the magical night like ribbons of stardust. The sheer vastness of the space between those paths gave him vertigo, and he had to look away.
"Randolph?"
"Your moment," Randolph said, "it wasn't drowning."
"No. I told you about it, remember?"
"Then why?"
Randolph had seen it. His hands, his body, had been like that of a corpse pulled from deep water. His stomach flipped. The lock on his mental lockbox rattled violently.
"I don't --- "
"Want to talk about it." Randolph finished for him. "Yes. It was wrong of me to ask. It is just --- " He couldn't finish the sentence, Ashrinn realized. Ashrinn felt unsettled by the display. He hadn't known him long, but Randolph didn't seem like the sort of person who got ruffled easily. He took a step towards his mentor, wanting to ease this odd thing between them, this specter he'd unwittingly brought forth with his untamed mind.
"It is just that the moment that made me a paladin involved water. Drowning." Randolph said. "My sister."
"I'm sorry." He placed a hand on Randolph's shoulder in a show of commiseration. "They did a lot of things to us when we were being taught to resist interrogation, and some of them stuck with me. That's all."
The lie stung. They had done a lot of things to him in SERE, but none of them had involved water. No, there was something else there, something he couldn't quite drag into the light. Better to weave a tale than hint at something even he didn't understand.
He let his hand fall and took a moment, now that he had better control of his emotions and thereby his form, to ground himself. Now he could see shapes in the ether below them, impressions of buildings, distant sparks that he thought might be life energy or soul reflections.
"This is the astral," Randolph said, still not looking at him, "and it is shaped, as you've just discovered, by the subconscious mind. It is how I came to you, when you were recovering."
He stretched as an experiment, trying to get a feel for his spirit form. The insignia on his uniform couldn't decide what it wanted to be, and all the pieces of the light armor he'd envisioned were black, cracked open to reveal angry red along the uneven surface. He touched his flak jacket and shuddered. It felt like skin. He resolved to stay away from Randolph's mirror. Despite the man's assurance that he looked normal enough, he didn't want to know where he'd gotten it wrong.
"I get to decide what reality is, you mean."
"Yes. But it's difficult to do fantastical things, like fly. Humans tend to grow up with a static idea of reality. It stretched me to the limits of my will to cross the distance I perceived as lying between here and your infirmary in Iraq, even though this place has no such rigid rules."
As though the discussion of flight had summoned them, the shadow of ghostly wings passed over him. Ashrinn looked up but saw nothing. Had he done that, summoned the visual adornment for Randolph's example just by unconscious thought? He remembered the old tales about the Homa bird and how its shadow passing over someone conferred kingship. Some king he would make.
Randolph chose a path and he trailed in his mentor's wake, a tangle of bloody roses sprouting in his footsteps. Their vines, made of razor wire, tore at the path. Stardust disappeared into the endless night below their feet.
"These paths connect to a number of things, but most notably they lead to different realms. Realms are the sources of magical power, and they are often worlds unto themselves."
"We can't just walk in?"
"No, not usually. You aren't going to find the answer to whether God exists, here, either."
"That's all right. Maybe I like a little mystery."
"I know only that the divine is a force of order and benevolence, though sometimes it is perverted by its vessel. That is the downside of free will, I suppose."
Randolph stopped and turned to him, face still stony and remote. The nightmare roses collected at Ashrinn's feet.
You're slipping. Think of something pleasant, why don't you?
Tehran, before the day everything changed, where he and his parents had fled the country steps ahead of men who wanted to kill them. His mother, showing him how to make sohaan-e asali. Still-warm toffee, the smell of saffron threads bruised by his mother's fingertips. His father complaining about how it would be much simpler to go for a take away, making annoyed pronouncements from where he sat ensconced in his overstuffed chair. The complaining had been half the fun, when he and his mother would lean into one another and laugh in secret at father's expense.
The flowers at his feet changed, the bloody roses giving way to crocuses. Better. Randolph wanted to ask, or so he guessed, but a code of polite behavior kept him from doing so. He wished he could be as controlled as Randolph, whose form hadn't flickered once since they'd crossed.
"If only I could do that in a mundane garden," Ashrinn said, forcing an amused expression to underscore his attempt at levity, "I'd win all the rose growing competitions."
"You're actually very gifted," Randolph told him, as if reading his thoughts, "Plenty of newly awakened cross and go mad."
"Why didn't you tell me what would happen?"
"There is no preparing a person for the astral. You win the struggle with yourself, or you don't. Knowing what's going to come doesn't make it any easier."
"Fair enough," Ashrinn grunted, though he felt a nasty little spike of resentment, "Now what?"
"Your spirit blade, that's what. Come with me. We need a safer place than this."
"Safer?" He looked around at the empty pathways, shimmering with ambient light. Things seemed too silent now, too exposed. Good for an ambush.
"You're under my shields at the moment, but even so a magical can attract any number of things here. Nothing really goes entirely unnoticed, unless you're very lucky or very skilled."
"Is it true, then?" he asked, after a few moments of walking in silence.
"Is what true?"
"Stark's Cult of the Suffering God."
"They're spreading rumors, are they?" Randolph's tight tone betrayed his annoyance.
"You can't silence gossip." He concentrated on getting his outfit to at least approximate cloth instead of hide. "Nobody loves gossip like soldiers who only have half the story about what is going to happen to them next."
"You know how delicate a situation like this can be," Randolph paused at a veil of magic that prevented them from going any further, "I can't very well tell them everything."
"I might agree with you if I knew a damned thing about the situation," Ashrinn said as Randolph passed his hand over the barrier, causing it to fall away, "I assume you were planning on telling your golden child what he's supposed to be fighting?"
"Golden child?"
Randolph passed through the doorway and he went too, into a pocket realm for lack of a better term. It had form and shape, unlike the star paths, and he didn't know whatever official word there might be for such a place. Here, the floor was solid and magical outgrowths resembling trees flourished. A cloud of spirits made their escape like a cloud of lightning bugs, gibbering and hooting.
Randolph turned and looked him up and down. "You smell like a Middle East sweet shop." Randolph said, as if distracted from the question at hand. "Though I have to say, the armor does spoil the exoticism somewhat."
"There you go using that word. It makes me sound like I should be in a pornography film."
"So, you have a certain cultural identity," Randolph's expression was bland but the razor edge to his raptor-eyes hinting at his mischievousness, "You don't see me reeking of tomato sauce and espresso vats, do you?"
"Oh, so the old man has a sense of humor after all!" Ashrinn crowed, annoyed. He folded his arms over his chest and the flora slithering around his feet shook and rustled, reflecting his irritation. "Be glad I didn't get more identity from my father, or I'd be smelling like malt vinegar and book leather."
"If I didn't have
a sense of humor I doubt I would have lived this long. Golden child, did you call yourself? I admit, I do think of you that way. I meant it when I said I need your help, and badly. And yes, largely because of the Cult, gathering resources every day and myself largely powerless to stop them."
"You said you had a vision. A vision that brought you here."
Randolph chose an outcropping of solid spirit essence and settled against it, though Ashrinn guessed he did so out of habit rather than need; here Randolph did not seem hampered by age. He noted, awed, that as he turned his attention to his own old wounds their cold grip on his body loosened.
"It was...quite a bit more than that. You know we paladins are born in extreme moments, almost always traumatic. You know, too, that it's considered rude to ask about those moments. I won't pry but I guess by how you came through into this realm that you have a past dark enough to merit inclusion amongst us even if it weren't for the moment that opened you to the divine."
He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Randolph held up a hand, sparing him from himself.
"No. You don't have to explain anything to me. I am aware of how war can change a person, and I will say only that I am glad I found you. If it hadn't been for knowing about your wife's status as a fire mage, I may never have known to look."
So, all roads lead back to Kiriana, was that it?
"But, I have been too close-mouthed for our collective good," Randolph continued, "and for that I apologize." He took a deep breath, and Ashrinn watched him without speaking, afraid to interrupt whatever internal argument Randolph might be having with himself. "I was, at one time, a very devout Catholic. I served in the Noble Guard, saving my money to buy my own sword so I could one day accompany the Pope on his walk through the gardens. I believed.
"I had several siblings, but my sister Allegra was my favorite. We were often overlooked, being the two youngest, and had a friendship that we didn't have with our older brothers and sisters.
"She loved dragonflies. She always tried to catch them when we would sneak off together to play. I --- "
The incongruity of Randolph's seamless aura against the weary, lined look on his face hurt to look at.
"She got herself pregnant," Randolph said, with the rushed quality of someone hurrying to get past the most unfortunate parts of a story, "and the family repudiated her. Wanted nothing to do with her, called her the worst things you can think of, cast her out of the home. I clung to her, weeping, and they ripped me away."
"It was a long time before I saw her again, and then it was in secret, often in hidden corners of parks and gardens. She tried to drown herself, the last time I saw her. That was my moment, coming upon her and calling out to the divine --- I thought it God, then --- to save her. Through me, it did."
Randolph looked up and Ashrinn felt compelled by his gaze, meeting it because to do less would be an insult. Sharing the tale of how one became a conduit for the divine was indeed an act of unmistakable intimacy.
"You saved her?"
"At that time, yes. She succeeded on the second try, when I was not there. Remember. You can give someone all the opportunities in the world, but ultimately they make the final decisions."
He saw the awful regret and longing in Randolph's face, and a certain perverse guilt hauled itself up his throat with shadowy hands. Randolph envied him, envied him for having saved someone who went on to live. He was not used to being envied, and he couldn't say he much enjoyed it.
Randolph straightened "So. To say I was disillusioned would be a grievous understatement. I could not reconcile a loving God with what had happened to my Allegra. The Holy See wanted to keep me, said that I was blessed, but I fled. I blamed them for what she had done, that their hatred and rejection had caused her to shut herself out from the kingdom of Heaven for eternity.
"I came here because I still believe, but not how they would have me believe. The divine lives within me, as it does within you, and it calls to us, shapes us. But it doesn't control us. We have to come to this path because we want it, not because we are forced. I thought that America, the land of free thought, was the perfect place for my Order."
"I am finding that to be only half true." Ashrinn watched him compose himself. "Zealotry. If you learn nothing else from me during your time here, learn this: zealotry turns good men into monsters."
"Thank you," Ashrinn said the first thing he felt, which turned out to be a kind of painful gratitude, "for telling me."
"I don't know you well on a personal level, but in terms of the Order, I am placing my hopes on your shoulders. The divine lead me to you. You should know me, in return. You should know why I am doing this, or why would you follow me?"
"You know they were going to discharge me for being mentally unsound, don't you?"
"After that tale, do you think I put much stock in being mentally sound?" Randolph lifting a snowy eyebrow. "Do you want this position?"
Ashrinn thought of Kiriana's furious expression, the barely controlled anger that boded ill for him once night fell.
"Yes," he said, shocked by his own vehemence, "yes." He didn't care about the enemy, only that there was one to fight. Only that there was a reason for him to leave the house.
Randolph must have been happy with his answer, because when he spoke again he sounded relieved despite the serious subject.
"The Cult of the Suffering God has haunted me for a long time now. I can only assume that I am meant to counter them with the Order, that the whispers of the divine are urging me to perform this work."
Ashrinn took solace in the clarity that came over him in that moment, the sense of being presented with a problem that he might be able to solve. "Tell me what you know about them."
"The leader calls herself the Host, the conduit for her god's pronouncements. We only know of them because we had the dumb luck to catch one of their members, a largely untrained shadowmancer. Shadowmancers are essentially psychics, though they can also manipulate void magic. We didn't learn much, not without a friendly shadowmancer to break through his shields."
"You mean you're bad at interrogation."
"Wouldn't you be?"
No. I would be a master at it.
"Most likely. What did you get?"
"A few months ago, people started falling ill all across the state. It took us far too long to figure out that the ground water in several key areas had been tainted. Some of the mystics from the Skagit County reservations broke their silence long enough to warn me. The native magicals are a closed mouthed group and they have little interest in working with us, but a threat to the water is a threat to all."
"The drinking water?" Ashrinn hazarded. He didn't know much about how potable water got to his kitchen sink. He was just happy it did. "They're poisoning the drinking water?"
"Yes. We're taking the humans we can, doing our best to cleanse them before wiping their memories and releasing them, but we aren't equipped for much more. We haven't had a paladin skilled in healing join us in a long time.
"Brilliant, Anything else?"
"The man mentioned Revelator squads, elite combatants. By their standards, anyway."
"All that and you're placing all your bets on me? That's like betting on a horse race and picking the one that's blind in one eye."
"You might be crazy. But you're trained and skilled in a way I desperately need."
Ashrinn's scattered mental puzzle pieces fit together as though they were magnetized. "I can make you a team," he said, "Counter these Revelators. Not paladins, though," he mused, half to himself, "We'd want a variety of skills and talents. You mentioned shadowmancers. There must be more supernatural beings."
"Many. Werewolves, Gnomes, dryads. The list is a long one. I'll warn you, though. You're going to get the dregs of supernatural society. Many will be too frightened of discovery to try. Others will simply dismiss it. It won't be the way it was in the human military, where you had the best of the best."
Ashrinn felt an exhilarating
spike of adrenaline at the thought despite Randolph's warnings, and he felt the illusion of weightlessness that only hope could bring. "I can do it," he promised before he thought about it, flinging his worries about what Kiriana would say away from him with a violent emotional hand, "I suppose I better learn to wield this spirit blade, then."
"Are you ready? I'm going to have to remove my protections."
"Yes. Do it."
He braced himself as Randolph approached him. Randolph held out his hand and the aura around him brightened and coalesced. The first lock fell away. There it was, the tumultuous energy, the molten divine power that he'd used, all unwittingly, to save Malkai's life.
Randolph pulled his shields away as though he were ripping blood soaked cloth away from raw flesh. Ashrinn's exposed psyche cried out, caught between the terror of being immolated and the pleasure of being consumed. He convulsed.
"Control." Randolph said. "It cannot rule you."
Will. Yes. He still had that. He took the words, fashioned a mental handhold from them so he wouldn't be swept away by his own nature, clung to them like a physical thing. He saw nothing but that which was greater than himself. He wanted to ask if it was supposed to be like this, this primal thing come to eat him alive.
He thought he might drown again, but in magic this time instead of in the illusion of water. Will? What will? He wanted to let himself fall, be destroyed, but that defiance wouldn't let him.
He curled in on himself, clutched at his face, whined between clenched teeth. The divine bent to his will slowly at first, bucking and twisting under his unskilled hand. He felt Randolph's energy reaching out to him, that psychic handclasp from before. He grasped it and realized that they had also touched physical hands.
"Center," Randolph said, shaking him, "Focus."
He did his best to obey, went inside himself, and reached. The divine coiled around him, crawled under his skin, grafted itself to his bones. His aura flared up red-gold. He went limp and Randolph moved him over to the seat he'd occupied before, set him down as though he were ill and needed minding. Randolph let him go.
Ashrinn wiped sweat out of his eyes and looked at Randolph for an explanation.