by David Moody
“I’m with you, I get it.”
Derrick turned back to the joystick into his hand. This time, he tried putting a different finger down on a different gem first.
Suddenly, images appeared on the viewscreen. As though they were hovering, then flying, Derrick could see rolling forests spilling over a valley floor; mist rising above the trees. Then, a river, running red with blood. He was startled, and backed away from the controls.
“Holy crap! Did you see that, Arridon! I did that! I turned the monitor on! We can see the whole world from here!” He looked back at the screen, which continued to fly above countryside, approaching a dark, looming cityscape. He looked excitedly to Arridon, who’d remained silent.
Arridon was in a sort of trance, his hands floating just above one of the shining rings, which glowed white, a pulsing aura of bluish light surrounding it, just touching his palms. Derrick turned back to the screen, to watch, abandoning the plastic controls and gem-like buttons.
“Oh,” Derrick said. “Okay, well, good then.”
Arridon, in his semi-conscious state, saw the images projected on the viewscreen, but he also smelled rich aromas and terrifying stenches of rot and industry in equal measure. He was overcome by feelings of cold, heat, pleasure, and the pain of a thousand different moments from a thousand different places, all at once.
He withdrew, snapping himself away from his connection with the ring. The viewscreen faded back to its dull glow. Above the skylights, shadows passed, and the sound of thrumming in London returned. Agitation and war grew closer.
“Dude. What just happened?”
“I think I got it. Do you trust me?”
“No more than a strange neighbor I’ve only barely met.”
“Sounds about right. Are you at least ready?”
“Nope, but do your crazy voodoo shit anyway. I want to find our sisters, and maybe kick some demonic, evil ass.”
“If we had ale, I’d drink to that. Hold onto your butt. It’s about to get weird in here.”
Arridon spoke the truth. It got very weird in there.
The power coursing through the room wound down as the two boys leapt out of their reality and into a far flung one. The whirling dervish gear-rings finished their scintillating dance as the empathic heat that made them glow abated. The viewscreen ground down to a halt, and to match, the glowing pedestal consoles went dark and back into hibernation.
The boys exited the chamber, stepping forward to continue their search, but behind them, the chamber that could pierce through dimensions powered up again without a god to operate it. The rings exploded into emergent action, rotating in a blitz of frenetic, orbital energy. They returned to their gleaming state, casting radiant heat and light to the walls of the towering space.
A woman stepped out of the light and looked around.
“Right. If I were a shitty, war-starting version of me, where would I be right now?”
Jenny Allsop cracked her knuckles and left the gods’ clockwork room at the pinnacle of the Shard to begin her hunt.
28
EO
Derrick and Arridon struggled with the moment; they’d never seen a vista such as the one they laid eyes on, and trying to piece together what exactly they were looking at stole every ounce of ability they had.
They were near the center of a circular room with a white floor, a domed white ceiling high above. Windows, twenty feet tall, surrounded them, and a circular staircase disappeared into the floor against the edge of the room. Outside, a field of stars in a black sky spilled up, down, and out as far as their eyes could see. To their left, a million miles away and just a few feet all the same, was a globe; an unfamiliar world, swirling with blue oceans and arid continents. Islands of green dotted the seas here and there, forests and jungles larger than states and provinces whole.
At their back was a bright yellow sun, so bright, it bordered on being white. They had to turn away when they tried to look upon its holy light.
But below their feet, between the world and the sun and the stars far beyond, was a series of linked structures floating in concentric circles in the ocean of space.
“Are those…giant stars?” Derrick muttered. “They look like Christmas ornament stars with too many points, but they’re the size of cities! The spiky tops of the city-sections look like they’re a thousand stories tall, but each point is the same size.”
“What’s Christmas?”
“A holiday dedicated to the worship of a dead god named Thirnas. Prevalent on a few hundred layers of the multiverse,” a heavy voice said at their back.
Arridon and Derrick spun to face the previously unseen speaker.
“Welcome to Eo, travelers,” a short man with vaguely pink skin said in a booming, tall voice. He smiled at them, and adjusted goggles that wrapped around his head and stuck out with six inches of lenses. He had sparse brown hair, littered with gray, and wore a leather duster that was dotted with brass and gold fixtures. Each was adorned with knobs, dials, buttons, or electric, illuminated readouts and screens. He looked like an anachronistic traveler, stuck between the styles and technologies of three, or maybe four Earth centuries.
“Thanks,” Arridon said, puffing up to appear less lost and confused. “I’m Arridon, of House Frost, and this is Derrick, of…the moon.”
“There are many moons, but only one House Frost. I have heard of your crest, though your people have been absent from Eo, of late. It is my pleasure to introduce myself as Lord High Spatial Adjudicator Timtar Wrothson.” He smiled, revealing two tiny fangs, and bowed graciously.
“That sounds important,” Derrick observed.
“The position is considered vital to our ongoing survival, but it’s a lonely job.”
“Lord High Spatial Adjudicator Timtar Wrothson, could we bother you for some…advice?” Arridon asked.
“Just call me Tim,” he said as he lifted his goggles. They unseated from his face with a click, and after raising them to his forehead, the boys saw that one eye was mechanical, and the other eye a bright ruby-red. “I’d be delighted to lend some assistance.” He came a few steps closer and clasped his hands together at his waist.
“Where are we?” Arridon asked.
“Eo, the City with No Foundation.”
“The gods’ last bastion of safety from the Bleed, right?” Derrick asked.
“Gods? Oh dear. You’re from a bit of a backwater, aren’t you?” Tim said, almost consoling them. “You call the…beings from here gods?”
“Where I’m from, the gods ruled for a long time, then disappeared to battle the Bleed. My mother is a god, my father is a human,” Arridon explained. He stole a glance at the astounding view outside the glass walls of the room.
“I don’t know what’s going on with me. As far as I know, both my mom and dad are human, but I helped operate the clockwork room to get here, which I’m led to believe makes me half-god as well.”
“That’s right, Derrick. Then your non-god half is human?”
“What else would my other half be?”
Tim laughed. “As you might’ve been able to discern, due to my lack of hair, pointy teeth, and red-hued skin, I’m half demon.”
The boys jumped back.
“No, no, no, not a dangerous sort of demon. Not like the Bleed entities you sound like you’re familiar with,” Tim said, adding another smile that somehow managed to disarm the tension of the moment, despite the fangs.
“There are other kinds of demons?” Arridon asked.
“As many flavors of demons as there are flavors of ice cream,” he chuckled.
“I’d kill for some ice cream right now,” Derrick said.
“We’ll get you some,” Tim assured him. “Now, what can I help you with? I must be moving along somewhat soon, but I can point you in the right direction as I depart. Might I ask what brought you to the home of our shared ancestry?”
Derrick drew a deep breath. “We’re from different levels of the multiverse, got shoved together on a pl
anet called Earth—that’s the planet whose moon I came from, only in the past of my own dimension, and we’re both dealing with our worlds being destroyed by the Bleed. Oh, and both of us have been separated from our sisters.”
“And you came here for help on which part of that?”
“Both?” Arridon said. “Why do we have to pick?”
“It’s a complicated story,” Tim said. “And if you want to find your sisters, there isn’t much time to spare. You’ll probably want to contact a retention officer. Someone of Commodore level or above. Make your case to have your sisters located in the multiverse.”
“Who’s in the what now?” Derrick said.
“Retention officers lead teams of highly skilled observers and travelers. They can use the highest levels of our magic and science to search for, then potentially retrieve, your lost sisters. Of course, that’s if they are willing to be retrieved. And within reason,” Tim said. “Some don’t want to be found, and some can’t be retrieved.”
“Give me a scenario where that happens,” Derrick asked.
Tim shrugged. “If, for example, they are trying to stay away from you. Or if the Bleed is present in that level of the multiverse. Once a level is contaminated by that pestilence, it’s written off. Quarantined forevermore.”
“Can you bring us to this, these, retrieval people? Do they have an office?” Derrick asked.
“Of course. We’re currently in a middle-tier arrival center, and the retention officers are based out of that tiny little node right there,” Tim said, pointing out the massive glass windows to a many-pointed star in the outer ring of linked structures that all looked like pointy stars. They glimmered with a million pips of light through microscopic-looking windows. The scale of this placed called “Eo” defied logic.
“How do we get there?” Arridon asked. “That seems awful far away to walk.”
“Well first let’s get an ice cream. The transit hub isn’t far from a place that serves grass-fed Apollonian cow’s milk ice cream, fresh daily. Thrice blessed by a choir of child-priests of Morgor and topped with chopped nuts. It’s a sin,” he laughed, “and for a half-demon like myself, boy is it a treat.”
Turns out the ice cream was delightful, and the child-priests of Morgor not nearly as creepy as Arridon initially suspected.
The city of Eo was a spectacle.
Derrick described Eo as a city made of every single movie he’d ever seen. As they descended in a glass elevator down into a forest-filled atrium the size of a substantial city in its own right, they laid eyes on flying dinosaurs in the air, leviathans swimming in the lakes, and all manner of creatures running free in the wilderness.
They walked along pathways paved with purple streaked stones, quarried from no lands either boy had seen or heard of, that led to an open-aired veranda overlooking the vista of Eo’s external areas. No glass kept the vacuum of space away; they sat on ornate, wrought iron chairs at an equally elaborate table alongside a railing that overlooked the void of space.
None of that could hold a candle to the occasional alien passing by.
Perhaps “alien” wasn’t the right word to describe the beings that strolled through the city, going about their business without a care in the world. Tentacle-strewn masses that floated by, nested in glass jars like potted plants. A massive, long-limbed, shaggy-furred quadruped walked past on hoofed feet, speaking with the aid of a translating device hanging around its neck. It engaged a conversation with three tiny, goblin-esque creatures that rode in a child-sized, wheeled chariot, pulled by a breed of sunset-colored dog that shimmered as it pulled them along. Humans, of course, were prevalent. Humans, or Gods. It was hard to tell the difference.
Keeping the peace were fully armored humanoids, clad in polychromatic plate mail and armed with towering halberds that were married with some form of brass and gold-inlaid firearm, or laser cannon. The boys silently agreed they were terrifying weapons.
“This place is half nightmare, half wet dream,” Derrick said. “I’m feeling a bit queasy about it.”
“I want one of those pole arms,” Arridon said, eyeing the firearm/halberd hybrid weapon the guards carried.
“Do you even have empathy? Is that something that happens on your world? Stay focused on the endgame.”
“I have empathy, but I’m pretty rigid in that I want to find my sister and kill the Bleed, and that weapon looks real handy for that,” he shot back, and then licked his ice cream cone. His irritation was immediately disarmed by the cold treat under the stars with a planet in the distance.
“I must go,” Tim said, his attention drawn to a small electronic device that hung off his breast like an old pocket watch. “I’m being summoned to a meeting about enchantment details. To get to the retention offices, head over to the corridor right there and look for the circular doorways that enter into round rooms. Step into one, and speak where you want to go.” He stood.
“Thank you for the guidance, and the ice cream,” Derrick said. “I did have another question, if you have a moment?”
“Of course,” he said with a fanged smile.
“Are we safe here?”
The question seemed to perplex the half-demon, half-god. “Do you feel safe?”
“Not particularly,” the boy from the moon answered. “Is what we came to ask for going to put us in a bad situation?”
“There’s a very good chance it’ll draw the attention of someone you don’t want the attention of,” Tim said. “But that’s life under the heels of a species that almost everything else calls a god. You can’t walk with your head in the clouds and your feet in the lava without getting wet, or burnt.”
“Interesting metaphor,” Arridon said, licking his ice cream.
“If you need more help, send me a drift.” Tim fished something from a duster pocket and handed Arridon a slender glass tube filled with smoke. “Pop the tube, speak your message into the mist with your location, and I’ll be able to find you. Stopper it when you’re finished and the smoke will replenish over time.”
“Works here in Eo?” Derrick asked, taking the vial from Arridon.
“Works anywhere,” he said, and winked his one living eye. He pulled his goggles down from their perch on his forehead, clicking them neatly back into place over his face.
“Why no horns, if you’re a devil?” Derrick asked.
“Doesn’t run in the family.”
29
EO
They got teleported.
At least, that was the word Derrick used to describe what happened to them to Arridon. It made sense; after all, if the gods knew how to pierce layers of dimensions and transport people and objects with ease, they could do the same on a much smaller scale in their last city of Eo.
Arridon and Derrick appeared in a room the same as the one they’d departed: round, with white stone walls, all inlaid again with gold or brass. When they arrived, the round door to enter the round room slid open, disappearing into the wall and revealing a hallway made of lush, dark woods, carpeted in a vivid red fabric, and again, all embellished with touches of gold and brass. The hallway disappeared off to the left and right of a brass rectangle covered in words neither boy could read.
They went into the hallway and stopped at the sign.
“Can you read it?” Arridon asked.
“Nope.”
“Let’s stare real hard at it. Maybe we can scare it into talking with us,” Arridon said.
On a lark, the two young men did so, mean-mugging the sign with furrowed eyebrows and set jaws. After several seconds, the etched letters in the foreign language squirmed like snakes, and reformed into a language they recognized.
“Holy shit it worked,” Derrick said, laughing. “Look, it says retention offices are this way.”
The two boys, still amazed at their strange luck, made their way down the long hallway. They passed several doors and multiple paintings of beautiful alien vistas and one tall painting of what could only be described as a battle scene betwee
n the gods and the Bleed. That painting was sealed in a transparent case, as if the mere depiction of the Bleed was a threat in and of itself. They stopped at the door marked “Retention Offices.”
It swung inward, and a surprisingly pleasant middle aged woman wearing what Derrick would describe as African tribal garb greeted them. She was different from them; darker skinned, with silver eyes, and a shaved head.
“Welcome to the Retention Center. My name is Aduwabeh of the House of the Swirling Wind. Step in, have a seat, and please let me know how I may assist you.” She motioned for them to join her at two chairs in front of an opulently detailed desk covered in delicate carvings of the sea and of the winds blowing savanna grasses.
The carved grasses and waves undulated ever so slightly under the sway of an unseen breeze as they approached and sat.
“We are trying to find our sisters,” Arridon said. Thistle of House Frost, and Samantha…?” he turned to Derrick.
“Samantha Morrison. I’m Derrick Morrison, and he’s Arridon Frost. Thank you for having us.”
“I see. What was the manner of their disappearance?” Aduwabeh asked as she assumed a serene posture of clasped hands and perfect posture behind the desk.
“Well, for me, we were fleeing our moon colony because things were breaking down, and everything was catastrophically failing, and there were giant tick monsters, and a waterfall, and we were walking in a cave, and then we were separated, and I was in a sewer back on Earth, in London, years and years before I was even born,” Derrick explained.
“And my sister and I were fleeing the demon horde of the Bleed. We ran to the clockwork tower in the Endless City, and used the god-tech to escape. She went somewhere else, and I landed in the same London Derrick arrived in.”
“That sounds awful, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” the boys said together.
“Forgive my assumption, but neither of you are full-blooded citizens, are you?”