by DJ Molles
“What’s it about?” she echoed, quietly. “It’s about you, Perry. It’s about humans. An experiment? You might say it that way, though the analogy fails on several levels. It’s about who you were. And who, and what, you might eventually become.”
“And who made the All-Kind the arbiters of the fucking universe?”
“Well. Self-appointed, really.”
“Are you gods then?”
“Gods?” she laughed. “No, not gods.” She gazed skywards, the smile still on her lips. “We are creations, just like every other species out there. Not arbiters. But…caretakers.”
“What are the All-Kind, then?” Perry waved a hand at her. “Shape shifters? I’ve seen you become an old man.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “A magical hobo?”
Perry was determined not to see the humor in anything at that moment.
She allowed it with another laborious sigh. “We are…not any one thing, actually. We started that way, just as everyone else did. But for a very long time we’ve simply been the All-Kind. And, as the name suggests, we are a little bit of everyone.”
“What do you—” Perry started, but stopped, as he watched her, in the span of a single blink, turn into the old man, as though the red-haired woman she’d been a microsecond before had never existed.
She said nothing as he stared at her. And then she made it worse. She turned into another figure—an old woman with iron-gray hair and stern, matriarchal features. And then again—into a young boy with a shock of messy black hair and dark, innocent eyes.
And then…
Something entirely different. Not human.
Large eyes. Bluish-gray skin. No clothing. No hair.
And then something vaguely dog-like—it was hard to tell, because she changed from it so rapidly into yet another form, this one not even humanoid, or anything that Perry could even put his finger on. A mass of sinuous appendages that appeared to have no face, no eyes, no bone structure, and hovered gaseously in the firelight for the span of a single hamering heartbeat.
And then she was Niva again.
Smiling behind a strand of fiery hair.
“There are many more,” she said. “I could go on for quite some time, but I think you get the general idea. That is the gift of the All-Kind. A touch, a smell, a piece of skin, a strand of hair or fur—DNA, like a catalogue, stored in the memories of our own flesh. But not just for the changing of forms, but the harnessing of each species’ gifts. In fact, the gift that you have—the gift of Confluence—was not ours to begin with. It was yet another gift that we harnessed from another species a long, long time ago.”
Perry’s hands had crept up to his face at the point, his fingertips gently pressing at his temples as he stared at Niva with wide eyes. “You say that aggression is the gift of the human species. But you can’t use it?”
She held up a finger. “I did not say that I could not use it. I said that I would not use it.” Her single finger turned to a palm, staying the acid retort Perry had brewing. “Since its inception, this universe has been moving in one direction, Perry. From darkness to light. From savagery to intelligence. From war to peace. I know that it is hard to see that from where you stand, but I can assure you that it’s true. Entropy, death, the flow of time—they are all the same thing. Everything in the universe breaks and is reformed into something new. From the cells of your body to the formation of stars, this process continues on. This is the endless process of evolution, and it moves us all in the same direction—to be better than we were. But, by its very nature, it must move slowly. For if one species evolves to be peaceful while the others around it are still savage, then it will simply be destroyed. And so all of us must evolve through time at an agonizingly slow pace, moving towards the ultimate destination by tiny increments. In order for the peaceful to survive this process, they must ally themselves with the warlike. In order for the warlike to evolve and become better, they must ally themselves with the peaceful. But in order for the warlike and the peaceful to become allies, the peaceful must be patient, and the warlike must be evolved enough to show restraint. This must happen, or the dark elements in the universe will destroy them both.”
Still massaging his temples, Perry tried his damndest to organize all of that strangeness into some tangible concept that he could grasp. “So the All-Kind want to ally with humans—the peaceful with the warlike.” He shook his head slightly. “But…Look at us. We live in mudbrick houses. We barely survive. We…” he flapped his lips. “We can’t possibly be what you’re looking for.”
“Ah, well.” She bobbed her eyebrows. “That remains to be seen, now doesn’t it? That is, you might say, the big idea. The experiment, as you called it.”
“But the Nine…” Perry began.
“The Nine are an aberration. One of many, unfortunately. If everything I told you about warlike and peaceful races were to be put on a scale, beings like the Nine would be at the far end of one side, and my kind would be at the other. The Nine are one of the dark forces in this universe. One of the types that cannot be evolved, and therefore must be vanquished before they destroy those that can evolve. Such as humans.”
Perry squeezed his eyes shut. “But we can’t beat them,” he seethed through clenched teeth. “That’s what you seem to be completely missing! Humans don’t have the power.”
“Perhaps not,” she shrugged, then looked at him pointedly. “But you do.”
Perry issued a series of dubious sound effects—chuffs and grumbles and sighs. “You’re dreaming a dream. You claim to be this all knowing, all powerful race, but you can’t see what’s happening right now? Did you see what happened in Karapalida?” Perry swept a hand up into a fist. “They have a grasp of Confluence that goes way beyond anything I can even dream of. One of them—one, Niva—swept me and two demigods up into the air. He could have crushed us! I could feel it! And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it!” He splayed his arms out wide, incredulous. “We nearly died fighting two of those machines of yours, and it took one of the Nine just a few seconds to wipe the other Guardians out. How the hell am I supposed to fight that?”
Niva only smirked back at him. “Oh, man of so little faith.” She rose up. Wiggled her fingers at him. “Stand up, Perry. I want to show you something.”
He glanced about, as though there might be something to see on the lonely plateau. But there was only darkness beyond. Stars glimmering. Slowly, cautiously, he stood up.
Niva jerked her head off to the side and began strolling away from the fire. Perry assumed the motion was a call for him to follow, so he did, trailing behind her a bit. She walked calmly out to the edge of the plateau and stood there with the toes of her shoes protruding over the cliff.
Perry hung back a pace.
Niva looked at him. “You’ll need to get closer.”
“I can see from here. What do you want to show me?”
She laughed. “Nothing that you can see with your eyes. Now stop being surly and come stand next to me.”
He bared his teeth in a grimace, but forced his feet forward another couple of steps until he stood shoulder to shoulder with her. He didn’t like the sensation of being so close to the cliff edge, even if he could fly.
“Now,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Close your eyes.”
He let a faint hiss of air escape through his teeth, but closed his eyes.
“You have the gift of Confluence. Do you feel it?”
He felt the thrum of the longstaff in his hands. The connection to the clasp in his pocket. “Yes.”
“And what does it look like? Not the feel of those tools you carry. But Confluence itself.”
A long, shaky breath. “Red. Like a river. A flow.”
“Does it flow into you, or out of you?”
He frowned, his eyes still closed. Trying to figure out the answer to that question. “I don’t think it does either. It’s just there. Like it’s underneath me. Like I’m floating above it.”
“And you can s
ink into it.”
“Yes.”
“Then sink into it.”
He did so. Felt the rush of it. Consuming. Flowing. Not a pull, or a push, but a sudden acceleration beyond any real physical sensation. Something he couldn’t quite describe. He was there, deep in it, moving with it, a part of it, rather than an object caught up in it.
“Okay.” His own voice dim and distant in his ears. “Now what?”
“Now give me your longstaff.”
He felt himself pull out of the flow. Suddenly no longer one with it, but now himself again, half in and half out. He opened one eye and realized that Niva was watching him, that same bemused look on her face.
“Ah-ah,” she shook her head. “Eye closed. Back to Confluence. Good. There. Now give me your longstaff.”
It took a lot of concentration to remain in that flow as he felt the longstaff leave his fingers. But he maintained it. Not that he felt it was all that impressive. “I’ve never needed the longstaff to sink into the red,” he said. “Or…Confluence, I guess.”
“Of course not. Now be quiet.”
Of course not?
“Now. Give me the clasp in your pocket.”
He thought he knew where she was going with this. Slightly annoyed, like being taught how to walk when he already knew how to run, he snatched the clasp out of his pocket and put it into her hands, keeping his eyes closed, keeping himself in the flow.
“I’ve never needed that either,” he remarked, a tad miffed. “I was able to go into the flow of Confluence when I was a kid, a long time before I ever got that clasp.”
“Yes, I know. Now. Are you still in the flow?”
A sigh. “Yes, Niva. I’m still in the flow.”
“Good. Stay there.”
And then she shoved him off the cliff.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
A PARADIGM SHIFT
Obviously, there’s a moment of panic that strikes you when you’ve been thrown off a thousand-foot cliff. Then, perhaps, another small moment of disbelief, struggling to accept the fact that you are in fact plummeting towards the earth with nothing to stop you.
It was all black. Black wind rushing, black air swallowing him up, the only reference point at all as to which way was up and which was was down being the glimpse of stars pinwheeling in his vision as he toppled over and over through the air.
Disbelief. And also rage. A very hot, very rapid flash of rage at the being that had done this to him. A being that could have killed him in a million different ways, choosing to simply toss him over the edge of a cliff like so much trash to be disposed of.
Other than that, there weren’t a lot of conscious thoughts. And none of the thoughts that he did have took on any sort of linguistic value—they were more just flashes of feeling. It was like the buffeting wind in his ears blocked out his ability to think in words, reducing him to a mute ball of emotion.
Finally, some words did manage to coalesce out of the fog.
I’m about to hit the ground.
How long did it take to fall that far? And how long had he already been falling?
OH, GODS, I’M ABOUT TO SPLATTER!
Yes. He actually thought the word “splatter.”
How much longer—
And then he hit the ground.
Mountains seemed to move. A cataclysm of impact. Tumbling that he felt in every joint, and a certain brand of mystification that he felt anything at all.
Sliding.
Grunting.
Being knocked every which way.
And then…
Sizzling.
Heat.
Perry hadn’t realized that his eyes had been squeezed shut until they shot open again, and the heat became light. A low, dull light, that took a moment to make sense to him. An orange glow that was giving off an enormous amount of heat, like standing in front of an oven.
Stars above him.
Am I alive?
The stars were shimmering.
No. That wasn’t the stars.
He craned his neck—a bit stiff from the thrashing—and saw his own body, dimly illuminated by the glow, still curled into a defensive fetal position and…hovering?
The shimmering. That was his shield. But it couldn’t have been. Because he had no clasp. And yet, there it was, all around him, a protective sphere, in the center of which he seemed suspended. Beneath him, the rocky ground of the wastelands was glowing. Burning magma. Liquefied stone. A trail of it, all the way down the foot of Snaggle-Tooth Mountain, and leading right to where he hovered over a big pool of it.
He reacted in the only way he could think of, despite the fact that none of it made any sense: He pulsed, sending a smattering of superheated rock one way, and his body the other. He whirled around inside his invisible little cage, and when he saw that there was normal, not-deathly-hot ground beneath him, he extinguished the shield he had no business having, and let his feet hit the ground.
Great gusts of breath dried his tongue. He was gulping air like a man lost in the Glass Flats might guzzle water. He was hyperventilating. Felt a little woozy. Looked down at his legs, astonished that they were there, and whole, and able to hold him up. Looked at his arms, mesmerized by the fact that they weren’t pummeled to boneless ribbons.
His hands shook violently. He began to pat his pockets, still not entirely convinced that, by some sleight of hand, Niva hadn’t deposited the clasp back in his pocket before pulling that cold-hearted stunt. But his pockets were empty, and they confirmed what he already knew.
No clasp.
No god tech.
In his mind, everything was a roaring tide of red. Too strong to be overcome by the fear now. Stronger than he’d ever felt it before. Not a river at all, he realized. A tidal wave—no, not even that puny. There was nothing on this earth that could describe what he was now immersed in. All he felt was velocity. Energy. Coursing through him. A part of every fiber of his being. Down to the little molecules that made up the caratin of his toenails, through to the overcharged synapses of his brain, firing in mad sequences that he could almost see, they seemed so real to him in that moment.
A geyser of relief.
“OhgodsI’mnotfuckingdead,” he gasped.
A surge of anger.
“I’m not fucking dead!” he shouted at the mountain, so hard that he felt the molecules that made up the lining of his throat stretch and strain and, in a few cases, tear.
But it wasn’t the mountain that had done this. And what the hell had even been done? What had he done? What had Niva done to him?
His eyes shot up to where the plateau of the mountain, so high above him, blotted out the stars, and right there, at the very edge of it, lit by some unnatural source of light, he saw the woman—or whatever she was—staring down at him.
Rationally, there was probably some cause for gratefulness. But Perry was pretty pissed at that point. Regardless of whether you survive, being tossed off a cliff is no one’s idea of a swell joke.
Perry shot into the air without even having to think about it. Nothing had come so easy to him. It felt more natural than walking. Like he’d been doing it all his life. And it wasn’t until he was nearly to the top of the mountain again that he realized he hadn’t activated his shield.
He wasn’t pulsing.
He was actually flying. Being borne up by some invisible current that he’d simply harnessed to carry him skyward, the same current of energy that now coursed through every part of him.
By the time he landed on the edge, the anger at Niva had dissipated to shock.
He stood there, looking down at himself with his arms hanging at a weird angle, like he was covered in some cosmic goo. “What the fuck was that?” he rasped, breathy and a little high-pitched. “I’m not dead! Why am I not dead? How can I fly?”
“How can you fly?” Niva asked, striding towards him, looking supremely satisfied with herself. “Because up is down and left is right and here is there and everywhere. Because there are a million lines of
current that criss-cross every inch of the air, every inch of space, every tiny bit of universe, and all you have to do is—” She swept a hand up into a fist. “Catch them!”
Perry let out a sound that was something like a sigh, and something like a gasp, or perhaps a groan. He doubled forward, hands onto his knees, the adrenaline turning sour in his gut, the swirl of realities suddenly seeming so paper thin they left him in a strange and not at all pleasant state of dissociation.
“Perry?” she asked, a note of concern in her voice.
He held up a finger. “Gimme a minute,” he croaked.
Vertigo, but his balance was fine. Fear, but he had nothing to be afraid of. Panic, though his heart was beating with an irrepressible awe that might’ve even been giddiness, it was hard to tell. Nothing was as it seemed in that moment. Up was down, and here was there and everywhere. It didn’t make any sense, but not because it wasn’t true—simply because he didn’t have the brain power to organize it, and so it was all just a big jumbled mess.
She felt her hands on his shoulders. Warm, through his shirt, where the wind was scouring away a layer of cold sweat. It felt good. To have something touch him—even if that something had just tossed him off a mountain. It grounded him. Made all the swirling everythingness seem to take a proper order, like a riotous mob suddenly stilling themselves and sitting down, just as pretty as you please.
“Come back to the fire.”
They didn’t walk to the fire. They were simply there. Or maybe the fire had come to them. Was there any difference? Here was there was everywhere was anywhere was otherwhere.
“Underwear,” Perry gasped, then tittered, fully aware of how insane he sounded.
“There, see? A little humor goes a long way.”
Perry stared at the fire, still doubled over, mouth sweating like he might vomit, even as sensations of well-being flooded him. There was nothing about any of this that should have left him with a sense of well-being. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have been positive she’d drugged him.