by J M Guillen
“You surprise me, I’ll admit.” He chuckled, even as he kept his eyes upon me. “Yet I’m afraid even this cannot stop the Lamentation that comes.” He gestured toward me with a savage claw. Beneath his breath he chanted, mumbled. He spoke things I did not wish to know.
Pain gathered around him; sorrow became shadows. His lip curled into a sneer as he hissed incantations at me, barbed words older than the world we stood upon.
I leapt at him, bestial and savage with not one of the sickle-curved blades but two. I had no memory of where I picked up the second one, but two blades felt right in my hands.
Natural.
His foul enchantment beat against me, a furious burst of eldritch savagery. Wet filth oozed against my skin. Forces collided, ones that had never been meant to exist.
It felt like living darkness, like the infinite shadows that dwelt behind the stars. That murky gloom ensnared me, caught me in midair.
I hung, helpless.
Somewhere, I heard furious howls.
“I am a pawn of the Binder, Asset.” The heretic shook his head, almost saddened. “I’ve told you I know a little of such things. Much of my lore was wrested from misshapen beasts such as these. You have seen the beings I beckon; your own dreaming-shape has been summoned by my art.”
I snarled and struggled against the bonds. They burned against me, glass shards coated in venom.
“This beast you have mastered is powerful, yes.” He studied me as if I were an insect beneath glass. “Yet in my studies, I have enslaved things far more deadly.” He gestured, a viscous, brutish slash and cried a single word, a syllable that seared and scorched.
I heard something like the shearing of metal into flesh, infinitely far away.
The aberration screamed in lupine terror.
“Honestly, Asset.” Amir’s lips quirked into a cruel smile. “It’s as if you don’t know me at all.” He gestured again, the same fierce slash. This time, he cried a litany, a primordial quatrain to the Binder of Light and Heaven.
The wolf screamed again as if its flesh were ripped from its body.
I heard a distant sound, like the shatter of glass. My muscles grew weak, exhausted.
Alone. I shuddered at the thought, the solid truth of it. I hadn’t realized the comfort the creature brought, the knowledge I had a secret ace in my pocket.
A wind buffeted against me, something unnaturally cold.
I fell, boneless, a rag doll. I landed right next to Gideon’s writhing form within that umbra of golden light.
“You’re a child, Micha—”
3
For an infinite moment, Amir Cadavas didn’t exist.
I tumbled into timeless warmth, into solid strength.
Some things can only be learned by experience. A fire burns, an edge cuts. These are lessons all children learn to their dismay.
I hadn’t understood the nature of the shining aura that burned around Gideon DuMarque, not truly. Yet the moment I edged into the golden nimbus, I felt its truth, understood its nature.
On a visceral, elemental level, I felt him.
The light didn’t consume Gideon; it was Gideon, his fundamental self. The essence of the man was being drawn away by some horrific rite I couldn’t comprehend.
The rite that pulled it away from him called to the darkness of the Unfathomable.
As I touched that radiance, I could feel him, feel the solidity of those cobalt eyes.
He was. Right. There.
I put my hand on him, touched his leg. I simply felt what lay within his pocket, but I didn’t care. I just had to see if he would wake.
The moment I touched him, time stopped.
In that strange softness of reality, in that shine of Gideon’s being, I understood.
Memory became truth.
I stood in the vast and empty city of Dhire Lith. Around me, an endless vista of alien sky loomed, threatened.
“Michael?” Gideon’s voice was soft.
I turned to him—
Wait.
No. I wasn’t in Dhire Lith, even though I remembered that clearly. I was in the lost city of M’elphodor, chasing fucking Amir Cadavas. Dhire Lith was only a memory. This was re—
As stark and certain plasma ignited the corpse of one of my own, I stood away from my cadre. I peered through the archway into a queer and bent city as it splayed, wavering beneath stars that undulated and mesmerized.
After a moment, Gideon walked over to me, opening his small pack. He held out a cigarette.
“Last ones.” He shook his head.
I shook my head. The sticky cobwebs of memory fell away.
“Not real,” I muttered. “None of it.”
What’s happened, Bishop? Gideon’s link held a serious but not stern tone. I knew he worried about me, out here alone in this alien city—
“I—” My eyes grew wide. “Gideon?”
It felt like a dam burst in my chest, and I sobbed. Could it really be him?
“What are you doing, Asset?” I could see him, see the infinite cascade of Dhire Lith behind him.
“It’s wrong.” I shook my head. “All wrong. The cadre is all separated, and Delacruz might be dead…”
There, lying on the ground, was the broken corpse of Liam Hunter, our Gatekeeper. Around us, an eternity of alien city loomed.
“Fuck.” Gideon swore, not quite to himself. “Looks like we have some business to attend to.”
“We do,” I choked on a laugh. “Alpha, I don’t think I’m going to get us home—”
“Well?” As the Seraph sang softly, Gideon gazed around at us. “Are we ready for this?”
A larger question loomed within his words.
At that moment, my cadre was tech adrift in a horrific, alien realm. Every single step took us deeper into hostile territory, and it seemed imminently possible that, like Liam, we would die beneath strange and drifting stars.
This moment mattered. This choice might shape the rest of our lives.
“Ready, Alpha.” Rachel adjusted the Stinger.
“Ready.” Wyatt and Anya spoke at the same time.
“Let’s go, Gideon.” I nodded at him. “Whenever you say.”
That was the strength of Gideon DuMarque. We absolutely knew the man would crawl through Irrational horror for any one of us. Fearless, he always had the next plan at the ready, always knew exactly what to do.
It felt impossible that we could fail. Gideon could lead us anywhere, and he would always get us home.
We would follow the man into hell.
“You did!” I thought I might break right there. “You always got us home. But everything I’ve done, I’ve fucked up.”
We stood around Liam Hunter, awkward. The Primary Protocol demanded that we dispose of the body.
“Yes, yes.” Gideon did not look up as the wheels turned in his head. “Christ, give a man a minute.”
The memory blurred then, as if a fanned deck of cards. Then, it resolved into a different scene.
I sat in The Spire, with Gideon DuMarque. He sat across from me, his chair flipped around backward.
“This is where things get dicey.” Gideon steepled his fingers.
“Just now it does?” I shook my head. “I’m outta answers, man. I don’t know what to do, and… they made me Alpha!”
“Come on.” I stepped over to him and extended a hand. “We should form up.”
“Making the calls now, are you?” Gideon gave me a rueful grin but took my hand. “Arrogant ass.”
“I have no idea where the rest of my cadre is, Gideon. I need to get you off this thing. Tell me how to get you out of here, and we can extract.”
I stood in the briefing room at The Spire, and Gideon looked grim.
“I’m Alpha-on-site, but I doubt I’ll be leaving this room.” He leveled his cobalt eyes at me.
“No.” I shook my head, burning tears in my eyes. I understood exactly what he meant, and the idea broke my heart.
I couldn’t do this again.
>
“I doubt I’ll be leaving this room.” The memory came again, slowly, specifically.
Another shuffled into my mind.
You’re going to have to handle things, Gideon linked me. I stood in an alleyway in Dhire Lith, looking at a horrific trained aberration of the Drażeri. I can’t do anything, Bishop. Not now.
“That doesn’t fucking work.” I shook my head, broken. “Everything is a complete mess without you.”
I stood in The Spire, watching Gideon laugh.
“Oh, yes.” Gideon leaned back in his seat. “You’re a wreck, Asset.” He chuckled. “For a man who has only been active for a little over two hours, you’ve certainly gotten torn up.”
“Hey.” I sat up a touch, as if affronted. “I take pride in what I do, thank you.”
The memory shifted, changed.
I stood in the vast city of Dhire Lith, scouting for my cadre.
Hold your position, Bishop. Gideon was firm, resolute.
“Why don’t I know what to do?” I shook my head. “You always seemed to.”
The memory of my Crown initiation protocols drifted into my mind, I heard Gideon DuMarque’s voice, explaining the moment an Asset comes online.
“That’s because you’re stupid. You can’t get it; that’s the point. W exists outside your regular frame. But when it happens, all kinds of tiny mysteries will click; everything will make sense.”
“Ha!” I actually laughed, even though I freely cried now. “Asshole.”
The caverns of the cenote loomed around me. In the distance, I could hear the laughter of the damned.
“You’ve gotta be with me on this.” Gideon caught my eye and held it. “We don’t know where Max or Katarina are, but we’re going to find them.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, nervously. “I know we probably will.”
“No, Michael.” He squeezed my shoulder. “We’re getting them out of here. And if something happens to me, you’ll get them out of here.”
“If something happens to you, I’m probably already dead,” I muttered.
“No.” His voice was stern. “You’re going to make a wonderful leader, Bishop. You’ve got some things to learn, but being the man you are, you’ll inspire loyalty. You’ll be the kind of leader your cadre will follow into hell.”
That…
That was where the statement had come from. Gideon had said it to me, all those years ago, but I’d turned it around. As the years passed, I’d started to say it about him.
“You think I can do this,” I breathed. “You always did.”
“Take point, Bishop.” Gideon nodded through the archway. “We’ll follow.”
Memory blurred.
“This is going to get dicey.” We crept within the caverns beneath the Yucatán. “If I can’t take care of things, you will.” He paused. “It may be hard, but you’ll know exactly what to do.”
Memory blurred again.
I stood in that God-forsaken cistern in Istanbul, gazing at him. Behind me, I heard the gibbering of the mad.
Good, Gideon nodded at me. Make me proud.
“Yes, sir.” I paused, trembling. “It was an honor and a privilege knowing you, Gideon Du Marque.”
We all packed into the Drażeri realmship, and Wyatt had us somersaulting through space.
“Cadre,” Gideon wheezed when Wyatt returned. “I wanted you to know how proud I am to have served with you—”
Name of Lamentation
“You’re a child, Michael Bishop.” Amir strode forward, and the light of madness shone through his wide eyes. “You think I haven’t foreseen this, all this? You think I haven’t planned?”
I took one backward step closer to the awful table where Gideon lay.
“No.” I held one blade up between us. It felt heavier than I thought it should. My hand trembled the smallest bit as I gaped at Amir.
“No?” That smirk sounded sharp through the mask.
“You’ve planned. You planned all of this.”
“Then you know what must happen.”
“I know you haven’t left me any choice.”
I spun toward Gideon.
I leapt.
In the eternal instant that followed, a dozen things whispered through my mind.
Memories. Thoughts of Gideon. Things I’d known.
“Seventy-nine of these chairs are filled, Asset,” another Zealator said, a stocky, bald man whose tattoos wrapped around his head. “Only two remain.”
“You’ll have your throne, never fear,” another whispered. “Yes. Your blood shall be the last. You shall be the last.”
We were the final two sacrifices. I needed to throw a wrench in their plans…
The next memory came again, slowly, specifically.
“I doubt I’ll be leaving this room.”
Another shuffled into my mind.
“You’re going to have to handle things.”
I came down on Gideon with all my body weight.
I didn’t look him in the face. Couldn’t.
I pushed the curved blade through his chest, wincing at the sensation as I sliced through bone and muscle.
For an instant, Gideon tensed. He gasped and his eyes flew open wide and every muscle tightened.
“Bishop.” He gazed off into nothingness. “I knew you’d come.”
“I walked through hell, sir.” I smiled.
He met my gaze. Relief and pride and tears mingled there. “Thank—” He blinked.
His body fell lax.
The golden radiance that had burned around him burst into a brilliant shine. It reached upward one last time, and then crashed back upon Gideon’s body, like a tide of shimmering sunlight.
The shadowy flame that had surrounded Gideon’s light, that unnamed darkness that had no true shape…
Recoiled.
Absolutely berserk, it burst away from him and loomed over me with a terrible, unknowable fury.
It burned with elemental darkness that boiled over the world.
It screamed the truth of a star, scarlet in the sky.
It cackled the fates of shambling humanity and broken minds.
“Do you know what happens now?” Amir slipped up next to me where I still held the blade I’d buried in Gideon’s chest. Upon his brow, a diadem of violet discord burned, a sigil of his power. Even though that terrible silver mask covered his face, that Sign overlay it.
Around us, the darkness positively seethed. Madness and despair battered at my mind, a tide of terrible, forsaken shadows.
“What do you think happens now?” I glared up at Amir, and the starkness of what I’d done burned in my eyes.
“Now, the Harbinger takes you.” Amir glanced up, and the flickering darkness cast mottled shadows across his face. “You shall be cut. You have earned his wrath.”
“I have, have I?” I glanced up into the rotten, unknowable shadows.
“Death is but a doorway, Michael Bishop. I’m afraid it’s one you will never pass through.” He paused. “Although you shall greatly wish it.”
“I have another idea.” I glanced down and showed him the hand that didn’t rest on the blade.
On my palm, I held the dampening grenade I’d wrested from Gideon’s pocket, one he’d held onto since the cistern.
“What?” The sheer confusion in Amir’s single word was delicious. “Where did you—?”
I didn’t answer. I pushed the button.
WHUM. Ripples burst around me like a stone cast into a pond.
In an instant, that sentient, incomprehensible darkness burst away from us, screaming. The Irrational shadow couldn’t remain where Rationality touched. They separated like oil and water.
Amir stared at me, his eyes wide as the violet mark upon his brow sputtered and faded.
“How do you like me now?” I quoted Wyatt Guthrie, not the singer.
I leapt on him, screaming. The curved blade swung straight at Amir’s masked face.
2
Beneath my first strike, the steel
blade bit deeply into the silver mask.
I’d struck Amir as well, and he cried out as blood gushed from his forehead and cheek. He went down.
I followed.
After a moment’s struggle, I sat upon his chest. “Death is but a doorway, huh?” I raised the blade high and smashed it down again, carving out a hunk of mask. “I wonder if that’s as true without this awful thing?” Reaching down, I took the mask from his face. Only a thin strip of silver still held the thing together, and I tore it into two pieces with my bare hands.
I cast the halves away, one to each side, then screamed in triumph.
“What have you done?” Amir’s eyes were frantic. “Do you even know?”
“Probably not,” I snarled. “I’m a fucking blunt instrument after all.” With that, I dropped the blade, grabbed his hair, and slammed him backward.
“Speaking of blunt instruments… Mother!” I swung and felt his cheek crack beneath my fist. “Fucker!” I swung with the other hand, punching him hard in the throat so I knew he couldn’t breathe.
I proceeded to give Amir Cadavas what I hoped was the beating of his miserable life. Red rage, fury that had nothing to do with an aberrant wolf, poured through me. I thought of Katarina, of Max.
I thought of the way Elle had mumbled, her mind broken.
Gideon.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and cracked his head against the stone.
His face was a savage bloody ruin.
CROWN NEXUS PRIME is now interlocked. Axiomatic mesh engaging.