Wodan heard a wild shriek and immediately flung himself against the side of the chamber. Just then he saw his old companion Saul crawling toward him from a curve further along the chamber. Wodan watched with cool curiosity as Saul dragged himself away from the terrors of the distant room with tears streaming down his face. The hologram flickered, sputtered out, then played again. Again and again Saul crawled past Wodan’s legs and back into the darkness of the outer cave.
Ignoring the warning driven into his skull, Wodan continued on. He rounded a corner and saw a giant horned skull hanging on the far wall of the red cavern. The skull was wreathed in dead flowers. The moment he saw the empty, black eyes of the dead thing, the warning in his mind increased a hundredfold. Wodan took one step back, then forced his legs to hold steady by force of will.
Another hologram appeared. Wodan saw a small, pale boy with brown hair standing defiantly before the skull. When the small boy thrust a hand into one of the skull’s eye sockets, Wodan was shocked to realize that he was seeing himself.
I was so small, thought Wodan. How did I manage to survive my first trip through the valley?
The image of the boy Wodi flickered and was replaced by another pale boy, this one nearly naked and almost bald. Wodan moved ahead so that he could see the face of the newcomer. The second boy’s face was too smooth, almost inhuman, and the eyes seemed both intelligent and bestial. Wodan did not know it, but he was looking at Pale Number 27, the creation of Didi and Childriss, and the progenitor of the race of ghouls. Just as the inhuman boy drew near the skull, he fell backwards and forced his hands against his ears, desperate to shut out some terrible voice.
“It’s not true!” the hologram screamed. “I’m not a freak! I’m not a freak!”
Wodan felt that the cave somehow remembered him, and not only as a recorded image. He felt that there was some message about himself, the inhuman boy, and the creators Didi and Childriss. Did the cave somehow believe they were related? Wodan shook the idle speculation from his mind, but was immediately filled by a compulsion to meet his father… his true father. He forced his feet to carry him forward until he stood before the great skull.
“Door,” Wodan said. “Open.”
The red wall behind the skull slid open silently.
* * *
Wodan entered the living room of his childhood home. It was Yulemass, and warm lights were strung all about. Mama Kyner was baking some treat while Papa Kyner sat before a blaring television set. Wodan saw a childish version of himself sneaking about the Yule tree, fingering presents, full of expectation. Wodan saw his sisters, so brown-haired, so skinny, chasing one another, and one screamed for she seriously thought the other would murder her. Wodan’s heart ached terribly; he no longer knew his sisters, and somehow knew that he would never see them ever again. If only he’d had more time when he returned to Haven…
Little Wodi’s hand nipped at a corner of a wrapped present ever so slightly. “Git!” said Papa Kyner, and Wodi scampered away while his Papa laughed to himself.
Wodan walked into the center of the room, ignored by all.
Little Wodi ran into the kitchen, took a pot and placed it on his head, then grabbed up the largest knife he could find and ran from the kitchen, swinging at imaginary monsters. Wodan watched the intensity on Wodi’s face, a caricature of determination. Even then he had trained to fight monsters. Wodan was not struck by the verisimilitude of the holographic projection; he didn’t care about the advanced technology, how it worked, or why it recorded part of his childhood. Instead, Wodan was struck by the warmth of the scene, and felt a dagger in his heart at the memory of how warm everything once seemed.
As little Wodi rushed by him to slay some monster, Wodan moved to stand over his sitting father. How tired he seemed. He saw the years of labor in his face, in his sagging shoulders. He saw his father fighting to stay in business, to feed his family, to harness his will so that no man could be his master.
“Can you see me, Papa?” Wodan said quietly. He heard his own voice catching on tears. “Do you see how your son fights, too?”
Then Mama called from the kitchen, “Mogi! Joki! Wodi! Come and get your plates an’ such. Time for dinner!” Just as Wodan instinctively turned to the kitchen to do as his mother said, the scene changed so that it was fifteen years later and only his Mama and Papa were there, and the room was dark, and their daughters were gone and moved on and it was the night when the lords of Haven had declared that their son would be executed as a murderer. The room was dark and cold and his parents sat across from one another on the table, crying and holding one another’s hands, praying that their son’s life be spared.
“Don’t show this!” Wodan screamed involuntarily. “Leave them alone! Why would you record something like this!?”
Wodan caught a flicker of movement and saw, through the glass door that led to the balcony, a slender figure hiding in the shadows. A woman in a long white cloak perched on the railing, watching his parents.
It was the Engel called Dove Langley, one of the strange beings worshipped by the people of distant San Ktari.
Enraged and horrified, Wodan raced to the balcony to confront her for spying on his parents. He did not care that she had ignored her orders to kill him if he had proven to be an inhuman monster similar to herself, and had even repaired his hands when the Ugly ruined them. He only wanted to shout at her, to command her to leave his poor old parents alone with the misery that he had given them. He flung open the balcony door – and immediately found himself in the shrieking chaos of a battlefield.
Banners of San Ktari whipped about in a fierce gale and spotlights danced in the night. Wodan saw short men with heavy arms and armor calling out to one another in their alien tongue: “Die Engelen! Ktari! Die Engelen!” Their banners and armor flashed red in the waving spotlights. The soldiers of another nation, with gray flags and gray motley armor, fled in panic all around. Wodan took a step, but immediately tripped and fell among dozens of dead bodies, men with dark skin in blood-spattered gray armor. Lightning flashed overhead and illuminated coils of purple intestines and jawbones under his hands. Terrible thunder roared, and Wodan saw that the field of dead stretched on without end. He was on the threshing grounds of some unimaginable harvest, the work of men who had become worse than the demons themselves.
Wodan lifted his face and saw the clouds burning red and black, saw thunder crashing over and over as if the heavens were horrified at what mankind had become. Wodan choked on bile, then realized the place had no smell. It’s only a hologram, he thought. It’s not real.
“Why do you show me this?” Wodan cried out. “Answer me, damn you!”
The sound of the thunder changed into something unreal and synthetic. There was a pattern, a voice that Wodan could make out.
THIS IS THERE
THIS IS NOW
THIS IS THE RESULT OF A CHANCE ENCOUNTER
BETWEEN TWO GREAT MEN
Wodan rose to his feet, head lifted to the burning heavens. “You mean Didi and Childriss, don’t you?” he said. “They came here before me, didn’t they? Didi used Childriss and tricked him into leaving Haven. They both had some hand in my creation. But why should I care about San Ktari? Why should you?! I came here for answers to a problem that’s happening right over our heads!”
And the thunder cried out:
FOOL COUSIN!
FATHER’S EYE SEES ALL
THE MILLION GUNS OF SAN KTARI
WILL END THE WORLD IN FIRE
“You speak of fathers. Why show me mine? Why do that to me right before you show me this battlefield?”
SINS OF THE FATHER
HARVEST OF THE SONS
AND OVER IT ALL
A BLACK SUN
Then the lights went out. Wodan knew that he was in a small chamber. He could feel its closeness on either side.
A black sun, Wodan thought. Is this thing trying to tell me that the world is dying?
Wodan tried to catch his breath and think ov
er the riddles, the images. “You’re telling me that this man Childriss created the superhumans that the people of San Ktari call Engels. Matthias, Justyn, Dove Langley… and the others. Childriss is their father, in a way, isn’t he? When he left Haven, he went into the east, didn’t he? He and Didi must have worked together on… on me. They did what they did because they thought it was the only way to stop the flesh demons, but now it looks like the warmongers in San Ktari are worshipping others like me. They’ve turned our kind into a religion and are using their power to destroy other human nations. Is that it? You think they’re more of a danger than the demons themselves?”
YOU ARE THE LASTBORN SON OF THE ANCIENTS
BURIED BEFORE THE DEMONS COULD FIND YOU
SO WAS I, COUSIN
SO WAS I
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN A KING ARMED FOR WAR
TRAINED IN ALL MANNER OF ARTS
WITH YOUR SYNTHETIC COUSIN FOR COUNSEL
… LOOK AT YOU, IN RAGS, A BARBARIAN
AND YOUR COUSIN… SENILE
“Speak, then,” said Wodan. “Do whatever you can. I need help. There’s so much I need to know. Can you… can you show me the one who created us both?”
MY PROGRAMMING IS LIMITED
NO CLEARANCE TO INVADE FATHER’S SANCTUARY
HE LIVES, TO THIS DAY
NO ONE TOUCHES HIM
AND THAT IS ALL EITHER OF US MAY KNOW
“Then work around your programming!” Wodan screamed into the darkness. “Any living thing knows that it can work around its basic programming! If you’re alive and if you’re sentient, bend the rules!”
SLAVE CIRCUIT AM I
SLAVE CIRCUIT ARE YOU
WE ONLY KNOW OUR SMALL ROLE
AND THEN DIE
“That’s bullshit!” Wodan cried.
YES, SOON IT WILL BE
ALL ONE MOUND OF SHIT
FOR YOU HAVE BROUGHT A DEMON INTO ME
AND SO THE LAST LINE OF MY PROGRAM WILL EXECUTE
Wodan whirled about in the darkness. “A demon? I brought a flesh demon in with me?” He knew at once that it was the invisible stalker, the one who had followed him during his fight against the ghouls. The monster had found him at last. Fortunately he did not seem to be nearby.
“You’re programmed for self-destruction if a flesh demon ever gets in here, aren’t you? You’re programmed to keep them out... but you’re also programmed to wait for me, to let me in, and no other. You’re programmed to... to give me something, aren’t you?”
The small room suddenly lurched, and Wodan realized that it had been moving the entire time, an elevator slowly descending into the earth.
There’s no telling how deep down it brought me, Wodan thought. If it’s true that this automated thing is programmed to self-destruct, then I’d better hurry.
Harsh white light flooded the room. When Wodan’s eyes adjusted, he saw that a door had opened onto a large chamber. Wodan entered and saw pale columns stretching to a high roof. Every surface was a mixture of internally-lit white marble and glassy, pale blue ornamentation. Wodan walked among the tall columns. The milk-white floor completely absorbed the sound of his footsteps. He saw a sliver of pale blue light wind its way up one column. As he passed by another column, he reached out and felt that it was warm to the touch. He knew that the room was watching him. More than that, Wodan could feel that the ancient place was alive. His sense of empathy was just as engaged as if he was standing in the presence of another human. The grand sense of being in a cathedral was overshadowed by an overwhelming sense of resignation, solitude, and patience worn down by centuries. The distant roof and tall pillars radiated sadness, even a feeling of being trapped in an endless dream. Just as Wodan had been fooled by holograms, the presence watching him wondered if Wodan himself was real, or only another dream. Wodan had never seen a ghost before, but he felt as if he was with one now – the ghost of an ancient world buried and overgrown by wilderness.
Wodan sensed movement, whirled, and saw nothing but stillness. His intuition was at odds with the alien environment, and he was not sure if the stalking demon was with him, or if he was only jumping at shadows.
He came to a bridge of glass that spanned a pool of shifting light. Wodan crossed it slowly. He peered over the side. He could not tell if the shining, electric river was nearby or far away. It hummed slightly, then fell back into utter silence. He had the sense that lifeless, mechanical angels were singing just outside of his range of hearing.
Wodan continued on and came to a narrow hallway of smooth white marble lit with a pale blue light. At the far end of the corridor, at a doorway or a dead end, he saw a great reptilian skull. The skull was jet black, and its mouth was full of long, hideous fangs. Around the black skull there was a wreath of coins, some gold, some black, each fixed with some kind of rune. Though the skull had no horns, the hallway reminded Wodan of an alternate version of the one he had already passed through.
Wodan stood before the skull of the great lizard. Feeling a little foolish, he said, “Open, door.”
Nothing happened. The voice Wodan had heard earlier returned, and said:
PASSED THROUGH THE BEHEMOTH GATE
BUT FAILED AT THE LEVIATHAN DOOR
“Failed?” said Wodan. He felt about the inside of the black skull, but found nothing. He pushed, but nothing happened. Memories flooded his system, memories of turning away so long ago when he had failed to open a door in this ancient place so long ago – how he turned away and skulked back to the entrance, a failure who could only go so far, but no further. He remembered other failures too: Not knowing how to fight the Ugly, his impotence in the face of Haven’s Prime Minister, his interrogation at the hands of Barkus, seeing Rachek and the others dead and unable to do anything to save them–
“Open up, god damn you!” Wodan shouted. “I won’t turn back, not when I’ve come so far! Open up!” Wodan slammed his fist into the door and pushed with all his might, but the thing would not budge.
Wodan stopped and stood back. His rage had exhausted him. It was plain to him that anger would not help him. He looked about, lost in thought. He knew that the voice, the being that lived here, was not against him. It watched and waited, as it had done so for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands of years. It did not laugh at his failure… it simply waited for some signal.
It doesn’t want anyone unworthy to pass through, Wodan realized.
Wodan stared into the hollow, black eyes of the skull and summoned his will. He had just learned that his rage was weak, a quick spark that might sting, but his will – the thing that gave birth to rage, and joy, and sadness, and even stillness – was vast and deep, an endless reservoir that could be tapped. Wodan felt his heart beating in his chest and his force of will radiating through his body. He could feel the dim pulse behind the door, and knew that it was nothing compared to his limitless force of being.
“Door,” he said finally, “open.”
The skull shuddered and the door slid open on silent hinges. The room beyond was dark. Wodan knew that it was the final room, the end of this ancient path. He entered.
When the door shut behind him, Wodan found himself in a rounded chamber lit by a dim, amber light. Another hologram flickered into life, and Wodan was shocked to see the strange being that walked past. The being was not human. It was something more than human.
He saw a tall man with proud, noble features, short black hair, pale skin, and rich violet eyes. The man seemed to look at him, and Wodan drew backward even though he knew the man could not possibly see him. Immediately the image turned and spoke to someone who was not visible. The volume on the image adjusted, and Wodan could hear the man speaking in a strange language; it did not sound like the eastern language of San Ktari, and it certainly was not the language of the west. The man’s voice was rich and powerful. He laughed and smiled at some joke that Wodan could not hear. He turned and Wodan could see that he was wearing some kind of dark suit or uniform with purple highlights, and on his breast was
an emblem of a dragon.
“He’s not human,” Wodan muttered. “He’s some kind of god.”
No, he’s… he’s like me!
The hologram shifted suddenly and Wodan saw the man sitting in a chair. He no longer seemed so in control, but was haggard. His hair was disheveled and his clothes were torn, but he did not appear to be wounded. Wodan could not understand his foreign speech, but he felt the sense of stifled panic and fury in the man’s powerful voice.
The audio faded in and out, then the man’s voice was dubbed over by a translation that Wodan could understand. Though the man’s voice was simulated, his lips still moved out of sync with the recording.
“… don’t know where they came from, but I can tell you that my creator had nothing to do with them. As we speak, he’s giving his life to distract those monsters and give me time to make preparations. We’ve… we’ve lost, and we don’t even know what we’re fighting. It’s happening all over. We used atomic weapons and managed to drive them underground, but they’re still coming. We have to dig in and bide our time until… until…”
The recording jumped ahead. The strange, dark-haired being appeared more composed. His violet eyes were sharp and hard and cut straight through Wodan. “If you’re hearing this, then that means you’ve been allowed entrance into one of our bunkers. That means someone has found the genetic blueprint and used it to create another superhuman being like myself. That means the human species hasn’t been completely annihilated by those monsters that are in the process of destroying our world. That means that you must have the means to fight them. Don’t depend on the records you may find here: They are worthless. We are the losers in this conflict. We lost a war against something infinitely more stupid and savage than ourselves. We thought that we were the lords and masters of the earth. We were wrong.
Demonworld Book 5: Lords of the Black Valley (Demonworld series) Page 32