Charlene positioned the metal pillow behind her neck as she pressed her back to the wall. She could see David out of the corner of her eye, struggling to find a comfortable position for his device, and she felt sure for a moment that Stanwick was about to slap him again. Without warning, West threw one of the blankets at David’s face, and he became completely still and silent, like a bird plunged into immediate night with a towel around its cage.
Charlene rested her head back, feeling the cool of the metal against the bare skin of her shoulders and the crook of her neck. West stood in front of her now, holding the blanket in front of him. He reached forward, and Charlene could see that the material was quite translucent. He flicked his wrists, opening his fingers, and Charlene felt the silky fabric wrapping about her face.
“How do I start it?” She could see both Stanwick and West through the fabric, surprisingly clearly, “What am I supposed to do? How do I make it work?”
West sat down on the floor, crossing his legs and leaning his weight back on his arms, “It’s going to feel disorienting. The first time on the hopper, it can take anything up to a couple of minutes for your brain to register what’s happening, because the most recent memory will create a sort of feedback loop. It will feel as if nothing has happened, and your instinct will be to step away from the wall. If you can, fight that instinct and rather imagine yourself stepping away from the wall.”
It occurred to Charlene that she’d heard West say this only minutes ago, and thinking about those words, she started to wonder about what she was experiencing. She imagined stepping away from the wall, and she felt the room move about her, even though she was aware of the weight of her body still pressed against the wall. She could hear West’s voice now, although as she looked at him, she could see that his lips weren’t moving.
“The first thing you’ll see is the room you are in right now, with us standing watching you. It’s going to feel like nothing is happening. You’ll probably be able to hear me talking to you at first, although that will depend on how relaxed you are; if you’re feeling comfortable about the experience, your brain might block out auditory input immediately …”
West stopped talking, and Charlene started to laugh, amused by how easy the experience was to control once the floodgates of comprehension had burst. She stepped forwards, and it felt as if she was leaving her body behind her. She turned to look, and sure enough, there she was, face covered in a blanket of stars. She turned to face West and Stanwick, and they both sat motionless, waiting for her to command them, or rather … She bent down close to West, touched his face, apprehensively at first, then once she was confident that he wasn’t about to move, she stroked his cheek and leaned in close enough to see every pore of his skin. It wasn’t like a dream but neither was it like reality; her eyes didn’t lose focus as she moved closer, she could see every detail of West’s skin with absolute clarity, even when she brought her face to within a centimeter of his.
She looked at Stanwick, her still body, motionless eyes, frozen, beautiful. She didn’t dare step closer. She thought about the wall which she was actually stood against, the rills, the leeches, the many ways in which her mind was now opened to the other people in the room with her. Surely, if Stanwick was touching the wall right now, she would know exactly how closely she was being examined by Charlene. No matter, Charlene wasn’t going to test those waters. Instead, she thought about the gunshot, and the bullet tearing into the flesh of David’s leg, and instantly, the room about her transformed, and she found herself standing between Stanwick and David. The music pounding was too much, she thought, and was about to raise her hands to cover her ears when the music was suddenly silenced. She heard the click, and the thunder of the gunshot filling the room. This wasn’t what she had wanted.
The scene reset, gun raised, finger pulling slowly, Charlene leaned close and watched the tendons of Stanwick’s hand flex as the trigger clicked. There was a burst of flame as the bullet left the gun, an almost perfect ring of fire left in the wake. She thought of the Johnny Cash song, and she stepped forward, leaning her face into the glowing halo, waving her hand through the bullet.
Before the bullet moved any further, the floor of the room started to fill up with bodies, blood stained, beaten or worse, dismembered. The fireball faded, pierced by shafts of bright daylight which burst into the room from all sides. She could see the walls of the apartment splitting at their seams, cracking with searing white waves before she became completely overwhelmed and was forced to cover her eyes. When she lowered her arm and peered about her, she found herself standing in a vast courtyard, open to the sky, the distant walls of a building curving about a scene of bloodshed and war on either side of her.
She looked down into a devastated face by her feet, bloodshot eyes staring skyward, gaping mouth bearing bloodied gums and cracked teeth. She wanted to scream, because the whole expanse of the courtyard was filled with such ruination and slaughter. Stanwick was right; this was unlike any dream Charlene had experienced. More stupefying in its gratuitous detail, more hideous in its wanton savagery; the scene around her was so far beyond Charlene’s worst imaginings. And where were the perpetrators? Where were the vile instruments of such annihilation?
Her field of view moved unbidden, and she saw her legs pick themselves up, stepping over a mound of bodies. West’s legs, she checked herself; West’s body moving, West’s eyes seeing. She wondered that it might be easier to stomach if she wasn’t seeing this from West’s perspective, and as the thought occurred to her, West stepped out in front of her and she was freed of that constraint. She watched as West joined a huddle of five other people, three men, and two women. The scene froze as Charlene stopped to try and get a handle on what she was seeing. She experimented a little, directing her mind’s eye, pulling the field of view up as far as it would go and she found that anything beyond West’s line of sight left dark gaps in her vision. She could turn the scene around, and see the landscape behind him, but in the distance, there was inky blackness.
She swooped back down to ground level, and examined the faces of the other members of the group. There was perhaps consternation, or determination, but no signs of guilt there. No hand wringing self-accusation. West looked much the same as he had done in the living room of his apartment a few minutes ago, and Charlene wondered if that was because of her own experience of West, or because he had always looked that way. The other three men had a strange familiarity about their faces, but she wasn’t quite able to put her finger on why that was. She looked at the women now, moving closer to them. Although she appeared to be a good deal younger here, Stanwick’s eyes gave her away, that same piercing turquoise, the almond curve of her eyelids. Her hair was lighter, and she seemed shorter, less muscular, but it was still definitely Stanwick Thrass. The other woman was also strangely familiar, strong features, tall, blond hair tied off in a ponytail, Charlene knew her face, but again, she couldn’t quite place her.
Allowing the scene to recommence Charlene watched as Stanwick stepped towards one of the men, throwing an arm over his shoulder for support as she rolled her ankle, wincing in pain. West spoke, his eyes fixed on Stanwick and the man … no, now that Charlene looked at him, she could see that he was no more than a boy, “Ahken, there’s no more, not out here at least. They’re waiting for us to take the fight to them now. Look!” West pointed to the distant entrance to the courtyard, where Charlene could see that thousands of civilian fighters were pouring in behind them, “This is your army now. If they dwell too long on this scene, they will every one of them lose heart. You need to lead them. They’re here because of you.”
Before he could say another word, it was Stanwick that pulled off from the pack and started running towards the building with breathtaking speed, the boy following immediately after her. Charlene knew the name of the building now as she looked at the dominating architecture, the ornate detailing of the pillars, the undulating forms of beautifully hewn stone. She knew, because West knew. This was the D
annustine Palace, and the courtyard they were standing in was the place that bore daily witness to the zenith pyres.
She moved after the two figures, her vision pulling forward in one smooth motion. She paused to admire the grandiose doorway that Stanwick was about to pass into, Stanwick’s limbs frozen mid flight. Either side of the dark tunnel ahead, thick pillars stood proud, perfect depictions of the musculature of a human calf and shin, veins and all, with immaculately carved leeches, polished to a sheen, climbing, and boring into these stone legs. Charlene took a moment to cast her gaze about the whole courtyard, and she noticed that at the outskirts, towards the gates of the palace, the pillars were quite commonplace, carved in a similar style to the spiraling forms of solomnic pillars, but in succession, as she moved back towards the entrance to the palace, so the pillars grew more ornate and grotesque. These carvings continued into the tunnel, the walls decorated in deep relief sculptures, depicting oddly distorted bodies, marching towards the dark. There, suspended mid-flight, his body poised like a Hellenestic sculpture of athleticism, the boy Ahken, dreamer of the magnificent dream, future President of America, founder of the Economic Unification Council. She felt suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, crying inside, perhaps actually crying beneath the glardium weave veil she wondered, her body thirty-thousand years away, pressed against the wall of West’s apartment. Who would this boy become, in the interim, in parenthesis, in the thirty-thousand year shuffle that would lead to his assassination in New York.
She looked back at West, and understanding that she could only really see what he could see, she felt frustrated that he hadn’t even started to run after the others. She allowed the scene to move, and Stanwick and Ahken were quickly lost in the darkness ahead of her until West reached the entrance of the palace. Light spilled into the scene, and again, Charlene brought the movement almost to a stop, watching the slow symphony of muscle and fabric. She moved deeper into the corridor,where in the half light, two figures moved as one, their feet falling and arms pumping in synchronized rhythm of form. Charlene pushed in closer, moving about them as they ran in mime, their determined faces sinking into the shadows ahead of them. They were beautiful these two, heartbreakingly perfect, cast by the leeches in an idealized frame, each of their bodies at the same time a vehicle, temple, and animal.
In the dark distance, as West started to catch up, Charlene could see now that Ahken and Stanwick were about to be met by two more figures, their pupils glistening, light reflected from some delver woven estimation of tapetum lucidum. West knew … Dannustine Guards, Blood-Brood night hunters prowling, their trap set, two pairs of sparkling deadly emeralds bobbing and weaving. Stanwick leaped forwards, somersaulting and twisting as she went, closing the gap between her and the guards quickly. As she neared them, she tucked her knees up towards her chest, then uncoiled midair, her hands grabbing one of the men by the head, her feet catching either side of the other man’s neck, flooring the two easily with the forward momentum she had gathered. Before the guards had an opportunity to react, Ahken was on one of them, clawing at him, ducking his head out of the way as Stanwick untangled herself and pinned the other one.
For a moment, Charlene was fascinated by the brutality with which the attack happened, but when the men stopped shouting, she had to look away. Ahead there were hundreds of these guards sprinting towards them, every one of them a hungry and primed predator, body’s twitching in the strobe light cast through the flailing forms and the sheer mass of bodies flooding in through the arched entrance behind her. West broke off from the pack and started running towards the walls, effortlessly transitioning into crawling, hand over foot, cunning fingers finding easy purchase on the sculptural decorations, dragging him in writhing fluidity towards the ceiling. The pack followed his lead, every one of them climbing the sculpted surface as easily, faces all ferocity and focus.
West and Stanwick lay outstretched on the hardwood floor of the apartment, both gazing up at the ceiling.
“How many times have you gone over the events of the fall West?”
West noticed a thin crack in the plaster surface of the ceiling and made a mental note that he should do something about it, “It’s not really something I look back on fondly Stan.”
Stanwick turned her head so that she could see West’s profile as he spoke, “I know it was necessary; of course it was. I made a lot of mistakes.”
Stanwick laughed, “Come on, surely you’ve forgiven yourself by now?”
West caught a glimpse of Stanwick’s smiling face out of the corner of his eye and he smiled, “I’ve forgiven myself, it doesn’t mean I want to relive it.”
Stanwick reached towards him with her hand and nudged his shoulder, “I don’t believe you.”
He smirked, “I’ve relived the year I met you and Ahken twice in its entirety in the last fifty years; I only stopped to eat and sleep occasionally."
“No shit?”
West nodded silently, still smiling.
Stanwick gazed back up at the ceiling, “It’s a shame Charlene has to skim it … I’m jealous that she’s watching it right now.” She rolled over and leaned forwards, touching the wall, closing her eyes to the apartment, “She’s going to be on this all night. She hasn’t even made it to the bowl yet.”
“Where’s David?”
Stanwick snorted, “David is well and truly skimming. He’s almost through the Mythologue. He’s already witnessed the birth of the destroyer.”
West listened to the shuffling sounds as Stanwick lay back down beside him, “Do you still think of him as Ahken?”
Stanwick stretched her arms over her head, focusing her eyes on a simple silver ring on her left hand, “You know I almost thought I loved him West. Would I have been the only girl in Allim who felt that way?” She knew the question warranted no answer, “Tell me you haven’t loved him and hated him in equal measure. When has he ever been anything other than everything he dreamed of. He’ll always be Ahken, no matter how many incarnations his personality goes through.”
“I’m sure you’ve lived through that year so many times you could recite everything that happened word for word.” West prodded Stanwick as he cast his mind back to a time when she too was idolized by the people of Allim.
“You ass!” Stanwick reached her leg towards him and kicked his ankle playfully, “I was seventeen, I didn’t know what to make of any of it; when the things Ahken saw started to come true, everything was turned on its head. If you hadn’t come onto the scene, do you think things would have played out the same way?”
West shook his head, “I’ve already said Stanwick; I made mistakes. Returning to Allim was a mistake but no one person was responsible for what followed. You know as well as I do that no one would have survived those events if it hadn’t been for the war.”
Stanwick raised herself up on her elbows, watching Charlene’s minuscule muscle spasms as she experienced the events of the final days of Allim from the safety of the hopper, “Do you remember the first time you saw her?”
“Charlene you mean?”
“I know it’s her. I’d have recognized her from her mannerisms alone, even if she wasn’t so fucking perfect.” Harsh words, but there was no bitterness in her voice.
West felt the weight of the room closing in about him. He’d listened to his own lie so many times that he’d almost allowed himself to believe that their meeting had been serendipitous.
“I tried to avoid it you know? I thought I’d be able to spare her.”
Stanwick smiled to herself, remembering the first time she’d seen Charlene, the hours she’d spent watching her, every facet of her face committed to memory an eternity ago, always knowing. She contemplated letting his deceit slide, but she couldn’t stop herself, “Bullshit West. I’m not judging, but stop lying to yourself. And don’t think for a second you can lie to me.”
“I had five of the scourge chasing me, and yes, I knew what was coming, of course I knew. I could have picked another door.”
“T
hat. Right there West. Absolute bullshit.” She rolled onto her side and stared at him, “You were there the same reason I was in London in 73, the same reason Reiner was in Irkutsk in 86, and the same reason Petra was in Paraguay in 54” She lay back down, sinking into the memory of the first time she’d played through the end. Her end.
They had all seen glimpses of what was to come, certainly those who would still be at Ahken’s side when he came into office knew more or less exactly how their destiny would play out. However, for most of Allim’s children, the details, the minutia, the finer points all stopped abruptly at some point in the late 19th century. There was no mystery. The glardium cube had started to reach capacity, hopper tuning out everything except the most important details of the recording. Stanwick was one of the fortunate ones, because she turned up in the bigger picture, hanging around DC while Ahken was on the campaign trail, but certainly, there were gaps in her history. West’s recording crapped out many years earlier, in a bookstore, in New York, his pupils dilating to soak up every detail of the darkness, then expanding further in that instant of recognition. “Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.” Stanwick clenched her teeth as she remembered the first time she’d heard the words and watched the smile form on Charlene’s lips. It had come as a painful life lesson. Avoid spoilers.
David had grasped that he could speed up or slow down the pace of events, but he had witnessed everything from West’s perspective, sometimes fighting as rear guard, protecting Stanwick and Ahken from flanking attacks, and at other times, crawling about the ceilings of the palace, so that the world spun nauseatingly, bodies leaping in a topsy-turvy aerial ballet. Once the battle had spilled outside of the walls of the city, David had held out some small hope that it would become easier to deal with the dizziness of it all, but West had a habit of flinging himself into full on brawls, and therein, being tossed brutally about the blood strewn fields. So David skipped a lot, so what? He got the gist. It was a more visceral gist than he had of any battle he’d learned about in school, or from any of the historical dramas he’d seen at the cinema over the years.
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 20