by Renard, Loki
Looking down at myself, I see much the same form as I am used to seeing, a fact which further adds to the strangeness of having passed. I am beginning to think that nobody ever goes anywhere. Time and space simply slip around us all, making us think we are the authors of our existence, but really it is nothing more than a consistent mirage.
“YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE.”
I had hoped to hear Tres’ voice, but that is not her voice. It is male and deep and it resonates. I turn toward the source of the voice, and see a tall, hooded figure coming toward me. I cannot see a face. It is holding a piece of gardening equipment in a bony hand while the other rises and points toward me, as if trying to clarify that I am the subject of what it is saying.”
“YOU… DO NOT… BELONG HERE,” it intones again. “BEGONE! BEGONE!”
I was not sure what kind of reception I would receive, but this hostility is entirely human - and utterly foolish. I have not come to the end of mortality to be told to leave.
“Give me Tres, and I will leave,” I say. “Your human mythologies speak many times about going into the underworld and then returning. I know it’s possible.”
“IT IS POSSIBLE. BUT. NOT TYPICAL.”
The being somehow shouts and whispers at the same time.
“But it happens, according to the tales, and it appears to be happening now. Bring me the girl Tres, and I will begone with her. She will never return to the world you guard. She will be taken to the stars and live for eternity there.”
“NO.”
“YES.” I mimic the creature’s tone. There is something officious about him, as if he feels as though he has the right to decide the fate of all. I do not listen to the one authority a scythkin is supposed to - the first hatched from the clutch. I will not listen to this gaunt creature who appears to be mostly garment.
“BRING ME TRES. NOW.”
“N…” He begins to refuse, but I will not ask again.
I grab him by the throat. The cloak gives under my hand until I am gripping nothing but ethereal cloth. He doesn’t have a neck, but it doesn’t matter. He gets my meaning - and meaning is all that matters here. I may not have a physical form any more than he does, but my soul is aflame with the intention to find her at any cost.
“Take me to Tres,” I say, my voice returning to its usual register of cruel calm. “I will not leave without her, and I will visit hell you cannot imagine on this realm until I have her.”
“You can’t threaten Death.”
There’s another voice now, coming from somewhere to my rear. This dark glade of voices is disconcerting, but I have purpose, and no voice can stop me.
“I am,” I growl.
“I mean, you can, but it won’t work. It only serves to confuse him. And he’ll just…”
There is a soft sound of deflation as whatever inhabited the cloak escapes my grasp. Physical approaches may not work as well down here as I might hope. In a realm of spirit, might does not come from muscle. It comes from intention, and intensity, and I have more determination than anyone here.
There is a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see a creature behind me. It has goat legs and a human torso, horns on its head and curling rust red hair. It looks at me with a smile which begs to be wiped off. Before I can do it, the creature speaks again.
“I have what you’re looking for.”
“Tres?”
“Come with me.”
Do I have any choice? Of course I do. If this is death, then I am just as powerful, if not more, than in life. The lack of a body does not inhibit me, perhaps because it was never my body which made me powerful. It was my spirit.
“Where is she? Do you know her? Has she survived?”
“Nobody and nothing down here has survived.”
“I appear to have.”
“Appearances are deceiving. That is the way of them.”
“I don’t believe in the illusion of death. I have seen too many worlds slide out of the ether, dimensions combining, cosmic energies entwining, to think that any being is limited to its meat.”
“That’s a fun philosophy,” the creature says. “It makes no difference, of course. Ultimate reality follows its own laws without reference to your ideas. Or your anger. Or your lust. Or what you might think of as love.”
I don’t like this creature.
“What is your name?”
“Lykar.”
“Sounds like Liar.”
“It does, doesn’t it.”
I have my suspicions, but I am also freshly dead and having attacked death itself, I am without a guide in this realm. This being, inherently mischievous as it is, knows me somehow. Or it seems to.
“Where is Tres?”
“I have her,” he says.
“You have her? Give her to me.”
“Oh no,” he replies. “There will be no giving, and no taking. She is not yours to have. She is mine, and I intend to keep her.” He looks at me with an amused stare. “And you too.”
“I am scythkin.”
“You are nothing but dead matter,” he laughs. “You do not belong in this realm, but you are here, as vulnerable as any newborn, ripe for the taking.”
“I am here, therefore I belong. Anywhere I did not belong, I could not be. Now take me to my woman. If you call me a newborn again, I will rip your asshole out through your nose.”
“If I had either of those body parts, or a body at all, that might be a valid threat,” he laughs. “You don’t understand, scythkin. There is no matter down here, just thought.”
“I can come up with some very violent thoughts if I need to,” I growl. “Where is Tres?”
“She is in my home,” he says.
“Take me to her.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because she is mine.”
“Simple thoughts for a simple creature,” he laughs again. I hate his laugh, it is mocking. It doesn’t just mock me. It mocks everything. All existence is a joke to this lying beast of the dead.
“She’s not yours. You don’t even know what she is.”
“I don’t need to know what she is.”
“Of course you do. You met a girl on a planet and you mated with her, and now you think you have some claim to her eternal soul?”
I do not have the patience for this. I have given everything to find Tres, and now I find my path blocked by a lying, stinking wretch of an animal who dares stand in my way. I reach for Lykar, catching his horn in my hand, and I drag him toward me.
“Matter seems to be working,” I growl. “Now take me to Tres, before I rip your head from your shoulders and wear it as trophy.”
I see him swallow.
He was not expecting me to be able to do this. He has made the mistake the intellectual always make, thinking that the strong are stupid. But you do not become strong without honing everything, including your soul. I would put my ethereal remnants against those of any sub-realm creature any day.
“You…” he says. “Are… quite a surprise.”
I am finished talking. Instead of responding, I simply begin to twist. I am sure his head will make many more revolutions in this place of the dead than it would in reality, but it will come off eventually.
“Let me go! I will take you to her!” He capitulates almost immediately. Coward. Where is his power?
I release him, expecting a trick, but he turns and leads me through the unnatural trees. I have never trusted forests. They are too easy to lose ones way in with the way they cover the ground, sky, and the horizons, providing a myriad of paths through their endless boughs. I would never find my way back on my own. Perhaps that is what he intends to do, leave me in the depths of the woods forever.
“Don’t get ahead of me too far, goat.”
He turns back, looking over his shoulder. “Afraid, alien?”
“Never.”
Another laugh escapes him. He slows his walk a fraction. He is not trying to lose me, but I know I am lost anyway. I have come through too
many veils through which I was never made to travel. I do not know what will be left of me by the end.
I look around, trying to see if there are any landmarks which might guide my way, but this forest is fractal, not natural. There is a repeated sameness running through it from beginning to end and I get the feeling that I have stepped into the true eternal. There is no end to this. It is infinite, and without a guide…
“Lykar?”
He is gone. I do not know how. Perhaps he skipped behind a tree.
I strain my ears, listening for Tres’ song. That is the only thing I can imagine drawing me to safety, but the forest is silent.
“TRES!?”
I call her name, but still there is silence. No birds. No insects. Not even the sound of the wind. This place is unnaturally calm. Nothing grows here. Nothing dies. Nothing changes. Not even me. I have become like everything here, a static thing in a world that cannot move.
A hand bursts through the mossy soil, grips my ankle, and yanks me down roughly through the ground. I fall, catching myself in a dark tunnel, black as coal but lit with the glow of a myriad of tiny worms which crawl intermittently on the craggy surfaces.
Lykar is standing over me, his eyes twinkling. “My realm is not one for the arrogant,” he says. “If you wish to survive, you will show respect.”
“I thought I was already dead?”
“If you wish to remain found, then,” he says. “It is easy to become lost. And those who are lost, may never be found.”
“TRES!”
I call her name again. I feel as though it must be possible for her to hear me. We are linked, inextricably. She would find me, no matter what. I believe that, though I admit, the belief wanes when Lykar snaps his fingers and I am plunged into perfect darkness. In that hollow place, he speaks.
“This is my world,” he explains. “Here, I am king. Tres is my daughter. She was born of my blood. She is not the simple human you imagine her to be, and she cannot be claimed from me. Your death was brave, alien, but it was senseless. I will offer you this: you may serve us. You will never touch her, but you may look upon her, if she chooses to allow it.”
“She will want me, as I want her. She is my woman.”
“She’s not a woman,” he laughs. “I told you already. She’s my daughter. She’s a faun.”
“Faun?”
He clicks his fingers, returning light to the tunnel, and makes a gesture to himself, pointing himself to the lower part of his body.
“So a faun is part animal, part human.”
“No,” he laughs. “A faun is the whole of the half a human is made from.”
“What?”
“Humans are only partial creatures. They know it too, deep down in the pits of their pathetic little souls. They are what happens when you take half a true creature and send it out into the world. They are all flesh, all weakness.”
Before I died for a human, I would have agreed with him.
“She was human when I saw her. No goat legs.”
“Well, she’s half-faun,” he laughs. “The legs don’t translate to the human form very well, she got them from her mother. The mind, she got from me.”
I am considering killing him, but I suspect that which is already dead cannot die. This is going to be difficult for me, as killing people and things is essentially my only skill. But if were to kill him now, there would be no way out, and no way to Tres.
“I will take any deal to find her again.”
“Be careful where desperation leads, alien,” Lykar says, turning and beckoning me after him. We take but three more steps before coming to a door which I strongly suspect would not have been there if I had taken the steps before he approved.
“She is through this door,” he says. “But, be sure before you step through it, that she is truly what you want above all else. You will sacrifice everything if you cross this threshold.”
I open the door.
Of course, I open the door.
Tres
He’s here.
But I’m not.
I’m not the pretty girl he once knew. The faun legs disgust me, and now he is looking at them, I suddenly feel how gross they are. Gone are the soft curves of my hips, thighs, and calves. Instead I am furred and deformed. I didn’t understand how disgusting I would feel when he saw me again. It seemed so unlikely that I could ever see him again, I forgot about the shame of this half-animal form Lykar has forced upon me.
I’ve changed.
So has he. I do not see the monster who claimed me in the world of the living. I do not see fangs, or horns. I see a man. A handsome, muscular, brave man with a smile which illuminates the room. I have never seen anyone so attractive in all my life, or afterlife. And I’ve never felt so utterly disgusting as I do in this very moment.
I wanted him to come to me. I did not know that having him see me this way would be the most shameful, miserable thing I had ever experienced in any life. I understand, suddenly, what Lykar was saying. My death was the end of my humanity. I called Vulcan to me under false pretenses. He wants the pretty virgin he first made love to, but I am nothing but a stinking animal now.
“Tres,” he says.
His voice has not changed. I would know Vulcan anywhere. He has become human, shed his alien skin. He has given his life for me. And in one overwhelming moment, I know that he could never want me ever again.
“Tres, it is me.”
“It’s you, but it’s not me,” I whimper. “Please, Vulcan. Stop looking at me.”
I try to hide my legs, but he’s already seen them. It is too late.
Vulcan
My beloved Tres is as beautiful as ever. Her fiery curls cascade from her head down over her shoulders, framing the naked beauty of her breasts and belly. But she has been transformed. Her legs and the chalice which once laid between them are gone, and in their place are the legs of a beast, furred and not so much female as animal.
I don’t care. I didn’t expect to find her precisely the same after death as she was in life. I just wanted to find her at all.
“I didn’t come for you because of your legs. I came for you because you are mine.”
“The Tres you know was a weak, pathetic version of her real self,” the faun-king says. “Now you see her as she really is.”
“I’m disgusting,” Tres interjects.
“I wouldn’t care if you were half…” I search for the most ridiculous animal I can think of. “Half-fish! You could have a fish’s tail attached to your waist and I would still want you. You are my mate.”
“I’m not your mate,” Tres says. “I’m a lying monster, just like my father.”
“You never lied to me. You didn’t know the truth.”
“Stop,” she says. “Stop looking at me. I’m a monster.”
“You are no monster. In this place, your form is whatever you see yourself to be. Do not allow this trickster to make you think otherwise. Do not give in to shame, when we are so close to being together forever.”
Lykar is chuckling to himself. I am sure this is his doing, somehow. Some way, this lying little beast is orchestrating this entire mess. I want Tres in my arms, but she won’t come near me. She’s too horrified by how she looks to understand the miracle it has taken to reunite us.
To hell with it. We cannot stay here.
I stride across the room, take my screaming mate by the hand, and throw her up over my shoulder. Her wails continue, but I ignore them. The first time I met Tres, she was singing. The second time, she wanted to die. I have seen her in beauty and in pain, and this little blip in which she has hooves, is just one more obstacle along the way.
“What are you doing!?” Tres and the faun-king cry out at the same time.
There is one way to prove to her I still want her.
It starts with a kiss. A long, passionate, tongue-winding kiss which stops her protests. They trail off into a light moan of the kind I recall so fondly.
“It's me, Tres,” I remind her, brea
king the kiss. “And it’s you. Appearances don’t mean anything down here. They’re your worst fears, and your deepest dreams. They're lies.”
“You’re not a lie, are you?” She whimpers the question. She is so afraid, so lost. But I know how to make her remember. I reach down and I pull her oh so very human legs around my waist, pulling the core of her against my hardness. This is where we joined for eternity when we were on Earth, and it is how I will remind her who she belongs to here.
Tres
His cock is pressing against the soft part of me, the wet female part I had almost forgotten I owned until the rough rod of the alien hidden behind the illusion holding me found it. I hold back a moan as he pushes inside me, taking me with a single thrust and locking me against his hips with strong hands.
“We can’t…”
“We are,” he growls against my mouth, thrusting inside me with every step he takes as he turns around to face the faun-king.
“She’s mine,” he says. “She fits me like a glove, and she always will.”
“Fornicate all you please,” Lykar laughs. “Display your hapless rutting to all the world, there is still no way out of this place.”
“Sing,” he growls to me. “Sing, Tres!”
I sing. It is not the song I sang on the day we met. It is another song. A song of coming home. A beacon.
I see it rise from me. I see it pierce the cave and travel through to the beyond, a bright beam of aural light pulsing with the rise and fall of my song.
I feel the power in my voice, and I know this animal joining between Vulcan and I, this rutting which continues with every thrust is more than sex. It is the fire which stokes my cry, and my song is not just a sound. It is something far more powerful than that.
Trelok always silenced his women, saying their chattering was irritating. The faun-king tried to silence me too, but Vulcan will not allow me to be silenced. He amplifies my song. It gives him power and it unlocks the music which has always been hidden inside me, curled up in a tight little ball of hope and pain and power.
I writhe against Vulcan as I sing and he makes rough, alien love to me. We practiced this in life, this organic, relentless, boundless bonding, and I felt the power in it then, but the power I feel now is so much more intense for being freed from flesh. The song swells and rises as my pleasure grows, my body no longer half-human or half-faun, but instead entirely me.