by Garon Whited
This is enormously helpful in countering the gravity. My spells for warping spacetime to produce gravitic alterations are limited. However, much like the conversion panels, they can be stacked. Unlike the conversion panels, they are three-dimensional, not two. To alter the shape of space, they have to define a space. So they’re spheres. The objective is to flatten out the “rubber sheet” the enormous mass of the black hole is stretching. Inside the sphere immediately around the far end of the gate, the spell does its best, but it’s an enormous amount of distortion to damp out.
But if I put another sphere around it, the stress inside is reduced. Then the inner sphere only deals with that.
Sadly, this is insufficient. It takes quite a few concentric spheres of space-stabilizers to reduce the pull through the gate to something negligible. Fortunately, the conversion panels can feed both their own replication function and the stabilizer spheres.
It occurs to me I could expand on this principle. I could build a self-replicating layer of conversion panels—kind of like the multiple layers around one of the mountain’s reaction points, but flat, like a shield. This power-conversion shield could be projected through a gate in the path of an astronomical jet, converting an enormous amount of energy into magical potential. I’m talking about energies measured not in how many times more powerful than the Sun, but thousands of times more powerful than the combined output of every star in the galaxy!
I do not need to be opening portals to the inside of the Sun. I definitely do not need to be fooling around with portals having to do with quasars. What the hell am I doing!?
I’m getting rid of the Black Ball, that’s what I’m doing, damn it! And this—even this!—may not get rid of it permanently. If it’s truly indestructible, I may only be locking it up for a few quadrillion millennia. I hope it dies a hideous death in the cosmic garbage disposal, but I’ll settle for imprisoning it.
After much trial and error, I found my minimum distance. The conversion panels could feed the mini-gate to maintain it, but establishing it in the first place required only the power I had on hand. Close enough. Once I found my vantage point, it was time to charge everything up again, snack on my captive dazhu, and get ready to knock an evil eight-ball into a cosmic corner pocket.
I donned my armor, readied my spells, and charged my pitching gate. I took a minute to carve a chunk of rock into a rough approximation of the Orb and heave it around a few times, practicing. Since the Orb would be smooth, even slick, I settled on a two-handed method, holding it close to the chest and thrusting it forward. This wouldn’t give me the same speed as a one-handed, roundhouse pitch, but it would minimize fumbling and improve my accuracy.
Bronze kicked the Orb ringingly, freeing it from its divot, to position it in front of my gates. I took a moment to prepare, ignoring the surge of anger and fear from it.
That thing is mad, Boss.
“You think?” I asked, tugging my gauntlets to settle them firmly.
It knows—well, it thinks—you’re planning to imprison it, or destroy it if you can.
“Good. I’d hate to surprise it.”
Now you’re just being mean.
“Yes.”
About time. You could stand to be less nice.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking that kind of advice from a bloodthirsty weapon.”
Bloodthirsty? Look who’s talking.
I didn’t have a good reply, so I ignored it.
The pitching gate was about twice the size of the Orb to allow for possible inaccuracies due to air rush and personal clumsiness. It shimmered, funneled away, snapped close, and the air around us roared through. I was ready for it, leaning back a bit with one foot already planted and braced. I reached down and hefted the Orb—
Note for the future: Gauntlets are not sufficient. Enchant special anti-evil oven mitts.
We were in my head. I recognized the ruined wasteland of my undermind. The Orb was me, a dark me, a caricature gone to evil—ears drawn up to sharp points, eyebrows slanted, cheekbones sharp, cheeks hollow, fangs twice as long, eyes like black pits with sullen red flames at the bottom. It leaped at me, going for my throat. I caught it by the wrists, avoiding the pointed talons.
I should not refer to my own fingernails as talons. Claws, maybe. Now I’ve seen talons up close and the wrong way ’round.
“I refuse!” it screamed. Behind it, the rubble and dirt shivered.
“Get out of my head,” I grated, struggling as it tried harder for my face and neck. My grip was firm but it was monstrously strong—about as strong as I was.
“I will not go! You cannot do this! You will not do this!” it howled, thrusting me back, my feet sliding on the pitted street.
“The hell you say! You’ve been a headache ever since you were created! You’re getting flushed down the cosmic toilet if I have to plunge you with… both… hands!” I heaved, halting my backward slide. Its eyes widened with fear and rage.
“You will not! I FORBID IT!”
“You can’t stop me!”
“I can!” it crowed. “I am stronger than you will ever know, and the darkness within you, twin to my own, gives me even greater strength! See! Your own evils grow stronger with my presence. They would overwhelm you one day even without me!”
The shivering of the rubble and dirt gave birth to ten thousand crawling insecurities. Anxieties clawed their way to the surface. A dark, living carpet of horrors and fears chittered and clacked and slithered forward.
“You have my worse side on yours,” I agreed, “but I have something you don’t!” I shoved, as hard as I could, but the dark version of me was too strong to topple. It grunted and held its ground only with great effort.
“What do you have?” it sneered, teeth clenched tight. It slackened slightly, fighting a holding action while the mass of crawling horror around us closed in.
“Friends.”
Firebrand, for all its violent, volatile nature, liked me better than my Demon King aspect. I was more fun. And, in its own self-centered way, it wanted me in control. It blazed in my mind, a bar of fire and light, driving back some of the dark.
Bronze thundered out of the shadows, eyes glowing a hot yellow, hooves dancing with blue-green lightning. She was the better part of me, the best part of me. It didn’t matter that I had a darker nature. It didn’t matter that I was sometimes foolish or brutish. Bronze was a part of me and would help me be a better person, come what may.
The blade of fire danced among the lesser darkness, cutting broad swathes through it. Bronze stomped a four-beat flamenco, breathing fire, shedding blue-green lightning like rain as she ran among my personal horrors. They crushed and burned and killed, reducing anything coming near us to ash, crumbling them into powder to sink into the ground again.
My evil twin gnashed teeth, a neat trick with fangs.
For a moment, I wondered where my altar ego was. Realization smacked me in the face about the same time the Demon King did. As a copy of my spirit, all the darkness living in me must also live in him. The last thing we needed was to risk both of us when the Orb would enhance every dark and terrible thought all out of proportion.
We struggled, there in some disembodied realm of the psyche, wrestling with light, shadow, and dark. It felt as though we were embodied even while fighting in the under-realms of my mind. Would a wound here be reflected in my flesh? Or would it merely be a memory, a scar on my psyche? How real is a dream? Can a dream change who you are, alter the fundamental beliefs of a soul? How real does it need to be?
Come to that, how long did we struggle? A minute? Ten minutes? An instant of frozen time, stretching to eternity?
I vaguely felt the gate spell expend itself, distantly became aware the air no longer howled and sang through the hole into space. Yet, even with the gate closed, still the Orb struggled to achieve control, pitting its strength against mine, struggling to seize me and control me. I wanted to drop the Orb, to sever the physical contact, but to move my body I would
have to divert my attention from my adversary…
Something shifted. We both rocked, as though the ground slithered beneath us, but it was nothing within my mind. It was a sensation of movement, of something physical. Something outside my skull. The embodiment of the Orb screamed, funneling all its hatred and rage at me. My evil twin shifted his attack, giving way against my push, now pulling me, falling, rolling, flipping me up and over with a terrible strength.
Now I know how humans feel when I throw them around.
It spun and sprang even as I rolled to my feet. We both went down again in a tackle, squirming, turning, both trying to land on top. It succeeded, hands finding my throat, but I managed to raise my right knee between us. The grip tightened while my nemesis screamed rage, eyes burning. It seemed to forget its own talons, intent on choking the life out of me. Or did it really want me dead? Could it be trying to dominate, to control again? Could it own my body if I wasn’t in it? Did the binding in the Orb affect his possession abilities?
All this flashed through my mind as it clutched at my throat and I tried to push him away. The grip was like iron. I raised my fists between his arms, trying to break the hold. Once. Twice. It was too strong, here and now, so I raised my left knee, trying for the groin, but my evil twin bucked and shifted away slightly. My right knee was still up between us, though, forcing us to arms’ length. I grasped one wrist and struck upward at the elbow, two quick, powerful blows, and the arm folded the wrong way.
My adversary screamed again, in both rage and fear as I drew a breath. The arm straightened, obviously regenerating, but I punched for the open mouth, breaking a fang. In this moment of startled pain, I forced the other hand from my throat and pushed with my leg, shifting enough to overbalance my attacker, preparatory to rolling aside.
A wracking convulsion hit me out of nowhere, as though my whole body tried to rip itself apart. It wasn’t a psychic thing. It didn’t happen in my head. This was a physical sensation powerful enough to penetrate even my subconscious focus.
Even as I convulsed, there on the filthy, ruined streets of my undermind, my adversary, my nemesis, was wrenched away from me. He rose into the air. He gave a great, wailing cry, struggling to reach me, but he accelerated upward into the roiling, dirty sky. His anguished scream faded into the distance and cut off as he vanished into the lightning-shot clouds.
Boss! We’ve got a lot of Things still to deal with!
Regardless, I lay there for a moment, recovering. There’s a special horror involved in a fistfight against your nemesis in the basement of your brain for control of your soul. Trust me on this one. I needed a moment.
Boss! Firebrand wailed, flailing and flaming.
Okay, fine. Moment over. Someday—maybe someday soon—I’m going to take a goddam vacation.
I rolled over onto my face and pushed myself up. A whole sea of horrors surrounded us. Firebrand was circling like a mad comet of fire while Bronze galloped around more slowly, stomping and flaming anything making it past the fiery barrier.
We existed in a metaphor of my thoughts. The basement is merely a visualization. We don’t need stairs. We only need to exit. For that, all we need—all I need—is an appropriate metaphor.
I checked my clothes and, of course, my cloak appeared around my shoulders. I seized the edges, swirled it around me, and everything was dark.
I threw back my cloak as I lay on dirt and rocks at the Edge of the World for a moment, stunned. Whole groups of muscles—legs, back, arms—quivered in reaction to some exertion. Faintly, I heard a psychic whisper from my altar ego.
Don’t say I never did anything for you.
And the rest was silence.
I waited another minute, blinking at the stars, while my regeneration continued to repair damage in most of my major muscle groups. What are the Rethvan stars? Other worlds? Other Firmaments in the great void? Do they twinkle because chaos entities move between us, or because of some distorting effect of the Firmament? I’m not sticking my head into the void to look, but if I ever do build a void-sailing vessel, I should go find out.
I sat up and looked around. My knees were bent, my feet still planted flat and buried a good three inches into the grass and dirt. I kicked my way free and stood.
“Firebrand? Bronze? What just happened? Where’s the Black Ball?”
Don’t ask me, Boss. I was busy with other Things.
Bronze snorted thick smoke and shook her mane, tossed her head toward the Edge of the World. I looked where she looked. It was some distance away, but I might have seen a dark dot vanish in the misty sea of infinity. Bronze nodded. It was out there, somewhere, falling away from the world through a formless sea of chaos.
I watched for several would-be heartbeats, but any sign of it had already vanished into the formless writhing of the void.
While I fought the Orb—along with Firebrand and Bronze—my altar ego stayed out of it, keeping itself from being touched and potentially contaminated, consumed, or possessed by the darkness in the Orb. But when the gate closed and I still didn’t drop the Orb, it became clear the fight was by no means certain. He took action, operating my physical form like a puppet on strings. He’s done it before. He walked me closer to the Edge before flinging the Black Ball beyond the Edge of the World.
I wondered if it could get back in. After all, the Firmament was designed to keep out creatures of chaos. The Orb might qualify, assuming it could even find its way back. How do you navigate in a churning, ever-changing cloud of chaos?
“It’s not what I wanted,” I said, addressing my altar ego. “It’s not what I hoped for. Maybe it’ll do for now. Under the circumstances, I’ll take it.”
Boss? Firebrand asked. You’re okay with letting it drift through the void?
“Absolutely not,” I snapped. “But compared with battling it out in my brain? Or burying it somewhere unguarded while I take better precautions? Or leaving it where it can influence the minds of men when they wander by? I’ll take it. Grudgingly, but I’ll take it. Give me a spot to sit quietly and get ready for it and I’ll summon it back from the void. First, though, I see now I should do more hunting around for where to put it, develop a better delivery system, and, if nothing else, get a big damn pair of tongs!”
You may have a point, Firebrand admitted.
“In the meantime, lost in the infinite sea of chaos beyond the universe seems like a reasonably good spot for it—temporarily. What do you think, altar ego? You threw it there. Will it stay lost until I fetch it back?”
He didn’t answer. I checked the sigil and detected no trace of energy. He was probably exhausted. Even communicating requires effort, some expenditure of energy on his part. How much more does it cost him to possess a material body and force it to exert itself? Less than hoisting a horse through universal barriers, surely, but he’s only a tiny portion of the much more powerful entity. Now the lack of worshippers had to be a serious problem. At least he wasn’t breaking any rules. There were no rules, as yet.
I resolved to build a psychic resonance generator at my earliest opportunity.
Hey, Boss?
“What’s up?”
Can we build up the fire? I need a break.
Bronze nodded vigorously, mane chiming. She could use a small coal mine, herself. Come to think of it, I could stand to guzzle some blood and drain the last of the vitality from the dazhu. We were all a bit worn down from the unexpected battle.
“We’ll evacuate the world tomorrow night,” I decided. “Let’s have lunch and take the day off.”
Western Edge, Day Three
We didn’t find any coal, but we did find a small forest. Bronze grazed on all the deadwood and some of the lower branches. I built a fire and a heat-reflecting spell for Firebrand. Our captive dazhu died suddenly and, after the sun came up, I started eating what was left. And, of course, I added a couple of power-fans to direct and concentrate the local magical energy. Solar conversion panels are less practical in a high-magic environment. Drawing
in ambient energy is more effective, especially when I’m artificially increasing the concentration. The charging lines feeding my crystal and the spells on my gate-wall really started to suck in the power.
We spent most of the day resting and coming to grips with my situation. I don’t think I’m ready to put any of it into words, yet, but I can point the way: Not happy. I’m not pleased at being responsible for picking up dinner on the way home, much less responsible for a whole slew of timelines going exactly the way I remember they should. There’s the big thing. Not an elephant in the room, but a whale. A behemoth. A leviathan.
Worse than that, my encounter with the Evil Orb stirred up a lot of Things in my undermind best left to lie. I was doing so well with calming my mental basement through rigorous application of denial. Now there are thousands of little Things scratching at the basement door. I’m going to have to start letting a few through so I can kill them. But can I kill them faster than I create them? There’s the rub!
Deep breathing. Practicing meditation and doing it badly. Working on my Zen stuff. Who knew studying martial arts would have practical applications in other areas? If I can put on a convincing simulation of sanity, maybe I should take up ballet—I might even look graceful, someday. It’s a possible hobby. Maybe I should get a hobby. A relaxing one.
Can I build mental coping mechanisms to stomp the little basement critters into dust automatically? Do people with a naturally low level of anxiety have them, while people who suffer from chronic anxiety lack them? If I find someone extremely sane, can I try to duplicate some of their techniques directly?