by Dyrk Ashton
The Pratha had always been hermetic, especially since the Cataclysm, preferring to be alone with her meditations and experiments. She’d only taken one apprentice before and it hadn’t turned out well. Still, she accepted Arges under her tutelage and introduced him to what would become his lifelong passion—Metalsmithing. He had a natural inclination for it. Incredible strength, patience, practical intelligence, an artistic yet pragmatic eye (no pun intended, he had two eyes at the time), and his thick hide made him even more resistant to heat than most other Firstborn.
Training began with manual labor. Mining ore, crushing rock, building forges, carrying wood for the fires, working the bellows, making charcoal, building wagons and pulling them. She taught him how to use the basic tools of the trade, to work the materials of the earth with fire, the subtleties of quenching with sand, saltwater, oils, even blood. They found crude oil oozing to the surface of the ground and refined it for use as fuel, lubricants and protective coatings, harnessed gasses from bubbling bogs and swamps. She showed him the uses of coal and explained how all these natural resources had formed over the aeons of the life of the world. From her he learned how to examine chemicals and minerals through touch, taste, smell, and sound—and The Rhino has exceptional olfactory senses and hearing.
Pratha was a hard master. Many times Arges felt she was trying to make him quit, but he never did. She’d go long periods, sometimes years, without speaking to him, and refusing to allow him to speak. Just watch and do. At other times she displayed great tolerance and profound kindness.
After many years of study, when Pratha felt he’d become proficient in what she called the “material” skills of smithing, she told him to put down his tongs and step away from the fires. He was ready for the next level.
It began with meditation and solitude. He was resistant at first, as resistant as a stubborn rhino can be, which is very, but she insisted, and The Pratha could be quite persuasive. They would sit in silence or mantra for days at a time, then months, then years. Over this time she showed him how to put himself into an alternative state of mind, to overturn his normal, habitual, analytical, relative way of seeing things. With intense concentration and by clearing his mind his perception became absolute, where the distinctions between inside and outside, subject and object, simply ceased to exist. Normal vision and thought were replaced by empathy and intuition. By focusing on the metals in this way, when he was smelting, casting, hammering, or treating them, he could sense when their crystalline structures were just right, which materials could be alloyed with others and when, as well as what the outcome would be. He could “see” and “hear” the materials on a molecular, even atomic level, perceive the tones and notes of their minute particle vibrations and move the notes about, ever so slightly, with thoughts, ancient words and phrases Pratha taught him, orchestrate them to create rhythms, melodies, and make them sing. Myrddin Wyllt later referred to the process as “transcendental transmogrification” after Pratha relayed some of these skills to him. Myrddin mostly took what he learned in different directions, though, such as alchemy, and did silly things like turn lead into gold.
Making truly special objects, however, took truly special materials, the kind that don’t naturally occur on this earth. They come from rocks that fall from the sky. So Arges and Pratha travelled the world chasing falling stars, building rafts to travel the seas when necessary, diving deep beneath them when they must. Due to the properties some of these extraterrestrial ores possessed, Pratha and Arges could make things that were, for all intents and purposes, indestructible. They couldn’t be broken or melted down except by methods known only to them. More importantly, and frighteningly, they could be used against Firstborn with deadly force.
The very rarest of these materials gave the objects they crafted other qualities as well. Some could draw energy from their surroundings, or expend it. They could heat, cool, expand, contract, even move of their own accord. Some, through a higher level of transcendental transmogrification, could be imprinted, imbued, infused, “programmed,” with recognition, intention, memory, and discernment. This was Pratha’s final lesson to him.
Upon introducing this concept, she retrieved an unassuming wooden box from her private belongings. From inside, she had him lift a disk-like object, a flat ring open in the center, about ten inches in diameter. She told him to grasp it from the center only, never to allow any part of his body near its outer edge because it was sharper than anything he had ever seen or would ever see again. The disk was light as air and the hue of a powder blue sky.
She took it from him, laid it on her palm, then whispered a mantra he’d never heard her speak. The disk began to emanate a soft hum. A rainbow of colors shimmered on its surface. It rose slowly from her hand, humming louder, and began to spin at tremendous speed. She raised her other hand, straight up, palm out, the first two fingers extended. The disk floated to suspend itself over her fingertips. Then she told Arges she made this thing. It belonged to Father, but he wanted her to show it to Arges so he’d understand what could be accomplished—and impress upon him the devastation an instrument such as this could bring about.
Only much later, toward the end of the First Holocaust, did Arges witness what the disk could do in the hands of Father. It laid waste to an entire army of Asura Firstborn and other wretched beasts in a matter of minutes. That was the day it was named Shudarshana, Vishnu’s Chakra.
It could take many years to fabricate one of these very special objects. The making of the Chakra took Pratha 50 years. Even after epochs of experience, the forging of the Trishula trident took Arges 75. The fighting staff Ruyi Jingo Bang and the hammer Mjölnir occupied all his time for 100 years apiece. He spent almost a millennium collecting the materials for Father’s exceptional spear, Gungnir, then another century and a half forging it.
When the watoto were still new and few, Father and Pratha forbade him from giving them weapons of any kind, as well as from teaching them metalsmithing. Long after Arges completed his apprenticeship with Pratha, all of that changed.
During the First Holocaust, when the watoto were in danger of complete annihilation, Father decided they should be permitted to protect themselves against their Firstborn aggressors, the Asura, and their armies of fiendish followers. At his behest, the manufacture of weapons and armor became not only Arges’s assigned duty but also his raison d'être. He made swords, spears, axes, hatchets, pikes, hammers, clubs and other weapons of more exotic and mysterious natures. He crafted helmets, shields, gauntlets, breastplates, tassets and grieves of every manner known to man today, and many a manner more.
“Mortal” weapons, those capable of slaying enemy watoto, Arges made and distributed in abundance. “Mighty” weapons, practically indestructible and capable of wounding Firstborn, he made fewer of, and was more judicious in choosing to whom they were given. The truly special weapons, those of the highest power and quality, they called the “Astra.” These went only to the most trusted of Firstborn and watoto alike.
Most everything Arges ever made is gone now. A precious few are in Asterion’s private vault here in the Lair of the Bull, and a number of others remain in the hands of other Firstborn. Arges also heard Father hid some in secret places long ago. He knows of only a few Mortal weapons and limited articles of jewelry still in the hands of watoto, in private collections or on display in museums. They may think they have some idea of their origin, but they really haven’t a clue.
Arges has always been grateful for his time with Pratha. She taught him much more than smithing, having shared some of her epochs upon epochs of accumulated wisdom and experience. She taught him about life, the world, Father, and a few things a male of any origin would be happy to know.
He is well aware she didn’t teach him everything she knew. She had secrets and esoteric knowledge she would never share, interests that went far beyond the working of metals, and there were things she could intuit and understand that he never will. Her command of language was far greater than any
living being, and her metaphysical understanding of the world and connection to it were unsurpassed by any but Father himself.
The depths of the sciences known to Arges and Pratha are still unfamiliar to watoto to this day—and that’s probably for the best. They would not understand. What watoto believe they comprehend and can explain they call “science,” or more specifically, “physics.” What they can’t prove or fully grasp but might be possible they call “theoretical physics,” or “metaphysics.” What they believe to be impossible, absurd, or can’t fathom in the slightest, they call “magic.”
When Arges and Pratha finally parted ways he returned to his family and showed his Firstborn rhino brothers, Brontes and Steropes, what he could do. They were as captivated as he’d been, so he taught them everything he’d learned. Almost everything. Together the three of them became known as the greatest smiths who ever lived. It was only much later, after his brothers were long dead and Arges lost his eye, that they came to be known as the “cyclops.” Due to the short lives, feeble memories and grand imaginations of the watoto, all of his kind have since been described in legend, fable and myth as having only one eye.
Though the name given to The Rhino by his father is Arges, one early clan of watoto took to calling him Hephaestus, a name later appropriated by one of the insolent petit gods he’d trained as a smith. The peoples of Asgard called him Völundr, then Dvalinn for a time, and their descendants on this world, Weyland the Smith. The Romans knew him from stories passed down for generations as Vulcan. To the proto-Hungarians he was Hadúr, god of the fires and war, and in cosmologies of Africa he is remembered as Gu, Vodun of iron.
Arges doesn’t feel much like those personas these days, nor any of the many other monikers tied to his legendary skills. He rarely descends the elevator down past the level of the Temple of The Bull to his forges in the root of the mountain anymore, and then it’s only to repair some household item, make a new cog or shaft for one of The Bull’s inventions, or just run a rough hand over a silent anvil, dusty die, or door of a cold furnace.
* * *
“Arges, Big Brother. Come, sit down,” Tanuki insists from his seat on the carpet. “Seriously. We have something to show you.”
“Something more exciting than a new rug?” Arges grumbles. “Is that possible?”
“Okay, be that way,” Tanuki retorts, mock disappointment in his voice. He makes to get up.
“All right,” Arges reluctantly agrees, “all right.” He plunks down next to Tanuki, facing the chair where Asterion is fidgeting. Fidgeting? Arges thinks, The Bull doesn’t fidget. What nonsense is this?
Tanuki pulls a sheaf of rolled up papers from his shoulder-bag. His voice takes on an officious air. “Through no small effort on my part, with considerable and generous contributions from our brother Asterion and myself, and after meticulous, painstaking due diligence—”
“Oh, just give it to him, Tanuki,” Asterion interrupts, setting his cello aside.
“You take all the fun out of it,” Tanuki replies. He unrolls the papers and turns them toward Arges. “May I present to you The Hephaestus Fund for the Preservation of Wild Rhinoceros, the most significantly financed and legitimate of its kind on this earth.”
Arges squints at the first sheet without taking the papers, reads headings like Articles of Incorporation and By-laws, terms that mean nothing to him. He opens his mouth to ask what the hell this is all about when they hear it—rising from the monastery below, floating through the softly falling snow, spilling over the edge of the terrace and into the cavernous hall. Arges stiffens, his ears jerking to attention. The hair on Tanuki’s back bristles straight.
The gongs are ringing...
* * *
PANG! BONNNG! PANG! BONNNG! PANG! BONNNG!
There are many combinations in which the round and tubular gongs of the monastery are rung, each for a different purpose. This is the simplest, round gong first, then tube, in alternating succession. It’s also of the highest order. Though built not long after The Deluge, the monastery of the Order of The Bull has remained untouched by countless conquests and wars. They’ve never heard the sounding of this particular alarm before—but they all know what it means. The walls are breached. Enemy within.
Tanuki looks to Arges, who’s staring at Asterion. The Bull sits stock still with his hands clenching the arms of his chair, eyes closed, ears cocked, alert and listening.
They hear other sounds. Cries of villagers outside the monastery wall. Shouts of monks within. All the while the alarm continues,
PANG! BONNNG! PANG! BONNNG!
Tanuki drops the papers for the rhinoceros charity, their significance forgotten, leaps to his feet and darts for the terrace.
“Tanuki!” Arges grabs for him but only brushes the fur on his bushy tail.
Tanuki reaches the terrace at a sprint, speeding between the center columns, and skids to a stop at the edge. One thousand feet below, the monastery is lit with lamps, as always, but there are also torches scurrying hither and thither.
Tanuki can see well by the moon’s cold glow, even though its light is diminished behind a thin veil of cloud and obfuscated by meager snowfall. He can even see his shadow on the light gray stone of the terrace floor—which is obliterated briefly as something flashes before the moon. The chill Tanuki felt when the sun was mysteriously blocked earlier in the day returns tenfold. It’s one thing to be cast in shadow in daylight. At night, it’s another matter entirely.
He frantically searches the sky as Arges arrives next to him. “Tanuki, what is it? What do you see?” Unfortunately for Arges, he inherited the notoriously poor eyesight of his rhinoceros mother. His sense of smell, however, has no equal. He takes a deep draught of the air, exhales slowly. “Gods,” is all he says. Not an identification per se, but a curse, and a prayer.
Tanuki fears, however, The Rhino is not wrong.
“There!” Tanuki points below.
An expansive black shadow slithers fast over the roofs of the monastery buildings. The Gong Pagoda goes dark beneath it—and explodes. From this distance they see it before they hear the sound. The shadow is gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving projectile fragments of stone, metal, and flesh scattering the grounds. Then comes the stone-shattering crunch, twisted ringing whine of metal, screams cut short, and more screaming.
From high on the air comes another sound, much louder than the gongs had ever been. The mountain vibrates with its onslaught. The booming horn of a ship, an air raid siren, the air-horn of a fast-approaching train, a klaxon of doom...
Tanuki, Arges and Asterion have heard it before, but not since the final battle of the Second Holocaust—the war cry of Ziz, The Quetzalcoatlus, primordial terror of the sky.
* * *
Ziz pumps his magnificent wings, driving himself up into the ashen sky above the monastery. His natural pterodactyl mother had been an excellent glider, but he is Firstborn. He can fly, fast and forever.
Ziz had not planned to announce himself. He’d flown hard, even in daylight, cloaked in shadow, though the Master ordered him to travel only by night, and approached the monastery from the opposite side of the mountain. There he concealed himself and waited for darkness to come before descending cautiously. As careful as he was, the parvulus maggots somehow spied his approach and commenced to banging their metal toys. They are ruing it now. The Quetzalcoatlus isn’t overly concerned. At least it allowed him to express with his cry the blood-boiling exhilaration of impending combat.
Ziz spins, dives, banks to glide along the face of the mountain. The bloodlust of aggression inherent to all higher creatures has taken hold. It exists in the parvuli, primitive as they are, but even more so in Firstborn. The sheer thrill that comes only from fighting for one’s life and meting out death. He revels in it. And he knows, deep within his cave, The Bull feels it too.
Patience, Asterion. I’m coming...
CHAPTER TWELVE
Flowers & Figs 5
Fi’s life is not what sh
e would call exciting. Last night with Zeke and today with Billy, then the two of them together, it’s all been a little too much. She looks forward to getting on with her simple routine.
She enters the spacious recreation room on the third floor. Sunshine streams through arched windows that go practically floor to ceiling, all signs of rain she experienced upon her arrival gone from the sky outside. Patients lounge at tables and on couches, mesmerized by flat screen TVs. Some shuffle in circles while others sit quietly in wheelchairs, staring into space. There’s a full-size shuffle board that’s rarely used, and shelves of books and games line the walls. Half a dozen staff are scattered about, chatting amongst themselves.
Billy must have headed this way while Fi was in the staff office checking her schedule. He’s at a table speaking closely to a young nurse. From the look on her face he’s telling her about Peter and Dr. Williams. Fi isn’t sure she’s happy about that. Billy wiggles his fingers at her in “hello,” then points surreptitiously past her to the other side of the room.
Fi turns to where there’s a glass-walled security booth. Another one. Joe, the Head of Security, sits at a counter inside eating pretzels, watching more surveillance screens. He wears the same kind of headset with microphone the guards have downstairs.
Another guard, Lisa, stands at the open door at the end of the booth, having a conversation with Dr. Williams, the Chief of Medical Staff—and the woman who has supposedly been boinking Peter. She must be what Billy was pointing at. Dr. Williams is probably in her mid-fifties, shoulder-length black hair with a wisp of white over each ear. She was probably gorgeous in her youth but never married, as far as anyone knows. She’s one of those brilliant but driven women who gives her whole life to her work, Fi figures. Honorable, but kind of sad. Will that be me, someday?
Dr. Williams spots her, “Miss Patterson!” and strides over, waving a file folder.
Fi freezes, stricken by the thought they’ve found out about her seizure. Zeke promised! He wouldn’t tell, would he?! Stay calm! Breathe! Speak!