Innocence Lost

by O. J. Lowe

  One of Tod Brumley’s former rallying speeches while a Unisco instructor.

  “I always wanted to be an explorer, you know. I got it from my father. He didn’t go anywhere much, not least after I was born, he was the sort of man who read about places rather than experiencing them for himself. He used to talk about them like he’d been there. Don’t get me wrong, I think books have a place in the kingdoms. The knowledge of the past should never be ignored. Believing something at the time you felt you had all the facts about, no matter how ridiculous it might seem today, it can offer up perspective. That’s the one thing that comes with time.

  There you have it. I loved my father, but I found his attitude a little lacking as I got older. Mind you, he did as well. The older he got, the more excuses he found. He got settled within a life and didn’t do much to change it. He ended up living vicariously through his friends, I’ll never forget the times Brennan Frewster used to show up unannounced at my home growing up. He and my father were good friends, he named me for him. Not well, admittedly, but still. As he got older, his health faded, I’ve been lucky in that regard, my mother had a constitution of iron whereas my father wilted away.

  That first time I stepped out into the world away from home, it was when I went to get my caller’s licence, we lived in a small town and I had to go to the nearest city. I stepped out on the road, walked down it like I owned it. I was a scrawny sixteen-year-old back then, but a cocky little shit. For the first time, I was out on my own, ready to take on the world. I felt like I could have beaten it as well. That feeling is unmistakeable, you know. Beholden to nobody and no one else. I took the long way, ignored the warnings to stay close to the road. You all know what it’s like when you’re young, you always think the sun is going to shine, that your parents can’t possibly know what they’re talking about and nothing bad can possibly happen.

  Anyway, I got lost. Bound to happen, right? Got lost, what should have been a three-hour walk ended up being a two-day trek in the wilderness. I know you’re wondering how much of a wilderness Canterage can be, but this was forty-odd years ago. It wasn’t then what it is now. I was sure that if I kept on walking, I’d hit a city sooner or later. My supplies were meagre, but I resolved to carry on going. Stopping and complaining about it wouldn’t have done me a damn bit of good so I did what I could. One foot before another and eventually I hit civilisation. Well that’s what I thought it was.

  The only good thing about hitting the Montaigne house was that it gave me a starting point, I knew where I was in relation to the rest of the road. That said, it was the only good thing. For those of you who don’t know local Canterage legend from some hundred odd years ago, and I imagine that’s most if not all of you, Albert Montaigne was an inventor who built a house outside Dalphan. Nothing happens by accident, I think you’ll find. I wandered into the shadow of the house, remembered the stories.

  Montaigne made some great discoveries back in the day, had some theories but the common consensus that followed him into history is his complete lack of personal sense. I think any inventor needs to lack a certain sense of self-preservation, but this man was notorious for doing what any garden-variety lunatic would have considered over the top. Nobody knew exactly what he was working on back in the day, only that without warning, it caught fire and took most of the house with it. The stories go that it lit the damn thing up like a bonfire, killed Montaigne, killed his wife and their two children. Some legends say that one of the children was already disfigured after an acid mishap, but I investigated thoroughly some years ago, curious you see, found nothing to back it up.”

  Imagine my youthful excitement at discovering this, something I’d heard about but never seen for myself. Even in my weakened state, I rushed towards it, determined to look around. Maybe, just maybe, there was some food left. Looking back makes it seem ridiculous, but back then I was ready to believe anything. It wasn’t impossible. It was very likely I was going delirious with hunger, but the idea that Montaigne had invented a fireproof refrigerator stocked with dateless sandwiches was a real boon to me. Besides, I was a curious lad and how often do you actually get to explore an actual haunted house?”

  Brendan looked around at them all ruefully. “Well, it was haunted to a fashion. I pushed the door open, heard the creak as it swung on rusty hinges, daylight followed me in there like a faithful companion. Rumours said Montaigne created electrical lighting before anyone else in Canterage, but it didn’t survive the fire. Might even have been what caused it. Nobody wanted to go on record and say for sure, couldn’t blame them really, it was a bit of a shitstorm that one of the kingdom’s most famous sons had killed himself in an accident. I pushed the door open, in went the light and about a hundred bats that were sleeping in there decided to wake up and greet me. That scared me, I had to admit. Ran a mile, beat my personal best record for running in fear.”

  Wilsin fought the urge to smile. Montaigne he’d heard of, nothing about how he’d died though. Interesting story. He’d heard Alvin Noorland talk about Montaigne a couple of times, mention him as an influence.

  “The house isn’t there anymore,” Brendan said. “I went back about twenty years ago, and they’d knocked it down to build a shopping centre. Absolute travesty. It’s also the reason I don’t like bats. Just saying. I can remember them clawing at my face, their wings scratching my skin…” He tailed off, shuddered. “Just one of those mornings.”

  He glanced around the fire, from Suchiga to Bryce to Aubemaya to Fazarn who stood up, stretched his arms out and grinned.

  “I’ll tell you a story,” he said. “One of my favourites of all time and what it means to me. You may have heard it before.”

  “One of the first stories I ever heard in my life was one of Melarius and Gilgarus. I happen to think most stories descend from stories about the Divines because I don’t think anyone knows what humanity did before then. It was a different time, a darker age. War and savagery raged across the land, kings sprang up and were knocked down, warlords had the time of their lives, keeping themselves fresh for the rigours of battle between skirmishes.

  I am a proud Vazaran, you know. Always have been, always will, they can’t take that from me. The story goes that those that would become Divines, the twenty, they walked the kingdoms for years, surveying all that would one day be theirs. That it did not yet belong to them was just a minor detail. Gilgarus and Melarius towards the front of their legion, they strode across the sand plains of Vazara in front of a mountain known as Cradle Rock after translation. Some stories say that it looked like a cradle, it’s from where they all take their shape, but I’ve always found that part of the tale too apocryphal for my liking.

  With them to Cradle Rock, they brought two armies, one in favour of what they were doing and one against. Remember, they’d walked the kingdoms for years by this point and people had heard their names. Belief is a powerful thing. They’d walked the kingdoms, made declarations of what they were going to do, displayed their power for all to see… Don’t interrupt me, Mister Reeves, I know what you’re going to say, I’ve heard the theory before that they utilised the ways of the Kjarn. It’s not an unreasonable theory, but utterly unprovable. Some people followed them, they worshipped them like the Divines they would become, others hated and feared them as only one can hold such emotion for the gods themselves. Nothing polarises us more than religion. It can unite, and it can divide, it can create, and it can destroy, it is a force of love and one of hate.

  So yes, they are stood on top of this rock in the middle of the Vazaran desert, one army on one side and another on the other and Gilgarus steps to the highest point of the rock, surveys all around him and makes his proclamation with his wife and his children and his lover and his peers stood there up with him. Some stories dispute what he said in his entirety, translation variations and all that but my favourite version goes like this:

  “You have all been summoned here today to bear witness to the end of the old and the start of the new. The old ord
er has ended and today starts the first day of forever. Today we circumvent the flesh of mortality and we embrace the sweet bonds of eternity. We have walked these kingdoms and throughout them, we have discovered the truth of immortality. With eternal life comes a stand apart, we know this secret and thus we can never truly be one with you all again. As King of the Dei, I make the decision to withdraw. As part of the human tribe, our time has ended. We only watch from afar, we may judge you, we may favour you, we may punish you as our whims take us but our time among you is over. Always you have feared our retribution and sought our aid in life, thus the same shall be in death.”

  A stunned silence fell over the crowd, they tried to work out what Gilgarus was saying as he made that proclamation. Warriors were there, they’re not renowned for being the strongest in the head and that much double talk had left them confused. Scholars and acolytes, they could understand what he’d said but the implications had left them silent. How else do you comprehend a time like this? We can’t, you know. Nothing like it has ever happened since. The area around Cradle Rock was as silent as a grave, nobody has ever heard two armies and everyone between go silent like that. Perhaps the Dei’s greatest ever feat, bringing silence to a legion.

  Of course, we can never know truly for sure what happened next. We have stories and we have hearsay and we have supposition. The believers believe, the sceptics question and I think everyone else stands somewhere between. They’d like to believe but there’s no way of knowing for sure.

  Above them all, the sky started to glow and shake, as if it were being torn apart. The Dei all looked to it, their lips moving in silent chant as a hairline crack started above the watching masses, worked longer and longer as if something was forcing its way into it.

  “Always remember,” Gilgarus said. “We are watching, and we wait. For those who believe, we will see you again. For those who don’t, we’re looking forward to seeing you even more.” His smile was sinister as he said it, as the crack continued to expand until it could have swallowed the entire rock and everyone on it. Those towards the front of the watching crowd had to scramble to get back, lest they be sucked in. “Divinity will always be within reach for those who cherish us.”

  With those final words, Gilgarus stepped into the crack, his body bathed in the light. Melarius and his children, Garvais, Kalqus and Griselle following him, as did the rest, one by one. As the last of them, Ferros and Leria stepped through, the door shut behind them and the sky was silent as if it had never been disturbed.

  They always say that Cradle Rock crumbled immediately in the aftermath, no longer looked like it had. Maybe their power had been too great for it, the release had shattered it to pieces, maybe nobody has just ever been able to find it since. Maybe time wore it down. So much supposition and yet nobody has ever been able to say for sure. I always wanted to find it. See it for myself. That’s been a dream and it all sprang from that story my mama told me when I was a boy.”

  Fazarn paused, smiled at them all. Wilsin didn’t know what to say. He’d heard the story before, it was quite a famous one. It wasn’t even the best version of it he’d ever heard, there were much more erudite and vocally fascinating telling’s of it. They’d even made multiple cinematic versions of it, some worth seeing, others not so.

  “You know though, an old friend of mine discovered some writings on the subject that nobody else had, he found evidence to claim an addendum to that story. He offered it up, but nobody took it professionally seriously. Didn’t best impress him. He knew a lot about the Divines and people not listening to him on the subject infuriated him.”

  Another cough, he cleared his throat with a sound like ice being torn off a windshield. “Allegedly, there was talk that when Leria and Ferros were walking through the portal, a believer braved the danger and flung himself at them to ask tearfully when they would return to the kingdoms. Leria, the Divine of Knowledge, took pity on his state, stopped next to him and said something to him very few people have ever heard. It was only passed down through a select few over the ages, through journals and notes. They called it prophecy, hence the reason why few take it seriously. I personally think if it comes from a proclaimed Divine of Knowledge, it’s probably a good idea to listen. Let me see if I remember this right…”

  He paused, made a face of concentration that looked just a little too forced for Wilsin’s liking, like he was making it for effect and then he spoke aloud. Wilsin couldn’t help but notice the look of surprise on Brendan’s face as he heard the words.

  “What was once shall be again.

  First there was chaos

  As order became unrestrained.

  A champion falls and inferno rises,

  And sacrifice is its name.

  A new rising, an age gone since the last.

  The three pillars shall fall in their wake

  The cherished will be united.

  Courage. Hope. Compassion.

  Anger. Fear. Love. Greed.

  All will form the chain of fate

  That will shackle the beast beyond.

  And the Green will overcome.”

  “And what the hells does that mean?” Nmecha said. He’d gone silent during it all, sat next to Bryce at the back of the fire.

  “Like anything, it’s subject to interpretation,” Fazarn said. “To different people, it means different things. My friend Jerry believed that it meant that one day divinity would return to the kingdom. Order would fall, chaos would rise, a champion would die, an inferno would bring sacrifice and with it would come the new order.”

  Something horrible twitched in the back of Wilsin’s head, an uneasy feeling he couldn’t place no matter how much he worked at it.

  “The three pillars, I don’t know. The cherished, well I think that’s something to do with the myth of the Divine-born, Jerry didn’t know much about that. The chain of fate, well that’s a name that you don’t really find in history. Beast beyond, don’t know, the Green…” He threw out a hand. “I think you can’t get much more divine Green than this.”

  “Jerry?” Brendan said, his voice like a whip crack in the silence.

  “Jeremiah really,” Fazarn said. “Blut. Jeremiah Blut. Not heard from him for months now.”

  Oh, Wilsin thought. Brendan must have thought the same thing because he shot him a warning look and spoke up. “An interesting tale,” he said. “Mister Reeves, what about you.”

  Wilsin dreaded telling his own tale here, something from his past that wouldn’t compromise his actions as a Unisco agent while at the same time being a tale to capture their imagination.

  Maybe, just to see the reaction on Fazarn’s face, he’d mention his one and only encounter with Jeremiah Blut. That’d be an interesting result, given way it had played out. Now though, if Reeves had heard Brendan, he didn’t show it. He’d cocked his head to the side, tilted it as if listening in the darkness for something only he could hear. His eye shimmered in the dusky half-light, one hand went to his waist for the kjarnblade he wore there.

  “Ben?” Brendan said. “What do you sense?” His voice sounded outwardly calm, composed and measured but Wilsin had heard the tone before and he knew the warning sounds. He knew the secrets, that when Brendan sounded calm like this, he was worried, and he wanted to hide it. Only with experience came such a read of a man.

  “Something’s out there,” Reeves said. “Watching us. Lurking.” His own voice was low, quiet but urgent and he’d removed his kjarnblade from the hook on his belt. Both hands had wrapped around the hilt, his finger centimetres from the activation switch.

  “You can’t be serious,” Fazarn said, his voice disbelieving. He rose to his feet, stepped to the edge of their camp, just outside the firelight. “Mister Reeves, it is pitch black out there…”

  “And the Kjarn needs no light for it is its own sense of illumination, it is its own darkness and shadow, its own bright illumination,” Reeves said, the faintest trace of a smirk on his face before it fell away, replaced with horror. He’
d seen something, Wilsin could see it in his eyes, the Vedo pushed himself forward towards Fazarn. “Get down!” Even with his legs carrying him faster than the eye could follow, he just wasn’t fast enough.

  Something whistled through the night air, struck Fazarn in the centre of the chest. He coughed once, clapped both hands to his breast where he’d been struck. Bemusement spread across his face. In the firelight, Wilsin saw the crimson spread across his shirt, dribbling from his mouth. Fazarn blinked several times, not quite able to believe what had just happened His mouth twitched, Wilsin knew he wouldn’t ever forget what he saw next.

  Something hit the ground at his feet, a shower of blood exploding into the air and striking the fire. He had to look, his body numb with realisation at the sight, a flesh-covered jawbone kissing his foot. He couldn’t help it, punted it away involuntarily with the toe of his boot, heard the splash as it hit the water. Reeves had Fazarn in his arms, something long and wavy protruding from his ruined face, wriggling in the dusk. He could hear movement around them, not footsteps but rustling, like leaves in the wind.

  Wilsin went for his blaster, the first one lurched into the clearing, he heard Aubemaya scream and Bryce curse. Something long and green protruded from its body, its skin the same shade of emerald, flecked with mud and something crimson that could have been blood. He followed the protrusion, watched it give the fire a wide berth, all the way to the burbling Fazarn and he pulled the trigger twice. The first shot blew the protrusion away, the second punched through the area where its face would be if it had a head.

  It didn’t have a head. That thought hit him like one of his shots, he’d aimed and pulled the trigger, saw the area cave in and the realisation had swept across him. They were human-shaped but not human, he could count limbs and a torso but that was where the similarity ended. They were naked and sexless, fauna and foliage rustling across their bodies as they moved on stiff legs that had the consistency of tree bark, root-like feet tearing into the earth beneath.