Bedlam

by M. T. Miller

  “We didn’t mean for any of this,” one of the men whispered.

  The way the Nameless’ stare cut him off made him recoil. Of course. Yet here we are anyway.

  “You’re nothing, Nameless!” Emile shouted, now back in the moment. “Gods? Angels? Jokes! Look at what I can do!” He pointed at the dead Chastity. “Look at what she could do! The power of humanity, laid bare for all to see!”

  The Nameless took less than a second to put everything together. What sprung to mind didn’t make any sense, but there was nothing else to go on.

  “Does it feel good?” the Nameless asked, revealing his position. He ignored the rioters’ expressions.

  Emile turned toward him. “Better than you can imagine!” He extended both hands at his sides, and the skeletons mirrored his movements. The ground began to shake slightly, and the Nameless realized why. Deep underneath it, bones long forgotten were springing to un-life. “I have no limits! There is nothing you can do to me!” He flashed a manic smile. “There are no obstacles anymore. The States will belong to the Movement!”

  “To the Movement?” the Nameless asked. “Or to you?”

  Emile shouted, “I am the Supreme Houngan! I represent the Baron! What I conquer is his!”

  “Even if you do it with sorcery?” the Nameless asked.

  Emile paused. “So you know.”

  “I do,” said the Nameless. “I also remember what you told me a year ago. To lay claim to magic, and to wield it for your own ends and not those of a higher power; you called it inexcusable.”

  Emile was silent.

  “You used to say you had a purpose!” the Nameless said. “Do not tell me to look around! Do it yourself! Is this your purpose? You are drunk, Emile! Drunk with power, among other things! You know I am right!”

  Emile turned left and right. A thick shadow fell over his face despite the light he emitted.

  That’s it. The Nameless peeked out from his cover, gauging Emile’s expression, or what little he could see from distance. His no-longer-boisterous pose. The way his fingers relaxed. Little by little, the priest was coming to terms with what he’d done.

  “I know you are a good man, Emile,” the Nameless said. “It’s no secret that you have your people’s best interest at heart. Can you not see that your anger will lead them—will lead us all—to ruin?”

  “You’re right,” Emile said with a voice deprived of any edge. He pressed his palm against his forehead. “You are completely, bone-crushingly right.”

  Every single skeleton collapsed in unison.

  The Nameless exhaled in relief. “Can I step out now, or will you try to kill me again?”

  “You can come out,” Emile said, his hand now in front of his face. “I won’t be a danger to anyone again.” He looked at the Nameless with a sad expression, and said, “Good luck.”

  He snapped his fingers, and the swirling magic around his body took on a familiar shape; that of the many death-clouds he’d created minutes ago. It was so thick, the Nameless barely saw his features melt. As it dissipated, there was nothing left. Not even bone.

  With a thousand-mile stare, the Nameless stood in place. He had no idea how much time passed before Rush sprang out before him, her colors contrasting with the overwhelming hue of ash.

  “Good job with that,” she said with a smile of relief. “No idea what ‘that’ is, but good job!”

  All this for nothing. He kept staring through her. No gain. No point. Only loss.

  “Hellooooo?” she waved her hand before his face. “Anyone there?”

  And what was it that Chastity said? We “invited” them? He turned toward the pyramid. Someone did.

  “Bones?” Rush exclaimed. Her tone was no longer energetic.

  “Rush,” he said. “I think I need to speak to the Management.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The elevator ascended toward the third floor. This time, it seemed to move even slower than usual.

  The Nameless and Rush stood next to each other, both full of questions. She kept looking around, impatient for the thing to touch up. He had his eyes closed, doing his best to focus on the unseen.

  The shock and rage made that task difficult. Try as he might, the course of faith, of magic, eluded the Nameless’ notice. There was power in the pyramid, he couldn’t deny that. The city centered around it, and it was a powerful symbol. However, for the moment, he was blind to the intricacies in which that power flowed and shifted.

  Chastity and Emile had to draw from somewhere. He extended his hand, trying to grasp what he couldn’t see. The human being is, in effect, a generator of divine power. Through desires, it creates magic, which beings like the Nameless feed on. In turn, these gods grant their worshippers miracles, reinforcing their faith and keeping the wheel turning. Or so it used to be.

  Long ago, the Nameless had used the word ‘sorcery’ to refer to all unnatural phenomena. However, Emile used to differentiate between power granted by divine beings, and magic done in service of one’s own will. The latter, he dismissively called ‘sorcery.’

  Few gods still existed, but the Nameless had never seen a godless practitioner of the art. However, from his talks with Emile and the books he’d read, he was able to deduce a number of facts. One, the practice was incredibly difficult, demanding decades of study before any results were achievable. Two, sorcerers who used the magic they themselves generated were, by definition, minor threats. The human being is, on its own, not that mystically potent.

  Three, the practice was more or less rooted out by the gods themselves. This made sense for two reasons. The first one was competition. The other was much more interesting, and possibly relevant to the insanity the Nameless had just witnessed: to get around their relative lack of power, sorcerers tended to steal.

  So, the Nameless began to summarize, there has to be a wellspring of power somewhere, and it has to be potent enough to make Chastity and Emile as absurdly powerful as they were. But where is it? He tried focusing again. He was certain that the power existed. However, he could still neither see nor touch it.

  And even if I could, he thought once the lift started slowing down, who knows if I could use it?

  He stepped forward, ignoring the guards’ questions as he neared the entrance to Room Number One. Whatever the answer to this mystery was, for the moment, there were more important matters to resolve. Such as who invited the Church for talks, and why was I not told of it.

  “Whoa, hey, Bones!” Rush said as he was about to grab the knob. He stopped and looked her in the eyes.

  “You gotta give me something to go on,” she said. “I mean, I’m in it ‘til the end, I just need to know what page we’re on.”

  The Nameless scanned her features. The muscles were tightening under her skin, and veins were starting to jut on her forehead. The stimulant was already taking effect. In all likelihood, she was hiding a headache.

  “You can wait in our room,” he said. “There is no reason for you expose yourself to more of this. Besides, I will be direct with them. Our conversation should not take that long.” Hopefully.

  A guard closed in. “Everything alright, Sheriff?”

  “It will be,” the Nameless said, “if you stay at your posts and do not intrude.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said hesitantly as he stepped back.

  “Bones,” Rush said. Her expression was one of subdued anger. “In the last few days, I’ve been chewed on by living meatloaf, blown up, and been forced to run around acid-clouds spawned by a drunk zombie-fucker.” She got into his face. “If I don’t get to see where this is going, I’m gonna get seriously pissed.”

  By a negligible shade, the Nameless’ gaze brightened. “I have no idea what comes next, Rush. Not a single clue.”

  “And that’s fine,” she said as she grabbed the door and pushed them in. “Can’t know everything beforehand, y’know?”

  “True enough,” the Nameless said as he stepped in, closing the door behind them.

 
His thoughts raced as he and Rush stomped up to the office. Without a warning, they let themselves in, finding a distressed David pacing around the room. SIM was on his feet as well, holding a comm-device in the corner. He seemed to have been speaking, but turned it off as soon as the two came in.

  “I don’t know!” the Nameless growled. “Whatever you ask, I do not know. There, I answered everything. Now I have questions of my own.”

  David stopped his pacing. He looked at the Nameless with the stare of a man facing the end of the world. “You have questions? You were down there, Nameless. We weren’t. If anyone needed to explain things, it’d be you!”

  “I reckon you have heard everything you need to know,” the Nameless said. He looked at Rush from the corner of his eye, noting that she sat on a chair to his right. “So in all likelihood, what you want from me is not an eyewitness account but clarification. And I have nothing of the sort. Chaos and destruction; that is what happened.”

  “This won’t be—“

  “Won’t be good,” the Nameless interrupted. “I know. Chastity was most likely the leader of the White City. What we are facing now is not just more silence, but possibly an open war. Yes, David, I am well aware of that.”

  He approached SIM, pulling out a gun along the way. David recoiled as the Nameless pressed the barrel against the genius’ forehead.

  “If things were different,” the Nameless said, “I would have taken my time with this. The way everything is, you will have to overlook my impatience. Now tell me, SIM, was it you who sent the invite?”

  SIM didn’t flinch. He kept staring back in silence.

  “What invite?” asked David.

  “See, I am still not certain if it was him or you,” the Nameless said. “I am leaning heavily toward SIM here, but with everything that happened, one can never be certain. Am I right, Rush?”

  There was no reply.

  Did she faint? The gas was a stimulant. It shouldn’t have knocked her out.

  “Nameless!” David quickly paced over to Rush. “She’s not looking too hot, man!”

  The Nameless barely resisted the urge to turn back quickly. But he knew next to nothing about what SIM was capable of, and forced himself to step away slowly and certainly. Then, and only then, he allowed himself to run to the other end of the room.

  “Rush!” The blood froze in his veins when he looked at her. From the look of things, hers was about to boil. She was unconscious, her veins as thick as his fingers. Her normally pallid skin tone was now almost blue.

  The Nameless dropped his gun. He picked it up immediately and holstered it, before grabbing her by the arm. He turned to David. “Help me get her out of here!”

  David assisted without a word. Both men heaved, not due to her weight, but out of necessity to get her up as quickly as possible. With the woman’s weight distributed evenly between their shoulders, they proceeded out the office door. The heat she emanated was absurd, even for her.

  To hell with SIM, he thought. He would return later. And to hell with me for letting her come here.

  They got halfway up to the other door when Rush’s muscles twitched. Even through the leather and bandages, the Nameless could tell there was something going on inside her. They managed two more steps before she rocked her head toward the Nameless. Both her eyes were open. Her expression was one of sheer agony.

  “Boooonessss…” she moaned.

  And then her face exploded in a burst of fire, bone, and ignited viscera.

  Propelled by the blast, the Nameless flew straight into the wall to his right, crushing his ribs and shoulder upon impact. He gasped for air as he collapsed on the floor, but none entered his mouth. His ears were ringing as he tried flailing his limbs without rhyme or reason. Whether they actually moved, he had no idea. His sense of touch was as gone as his sense of sight.

  Rush’s death cry echoed in his skull as he squirmed in the darkness. Dead! He told himself. She is dead! Dead! DEAD! And for what? For a whim? If he still had eyes, they’d be overflowing with tears.

  The footsteps surrounded him. The guards, he realized. They must have heard the explosion.

  “My God!” one of them shouted.

  “The governor!” bellowed another. His voice came from the opposite wall. “He… he’s not…!”

  “The sheriff seems to be moving!” someone else said. He knelt by the Nameless. “But I don’t think he can breathe!”

  “Don’t touch him!” shouted SIM as he came in from the office.

  “Sir!” a guard said, “What in the world happened here?”

  He did this! the Nameless wanted to shout. Execute him for treason! Make him pay! Shackle him up in the dungeons until I get better, so I can kill him slowly!

  What came out of his mouth was a brief series of mewls and hisses.

  “Our guests left a bomb,” SIM said as he knelt near the Nameless. “A nasty one, as you can see. But now I need to save our friend’s life here. If I don’t open up his windpipe, he will die soon.”

  Again, the Nameless flailed what was left of his limbs. His attempt at a scream had used up so much of his strength that he barely moved an inch.

  “What can we do?” one of the men asked.

  “I will need you to hold him down while I operate,” SIM said. “Before that, I will need one of you to hand me a knife. A scalpel would be better, but there’s no time.”

  The Nameless tried moving a muscle. Any muscle. As far as he could tell, he failed utterly. His body, if one might call it that, was no longer his. And his consciousness was on the way out.

  “That’s it,” SIM’s voice echoed in the Nameless’ ears. “Like so. Now, keep him still.”

  The Nameless’ sense of touch might have been gone, but he felt that. SIM cut much, much deeper than he needed to.

  Part Three:

  Wasteland

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Nameless opened his eyes. He was surprised that he still had them. He was even more surprised that he was alive.

  Rush! Unlike him, she wasn’t. A knotted mess formed in his chest as he rocked his whole-again limbs to sit up. He was in a closed-off space, albeit he didn’t make out any details before a woman’s face sprung into view.

  Equal parts homey and exotic, with pronounced cheekbones, full lips, and dark eyes, it belonged to someone he never thought he’d see again. Tarantula, he realized as he involuntarily dragged his fingers over his eyes to check for damage. There weren’t any scars, but his skin was moist. And the tears kept flowing.

  “My Lord,” she said in her usual inviting tone, “are you well? You’ve been out for so long. Longer than anyone else who attempted this, in fact.”

  The Nameless tried speaking, but the words refused to leave his throat. He inhaled deep, and found that the whole place smelled of… incense? He turned around several times, noting that something stuck to his face as he moved. He grabbed it quickly and tried to pull it away. It hurt.

  I have my long hair again, he noticed, now focusing on his surroundings. They were inside what was likely a medium-sized tent. Art depicting scenes from Native American history was painted on the walls, while the ceiling was covered with a stylized version of a starry night sky.

  “What did you see?” Tarantula asked, causing him to face her again. Just like she did in Babylon, she wore a set of tight, flattering denims. A new addition to it was a piece of black fabric with red edges that covered her right bicep.

  She is dead. David is dead. Rush is dead, the Nameless’ inner voice kept howling. In order to silence it, he chose to speak.

  “How are you here?” he asked. “How am I alive? What is happening?”

  Tarantula seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts. “I apologize, my Lord, but I’m afraid I can’t give you a good enough answer. In essence, what you’re experiencing right now is my fault, and I am sorry for that.”

  Nearly everything I have ever experienced is, to some degree, your fault. The Nameless pressed both hands against his te
mples and rubbed hard. All it did was cause more discomfort.

  Tarantula gestured toward the furry carpet they were both sitting on. Between them was an old-seeming ornate pipe. The Nameless sniffed the air again. Whatever he was smelling originated from it.

  “The dosage might have been too great,” she said.

  I must get up. If he didn’t, the Nameless’ intestines might try to escape out his nose. My fault. Died for nothing. Everyone. He braced against the ground.

  “Please!” Tarantula quickly corrected herself, “My Lord, do not go outside, I beg of you. You’ve been unconscious for almost three hours now. Given how disoriented and confused you are, you could end up injuring yourself.”

  “If you tell me one thing,” the Nameless grumbled as he slowly rose, “the only sensible thing to do is the exact opposite.” He turned away from her and stepped toward the exit. He managed a total of three steps before he fell flat on his face. Alright. Perhaps this one piece of advice was sound.

  Tarantula glided to his side with a series of graceful motions. “I’m here to help, my Lord, but I can’t do that if you won’t. Now, you’re experiencing headache and dizziness, right? And foggy memories?”

  For once in his life, the Nameless thought that he remembered too much. The pain of his injuries, the sight of Rush’s face disappearing in a cloud of fire… it was all so fresh and vivid. Yet here he was, as good as new. At least in flesh.

  You will suffer, SIM. Still flat on the ground he clenched both fists. I will give you more pain than even the angel did.

  Apparently, Tarantula took his silence as a yes. She rose, went back to where she used to sit, and brought back a large, brown cup. Its contents had cooled long ago, but definitely smelled of strong coffee.

  “I made it in advance,” she said.

  The Nameless slapped the cup out of her hands, causing the contents to spill on the ground.

  “I could’ve just put it away,” she said.

  He clumsily rose again, causing her to step back.

  “Where is SIM?” he roared. “If you are hiding him, I will make you die again!”