Hard Reign

by John Hook

  Azar’s face was neutral, but I caught just a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

  “You want me to pick up that fallen tree trunk?”

  “You seemed to have no problem shattering it and tossing it a good ways a moment ago.”

  Azar motioned back down the path of destruction to a jagged, exposed stump that was probably a few hundred feet away.

  I whistled and looked back at Azar. I never thought about a demon having anything like a coy look, but Azar was not your average demon. I shrugged and walked over to the tree trunk. I squatted and tried to lift one end of the trunk. It didn’t even budge. I drew in a breath and then put all I had into it. A large branch I was using for a handle twisted up a bit but the trunk wouldn’t budge. It was just too heavy. I tried one last time, letting a loud grunt of determination out, my arms quaking. It didn’t even come off the ground.

  I stood, my arm muscles still feeling the strain, although glamour bodies don’t get tired quite the same way real bodies do. That thought made me look at Azar again.

  “This is a glamour?” I raised my arms in a motion indicating it was my body I was talking about.

  “Of course,” Azar said with a sparkle of amusement. “You don’t have to be blue, you know.”

  “Though it does kind of look good on you. Especially with the yellow shirt.”

  The voice startled me. I turned to see Saripha walking up in her usual jeans and blue shirt, her silvery white hair pulled back in a braid. I could see the shadows around her eyes that showed she still felt all that had turned our world upside down and knew that we still did not know the fate of Guido. However there was a light in her eyes and pleasure in her face at seeing me, and a slight curl of amusement on her lips.

  “Saripha?” I could see I hadn’t lost my knack for snappy patter.

  “Azar summoned me.”

  “You escaped Antanaria.”

  “They weren’t much interested in the rest of us. They were focused on you and the Magister.”

  “He’s a prisoner?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Saripha touched my shoulder. She frowned for a moment.

  “Your pain runs very deep.”

  “How long have I been fighting? So far, I’ve won a few lucky skirmishes and lost almost everything.”

  “This place has been at war, I suspect, since before we got here. I don’t know the nature of that war, but you have put yourself somehow in the middle of it and planted the seeds of change. You can’t give up just because it gets hard.”

  “I’m not planning on giving up, but it is frustrating. I can only keep going because I had this alien inside me.”

  “There was no alien inside you. It’s you. I’s just a glamour. You traded one glamour for another.”

  I looked at my arms. They were no longer blue.

  “I’m me again.”

  “You always were. Although your hair is still blue. I like it. I hope you leave it that way.”

  Saripha’s eyes twinkled.

  “I don’t get it.”

  Azar spoke in my head. I saw Saripha’s eyes flick to him so I knew she was hearing him too.

  “You worry too much about explanation. The blue power simply made a change in your glamour that you compartmentalized for a long while. The one who calls herself Rooni used that to help you walk away from the pain machine. In fact, anyone with a glamour could do that if they really understood that they were biological ghosts. You all are trapped here mostly by your own illusions, and that’s what those who plot against you don’t want you to find out.”

  “Okay, sure, but what about this?” I motioned at the path of destruction. “I don’t have anywhere near that strength. What happened to me?”

  “Each of the color energies is intended to create a type of guardian. The angels want to take control of these powers for their own twisted purposes.”

  “So what is my power? Do I only get strong if I’m mad, like the Hulk?”

  Saripha looked amused, but I don’t think Azar got the cultural reference. I’m not sure how you can tell with a demon anyway.

  “Not strength apparently. You just tried and failed.”

  “But maybe when I lost control…”

  Azar locked eyes with me. They were what told me he was different from all the other demons.

  “Not strength. Something else.”

  “Okay.” Anger started rising up in me again. I pushed it back down, but there was still a snappiness in my voice. “I don’t need these guessing games. What is my power?”

  Saripha put her hand on my shoulder. I turned my head sharply towards her, anger still biting at the edges of my consciousness, making me jumpy.

  “We don’t know,” she said gently. “We need to find out.”

  I took a deep breath and felt my body let go of some of its tension.

  “We don’t know?”

  “Not exactly. Azar has some ideas. I have some ideas. And we have the few things you’ve done with your powers. We need to put it together and get a handle on what you have because whatever it is, it is important enough that they want it, even if they haven’t figured out how to take it yet.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “We are going to have to hide a while longer,” Saripha answered.

  I looked over at Azar. He smiled. I always found demon smiles to be unsettling. Maybe it was the needle-sharp teeth.

  “I am good at hiding,” he said.

  “And what will we do while we hide?”

  “You’ll love the answer.” Saripha raised an eyebrow.

  “Training?”

  “With both of us.” Saripha nodded at Azar.

  We hiked back further into the mountains. I was unfamiliar with this area. Azar explained it was an offshoot of the mountains that ran behind Zaccora and lay in an area midway between Zaccora, Antanaria and the pain farm. While in a funny way it was in the middle of everything, it was remote and wild. There were few fields and the terrain was rugged, filled with towering pines and jutting rocks. We ended up at what appeared to be a hermitage. It was a small, low structure made of rough-hewn logs, probably the trees that had been cleared to make room for it. It was tucked back into a shelf of rock that had split open in the side of the steep mountain and formed a rock-walled shelf. I assumed this was where Azar hung out, maybe one of several places.

  Inside, the wood was sanded down and oiled with something that acted like a stain. It must have been a lot of work. I had often wondered if Azar had any other of his kind around, but there were none in evidence here. It was very Spartan. There was one low table and three leaf and grass matted beds. I was wondering if it was coincidence that the number of beds matched our present number. Otherwise, it was clear that one just sat on the floor. In one corner was a stone fire pit with a vent to the outdoors cut in the wall. The embers were glowing and a clay pot was suspended above them by a hook. For not being that large a building it had a great sense of space. If there had been a Buddha in it I would have called it a temple.

  Azar motioned at the floor, which Saripha and I took as a request to sit. He waddled over to the fire pit and poured steaming liquid from the pot into small clay cups and brought them over for Saripha and myself. It was tea, which was usually made from grasses and always made me wish for coffee. This brew was a golden color and had pieces of flower petals floating in it. I shrugged and took a sip. It was lingeringly sweet on the tongue and I could feel my neck relax as the hot liquid made its way down my throat. A moment’s sadness passed over me as I thought of how Rox could calm my nerves with her touch.

  “Tell me about yourself, Azar.” I looked up. “You’re not like any other demon I’ve met. In fact, more and more, that’s not the word I associate with you. I relate with you as, I guess, I would with an intelligent alien. Are you the last of your kind?”

  Saripha raised an eyebrow, obviously also interested. Azar stared at the floor thoughtfully and at first I thought he wasn’t going to answer.

 
“Most of my people were slaughtered. However, not before our…” He hesitated. “I don’t have a mental word for this so I will form a picture.” I saw multiple helixes forming around each other. I couldn’t tell if it really looked like DNA sequences, nor would I have known for sure if it had, but I immediately had the idea of DNA.

  “Someone took your DNA?”

  “It was used to create the other races. Except for the Azaroti. They are also an original species. They were also slaughtered.”

  “Who did the slaughtering? And the DNA experiments?”

  “The angels. Long story.”

  “Angels? I’ve only seen one, unless they all look the same.”

  Azar grimaced. “They do. Except the black one. They are clones.”

  “More genetics?”

  “Not exactly. Rather than having glamour bodies they surround themselves with a glamour. They wear them like a cloak.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Another long story.”

  “Let’s try something else then. What are we doing here? There is a lot I need to do and I have no idea how to do it.”

  “That is why you are here. To figure out how to do it. To discover your power.”

  I took another sip of tea. I hadn’t even noticed that I had almost drained the cup.

  “And how do you propose we do that when we don’t know what it is?”

  “What is it you want to do?” Azar asked.

  “Sitting here talking with you isn’t it. No offense.”

  “None taken. Now answer the question.”

  “Right now it’s a long list.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I want to find Rox.” I turned to Saripha. “I want to find Guido.” I turned back to Azar. “Those are my top priorities, but they are also the things I have no idea how to do. Probably the same for the rest of the list, but I have a better idea where to begin. I want to free people from the pain farm. I want to know what is being extracted from them and I want to know where that is being piped to and why!”

  “Anything else?” Azar said, as if nothing on my list was a big deal.

  “Yes, I want to stop Knightshade.”

  I noticed an odd feeling. It was as if geometrical relationships in the room were changing. I seemed farther away from Azar and Saripha, unless I started paying attention to one or the other. I felt calm inside, which was odd. There was a buzzing in my groin area, like a mild electrical charge, and warmth was spreading up my spine. I didn’t feel drugged. In fact, I felt startlingly clear headed. But I noticed that I had not seen either Azar or Saripha drink their tea.

  “What is this stuff?”

  “Her idea.” Azar motioned at Saripha. “I was going to make you do chores for me until you got mad enough to invoke your power, but she said that wouldn’t work. You would just leave.”

  “Corny too. Been used in almost every Kung Fu movie,” Saripha added.

  I looked at Saripha. I was annoyed at the deception, but I did cut her a lot of slack, which I was guessing she was counting on. She had what appeared to be amusement on her face. I gave her my best “your move” look.

  She waited a beat. She almost looked like she was in meditation. Then in a quiet but strong voice, she said, “How do you like to write?”

  The question completely threw me but I rolled with it anyway.

  “I do most of my work on a typewriter. Well, I did when I was alive.”

  “Why did you use a typewriter?”

  “What the hell?” It was weird because I should have been agitated but I wasn’t. Still, I couldn’t figure out what this conversation had to do with anything and the old stubbornness was coming into play.

  “Quentin, please trust me.” I looked into her eyes and they seemed to take me somewhere deep. I nodded, feeling myself let go of whatever I was hanging onto and opened myself up.

  “Why did you use a typewriter?”

  Then a memory flitted in. “I actually didn’t use a typewriter much. I really liked them, though, and I kept one on a table in my apartment where I often planned my writing for the day. I of course used a laptop with a word processor.”

  “And why?”

  “Because I hated retyping handwritten pages.”

  “You used a keyboard because it was more convenient and efficient.”

  “Well, yeah, of course.”

  “But how do you like to write?” This time the emphasis was clear.

  “I guess I like writing with a pen. When I was in college, I discovered really fine fountain pens and very expensive papers. I loved writing on surfaces that weren’t white; cream or ivory. I loved the sound of the quill tip on the paper texture, the fluid way the ink would flow.”

  “Sounds like a hobby. And a distraction.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s why I stopped. I got very geeky about it. I could tell you everything you might want to know about the shapes of the quills, Montblanc versus Visconti, the composition and milling of the papers. Too often, I was just playing with my materials and not getting down to writing.”

  Saripha repeated her question. There was no impatience or insistence. It was like a mantra in a meditation. New images floated in.

  “You know the funny thing, the first time I decided to write something, I was seven. I don’t even remember the story, but I really wanted to write it. All I could find in the house was a crayon. And a wall.”

  I grinned, thinking about the trouble I had gotten into.

  “What color was the crayon?”

  I looked down through my seven-year-old eyes and saw the blue Crayola in my hand. Suddenly I was back looking through my own eyes. My skin had gone all blue again. In fact, it was glowing. In my hand I held a short, cylindrical object like a piece of blue chalk that was also glowing.

  “What is it?” I turned it over slowly in my hands.

  “It is—a way of interacting with reality.”

  “You mean like the cartoons?”

  I stood up and drew a door. I could just make it out as faded blue lines.

  “Do you see that?”

  “No, only you can see it, I think.”

  “Aw, no, it can’t be.”

  I reached and turned the irregular doorknob I had quickly sketched in. The door opened. I stepped through and closed it. It disappeared.

  “Damn. It didn’t transport me anywhere.”

  “You are still learning how to use it.”

  My skin became normal looking again and the chalk or whatever it was disappeared.

  “Where did it go?”

  “I suspect you can make it appear at will now.”

  I tried. She was right. I made it disappear again.

  “So what do I do with it? I’m a writer, not an artist.”

  “You’ll figure out how to use it as you go, I suspect. You had to connect with it. That was the important part.”

  “So now what?”

  “Get some rest and we will make plans.”

  I didn’t think I could sleep but Saripha had me lie down. I ended up sleeping more than a day and, while I didn’t remember anything when I woke, I was sure I had dreams and that Rox and the Black Angel were in them.

  16.

  The next couple of days were uneventful, which I found frustrating. Mostly Saripha worked with me on breathing and what seemed to be yoga-like stretching exercises, although some of it looked like Kyo’s tai chi. She would apply pressure to different parts of my body, especially my lower back, and start this energy flowing through my spine.

  I was actually becoming quite good at meditating. It’s something I never thought would take with me. I had tried it at times when I was alive and could never sit still long. Now I could slip away for hours and remember nothing when I phased back in. I would be refreshed and feel strong, but then I would realize how much time had slipped by and become agitated. After a while, Saripha started having a potion ready when I woke which would calm my nerves. I asked her what it was, but she didn’t say anything.

  W
hile Saripha and I were working, Azar mostly looked through old manuscripts that he kept stacked along one wall, using the low table to spread them out. I would try to engage him in conversation but mostly he would ignore me. Then every so often he would work with me, asking me to conjure the stylus—I had decided on that name as it sounded better than chalk or crayon—and do things with it. Most of the time he didn’t seem to care what. I started out drawing pictures. I did the door again. I created a window and opened it. It seemed childish and like circus tricks. Each time he examined where I made my gestures and then he would go back to his books.

  On the second day, Rooni showed up. Rooni and Azar spent a good deal of time together. Rooni looked like any cat lounging about at ease with the world, but I had the distinct impression she and Azar were conversing in their heads. I tried to ask him about it, but he ignored the question while Rooni gave me a wide-eyed, enigmatic stare. It was a little bit distracting to work with Saripha with Azar and Rooni over in their corner. I was trying to be patient. I knew Saripha thought the training was important, but I still didn’t know where it was going. I also missed the others, especially Izzy. All of this had become such a confusing mess with so much loss involved that I wanted some normalcy and “the lodge” was anything but normal.

  Still, like many of the mountain regions of Hell, it was a breathtaking place to be. Every so often, Saripha would encourage me to take breaks and I would wander off into the woods. We were well hidden and sheltered by rock overhangs and deep woodland. Even if Knightshade had passed overhead, which was unlikely to begin with, he would have had to know what he was looking for to detect anything. Sometimes Saripha would come with me and we would purposely not talk about the work. We would just talk about what we had been through since we got to Hell and I would ask her about being no longer mortal herself. Sometimes, when I walked alone I would, out of nowhere, get a sense of Rox and memories would rush up. Every time it happened, I would start being angry that I wasn’t looking for her and then the anger turned inward as grief. Of all my objectives, it was the most hopeless because I had no clue where to start. Maybe if I started accomplishing some of my other goals it would shake things up enough that I would run into someone who could tell me where she was.