by Ben Woollard
I sat down in the chair and felt the cold metal placed onto my head. All the faces gathered around me stared with drooping eyes. The chair was hard and made my legs ache. The memory is still stuck in my mind, jagged and vivid as if I sat there still. My hands shook slightly and I did my best to hold them steady by squeezing the arms of the chair on which they laid, turning my knuckles white.
Shilk walked back to the top of the mezzanine, and saluted me as he looked down with Remus, who seemed to avoid my gaze. I still wonder if some part of him regretted giving my name as a recommendation. Was he so lost then as he was to become, as I almost was? Shilk nodded at Godard and I saw him pull a lever on the panel to my right. My scalp began to tingle, and the scene around me shimmered as if I was looking at it through the surface of a pond. Godard pulled another lever, and lights began to swim inside me. They were in my body, yet I could see them as if I were translucent. Then everything around me vanished, and I looked out at a vast and lightless void.
I felt more lucid then I ever had, and I at first I thought I was alone, surveying the nothingness before me. Then the emptiness began to stir, and I saw a massive form emerging from it. The first shape that became recognizable to me was that of a giant feathered limb. It beat the air about me and churned it into clouds, which gathered above and roared with lightning and thunder. Below, I saw emerge the body of a bird lifted upwards by the beating of its wings.
Terror filled me at the sight of the flying beast, its feathers black as coal, eyes bleeding red but filled with joy too awful to look upon. I would’ve run, had I been able to move. As it was I was trapped, and the creature’s gaze fell on me. It screeched a laughing call that pierced straight through me, and I shut my eyes and threw up my hands to stop my ears from ringing, but I could not see my body, and I still saw the scene before me despite my closed eyelids. Still the cry could not be blotted out, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop the feeling of the presence that was growing all around me. It approached, and I felt it in my skull. A voice appeared, deep and graveled.
“Do not fear, Sanglorian, I’ve come to give you power,” the voice said to me, and every syllable grated at my mind. “It’s too late to try and fight. You will see in time that I am not an adversary, but a friend. The others are here, too, about me all the time, and I with them, as I shall be with you.” I felt my blood pulsing and the presence speaking from in my head spread out to fill me. As it did I felt a surge of energy, like adrenaline and rage. I felt swollen with strength, berserker’s bliss and bloodlust. I had a new thirst for domination; it became a need implanted in my bones.
“Now you see the sense of me,” the voice said. “All this I give you, and loyalty the only thing that I demand.” I saw the head of the creature in front of me and it opened a single dilated eye as wide as I am tall, staring directly into mine.
I had the sensation of being torn in two. One portion of me felt only horror, nausea, pain, and on the other side was the rising of adrenaline, a surging strength that filled me with guilt yet at the same time brought me pleasure to immense degrees. The split widened, and I knew there was nothing that I could do.
“Rise Sanglorian. You are made complete, you are made a part of me, and I a part of you. Together we will spill iron rivers on the land: regiment and order, blood and war to make our ends. The horrified part of myself began to recede, yet in it there was recognition of a lie, and as a scream let lose from me, I knew that I was too weak to resist; I could not withstand this presence. It felt like a dark and holy exaltation. All around it ashes burned and filled the air. I screamed and laughed and the two polarities inside me were wrenched apart in agony, and I felt the darker one succeed.
The scene of the room, scientific men standing all around me, Shilk above, returned. My eyes darted madly for a moment before I recognized where I was and fell calm. The presence was still in me, and I could still feel the power of it. It was like an incredible expansion; my senses felt open as they never had, my body filled with energy, and my will was made of steel. Yet still I felt that horror, glowing subtly in a pit inside my chest, although it was all too easily ignored. I looked at the General Director and smiled as they took The Device from off my head. He beamed back at me, and Remus did the same. I knew we were all apart of that winged form, that it lived in their minds as it did in mine.
“Rise, Sanglorian,” the voice again said to me from within my own thoughts. “Your comrades are here to greet you, to join you in the holy cause.” The horror in me protested at the sound of it, but was drowned by floods of bloody glee that emanated from the newly opened space within me. I felt giddy, like a kid ready to embark on some adventure, to make the world my own. I walked up the stairs to join the others on the platform. Remus, Shilk, and the other Red Caps shook my hand in turn.
“Congratulations,” they all said, and I thanked them earnestly. We all shared a center now, all formed a part of the same structure, yet I noticed there something in Shilk’s eyes more than was in the others: they seemed to have a reddish glow.
Chapter 6
I was working in the field the day after Tahm had woken me, clearing rocks from where they were stuck in the earth in order to make room for us to expand our fields. The work was back breaking, and the sun was out and beating ruthlessly upon me. I had to dig around the larger stones, then use my shovel to leverage them out and roll them to the side. The truly huge ones I had to use extra props I cut from the trees in order to get enough power on their bulky forms. Even so, some defeated me, and I left them as they were in hopes that the later combination of mine and Theo’s efforts might move the behemoths out.
By the time I had rolled away only maybe half the stones, the light was fading and day taking on its evening glow, the leaves that had begun to show their blushes shining in the falling rays, the grass was emerald fields around me. Darting crickets and grasshoppers seemed bright-winged as they leaped throughout the air. I stopped to watch it all, the smell of sweat and churned earth sticking to me. Theo wasn’t likely to be back until late that night, so I made myself a small dinner: eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, bread, and sat out on the log in front of the hut to watch the coming night. When I’d finished my meal, and was sipping tea with nothing in my head, I noticed movement in the tree line.
It was Tahm, beckoning at me in his dreamy way. I sighed, having been wondering when he was likely to show up, and not wanting to do much else but sit until I fell asleep. My limbs were already sore and drooping from the day’s strain. I rubbed my plate with sand and put it, along with my cup, inside and walked to the edge of the forest where Tahm stood. Without saying anything, he led me into the woods. We walked until I began to wonder if I would be able to find my way back. Eventually we stopped under an oak tree, branches looming massive nets above us.
“Here we are,” Tahm said. “Sit there.” He gestured to the ground beneath the oak.
“What’re we doing here?” I asked, lowering myself to the ground and looking about to see if any of the things I’d seen the night before were present.
“This is where you begin The Work.”
“Um, ok. What do you mean by that?”
“You’ll see. For now do as I say. You are to sit here, with crossed legs and a straight back.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yes, for today. You are to sit like this without moving any muscle even the slightest bit, and with your eyes closed, until I tell you to rise.”
“And how long is that going to be?”
“Until your body begins to adjust to stillness. I won’t lie to you: it will likely be agonizing.” That didn’t make me feel good about what I had agreed to undertake, though I didn’t see how just sitting still could lead to that kind of pain. Some discomfort, sure, but agony?
“And why do I have to do this?”
“You must have a strong will and a burning focus. Together they will be your greatest tool and weapon.”
I sighed and sat as Tahm said, closing my eyes. Immediately my t
ired body began to protest, and the tendency to slouch did all it could to overtake me. I kept catching my posture having slipped without my being aware of how it happened, and I forced myself to straighten only to find my spine bent again a few minutes later. As the minutes passed I grew restless, and an ache set the muscles of my back to trembling. My right leg fell asleep, and was attempting to wake up with shooting pins and needles. I sat, determined not to let the simple act defeat me, but getting increasingly frustrated by the task, which seemed to be a useless means of self-torture.
As I passed what I felt must be at least an hour, the discomfort of my body turned to utter suffering. I was amazed by how much it hurt. My back radiated pain of supporting my upright position, and even when I allowed myself to slouch the relief was minimal. My legs were now alternating pins and needles, my knees and hips were stiff and aching. Everything in my body cried out for movement, and I felt I might explode if I was forced to keep on going. Just as I was ready to give up, and leap cursing from the spot, I heard Tahm speak in front of me.
“Open your eyes,” he said. The twilight was gone, transfigured to the starlit night, a hazy crescent moon adding meager light to fall between the tree trunks. “Now release your tension and move, slowly.” I did as he said and when I straightened my knees they ached so much I had to move them inch by inch to avoid the feeling that I’d do them damage. The relief was indescribable, though, and I let myself spread supine on the forest floor, looking up at the clouds of light passing through the canopy to fall upon the dirt. I felt strangely satisfied, and I could feel the blood pulsing through my tired body.
“You did better than I was expecting,” Tahm said.
“What’s the larger point of all this?” I asked him, still unsatisfied with the answers I’d been given. “How does this help me, besides the discipline I mean, if what you showed me is what’s coming?” Tahm looked off into the woods, and I thought I saw a flash of grief within that brief movement.
“That is difficult to understand before you’ve reached the goal. Come, we’ll go back.” I got up from where I lay, part of me wishing I could stay and sleep there atop the dirt; it felt so soft compared to the pain I’d just encountered.
“Humans,” Tahm said as we walked, “are the strangest of all creatures. While the others only care for survival, the needs of them and theirs, a human can see and think its way to any form of motivation. Why they do the things they do are often a complete mystery even to themselves. Since your latest fall, and really since long before it, too, your kind has lost touch with the larger scope of how things are. Those like myself were scattered to the edges, ridiculed and called unreal. All ideas of higher truth were trampled and nothing made to fill their place. So each fell into their own traps, or else those laid by others seeking domination. This is what fell the country that once grew here, and lies now as merely broken, scattered bones. Within a human is all potential. They might not know it, but each of you can see into the higher, as well as underlying levels, them both being a part of each of you. No creature is so varied, capable of reaching to the heights, or crawling to the depths of broken shells and bloodlust.”
“You don’t mean everybody, though, right? I mean, everyone is different, and not everyone is as good or as evil as what you’re talking about,” I said, certain in my repeating something that always seemed implicit to me. Tahm looked at me so grave I felt stupid by the words I’d said.
“People vary, but their potential to do good or evil is the same. Each of you has in them pits where dwell the demons, hordes of nesting things that wait to run across the earth. Every one of you, and it’s only ignorance of self that dares preach otherwise.”
“So that vision that I saw…?”
“The opening of widest depths, tunnels dug by Proélefsi, who in her growing mind built such weights of darkness that everything disintegrated, and in its place a chasm, and a lone leviathan crawling forth with wings, ash laden, with joy for blood and pain. Even now it takes a hold of hearts and minds and entices them to join it. Never doubt that there are those who would worship such poor idols, such sick and awful things. All that unending potential of you humans can either will ideals worth owning, or those so evil that they will bring everything to burn.”
Tahm’s words were heavy to me, and made me feel as if the air were thick and weighing down upon me. Strange, I’d never doubted that I myself could be filled with so much anger that I could do terrible things, but it had rarely occurred to me that others might be the same as me. I thought of Shiloh; could he really go so far? He, too, was pulled in by Proélefsi, I thought, so who knows just how much further he could’ve gone, how far any of us could go.
“What can be done?” I asked, my voice choking, all the sounds and images I’d seen coming back to mind, from the bloody screams of Alexei’s Grove to the cackling image of the bird above the city. “What can I do?”
“You can learn control, and seek to climb instead of dig or let another bury you. That is why I’ve made you sit in agony, and why I shall do so again and again until you have your body mastered.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then we move on to your breath, and then your mind, and if we find success you’ll see into the sun and past it, until you know the truth, and can bring it down upon the head of that which comes. Trust me, Sam, this is the best route to where you must go. All the others risk destruction.” We had reached the edge of the woods, and I looked out at the ‘stead that me and Theo’d built. It seemed insignificant in the vastness of the night, just a small and poorly managed patch of land. The wind blew and wailed upon the sea of plants, rustling the leaves, and everything felt ominous. A shiver ran up my spine, goose bumps up my skin.
“Tomorrow, then?” I asked. Tahm nodded and I walked through the field of tallish grass towards the hut, its windows flickering with candlelight.
“Where’ve you been?” Theo asked when I came in.
“Just out for a walk,” I said, a gloom hanging over me.
“Want something to eat?”
“No, I ate already. Been a long day, think I just need to sleep.”
“Suit yourself,” Theo said and I went into my room, no larger than a cupboard, and lay out on the fabric-wrapped straw. I stared at the patterns of the shadows on the ceiling, and thought of my family still living in the maze of Columbia. Again the cackle of the beast I’d seen above it sounded in my head, and tears began to swell my eyes, and a feeling of such hopelessness overcome me I honestly felt maybe I’d be better off if I’d just died among those stinking tunnels of the Singulars, my skull bashed in upon the sidewalls. Everything felt so overwhelming, and in this horrid state I fell asleep, tears still streaming down my face.
***
I began to sit out in the woods, my body rigid as a plank, every single night. I would return to my room with an aching back and lower joints stiff and sore. Tahm assured me the progress was forthcoming, but every day felt harder than the last, and I was starting to feel I was burning myself out, what with all the daily work I was undertaking in addition. Theo noticed my spending so much time out in the woods at night, and I said I just enjoyed being out there. I suppose I could’ve told him the truth, but it was so bizarre, and I felt it was simply easier left unsaid.
My sleep was being interfered with by it, though, especially as the work I did for other settlers demanded that I wake up early in the morning, and I often felt myself slouching with heavy eyelids as I went about my day. Sometimes I was forced to take small breaks from the labor of my own ‘stead in order to catch a couple minutes sleep, usually laid up in the field, my jacket on a rock to form a kind of pillow.
As we worked the days grew colder, and me and Theo struggled to grow as much as we could before the winter months. Some settlers showed us how to pickle vegetables and we got to work storing them inside our cellar. We built a thicker pen for the chickens with the hope they wouldn’t freeze to death when the snow began to fall. Unfortunately all the materials, and
the need to preserve a large portion of our crops, much of which we’d already eaten, or that had failed to fruit at all as a result of our being knew to the endeavor, cost us more money than we’d hoped, and our resources were running low.
The summer turned to autumn and its dark and reddened shades. The air cooled, and I spent nights wrapped in thick clothing in the woods, learning how to hold my body still. One night, when I felt that I’d been making a good amount of progress, Tahm told me I should bring a saucer and a bottle of water with me.
“It’s time to test you,” he said, and so the next night I went out to our meeting spot with the things he’d asked me to bring. I came to where the lantern’s light illuminated the circular patch of ground on which I’d sat for months now.
“I brought it,” I told Tahm, and held up the saucer and the bottle sloshing with its carried liquid.
“Good, good,” he said in his absentminded way. “Sit down and fill the saucer to the brim with water. I did as he said and poured the bottle out until it nearly streamed up over the saucer’s sides. “Now, carefully, pick the saucer up and place it on your head.” I did so, and sat as rigid as I could to keep the thing from falling off and soaking me, already cold from the biting of the air, with its fallen contents. “Sit like this and don’t spill a drop. Should you fail, don’t move; I’ll tell you when to stop.”
I closed my eyes and imagined my muscles built of stone. Granite, quarts and other rigid minerals occupied my mind, and for some while I succeeded in keeping off the slightest tremble. I thought everything was going well, but as my body tired, my foundation began to waver, and I moved against my will and spilt a drop. I tried with all I could to recover, but it was too late, and the balance of the saucer on my head was lost, and it fell, spilling icy water down my back.
Still I stayed rigid as Tahm had told me to, but the cold began to get to me, and shivering took over all my movements until every muscle shook in freezing agony. At last I couldn’t take it and leaped up cursing, jumping crazily to warm myself. The light of the lantern was a low ember, and Tahm was nowhere to be seen. I continued jumping, a fury having risen up inside me. The discomfort was too much, and anger filled my every sense, rebelling against the personality that had coerced me into trying to take on such an awful task. Bitter and ranting in my head against the tyranny of Tahm Pucket, I left the woods and headed towards the hut with thoughts of warming myself up.