“So, I’m just another transducer?” Lyköan asked.
A reactive gleam flared in the robed figure’s eyes. “Precisely. And the hotter those thoughts of murder burn, the more dangerous you become. But you are not without options, not beyond making your own choices, even now.”
The words pinged hollowly inside Lyköan’s skull. He felt the fire raging, his hatred for these things, the one glowering before him and the other even more hateful thing welling up inside. He feared their immense power ― especially loathed their haughty claim to sovereignty over him, over everything in existence. As the one within flexed its hideous strength it was taking every bit of his will to force it down. Panic of what was happening urged action, while that other, darker thing demanded breath.
“Yes, Hadad, ultimately it is man who is our mystery,” the unbidden thoughts inside his head erupted, speaking out of Lyköan’s mouth without is consent. “Just as we are his.”
“Beware your tongue!” Soma-shu threatened, rising abruptly from the canopied throne.
Do we share some sort of reciprocal link with these evil things? Lyköan wondered. Maybe the relationship wasn’t a one-way street at all, the predator devouring its prey. Maybe there was something even these creatures feared, some weakness inherent in their parasitic relationship with humanity.
There must be. The Artifact had let something important slip. Lyköan was certain this wanna-be usurper had been frightened by the revelation, but he no idea why. Whatever it is, it may also explain why they need to hide in the shadows ― like cockroaches. Perhaps these hollow creatures, devoid of their own passion, were themselves as much slaves as the humans they feasted upon, slaves to the errant longings as strong as those that drove mortals and that was why they rarely entered the physical universe, risking exposure, except at these potentially transitionary points. Did the great cusp that Pandavas’s plague had created in some way expose them, somehow make them more vulnerable?
At the threshold of the open gate, Lyköan remained frozen as the two dark forces battled for control of the future, pandering to every petty fear and heartfelt hope he harbored, as the fate of this world and of all worlds, enjoying all the misery that had ever allowed them o gain their ends, dangled the promise of eternal bliss before the minds of mortals ― until one alone possessed the requisite energy to usurp the power of the other.
Perhaps no being ― even godlike creatures such as these ― could ever comfortably predict the future. How else could the scene now playing out before Lyköan’s eyes otherwise be explained? There were still decisions to be made and a resulting string of consequences that would trigger the infinite cascade of subsequent events. There was still the catbird seat, the germination point of the multiverse still under the Artifact’s control. Was what emerged unknowable even to these demigods? Or perhaps what they really feared was what lay behind the portal.
“Then why all the torture?” Lyköan shouted at Soma-shu, forcing the other entity aside. “What do you get out of all this suffering?”
“You might as well ask why the universe goes to all the bother of existing at all,” Soma-shu answered with an indecipherable grin. “Why inflame the angry mechanics of desire? Why indeed. Why, to prove that even the immortal soul is fungible, Mr. Lyköan. And like the weary tides, is there but to increase, to be gathered up ― and to be spent.”
Yes, there was little doubt now, it was the Tanner and the Devil who were deep in fiery argument. Lyköan had been a fool to ever have believed the real Devil could even possibly be human ― some idiot like Pandavas. But standing here before the elevated throne, seething with a hatred directed at both creatures, he was completely impotent, consumed by a conflagration of terror and rage. The Artifact and this Other were really no different one from the other. Both made Lyköan’s flesh crawl, but the one that had somehow entered into his very being was by far the more terrifying. Time and perception were accelerating. So little of existent choice remained as both time and space evaporated into a deluge of incoherent sensation.
“Like comets on the celestial plane,” the beast before him cried out like a possessed actor upon a purchased stage, “circling the great center in the ocean of being. When last I gazed upon these skies, King Tabnass ruled in fair Phoenicia and the fall of Troy still lingered in the memories of living men. Together, we weathered the plague of the sea peoples, held long the lush coasts of the middle sea ― the hills, the plains and the forests of the Levantine. My fortunes were as tightly bound to those who by my grace ruled then as now they are to Doctor Pandavas.
“I ruled through Ahab and Jezebel, sailed iron and civilization through the pillars of Gibraltar, talismans and charms, alloyed rings of newer, more wondrous metals still ― conquering kingdoms as far away as the worshippers of stone who then held sway upon the Salisbury plain in the land of Tin. The use of rare gems and sculpted amber I taught them ― how to cultivate and employ many arcane powers and powders, and by their use, produce subtle alterations in all who willingly bowed before my sacrificial altar.”
From inside his robes Soma-shu produced a large, curved ceremonial blade of some lustrous metal, with an ornate jewel-encrusted hilt, intricately carved, beautiful and compelling, glowing with an exquisite inner fire. He offered it to Lyköan. “Would you like to inspect the very sacrificial blade that brought about these miracles?”
Lyköan heard the faceted instrument beckon, but instinctively refused. With a shrug, Soma-shu returned the dagger to the folds of his robes and went back to his measured pacing back and forth before the golden throne.
“They worshipped me as Melkar ― God of the Unexpected Storm ― or Eshmon ― He Who Brings New Life from Life. In that long past age between the rise of Ur and the Punic collapse I accepted their treasure of sacrificial innocents before my great temple in opulent Sidon.
“But Carthage fell under the imperial yoke and after forty-five glorious generations of the lives of men my worshippers were no more ― crushed beneath the tread of usurping armies ― forced to flee into the backdrop of events and await the cycle of opportunity to come full circle. In the ensuing span of centuries, revenge became my only compass. During all of that long darkness, I never ceased my sibilant call for devotees ― knowing I would one day again find souls willing to assist me in my grand design and win back the throne as the scepter passed through time from one unworthy wielder to the next ― until it landed in the grasp of this present prince ― himself now grown senile and all too self-indulgent.”
Within the pause that followed, Lyköan spoke into the silence, “That’s quite a disquisition. Always wondered what was lurking at the end of the Pandavas rainbow ― what we were really running away from. Now we know.” Taking a step back, he pointed the gun at Whitehall, who still held Nora by an elbow.
“Be careful there, mate,” Whitehall warned, positioning Nora between the weapon and himself. “Unintended consequences, remember?” He cast a glance towards Soma-shu who stopped his pacing.
“Let her go, Whitehall. If you force me, I swear, the consequences are going to be intended.”
Soma-shu again withdrew the dagger from his robe and tossed it to Whitehall. In the blackness of the storm-clouded room it bloomed with a bouquet of scintillating colors as it tumbled through the air, humming a familiar deep-throated single note that pierced the silence like a harp. Whitehall caught the knife as it whizzed past Nora’s ear and in a single motion pressed its blade against her throat. Eyes locked with Lyköan’s, he left no doubt that he meant business.
Here was a truly tragic dilemma, standing like the end of a tragic epic. It was a conundrum not even a god could solve. There was no possible exit at this point. There would be no peace, no hope, no answer. Nothing but suffering could ever be expected from these petty, vile creatures, the one acting through Lyköan still guarding the font of the ever-expanding multiverse, the other nearing usurpation of that seat and with it, mastery over all of human existence.
Lyköan witnessed all these potentials in an instan
t and every one of them reeked of certain failure. In one potential, the most likely by far, Lyköan would slay the beast that was Soma-shu with three well-placed rounds. But in that space, with a quick turn of his wrist, Whitehall would pull the faceted blade hard and deep across Nora’s throat. Lyköan held his breath and watched, as though in a slow-motion dream, as a crimson arc spurted rhythmically, like a fountain, out of her pale neck into the open air and splashed ghastly dark onto the dais steps. In the dreamscape vision, Nora’s eyes rolled back into her lovely head as she slumped lifeless against Whitehall’s chest. By that route there would not even be time for a goodbye. Nothing. Only Whitehall holding the blood-soaked lifeless body like a pathetic shield.
Lyköan knew he would then give into the miserably irresistible impulse. To the side of Nora’s ill-positioned head, three more rounds would rip into Whitehall’s face, explosively spraying blood and brain matter out against the marbled wall in front of which he stood. The executioner’s blade would clatter to the stone floor, followed immediately by the dull thud of two bodies collapsing together.
In every other even remotely possible uchronion could imagine, beginning at that self-same instant, Lyköan found no more hope of success. The details differed in only the slightest of particulars, but the outcome was invariably the same. Lyköan had only six or seven rounds remaining in the thirty-six’s magazine, far too few to make good a derring-do escape.
Reacting blindly, after the few remaining rounds had been spent, in whatever order the bodies might fall, Lyköan would, in a final act of desperation, charge up the dais steps toward Soma-shu, intent on tearing that smug expression from the monster’s face. But he also knew that, even in if he were clothed in full mukti armor, he would be no match for Soma-shu. Somewhere in what remained of his scattered thoughts he instinctively understood that he was being used. Any act he instigated would play perfectly into the hands of this evil incarnate. Even so, he was seething with but one purpose and that purpose was murder.
On his own he could never hope to reach his quarry. Tears streaming down his contorted face, ― guilt and remorse at how thoroughly he had been played, how easily he had allowed himself to be molded into this engine of energy for the darkness, how many lives had been snuffed out like candles just to feed the horrid Tanner voice within him ― he slogged against an invisible current. The harder he pushed, however, the stronger the opposing force became, a force that still held him exhausted a stone’s throw from the throne. There was only one power capable of challenging this creature and he would become its supplicant.
I am yours, Apsu! he imagined himself saying. Just help me wring this shithead’s neck! That would at least give him an opportunity to wreak vengeance. Far off in the potential distance, a bugling fanfare of fallen stars and clarion calls blared across the fields of glorious inevitability. No. No. No. There was no way out in that direction either, certainly no hope of salvation. No matter what he did, Nora would die, and shortly thereafter, he would follow. Only another victory for Apsu or the equally ghastly Hadad. Another instant and one of the impinging possibilities was sure to take place.
With growing hopelessness, Lyköan weathered the infinite potentials, a succession of futile scenes, every one another lost cause, another unanswered prayer, all of them rushing by in the frozen instant. Within the star-strewn emptiness that lay outside the physical realm, however, the two demiurges were locked in mortal conflict. Sinking deeper, drifting farther from the fray, Apsu, Pandavas’s Artifact, had engaged wholly with Hadad, the self-named Soma-shu, and driving the battle into the farther realm, had been wholly consumed by the greater metaphysical threat. For an instant, near the nadir of the absence of desire, no longer requiring a physical form to engage his enemy, Apsu, the Artifact, had cut Lyköan loose, abandoned him to the nether.
It is understood that a mathematical point possesses no width nor depth nor breadth, no mass nor weight nor scope and in this regard cannot be said to exist at all. This is also true regarding the germination point of existence, the sole gateway to infinity and eternity, which comprises all of creation in its endless sweep forever. Within that limitless absence, the great Urgrund slumbers, unmindful of the host of its creation and caring naught for the portal through which that creation enters into being.
Exhaling a spiritual sigh of complete surrender, with total abandon, Lyköan lunged towards that point of singularity, and by doing so, swept away the amnesia he had borne through every fruitless former life ― each of them filled with loss piled upon loss ― dashed hope upon dashed hope. Through every one of those incarnations he had relished life, had clung to it like a forgiven sinner clings to faith, not understanding that it is life that is the ultimate burden. Lyköan recognized that now, saw it as a trifle he could easily cast into the void, desiring only to be utterly destroyed in the attempt. Crying out for absolution, he raced into the approaching oblivion in rapt attention as countless realities flew like inconsequential dreams through the mind of the entity which spawns them all.
Inside the throne room, the buzzing in his head had grown intolerable, humming in perfect concert with the incessant buzzing in the walls ― walls seemingly constructed of insects that deafeningly chirped and roiled ― voracious mandibles devouring countless breaches in the fabric of existence, reducing that existence to its basic, infinitesimal components ― individual notes of harmony bleeding through the expanding void and eliminating even the space between divergent uchronia.
Here was the power of the awakening Urgrund. Lyköan felt himself consumed and for the briefest instant understood. Understood the emptiness which could never be filled, the thirst that could never be quenched, the loneliness that demanded this forgetfulness, this need for self-deception. Within the eternal ether loomed the imposing aspects of the Artifact and the Manifestation, not in their physical forms, but reduced to their underlying metaphysical essences. And somewhere outside of both but still within the confines of this gnawing vacuum that he had become, a great multitude of souls was pleading with a single voice: “Permit us entry too, oh little one. Throw off attachment and accept. We will do the rest.”
In the physical world, only a few short meters now separated Lyköan from Soma-shu, but it was as if he were looking down upon the scene from somewhere else entirely unconnected to this place, witnessing events from a great distance. Upon the harmonic plane, the battle continued, projecting separate fields of arcane energy, joined in desperate turmoil one with the other, and in their struggle still oblivious that they were now being observed.
Obeying the clamoring voices, Lyköan let the sea of lost souls flood through the gates and join the mêlée, drowning out every other sound as they rushed in, including the cries of the two would-be purveyors of mortal existence. He had invited in the whirlwind, the full chorus in bitter rail against unconscionable and incomprehensible happenstance, condemning the finger of occurrence that eternally determines, absent desire or mercy or reason. Sweeping through the vast expanse of emptiness, the hue and cry drowned out everything in a squeal of anguished expiation.
And, when the trumpet of their condemnation had subsided like the final note in a crescendo-ending symphony, from somewhere in the midst of the silent emptiness arose the tiniest of voices. Imperceptible at first, it grew stronger and louder and more terrifying, until it had become a great howl, the breath of the emergent godhead, the totality of creation risen from its age-old slumber, limitless and unfathomable, the field within the void ― elemental and eternal ― the truth which brooks no argument. Within that breath, the whole of the all-encompassing multiverse rose up in adoration, where each and every atom was an individual soul, or not so much as an atom, a mere quark, no not even so much as a quark, but a string ― a string singing joyfully the praises of the ever and forever ― the living plenum. Lyköan had let it in, all of it, the demons and the angels both, the lurkers in the darkness and the light. And after achieving the necessary spiritual mass, the Urgrund had at last revealed itself as the inca
rnate great Lord Shiva, possessing the now and future, the once-weres and ever might-have-beens, and made an unassailable decision.
From out of the depths of its forgetfulness it had returned in the guise of the lone anamnesic consciousness come home to find itself once more and wring from all that was, everything that still might be. In emptiness and surrender, first the palace and all of half-deserted Bangkok, then the globe and solar system had been consumed at the speed of thought, and the entire galaxy as well, and on into the cold empty depths of space, until at last arriving at the thin edge of physical existence, upon a tide run rife to the end of being, the wave receded like its physical counterpart, although not exactly along the same star-strewn course it had taken on the outward journey. Nor did it return exactly to where it first began, but instead arrived at a somewhat altered destination. In that collapse, uchronia were shuffled, space and time intricately rewoven, great swaths of former realities obliterated and coalesced.
Out of the far-flung galaxies it returned, to the tiny backwater from whence the urge had sprung. A remote speck of inconsequential matter circling a nondescript star, flung here for no apparent purpose, with no revelatory design or ultimate objective. Upon this lone small orb where bloomed a vast meadow of sweet smelling joss smoke and tragic echoes, born of passion and desire, and now collapsed down along a single uchronion path chosen by the ultimate will.
Though he didn’t at first recognize where he was, Lyköan didn’t question his surroundings, because the bright eyes that were peering into his were so beautifully alive and calm, apparently unaware of what had just transpired. Ghost eyes. He felt a cold shiver shake him, as if he had just awakened from a disturbing dream.
“Don’t you think that’s wonderful?” Nora asked. She was waiting for his reply and he had no idea how he should respond.
Bewildered, he took a breath. “I’m just going to assume the answer to that question is... yes.” Explanations could come later. Or never come at all. For, after all the buffeting passage through shipwreck and storm, he had somehow found his way back home.
The SONG of SHIVA Page 48