The Nightmare Game

by Martin, S. Suzanne

  “It’s hard to explain and I don’t even pretend to understand it. No one I’ve called has ever able to explain Illeaocean science to me, either, since it was so much more advanced than our own. Everything there was real and yet it wasn’t. In our reality, all of her creations would have been nothing more than mere projections. In her twilight dimension, however, reality was more fluid. Whenever anyone came into proximity with an object or touched it, it became as real as anything here could be. Her dark dimension was solid enough for her to imprison her defeated enemies and forgotten lovers in the prisons of her paintings and her statues. The Crypt was a gateway, half in this world, half in her realm. So was the first door, for she felt it was too much effort to bring any of my champions into her world until after her attack in her vortex. The house on Toulouse Street was, in a limited extent, a gateway as well, created and protected by the boxes to help my people.

  “One thing was certain, though. Her world was a dangerous place, real enough to kill you. It was the dimension entered through the second and third door of The Crypt. It was also the dimension of the vortex in the shower, the one into which she partially dragged you. She easily could have killed you there, but she could not hurt you further once you were outside of it. That’s why she didn’t come after you. She couldn’t.

  “As with the transformations, Arrosha’s access to her twilight dimension was built into her by the Illeaoceans. It was given to her to enable her to slip behind the front lines of the enemy, the Malitiuans, unseen, acting as a ‘secret tunnel’ of sorts, in order to cross a border that was guarded by otherwise impermeable technology. Once inside, her shape-shifting abilities allowed her to pass in the shadows among the enemy, seeking out her victims for intelligence gathering, sabotage, or assassination. Originally instructed to use this passageway as little as possible, once Pangea fell, Arrosha became increasingly dependent upon that dimension, addicted to the escape it could offer. Over the years, centuries and eons, usually by accident, as she did most things technical, she discovered more and more ways to manipulate it and push its limits.

  “She created an fantasy Illeaocea for herself there, comprised of her favorite places. When she was not feeding, sleeping, or manipulating, it became her real home and she lived there, surrounded by her select few, as at the mansion. She started to abuse that dimension in earnest when she began to study the black arts, practicing freely, and at first unsuccessfully, on the most unfortunate of those select few.

  “It was only after she captured me that she discovered a more important use for that world. She barely used it with Virginia or Marcus, because in her arrogance she dismissed them too easily. They each just briefly crossed into it in their attempts to rescue me. It was only with Zachary that she introduced the dimension deliberately, after she had realized that my supporters were more difficult to dispatch than she originally calculated. She did not introduce Zachary to the mansion, however. She merely let him wander about within that world without food or water for a few weeks until she became bored when he did not die as she had planned. Even that episode backfired on her when Zachary learned the secret of the mirror and the reflecting pool, for no matter where she moved them after she killed him, he could always sense their location.

  “How is it that you know so much about her, Edmond?” asked Julian. “Did she tell you these things?”

  “No. Arrosha never spoke to me except to gloat. Her insanity and arrogance made her blind to what she really was.”

  “Then how were you able to find out?” I asked.

  “Ashley, you and I shared a mental and psychic link because of the stasis chamber. In a most unpleasant way, it was much the same with Arrosha. Because of this link, Arrosha could always feel it when I had called someone. That’s how she discovered how to contact you in Austin, Ashley. She got into the energies of those I called before they ever arrived in New Orleans; it never took her long to tap into someone’s energy, to be ready for them by the time they first arrived, as she did with you. She read many of your thoughts through me and that’s how she learned where to send the faxes and e-mails to make sure that she made the offer so desirable that when you came, you would stay at my house on Toulouse Street. We couldn’t hide that information from her because gathering electronic data came so naturally to her. Once she realized, through me, that Carolyne was coming with you, it was easy for her to get the information out of your mind and make sure your friend would not accompany you to New Orleans. It was also Rochere that caused the awful argument that the two of you had over the phone the day after your first trip to The Crypt.

  “She was able to get into your mind to interrupt the dream I was trying to send you. She found out a long time ago that if she interrupted the dream I was trying to send you, a dream meant to call you, a dream meant to strengthen you, she could fatigue you before the game was even underway. I tried to avoid her detection, but it wasn’t possible. At first the dream came from me, but after you had answered my call and made your reservations for the trip to New Orleans, I stopped calling you since you’d gotten my message, using the dream only once more, on the plane ride into the city. She hijacked that dream once you made plans to visit and used it to exhaust you before you even arrived in New Orleans, knowing that if you were exhausted when you arrived in the city, it would make you more susceptible once you got to her office and therefore easier to kill. It’s why she was able to get into your head and almost destroy you before Troy came in and rescued you. She wanted to murder you, Ashley, to have you collapse on the street and die right after leaving her office before you even made it to my house, as she had done with so many others. I shudder to think that if Troy hadn’t come in when he did, she might have succeeded. Now I know why there were no viable people to champion me since Virginia before the Trust allowed Rochere to manage the apartment. I’m truly grateful, Julian, that you offered this protection. I think it was the only way that anyone at all made it through.

  “Even after more than a century and a half, though, I would know almost nothing about her if she had not dreamt. I saw her dreams as she slept, the same way she saw into my mind; they were thrust upon me against my will. When it got to me too much, it took great effort to keep them out. It was a function of my stasis prison, and since she hated that I could see into her mind at all, it was a function she would gladly have disconnected had she known how. When she reached into my mind, as she so often did, to torment me and gain access to the people I called to this cause, she would see what I knew and scream that I was a liar. After she calmed down, she accused me of madness, that I was delusional, for she never could acknowledge that my information about her was correct. She dreamed of Illeaocea and the world of her dead Pangaea so very frequently. It is because of this that I know more about that monster than she knew about herself, truths that her warped version of herself would not contain. Even as her ego never let her remember these things, her subconscious would not let her forget.

  “In her twisted mind, she fancied herself to be a goddess, as you well know, Ashley. She lived out this fantasy under many different names in her many different lifetimes. It was only her madness, though, that deluded her into thinking she was divine. The truth resonated with her constantly, even as she refused to acknowledge it. It was why she refused to remain in her guise as a goddess or queen for more than a few eons at most. Inside, she knew what she was and this knowledge would not allow her to overstep her bounds for any real length of time; it went against her original programming. The truth was that she was created to serve, not to rule, so eventually the role of divinity would begin to wear on her and she would, with disappointment or boredom as the excuse, live differently, although always at least as a member of the privileged class. Now mad, even though her ego demanded to be worshiped, her original programming overrid it.”

  “You say that she was mad, Edmond,” Julian remarked. “Was she always?”

  “Oh, not at all. She was created to be one of the sanest of creatures.”

  “
That evil witch was actually born sane?” I asked in disbelief.

  “She was never born. There was nothing natural about her. She was merely a man-made thing, created, grown in a laboratory. She dreamed often of those who created her, aware of them on some level even before she was completed, and I saw and heard them through her dreams. Her creators did not realize that she was capable of understanding them at the time, but she listened to their conversations as they talked, burying the things they said deep inside her mind. These conversations re-emerged from her subconscious only when she was well within her dream cycle. Everything I understood of her, I understood through those dreams. When not actively engaged in a battle with one of my own, she slept a lot, not because she needed it, but because it offered her an escape from her pain.

  “I hope I can explain this well enough. I saw images from her brain that I still don’t understand. For almost all of my years as her prisoner, I thought it was all magic. More and more, however, whenever a scientist or biologist answered my call to arms, and there have been many, I was able to receive some real explanations, especially within the last few decades. I now know that there was sophisticated science behind my enemy’s existence. If the artifacts had never been found, there would have been no stopping her. It’s only lucky for us that they were almost as intelligent as she was.”

  “Artificial intelligence, you mean?” asked Julian.

  “It was more than just that. The amulets and their boxes were almost alive in a way I cannot explain. It was how they were able to adapt to various situations.

  “You see, I’ve seen the Illeaoceans through Arrosha’s dreams. They were indeed a beautiful, graceful people, only so incredibly perfect because they were designed by their own genetic technology. It was Illeaocean genetic experimentation that created Arrosha. However, with Arrosha, the Illeaocean template stopped being a human one, although she still had to look like a beautiful woman in order to seduce Malitiuan men in power. She also had to have the wiles to lure and control them easily.

  “While the Illeaoceans were basically a peaceful people in a peaceful land, the world in which they lived was quite treacherous, thanks to the aggressive Malitiuans. Their enemy possessed an extremely high degree of technology as well, but one much more attack-oriented and destructive. The highly intelligent Illeaoceans were loathe to use their weapons in the massive cold war that had ensued for centuries, and while they could have simply killed their enemies outright, they found mass slaughter and destruction offensive. They were not above assassinations, however, but realized that had it been suspected, outright war would have broken out, in which case no one would have won.

  “Therefore, for the sake of the continent, the deaths that Arrosha inflicted had to be designed to seem natural. She was a high-tech spy, the Illeaocean’s very best stealth and assassination weapon, one that could work with lethal accuracy. Turning into her monstrous self was designed only as a weapon of last resort. As you know, she was a limited shape-shifter, able to change her appearance and age at will, from baby to old lady. Extraordinarily beautiful in the way that men like, she was created to go behind enemy lines, seek out her victims, seduce them and slowly suck out their life force until they were as good as dead, then leave them to their ‘natural passings’. She would conveniently be back in Illeaocea by the time of their deaths.

  “The ultimate defensive weapon and spy, she was engineered to be virtually indestructible. If someone cut her into a million pieces, the larger pieces could find each other and she would regenerate. Even if burned to a crisp, she could regenerate. That’s why the amulets were created. The Illeaoceans needed a way to destroy her if ever she turned on them.

  “Since Arrosha thought of herself as a goddess, she could never accept these facts about herself, for it did not mesh with her self-image. When she’d see these things in my mind when she visited me to gloat and brag, even though I tried to hide this knowledge from her, she would inevitably chalk it up to my own dreams and imagination after her rage had passed. She never let me forget about how far ahead of us the ancients were. Her plan, once she took over the world again, was to force our scientists and engineers to do backwards engineering, so that we could repair her machines and even remake others. She talked quite freely with me, thinking that no man from the nineteenth century could possibly understand anything she said.”

  “I can understand why they felt they needed to create her, but honestly, you say they were so advanced and peaceful. How could they possibly live with themselves knowing that they’d deliberately manufactured an evil monster like her?” Julian asked.

  “They didn’t create her to be evil. They created her to be a creature with high moral and ethical values, but loyal only to them. You have to understand that she was a tricky undertaking for the Illeaoceans, for they knew how powerful a weapon she would be. On top of the things that I’ve mentioned, she also had a great deal of technology built into her. She could conjure up many things at a moment’s notice. The Illeaoceans needed her to be clever and resourceful, but they did not want her to be brilliant. That’s why she was expert at materializing objects and using her machines but completely incapable of building new ones or changing the way that major functions worked. That’s why it took her so incredibly long to stumble upon how to tap into my stasis chamber’s energies to keep her zombie-like creatures from dying before she could use them.

  “The Illeaoceans were afraid of her knowing too much. They knew how powerful they had made her and feared her turning on them. It’s why the programmed her to be intensely loyal to them. Even so, as a virtually indestructible weapon, how else could they control her? What other safeguards could they afford themselves? So while they were ‘cooking up’ her genetically engineered soup, they were also creating the amulets that they would need in order to destroy her, should she ever turn on them. The designed them in the shape of dragons, the representative animal of Illeaocea, for dragons still existed in those days. More indestructible even than she, the pieces were designed to protect the wearer until its task was either completed or the wearer had died.

  “Since her creators made these pieces to destroy her and since they’d made her smart and wily, they feared her gaining access to these amulets. It’s why she had so much trouble sensing me in the beginning.”

  “She never had any trouble sensing me,” I responded.

  “That’s because she was expecting you to wear it. She could not have sensed you if it had been a surprise.

  “But still,” Edmond continued, “all of the Illeaocean’s careful planning left still one more problem. What happened if an amulet fell into the wrong hands? What if the Malitiuans got hold of one of them? That’s why the Illeaoceans created them as two pieces that would join only in Arrosha’s presence, so that an enemy could not kill her from a vast distance. That they had to come together was a safety device, like the pin in a grenade. Should anyone retrieve a single piece, with or without its box, it would return to its mate after a suitable length of time. Even though the pieces sensed that Christopher and I were working together and that he would be en route to join me soon, had he changed his mind or if his health had taken a turn for the worse, his artifact would have materialized next to mine within a few weeks. That was just one more reason why my actions were rash and irresponsible, but how was I to know it at the time? I only learned of these things from Arrosha’s dreams after it was too late.”

  “I know I saw Arrosha killed, turned into crystal with my own eyes, but how did the pieces actually do it?” I asked. “I mean, why weren’t the rest of us affected?”

  “The music of the amulets set off a genetic time bomb within Arrosha. If Max had not destroyed the crystal afterwards, the statue which she became had an extremely fragile molecular structure that would soon have fallen apart and turned into tiny dust-like fragments. There would have been no resurrecting her.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Julian said. “How could a creature created to be, as you say, ethical, turn so in
credibly evil?”

  “When Pangaea fell,” Edmond continued, “Arrosha’s world quite literally collapsed. Since she had been created and programmed to be entirely faithful and loyal to the Illeaoceans first, to herself and self-preservation second, and to no one and nothing third. She was entirely devastated by their loss. That’s what drove her mad and turned her into a monster. She was lost completely, with no moral compass left whatsoever without her homeland.

  “While the Illeaoceans could not possibly have predicted the events that destroyed their world when they created her, they did anticipate that she might be captured and tortured, so since she could not die, they engineered an ability into her to be able to shut down and go dormant should she ever need to. After the fall of Pangaea, she went dormant for the first time.

  “When she finally came out of her dormancy, the world had recovered to a limited extent and for eons, at least in her conscious mind, she lived a life blissfully unaware of the talismans that could destroy her. Her story was pretty much as she told you until the sixth century.”

  “What happened in the sixth century?” I asked. “She didn’t mention a word about it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she didn’t,” Edmond replied. “She never mentioned it because she wanted everyone to think of her as an omnipotent goddess. Her pride and her ego would not even let her acknowledge the incident, except on a survival level, let alone speak of it. A group of monks that had control of the amulets imprisoned her; she never even knew the artifacts existed until that point. She found out a great many of their rules during that imprisonment, but, fortunately for us, the monks did not know everything. That learning curve is what made this game endure for almost two centuries and, thank providence, led to our eventual victory.

  “Everything I knew about the amulets, with the exception of what I mentioned earlier about her not being able to sense me when I carried my cane, I learned through the forced link that was developed between us after she had trapped me, because then, whatever Arrosha knew, I eventually knew.