by M. T. Miller
Her mind is in shambles, the Nameless concluded. Was this the final stage of Rush’s drug addiction, or merely an extreme version of what she could have become? Regardless, and despite the similarity, this was not the woman he loved.
“My Lord,” Mark said. “Don’t you think it’s about time?”
“For what?” the Nameless asked. He knew the answer, but wanted to hear it.
“For the execution,” Mark said. The others repeated the word one by one, as if chanting. “This was the plan all along, right?”
”Oh, please,” she mocked from inside her blade-cage. “If you had anything set up, we’d have seen or heard it from a mile away. She dragged her index finger along the edge of the blade, drawing blue blood. “But hocus-pocus, now that you got me with.”
Tomas spoke before the Nameless managed. “My Lord! Have you forgotten it already? That dream you had, the one we all now share? If you kill this woman here, we will be that much closer to it!”
“And after she’s out of the picture,” Greg interrupted, “all that’s left’ll be the nun and the zombie-man.”
“No greater goal I can think of,” Frank said. “This woman’s a mad bitch, my Lord! Put her out of her misery already, so we can move forward!”
She did not have to be here. The Nameless focused on Rush again. “What did you try to achieve with this? What was the point of this attack? What were you thinking?”
“Easy. I imagined your head on a stick,” she said. “Came here to fight you womano a mano, Nameless. But I guess you just didn’t have the chops for that.”
Nameless. “Why bring others, then? Why the sneak attack? Why this whole mindless thing?”
“No one said I wanted it to be fair,” she quipped.
Nameless. Not Bones. Nameless.
“We are leaving,” he said, pulling his arm out of the wall and causing it to solidify.
He was halfway up to the exit when Greg blocked his path.
“This is dumb as shit,” he said. “My Lord.”
“It might be,” said the Nameless, “but I order it anyway.” He pointed his thumb back at Rush, who stared at the whole scene in surprise. “This will only hold her for a while, and we have no means of reliably taking her prisoner. Leaving her and riding away before she breaks free is our best option.”
“Not our best option,” Greg said.
“What you are suggesting,” the Nameless said as he passed him by, “was never an option to begin with.”
“You’ll come to regret that,” Greg said in a passive aggressive tone.
I regret this whole misbegotten trip, the Nameless thought, but said nothing as he exited the vertebra.
My Rush is gone, he concluded. And the thing in there is insane.
***
He barely said a word on the way back. As the day ended, the men set up camp and organized watches in pairs. The Nameless ignored his turn and slept the full eight hours. He almost hoped they’d betray and turn on him. To his disappointment, he woke up with the break of dawn.
No cave dream either, he thought as he grudgingly packed up. The way it came and went still made no sense. By this point, he barely cared anymore.
Pointless, he thought when the camp became visible in the distance. The men may tell tales of peace, hope of a better life, and all that nonsense. The Nameless knew the cycle well: struggle, suffer, then lose everything and do it all again. And the bigger the so-called victory, the greater the loss would be.
He ignored the crowd welcoming him home, as well as their ear-piercing cheers. With an expressionless stare, he turned to Mark and spoke to him for the first time since they’d left the Spine.
“Report to the general,” he said.
“What do I even say?” Mark asked.
“Whatever you want,” said the Nameless as he spurred his horse. Had the crowd not separated in time, he might have tramped them.
He went straight for his tent, passing by the inquisitive Tarantula without giving her a second glance. Dismounting without tying his horse down, he stepped through the entry curtain as if it wasn’t there. He got halfway to the bed before his legs failed him.
For how long? He punched the carpet. How much more of this SHIT must I take? He kept hitting it, harder and faster each consecutive time. He had had enough. There was only so much a man could take. Even if he was a god.
The edges of his vision blurred. The tent was spinning. His muscles and bones ached, yet he didn’t stop hitting. Somewhere along the way, he replaced his breathing with an erratic scream that may have lasted an eternity.
Something grabbed him from behind. If the Nameless was of sound mind, he may have heard the intruder coming. Had he not exhausted himself, he may have tumbled to the side, breaking free of their grip. As he was, all he could do was put his filthy, gloved hand on the pair of delicate ones that joined over his waist.
Lydia. The fake one.
“Relax,” she whispered into his ear with her breathy, sensual voice. “Everything will be okay. I’m here for you, my love, and I’ll stay for as long as you need me.”
She is not real! the Nameless repeated in his mind. Another pale, wrong imitation, out to confuse him, to take advantage of his momentary lapse. I will not give her a chance. Not now, not ever!
Contrary to his plans, he didn’t move an inch. Neither did Lydia, for that matter. They stayed like that for at least an hour.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He awoke on the floor, lying on the carpet he’d been punching last night. Lydia was beside him, her arms still wrapped around his torso. For several moments the Nameless allowed himself to linger in this position, but when he became awake enough, he knew it was time to move.
He slipped out of her embrace as gently as he could. It didn’t fail to wake her.
“Nameless…” she mumbled groggily as he sat himself up. “Lord… you need to rest. You’ve had a bad day.”
Most days I had were bad. He rose, only now noticing the filthiness of his uniform. It was all over the floor, the carpet, as well as Lydia. She didn’t seem to mind.
“Rest if you wish. I have work to do,” he told her as he stripped. He needed a shower. A change of clothes. A cooked meal. Anything to keep the body busy, so the mind wouldn’t do any work.
This time, Lydia wouldn’t have any of it. She sprang to her feet as if he’d pushed the “on” button, apparently more awake than he was.
“Oh no, you won’t!” she snarled as she stepped toward him. “You’re not closing me off again! Not after I took your crap for so long!”
Surprised by her attitude, the Nameless put off removing his pants. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, I put up with your whole ‘I can’t remember,’ shit long enough,” she said, her eyes a couple inches away from his. “I thought ‘he’ll get over it in time.’ Well, now I know that you won’t.”
“So?”
“So it’s about time we resolved this before I lose my mind!” she said. “I dealt with being involved with a god, Nameless. I handled the jealous stares I got whenever I walked around camp. I try not to worry about attempts on our lives.” Her eyes glossed up. “But I can’t take you not knowing me, or treating me like something irrelevant!”
Taken by surprise, the Nameless stared at her in silence.
“Give me something, my love!” she said. “Something, anything to hold on to! Because if the rest of our lives are gonna be like this, then I might as well be dead!”
The memory of her brains spilling out flashed before the Nameless’ eyes. Try as he might, he couldn’t forget it. On that day, his fate was as sealed as hers was. Unless… Unless I have it wrong.
He put a hand on her shoulder. He fondled her cheek with the other. She was just the way he remembered. Tangible. Warm. And unquestionably alive.
Could it be? he asked himself while he ran his fingers through her soft hair. The memories he had, were they even reliable? He had formed them after being robbed of his previous personality, after rising from
the grave.
Or did he? What if Tarantula was right? Could it be that the chaotic, jumbled life he had led before awaking in this reality was nothing more than what her spirits had shown him? The life he had with Rush, was it all something his mind had made up?
His temples hurt like someone had run a knife through them. He let go of Lydia, stepping back to rub them. What is real? he asked himself as he pressed on both sides of his head. His eyes felt ready to pop.
“We’ll take care of this,” Lydia said, stepping forward. She embraced him. “We can deal with it, Nameless. I know we can. Whatever your burden is, I can shoulder it alongside you.” She looked him in the eyes. Everything but her face was blurry. “But I can’t do it alone. In order to help you, I need to know that I am wanted. That I’m needed.”
She pressed harder. “Say it to me. Either that, or send me away. Just don’t keep me around like this. Please.”
The Nameless’ hands shivered as he let go of his temples. In all likelihood, he was having a breakdown. He needed something he could touch. As she said, something to hold on to. Without it, he might lose what little reason he had left.
“I need you,” he said as he clumsily grabbed her by the waist. She responded by gripping tighter.
“We’ll get over this,” she said. She was crying. “I know we will!”
What is real? the Nameless kept asking himself. As far as he could tell, only Lydia was.
***
He didn’t tell her everything. That would take hours. What he did tell her were the key events. His return from the grave. Her death, and him taking over a different Babylon. Rush, and the life he remembered them sharing.
“Torres was right,” she said, sitting by his side on the bed. “It’s Tarantula. She messed you up.”
“If she did, she is incredibly stupid,” he said. “Otherwise she would be miles away by now.”
“No, listen to me,” Lydia said. “No one else would have her. She used to be part of the Management, remember? The leaders of other factions see her as an enemy; they’d execute her on the spot. Or torture her beforehand.”
“Still sounds like stupidity to me. What she did, even if it was intentional, made me more powerful and dangerous than ever before. I could kill her in an instant, and she knows it.”
Lydia took a moment to think. “Maybe you didn’t turn out the way she wanted, then?”
The Nameless’ forehead wrinkled as he remembered Father Light’s mind-altering “baptisms.” “You are talking about brainwashing, correct?”
“Well, you’re a god,” she said, “so I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But it’s possible, right?”
Instead of responding, the Nameless rose. He proceeded toward the tent’s exit.
“Stay here,” he told Lydia before she could follow. “I will talk to her. It might turn ugly, and I have seen you die one too many times.”
Protest seeped from Lydia’s eyes. “As you say. Just… be careful, okay?”
“I will,” he said as he left her. As far as circumstances allow.
He picked up some ten men along the way to Tarantula’s tent. Mark was among them, which the Nameless interpreted as him being ordered to spy on him, most likely by David.
“Stay here,” he said as he prepared to enter. “If you hear me screaming or otherwise being incoherent, you are to rush in guns blazing. If I attack you, you are to shoot us both. I will recover. She will not. Is that understood?”
“Yes, my Lord!”
He slid the curtain aside and stepped in, finding Tarantula in her usual nude splendor. This time, she wasn’t seated. Instead, she was lying on her side on an especially large bear skin. If she could, she’d have devoured him with her eyes.
“Let us skip the usual drivel.” He stood in the center of the tent, looking at her from above. “No, I will not relax or join you in whatever this is. From you, Tarantula, I want one thing and one thing only: answers. And I hope for your sake that you have some.”
Her look of fascination disappeared as if she’d drawn a curtain. “Glad to be of help, Lord Nameless, but I’m afraid you’ll have to be specific.”
“Did you or did you not tamper with my mind?” he barked. “And no, I am not referring to your ‘spirit world’ tale. Did you try to change me in some other way? Rearrange my memories, or alter my personality to something more agreeable with whatever it is you are trying to do?”
“Not at all,” she said without hesitation.
“Then why am I not getting better?” he roared, stomping the ground. His temples throbbed. “The purple woman, Rush; I remember her as a lover who died a horrible death. I rode to meet her with four men who should be bones by now. And I am explaining this to you, who are, as far as I know, not among the living anymore. This is not disorientation, Tarantula. This is complete mismatching of the reality I know with the reality I can grasp!”
She looked at the ground, apparently as puzzled as he was. “That… that is extreme. In fact, it goes beyond what I thought the ritual would do.”
“I’ve had my mind tampered with before,” he said, “in the world I remember. It worked on the same principle: alter the memories until the personality adapts. That time, I resisted it because of what I am.”
“I don’t think that’s what you’re experiencing,” she said, slowly elevating herself until she sat. “Nothing should be able to mold your mind to such an extent. At least nothing I know of.”
“Then what has happened to me?” he shouted.
“I think it was a vision,” she said. “A series of visions, to be exact.”
“Of what?”
“Of the future, I would presume,” she said. “Or of the futures that could be. Perhaps it was a warning, telling you what to do and what to avoid. Showing you potential or inevitable losses.”
“So, what are you suggesting? That these… spirits have taken away my past to show me a nonsensical future?”
“No one tried to take away your past,” she said. “I think this can be blamed on your absurd ability to recover. You resisted the vision being seared into your mind, and are now suffering the consequences. At least, so it seems to me.”
The Nameless’ thoughts filled with images of death. Lydia. Tarantula. David, Wallace, and the men he rode with. Rush. None of it felt like a vision, or like a warning. It felt like his real life. Were they really dead, as he remembered, or were they about to die? Would he be able to prevent it, or was he merely along for the ride?
“Let us turn this into something I can make use of,” he said. “You think I can make a difference? If I play my cards right, I will be able to stop their deaths from taking place? Are we on the same page here?”
“Possibly,” she said. “Visions are difficult to interpret. Sometimes people are meant to die. Other times, the vision itself is sent to save a life. Only those experienced with receiving visions can differentiate with any degree of reliability.” She sighed. “I wish I could be of more help, Lord Nameless, but we have neither the tools nor the material to work with.”
As usual, he thought. No proper course of action. Only chaos, and the inevitable consequences it creates.
He couldn’t decide which truth was worse. On one hand, the life he remembered leading was a string of horrible incidents that should never have taken place. A few sprinkles of happiness didn’t change that fact. In contrast, having it all disappear as if it never happened was beyond horrifying. Who was he, if not the god who had faced those ordeals? If the past he shared with Rush was no more than a knot of jumbled brain matter, was that really preferable to her dying?
“There was a man called SIM,” he said. “He is not in this camp, and I have looked. In this… vision, he causes a large number of deaths, seemingly for no rational reason. Given his importance, I would assume him to be a leader; a piece on that board in the command tent. However, I have yet to meet him in this world. This…” —the word had to be forced out— “this reality.”
“Finally, some
thing makes sense!” Tarantula said with a semblance of a smile.
“What does?”
“That man,” she said. “He is the one the vision—or visions, were meant to warn you about.”
“And you are certain of this?” he asked.
“Of course I’m not,” she said. “But it’s the most likely interpretation. Chances are, this SIM will in some way cause all these deaths, and you are to stop him.”
“Oh, believe me, I would stop him,” the Nameless said. “But I do not know where he is! And why doesn’t he show up in what you see, then?”
“I’ve told you before, my Lord; in helping you, I’ve torn the threads of causality. It takes a while for them to reweave, and the more drastic changes I make, the longer I remain blind.”
“But SIM did not appear in the version of the future you were able to see before you… helped me?”
“No,” she said. “Which doesn’t mean that he wasn’t involved. After all, I can only see the threads I know exist. If he was smart enough to steer clear of the actual events, then I wouldn’t know that he needed to be monitored.”
“But when your vision returns,” the Nameless said, “you would be able to look for him, yes?”
“I should be,” she said.
“’Should’ is better than ‘won’t,’” the Nameless said as he turned toward the exit. “Thank you, Tarantula.” For once, I think you may have been helpful.
“It is a pleasure,” she said. “My Lord, would you mind staying a bit more?”
“The camp is full of people.” He stood near the curtain. “Anyone you invite here would be thrilled.”
“But they are human,” she said.
“Indeed they are,” said the Nameless as he exited the tent.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He spent the rest of that day, as well as most of the next one, meditating in the practice yard. Lydia was sometimes with him, other times not. When she was there, she would sit quietly in the corner, marveling at the things he would do.
Eager to occupy his mind with anything but reality, the Nameless dove into the world shown to him by his unseen eye. Swirling shapes, torrents of energy, and bubbling patches of fog, all changed according to his will, turning to implements of murder and then back. All he needed was a touch.