Corrosion: Terminal Horizon (The Portal Arcane Series - Book III)

by J. Thorn

  With the mountain collapsing beneath them, Kole volunteered to take over for Deva. He would be the new overseer of the reversion and make sure the Great Cycle continued into eternity until he, too, earned his redemption and turned his rule over to a son. Kole did not have spiritual children in the Great Cycle or earth children in his previous life. He did not consider that in the moment he stepped forward and took Deva’s place instead of Samuel. It was not something Samuel or Lindsay would have known either.

  What did not occur to Kole and was hidden from Shallna is this would be the final reversion of the Great Cycle. Passing the throne to a son was not needed because nothing would exist once the final reversion surrendered to the last cloud. This multiverse would cease to exist and the existence of an infinite number of multiverses would remain an epic and eternal mystery.

  So Samuel and Lindsay escaped, slipped through a portal and into a new reversion. They left Kole standing next to an empty cauldron with Deva’s staff in his hand. Mara was gone and they disposed of Major. The old man’s corporal form would never return to the reversion, although he could learn to communicate across the multiverse. His inner core, his soul, could never be destroyed. But like a castaway stranded on an island, few would ever hear his desperate, sad calls.

  Lindsay and Samuel landed on the beach of a tropical paradise. They let down their guard and enjoyed the sex as if it was the first time they ever experienced it. Lindsay did not try to hide her physical and emotional scars from Samuel and he did not sabotage their love with his guilt. They laughed and kissed like lovers with not a care in the world.

  He knew it as soon as the seagulls went silent that first morning. Samuel ignored the signs so he could enjoy Lindsay. But as the morning approached, it became harder for them to ignore the pending doom. Samuel tried telling himself it was a storm—natural and logical. He pretended they were not in another reversion.

  ***

  Samuel could see Lindsay standing in the surf. Even though she was hundreds of yards down the shore, he saw her splashing in the salty water, naked and playful. He walked along the beach letting the tide swirl around his ankles and then retreat back into whatever body of water he happened to be standing in. The water, the island and the sun reminded Samuel of his honeymoon in Aruba. The air was dry and fragrant with the scent of sandalwood and coconut and the sun warmed the skin and the soul. He remembered the fine, white sands of that beach from a lifetime ago and if Samuel closed his eyes he would have felt as though he was walking it again.

  As he came closer to their camp, he noticed Lindsay was now sitting in the sand, wearing her shirt and panties.

  She knows we’re in a reversion too, he thought.

  Lindsay had her knees drawn up and her chin resting on top of them. The breeze tossed her dark hair back. Long silken strands danced about her face and over a reluctant smile.

  Samuel stopped a few feet from Lindsay and put his hands on his hips. He looked over the palm trees at the gray cloud and then back out over the ocean that cut a line at the bottom of the crystal blue horizon.

  “Find any food?” she asked.

  Samuel shook his head.

  “It’s fine. I’m not really hungry anymore.”

  “Lindsay, I—”

  “No, don’t,” Lindsay said. “We both know, right? Sit down and hold me. Let’s watch the morning turn to afternoon.”

  Samuel sighed and sat next to her in the sand. He felt stupid in his nakedness and reached over a shoulder for his T-shirt. He slid it over his head and gave Lindsay a tired smile.

  “I’m losing my sense of what’s real and what isn’t. This. What we shared last night. What the hell is that?”

  Lindsay kept her eyes on the horizon.

  “It was an act of love, Samuel. I’m not used to those, so please let me enjoy it instead of trying to classify it like a fucking scientist.”

  Samuel’s face flushed and he turned away. After a few moments, he chuckled.

  “This shit ain’t fair. I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be King Shit of the reversion or the heir to the Deva throne. I don’t want to have to keep moving through these dying worlds, not knowing when or if I’ll ever get out. Why I can’t I just be dead like everyone else?”

  “How do you know you’re not? Maybe this is what happens to everyone. Maybe we never ‘die’ in the mortal sense. I remember reading a book about it. I think the term was ‘biocentrism.’ The scientist said we could all be eternal energy. I think he meant ‘soul’ but didn’t want to say that because it sounded too religious. His idea is that energy moves from one physical body to another, different universes. Our bodies are kind of like cable boxes—different places and many of them, but we are all broadcasting the same signal. That signal is our soul.”

  Samuel turned and smiled at Lindsay. He put his left arm around her and inhaled the scent of her hair that was more delightful than the sea breeze itself.

  “Right. Let’s not classify it like a fucking scientist.”

  Lindsay tucked her head down beneath Samuel’s chin and nestled into his chest. He pulled her closer and felt her warmth. The sun was rising slowly in the sky, but the temperature was not climbing along with it, another sign that neither of them could ignore.

  “Deva seemed surprised Kole was willing to take over for him,” Samuel said. “I know Deva was eager to be released from the Great Cycle, but I get the feeling it’s supposed to be me. I think my redemption is in ruling the reversion, not Kole.”

  Lindsay sat up and kissed Samuel on the lips. She tasted salty and irresistible. Samuel pushed the hair from her face, guided her back on to the sand and pushed his erection between her legs. She smiled and closed her eyes.

  They ignored the reversion. They could not know when they would ever get the chance again. Without speaking, they acknowledged the finality of their situation and made love at the end of the world.

  Although the cloud seemed to be moving slower in this reversion, time moved faster. It lurched ahead in spasms like a bad cough. One moment the sun appeared to be in early morning and the next it was late afternoon. Samuel and Lindsay spent an hour tangled in each other’s arms and yet dusk was falling in their illusion of tropical paradise.

  “I don’t know if I’m tired from the workout or because this reversion is fucking with my internal clock.”

  Samuel smiled at Lindsay. He struggled to take his eyes off of her face. The setting sun cast an orange hue over her dark hair and brought the color out of her cheeks. He giggled like a sixth-grader behind the bleachers with an eighth-grade girl.

  “Let’s sleep for whatever constitutes a night in this reversion,” Samuel said. “In the morning, we should explore the rest of the island and find out how to move east, ahead of the cloud. Again.”

  Lindsay nodded, closed her eyes and curled up into Samuel.

  ***

  “The arrangement. It will not suffice.”

  Samuel knew he was dreaming, yet the voice in his head was not his own.

  “What?”

  “Look at me, son.”

  Samuel opened his eyes within the dream and saw his father sitting across from him on the black, plastic rocker the family had in the living room through most of the 1980s. Deva, his spiritual father, took the physical form of his earth father. His red hair was thin on the top but was still bright orange. The man’s beard hid most of his face and the tip of it touched the top of his Pittsburgh Steeler’s shirt. Deva pushed the glasses up his nose as his earth father had done so many times before. Samuel raised his eyebrows.

  “This was about 1987. I was getting straight As but drinking and getting into all kinds of trouble.”

  “This was the most complete frame I could inhabit,” Deva said. “This moment in time came to me faster than any other.”

  Samuel nodded, remembering the details from that conversation as though watching it on a movie screen. Neither of Samuel’s parents went to college and he was poised to be the first in the family to do
so. Samuel’s mom could not understand her dark, introverted son. He was polite and thoughtful and did exceptionally well in school. Yet he ran with the burnouts, the troublemakers, the rabble-rousers.

  “This was one of the few times when you didn’t scream at me or threaten me. You were really trying to figure me out.”

  “We don’t have time for that now, Samuel. We have more urgent matters.”

  Samuel closed his dream eyes for a moment and then looked back at Deva in his earth-father form.

  “Fine. It’s just really weird sitting here in our living room again. I can smell mom’s meatloaf in the oven.”

  This time Deva smiled but it was swallowed by the beard.

  “It was not supposed to be Kole.”

  “I know,” Samuel said. “I could see it in your face at the peak. You let it happen.”

  “The reversion let it happen. That means the task before you is supposed to be.”

  Samuel looked down at the Appetite for Destruction T-shirt clinging to his teenage chest. He wanted nothing more than to crank some Guns N’ Roses on the boom box in his bedroom.

  “I’m first born. I have to be the lord of the reversion.”

  Deva nodded in affirmation.

  “How?”

  “You are not in the same reversion as Kole. You must create a portal and slip to his.”

  “But I don’t know where-”

  “You will,” said Deva. “When the portal opens you will feel his presence and choose that destination. Go there, find your brother. Confront him.”

  “Kill him?” Samuel asked.

  “I’m uncertain,” Deva said. “The Great Cycle has not revealed that to me. But to remove him from power, you must destroy the cauldron. His fate is symbolically bound to that artifact. Yours is not. Destroy it and you will be the rightful heir to the reversion’s throne.”

  “What happens to Kole?” Samuel asked.

  “I do not know. He will do everything in his power to stop you from reaching the peak, where he will be guarding the portal. He will manipulate reality and conjure forces that will stretch you to your limits. You must defeat them. All of them. Get to the peak, destroy the cauldron and let the reversion decide the fate of your brother. He seized the throne in an opportunistic move to gain power and you must reset the balance.”

  Samuel heard his little brother coming in the backdoor from an afternoon of touch football. Plates clanged in the kitchen as his mother loaded the dishwasher.

  “I wish I could say I missed 1987, but I don’t. You were a hard ass and I thought you hated me.”

  Deva winced and Samuel saw him squirm in the chair for a moment before regaining his serious expression.

  “Destroy the cauldron and you will have fulfilled your ahimsa.”

  ***

  Lindsay woke first and tugged on Samuel’s shirt to wake him. The sun was hanging above the horizon, but she felt as though it was closer to mid-day. The beach was idyllic, warm, and the air was sweet. She felt as though it was all a ruse to keep them pinned down, a kinder, subtler approach than spider crabs. Lindsay’s experience was making her more attuned to the ways of the reversion and its manipulation of fabricated reality.

  “C’mon.”

  Samuel groaned and rolled over on to his back. His eyes fluttered and then opened. He rubbed a hand over his face and felt the stubble edging towards a beard. He arrived in this reversion clean-shaven and now the growth was returning.

  “Kole.”

  “What?” Lindsay asked.

  “Kole. We have to find Kole.”

  “Why?”

  Samuel sat up and shook the sand from his arms. He sighed and looked into the sky where the cloud moved closer to the east. Echoes of the conversation with Deva rattled inside his head like a brutal hangover.

  “I’ll explain on the way. Let’s get dressed and then find the highest elevation we can.”

  “Another portal?”

  “Yes,” Samuel said. “They open easier at higher elevations. I don’t know why it took me so long to put that together, but I think it’s why the reversions always end at the peak. Let’s hike to the edge of the forest and then up the slope.”

  “That’s going toward the cloud, not away from it.”

  “I know. It’s a risk, but I think we’ll have an easier time opening a portal if we’re a few hundred feet above sea level.”

  Lindsay nodded and gathered her clothes and rucksack from the sand. It would have been so nice to spend a few days on the surf, eating and having sex with Samuel. It’s exactly what the reversion wanted them to do.

  They walked through the sand to the edge of the forest where the land sloped upward. What Samuel and Lindsay assumed was an island was a peninsula jutting out into an open sea. The ground rose toward the mountaintop. The cloud crawled from the west and appeared to be spilling over the peak in slow, wispy waves. A gull flew overhead, cutting through the sky in silent flight. The trees gave off the familiar scent, although it was not nearly as strong as it should have been. Lindsay and Samuel spent enough time in the reversion to understand why their senses were dulled.

  “Up, right?” Lindsay asked.

  “Yes. It’s easier to slip.”

  Samuel slipped within the old reversion but the higher elevation seemed to carry them further.

  Samuel picked through the palm trees until the land sloped up to the first pines. The combination of the two types of trees would have been impossible in anything but a reversion. He continued walking with Lindsay three steps behind. Their feet moved atop the needles that had fallen to the ground. The pine needles deadened their steps even more than the natural noise suppression of the reversion.

  “Why can’t you summon a portal now, or call it out, or whatever it is you do?”

  Samuel stopped and looked over his shoulder at Lindsay. “I don’t know. Doesn’t feel right yet. Let’s go a little further, get a little higher.”

  “What if we run into wolves or spider crabs?”

  Samuel shook his head and started walking again. He tossed the words over his left shoulder while keeping his eyes facing forward. “We won’t. Not here.”

  “Samuel, stop.”

  He spun around as Lindsay stepped up to meet him.

  “I feel like you’re holding out on me, like you know shit and you’re not saying it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You keep giving me answers but you won’t tell me how you know.”

  “I’m going on feeling, instinct,” Samuel said.

  “I trust you, Samuel. You know that.”

  “I do and I’m not going to lead you into danger. You know that.”

  Lindsay smiled and pointed at the slope. “Let’s go. I’ll follow you.”

  Samuel turned towards the trail and froze, not expecting to see Deva in the path.

  “You must hurry,” Deva said.

  Samuel felt Lindsay’s arm brush his right elbow. He glanced at her and then back to the trail where Deva stood, hovering between two trees. Deva’s robe floated a foot above the ground, obscuring his feet. His hands were at his side and Samuel noticed Deva was without his staff. The air around the old man was wavy and thin as if a breeze would blow him apart and scatter his essence to the forest.

  “Father?” Samuel asked.

  “I’m but a mere reflection, a message sent to you from the Great Cycle.”

  “He’s like a hologram from R2D2,” Lindsay said.

  “I’m listening,” Samuel said.

  “The message is not for you. It is for her.”

  Samuel looked at Lindsay and took a step back.

  “This is Lindsay,” she said, as if Samuel had just handed her a cosmic phone to take a call from the great beyond.

  “You are not my child.”

  She shrugged but Deva continued before she could speak.

  “Your ahimsa is tied to Samuel’s. This, I am sure you know. In order for you to fulfill your duty, you must see him safely to the peak where he will destr
oy the cauldron. You are his guard, his protector.”

  “Hold up, now. I don’t need a woman—”

  “If he fails, you fail,” Deva said, ignoring Samuel’s protest. “Forces will align against you. The lord of the reversion will send souls from your past to distract you. Through it all, Samuel must be your true north. Get him to the peak and do whatever must be done to succeed.”

  Before Lindsay could speak or Samuel could ask Deva a question, the wind shook the trees and whisked away the former keeper of the reversion. They both watched as Deva turned into smoke and faded into the forest.

  “Fuck,” Samuel said.

  “Yeah,” Lindsay said. “I guess I’ve gotta look after your ass yet again.”

  Samuel smiled at her and when he turned back to resume his climb, the growing edges of a portal appeared several feet ahead. He walked towards it with Lindsay at his side.

  Chapter 3

  Tommy hated Detroit. He rooted against the Red Wings while the rest of his youth hockey team worshipped them. He didn’t have a specific problem with the city, the organization or the players. In fact, Tommy studied the veterans on the team in order to become a better hockey player.

  Tommy hated Detroit because he hated everything. It was the only thing in his heart. The boy was smart enough to fool his parents and his older sister, Mara. He knew what to say and when. He could turn his head and toss his short, moppy blonde hair to one side and look at an adult with eyes as big as hockey pucks.

  Mara’s friends, those old enough to remember the original movie, called Tommy “Home Alone,” and it was hard not to notice the comparisons to the younger version of Macaulay Culkin. Tommy used his charm on teachers, coaches and any other adults that caught a glimmer of the evil living inside him. They would talk to him and feel an unnerving pain in the abdomen or hear the distant, dull sound that came before a headache. They would attribute it to old leftovers or spoiled Kung Pao shrimp. Tommy concealed his true, dark nature for so long that nobody connected those uncomfortable feelings of pain and despair to the golden child. Nobody believed those deep, blue eyes hid a soul of eternal darkness.