“Okay, who’s up for touching it?” Amy asked. “I would rather you or Nameless did. Crows should be the first to deal with Crow things.”
She thought this was a test of the Crows. I quietly disagreed. We waited as Midgard and Nameless stood still, gathering their courage. As I predicted, when Nameless moved, Midgard did as well, and both of them touched it simultaneously.
“It’s dead,” Nameless said. “The great wheel of years did this in. The dross it radiates is an echo of our time, of our Dreaming.”
“Then we need to wake it,” Cindy said. “Is this it? Is this the final object of our quest?”
“No,” Nancy said. Her eyes closed, she walked over to touch it. “This is just another step along the way. I think…”
She stopped and froze in place. Both Midgard and Nameless skittered back, Midgard ending up behind Amy and Nameless behind Sir Kevin.
Even I could feel the change in the tenor of what the object radiated.
Nancy began to glow, multitudinous shades of green, a living aurora. Her eyes opened, and they too had turned green. “Blood and juice must awaken me,” she said, her voice not her own. “Your two abominations must not advance farther, as their impurity besmirches the rest of you.”
“Abominations?” Amy said. “I thought we were all abominations in the eyes of the Transform community.”
“The African savage should never have transformed. All African Transforms are unclean and should not be allowed to exist.” Great. The Progenitors were racists. So, why did this surprise me? Oh. From the perspective of Native Americans, us European Transforms should have been just as ‘unclean’. Was this a difference in the variety of TS they had in Africa? Nah. My bet was that black skin was just too different. “The Arm-Crow is an abomination of the juice. Your community failed when they did not slay her out of hand when she transformed.”
Wait, Cindy was the second abomination? Okay, then, why not Nameless? Nameless was just as dark in skin as Midgard, if not darker. Was it his non-African features? Nameless reminded me of the Mestizos of Mexico, predominantly Native American in heritage. Nancy finished by declaring, “It is time to rectify your mistakes.” She screamed and leapt away from the black rock, no longer glowing green.
Sir Kevin paced around the outside of our camp. I swore the snowclouds whipped by mere inches above his head, and the snow fell like rockets around us. The temperature was so far below zero that even Sir Kevin shivered. My sight was limited by my many layers of clothing to the narrow cone made by the hood of my outermost jacket. The air felt like daggers to breathe and the water vapor in my breath froze out before blowing away. “We need to turn back,” he said. “The ways of the Progenitors are not our ways. Following their ways would make us evil.”
It was unanimous, except for me. “What’s going on in our quest?” I asked.
“What does that have to do with anything, Dan?” Sir Kevin asked me. “It’s a quest of challenges, and each of us is being challenged in our own way.”
“I no longer agree,” I said. “I believe we’re being judged, not challenged. Judged for our talent and our worth. Failure may not be what you think it is in this test. The aurora may appear even if we don’t wake up this sacrificial altar.” I failed my test, but the guiding aurora had appeared anyway.
“We still go back,” Sir Kevin said. “To go farther would be morally wrong.”
“Keep talking, Dan,” Amy said, to me. “You’ve come up with something.”
“Who is doing the judging?” I asked.
“The Progenitors,” Amy said.
“But what are the Progenitors? What of the Progenitors can still be alive after all this time?”
“Monsters,” Nameless said. “Old, old Monsters.”
“A Monster able to think and act in such a coherent manner, and test us as we’ve been tested? Unlikely. A group of ancient Monsters? How can a group so active in the present day remain hidden?”
“They can’t,” Amy said, and paused. “What did you figure out?”
“We are the Progenitors,” I said. “We, the Transform community, roused them from the dead and gave them power. We may have also roused the old Monsters, but their thoughts remain Monster thoughts. No, it’s the Progenitor ghosts, in this Dreaming place Nancy and Cindy talk about, that do their thinking. All of these Progenitor artifacts are involved, too, in their mental collective. Their joint Dream. The one in front of us remains asleep. What if our test here is to decide whether or not to awaken a place of human sacrifice?”
“You think we can simply decide to not awaken it, and continue on?” Amy said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t,” Nancy said. “You’re forgetting one important thing, Dan. The change in name from ‘Predecessor’ to ‘Progenitor’. I told you what I think that means.”
She had, weeks ago. “You believe they have factions.”
“Yes. And there’s more. The current faction is admitting to us that they’re the ones behind our TS. If they aren’t physical beings, then they needed a disease vector. Who else better to use as a disease vector than a Courtier?”
“You’re saying the man is associated with one of the factions?”
“Yes. The ‘Predecessors’. The ones who wanted him to act in secret, and keep acting in secret,” Nancy said. “This quest we’re on is to thwart the ‘Predecessors’ by awakening the dormant power of the ‘Progenitors’ faction. The thing here is part of that.”
“Then we’re awakening evil,” Sir Kevin said. He continued to pace.
“But evil is already awake,” Nancy said. “All our stories of the man paint him as a troublemaker, an enemy to us all. I’m afraid we’re just awakening more evil.”
“Let’s say you’re right,” I said. “When I said ‘we are the Progenitors’, if I interpret it to fit your objections, what I should have said was ‘we are the Predecessors’. Something, likely the skull the Madonna of Montreal owns, awakened by the blood of the Arm, Armenigar, first shook the Progenitors to life.” This was what Nancy told us, when we got her to tell us all she knew about what was going on. “Now we’re called upon to do more.”
“To do evil. To follow in their prejudiced footsteps.” Sir Kevin’s gaze became a hard glare. At me.
“Here me out, your grace,” I said. “Both the ‘Predecessors’ and ‘Progenitors’ are collectives of a sort. The individual parts of the collectives are individuals, and represent their own individual prejudices. I believe that this thing requires a blood sacrifice, perhaps even a living sacrifice. However, I don’t believe we need to satisfy its parochial prejudices by sacrificing Midgard and Cindy.”
“You’re thinking of grabbing a Monster and sacrificing it,” Amy said. “Disgusting, but no more evil than the life of any Arm.”
Sir Kevin stopped pacing. “That might work,” he said. He turned to me, quizzical. “How are you doing this, Dan? How do you keep coming up with these solutions?”
“I have no idea.” I did, but I didn’t want to say. Not now.
I think I was their collective. The collective of the group of Major Transforms I was with. That was the hidden strength of Courtiers. It was how the man could do all his tricks.
I’m not sure I wanted my insight to be true. My insight was a magical explanation, and magic was scary crap.
“Shit!” Nancy said, her eyes closed again. Tears now leaked out and froze on her cheek fur. “We can’t sacrifice a Monster. In Dan’s words, we would be adding a Monster to their collective if we did so.” She paused. “There’s another way, though. Two of us in this group are strong enough to be sacrificed, die, and yet later be brought back.”
“Of course,” Sir Kevin said. “Oh shit, indeed, though. Without a Crow Master, when you bring me back I’ll be nothing more than a Beast Man.” He paused. “Only, who’s the other?” He turned to Amy. “You’re an Arm, Amy, and I suspect you might be able to do this someday. But not today.”
Amy nodded. “As a last resort, perhaps. I wou
ld come back far more beastly than you, Sir Kevin.”
“Certainly not me,” Cindy said. “Unless you want to rescind your comment about me ‘healing like a Crow’, Arm Haggerty.”
“No, it’s not you or the Crows. None of you can yet come back from such a death,” Nancy said. “It’s me. Hell, it’s what I’ve been being trained for my entire miserable career as a Major Transform: how to survive the worst that life can offer. I even know enough about this idiot trick to tell you exactly what you’ll need to do.”
I’m not sure who was more appalled, Sir Kevin or Amy. They had the predator’s reflexive protectiveness toward those in their care. Me, I had the still unshucked male prejudices toward women, especially toward a woman I couldn’t think of as anything other than a tiny virginal flower. Screwed by the juice, she had no sex drive unless Sir Kevin used his tricks on her, and she could barely allow herself to be touched by anyone but him. Because of her height, lack of musculature, and lack of breasts, my mind kept trying to make her into a pre-adolescent.
“You may not,” Amy said. She spoke not to Nancy, but to Sir Kevin, who she stood in front of, without me seeing how she got there. “My call.” Oh. Sir Kevin could sacrifice himself and not be brought back. The Noble appeared to be about to challenge Amy, but after a moment, backed down, and slouched.
Her call. Who else better to judge life and death than an Arm?
“Here’s what you need to do,” Nancy said. “Spread me out on the rock and behead me. Take my head away from the rock as fast as you can, over a hundred yards away. That will keep the rock from draining the juice I’ll be keeping in my head, keeping my brain alive. After the rock finishes doing what it’s going to be doing, drag my remains a hundred yards away and sew my head back on my body, as if I’m a Chimera.” Her voice wasn’t steady. She knew this might not work, that the TS might pull one of its tricks and leave her dead for real. “Amy, afterwards, hold my body. I’ll take some juice from you. I won’t need much juice to start the healing.”
“My juice? I run a high élan component for an Arm.”
“I don’t see any better options,” Nancy said. “Besides, I’m already part-Monster from the last three times I’ve been through one of these near death experiences.”
“You won’t be the same,” Sir Kevin said. “None of…”
“I know that, your grace,” Nancy said. She smiled her toothy furry ape smile. “As I said, three times before.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”
I turned away and moved away from the rock, following the Crows. I wasn’t a full hundred yards away when I heard the expected meaty thunk and the low scream that followed. Nancy’s scream, from her detached head. An appalling Focus trick, to be able to scream without working lungs. I clenched my eyes shut and thankfully lost Nancy’s screams in the sounds of the wind and the crunch of the snow underneath me.
I cried. I was still too much the normal.
Each of these events made me less normal, though.
Gail Rickenbach: December 4, 1971
“Something’s wrong,” Keaton signed.
“Besides the fact they can’t figure out what to do with those crazy ghosts?” Gail signed back. This was the third night of yet another test, and the quest group remained stumped. Desperate, too, if they were down to letting Amy attempt to befriend the ghosts with her Arm charisma.
The questers had found the 49 Transform ghosts three and a half days ago, and the first thing they did was attempt to figure out where the 50th ghost was. 49 struck them as an awkward number. Keaton suspected the long quest was affecting their judgment. Gail couldn’t disagree. She also suspected the cold and endless snow flurries, and increasing lack of firewood, took its toll as well.
Keaton and Gail watched out of Nancy’s eyes, as usual, at least when they weren’t communicating with each other. Nancy’s beheading bothered Gail no end, but Keaton had been all excited and ‘look at all the tricks she’s using’, and taking mental notes. There had been no backing out during Nancy’s ‘death’ or recovery.
The most appalling thing was that they both suspected they could do all of Nancy’s tricks. “Imagine allowing Adkins to slice off your head, then going after her from surprise with some advanced Focus juice tricks. She would shit out her intestines!” Gail had to admit that the image Keaton conjured up was priceless. Not sufficient to persuade Gail to volunteer, though.
“Sir Kevin’s out hunting, but sticking close to their camp,” Keaton signed. “He’s off to the left, burrowing through the snow. He’s got Cindy with him. They’re hunting something.”
“Let me check.”
Gail went back to looking out of Nancy’s eyes. After Nancy’s recovery, Gail’s link with the obnoxious Focus-Sport was stronger, at times enough to allow her to influence what Nancy did. Only, she suspected, if Nancy was willing, though. This time, Nancy did move her eyeballs. The Arm was correct. Over to the left, Sir Kevin behaved most peculiarly as he wormed through the snow.
“Ma’am?” Nancy said, hobbling with a crunch crunch of slow footsteps in the snow, over to where Haggerty talked to the ghosts. She was barely mobile, but recovering faster than Gail believed possible. Gail could practically feel the Monster juice in Nancy now, even without engaging her metasense. She could definitely see Nancy’s new claws. “What’s going on?”
Dan, who had been helping or advising the Arm, shrank back. He refused to make eye contact with Nancy. Gail suspected the quest had pushed the young Transform too far, and he neared a breakdown.
Amy maneuvered Nancy to the side, turning so she stood between Nancy and where Sir Kevin and Cindy slid through the snow. “Kev and Cin think someone’s out there. Perhaps they’ll find something and give Cindy a fight.” Cindy could use a good fight, after grousing for days about being reduced to metasensing for firewood. The more Gail saw of Cindy, the more she wondered if she could lure her into joining her household. She reminded Gail of quite a few members of her crotchety crew. With a little juice support…
Predator predator predator.
Gail backed off and turned to Keaton. The library in Nancy’s head made for an odd jolt after the vast desolation of the snowy tundra. “What’s up?” she signed.
“There’s people here with us.”
“Here?” In Nancy’s head? Strange.
Strange that the Arm could detect them, that is. Gail relaxed, quieting her mind. Yes! “Eight of them.” From what Gail understood of the Dreaming, to contact the others in Nancy’s head would require a juice link. Well, someone had created one, and Gail suspected who, but the link wasn’t strong enough for any actual communication to happen. Yet. “Can I go back?”
Keaton waved four of her arms in disgust and acquiesced.
Gail dove back in.
“…they waiting for?”
“There’s only one logical answer – success at our current task,” Amy said. Gail checked Nancy’s short-term memories and found out about the ‘they’ – three men, perhaps two miles away, had arrived on foot just after dusk. Sir Kevin had heard a distant snowmobile earlier in the afternoon, well over five miles away, and had been guarding against intruders ever since. “Luckily, we’re successfully not succeeding. I’m here, on guard duty, pretending to try and solve the problem by talking to the ghosts.”
“They’re still not answering?”
“No.”
“Hmm,” Nancy said. “You know, ma’am, we haven’t tried to ‘do random things’, have we? All this logic and stuff. Too much logic hurts my mind.” The Focus Sport had lost perhaps half her IQ after her death and resurrection, and slowly recovered her IQ as time passed. Despite her recovery, Gail noted a few changes to Nancy’s personality, several of which reminded Gail of herself.
Nancy turned and waved over Nameless.
“My lady?” Nameless said, after he slogged over. He had apparently mentally promoted Nancy or something equally Crow, after Nancy’s sacrifice. He slogged because his snowshoes had given o
ut on the way to this test, and he had been attempting to repair them ever since. He did not, alas, possess the hand-to-eye coordination of the standard Crow.
Nancy giggled. “Let’s do random things to the ghosts.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
Nancy’s giggle turned to a sad glower.
“If you insist, my lady.”
Predator! Predator! Predator!
Gail turned away, reluctantly. She suspected trying random things would actually work, though she expected hours of pointless randomness first. She froze when she realized Nancy’s mind – or the library that defined where she and Keaton currently were – now held eight more visible inhabitants.
The only one she recognized was the Madonna. The rest were pee-your-panties imposing, if one had a real body wearing panties to pee in at the moment. She had never run into any of them before in the Dreaming.
The whole crew, save for one, waggled their hands. The one who wasn’t signing was an indistinct figure made of bells that went ‘bong bong bong’. A speaker! Not that Gail could differentiate sounds in the Dreaming as anything more than featureless tones.
Besides the Madonna, the most dominant figure here was a tall woman with white-blonde hair, green eyes, and icicles hanging from the sleeves of her medieval-appearing white dress. Winter surrounded her like a cloak. “Given that I said I would cooperate with you no longer, save upon one issue, then I deduce this one issue has arrived in the area of this suicidal quest, ready to make trouble,” she signed.
“Yes, the man is here, personally, drawn out by the quest,” the Madonna signed. She turned to the rest of the group and whistled. To Gail, the whistle sounded the same as the ‘bong’ of the bells. The whistle served its purpose, stopping the signing and bringing them to attention.
“We all know the man by different names,” the Madonna signed. “Some call him ‘the troublemaker’, others ‘the agent’, others ‘the provocateur’. We don’t know who backs him, or his game, but we do know him to be a threat. He has two people with him, and if Nancy and Nameless begin to succeed, his men – both snipers – will kill them all.”
Beasts Ascendant: The Chronicles of the Cause, Parts One and Two Page 23