by Dyrk Ashton
The atmosphere in the chamber becomes oppressively hot and humid. Pressure builds in Zeke’s ears as an ominous primal fog flows from the tunnels, oozes over the floor and fills the well. With it come thick rich scents of fetid water, rotting vegetation, musk, mud and blood. There’s the odor of ozone as well, and a crackling energy in the air. The room tilts, the walls spin around him, Pratha goes out of focus. Zeke presses his hands to his ringing ears and clenches his eyes shut.
* * *
When Zeke opens his eyes, the group is standing in the dark glade of a swamp that can only be described as prehistoric, ankle deep in black water that slithers with unseen horrors. In a circle around them, where the walls of the chamber had been, glistening black megaliths project from the ground, deeply engraved with elaborate runes. A fire burns brightly in a rock-ringed pit in the center.
Eyes of red and yellow peer ravenously from the surrounding vegetation. Gargantuan trees draped in hoary vines, ferns the size of houses. Zeke removes his hands from his ears. The ringing is gone, replaced by hoots, growls and sounds of branches snapping in the undergrowth beyond the glade.
The sky sparkles with more and brighter stars than Zeke has ever seen. A monstrous webbed-winged terror looses a bone-chilling wail as it flaps across an impossibly large moon.
Peter and Mrs. Mirskaya are unfazed by the new surroundings. Baphomet and Dimmi remain cowering. Mol creeps timidly to Edgar’s side, who’s every bit as astonished as Zeke.
Pratha still straddles the alligator-monster she called Ao Guang. But she’s changed. Completely nude, sheer gown and chaplet gone, her long dark hair flows freely over milky white shoulders. Zeke blinks and she has blue skin, a red bindi gem on her forehead--and four arms. She wears a tall headdress, a necklace of shrunken heads and a skirt of severed human limbs. In a flash she sports a square golden helmet, has shimmering blue feathers on her shoulders and along the outside of her arms, and a wicked, whipping tail. Another flash and she’s robed in gold and has the head of a cobra. Then she’s an old crone, then a coiled serpent. Other aspects flicker. Goddesses, demons and monsters from every age known to humankind, and many unknown. Then The Prathamaja Nandana appears in what Zeke realizes must be her Trueface.
She’s built much the same as in her human cloak, svelte and long-legged, but covered in sparkling blue scales, lighter colored and softer-looking on her belly, breasts and neck. The claws on her hands and feet gleam red, and she has a tail, long, slim and lashing. A ridge of dark scales runs from the crest of her skull down the center of her back to her waist. Her face is lizard-like, her nostrils flared holes, teeth curved white razors, and articulate tongue forked and flickering. In the center of her forehead is a dime-sized dot of bright red scales. And she still wears the red pendant at her neck, as she has through all her transformations.
Her eyes are vertical ellipses, wider and less alien-looking than the thin reptilian slits of Ao Guang, but still golden, intense, provocative.
“Whoa...” whispers Zeke, completely unaware he’s spoken aloud until Edgar whispers back,
“Aye.”
Pratha grips The Gharial’s snout as her incantation continues. His skin shrivels beneath her hands, blackens and splits. He struggles as the pestilence spreads over his head and down his neck, but cannot escape her grasp.
Peter only has time to say, “Pratha,” before the Firstborn known as Ao Guang, god and monster of legend, a being who has walked this earth for 53 million years and could snatch the life from even Cù Sìth with a snap of his jaws, has his head ripped from his body with a single wrenching twist, like he’s just a stuffed animal.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Mendip Hills 6
“Don’t let go.”
The White Watcher, Fintán mac Bóchra, The Falcon, stands near the base of the cliff, a long pack strapped to his back, Bödvar Bjarki’s giant sword, Kladenets, secured beside it.
On top of them both, Myrddin Wyllt clings tightly. “Sound advice,” he replies. “Obvious, but sound.” He now has a snug woolen cap, like his favorite one of old, tugged down over his ears. Another gift from Fintán.
Myrddin glances back at the cave--or, where the cave was. After Myrddin had eaten, rested, and Fintán attended to the bite of The Leech, he’d laid hands upon the stone, spoken words and collapsed the entire cavern. The cavern that was his involuntary home for more than 1,500 years.
With a mighty hop and whoosh of wings they ascend into the dark sky over Somerset County. Myrddin watches the Mendip Hills recede below, sees bright clusters of lights where he knows there once were villages, and in places where there were none. Lights that spread for miles. Things have changed.
He would ask about it. He’d ask many things, but speaking with the wind rushing over them at this speed would be difficult, and needless. There will be time. There is always time. For now he’s content with the first crimson glow of the sun about to rise, the cool wind on his face. The wind of freedom. And it is enough.
The Falcon banks and soars out toward the Atlantic. They aren’t certain where their journey will take them, Fintán and Myrddin Wyllt. But they know one thing. They must find their father.
And The Madman has a sworn duty to seek out his grandson. Sir Galahad. The Perfect Knight. He promised.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Flowers & Figs 18
Zeke watches his feet shuffle one after the other on the damp tunnel floor, thinking back on their preparations to leave the hub chamber.
After the gruesome beheading of Ao Guang, the prehistoric swamp disappeared and they were right back in the chamber. Edgar explained it was a hallucination induced by the archaic verse and psychic sway of The Prathamaja Nandana, a phantasm of memory and imagination like the vision of hell conjured by Kleron.
Pratha kicked Ao Guang’s body to slither and splash into the well, then snapped off the end of his lower jaw, stored it in her ornately carved trunk and chucked the rest of the head in the water.
Zeke ponders the bizarre procession ahead of him. Peter, supposedly the oldest living being in the world, the progenitor of all life on the planet, and Fi’s father, leads the way, wearing Fi’s pink backpack and carrying her wrapped in a silver blanket in his arms.
Pratha walks alongside him, cloaked once again as a practically naked, beguiling woman, touching Fi’s pale sweaty forehead occasionally and muttering her bizarre words in a language Edgar told him is the First Language, invented by Pratha and Peter together when she was young, almost two hundred and fifty million years ago. Then there’s Fi’s old babysitter, Mrs. Mirskaya, who owned a Russian Market but also just happens to be the ancient Slavic goddess Mokosh.
The legendary devil Baphomet, to Zeke an entirely fictional character until only an hour or so ago, follows them with his head held high--except when he ducks to clear his horns below an outcropping of rock in the ceiling. Beside him scuffles the grotesque hairy hyaena-thing they call Idimmu Mulla, Dimmi for short, sniveling as if he’s being led to certain death. The two of them now carry all of Pratha’s belongings.
Edgar, who Fi thought was her uncle her entire life but turns out to be a fucking knight from King fucking Arthur’s court, follows a few paces behind them, the fucking Sword of David in his hand. His shield case, no longer needed, he left behind. Mol pads at his heels like any good dog would, except he’s the Molossus, original Hound of War of the Greeks and something like four and a half thousand years old.
Zeke brings up the rear, backpack heavy on his sore shoulders, the handle of the guitar case containing a handmade Ramirez original clutched in his hand. His legs feel like lead, his head throbs, and his ear aches.
Before he knows it, Peter calls down an “all’s clear” and they’re climbing a ladder. Following the others, Mol ascends on his own, which at this point doesn’t surprise Zeke in the least. Peter Pan and Tinkerbell up top passing out milk and cookies wouldn't surprise him now. Shit, he thinks, before the day’s out I might get to ride a unicorn...
He�
��s suddenly jolted by remorse so intense his knees almost buckle and his ribcage constricts to cut off his breath. How can I joke like that? How can I even joke when Fi might be dying? She really might be dying. Right now.
But he can’t think like that either. He can’t think like that at all or he’s just going to curl up and die himself.
He squeezes his eyes shut, forces himself to swallow, to quell the dread expanding in the pit of him, threatening to engulf his breaking pounding heart and hollow him out forever. He tries to control his breathing, to muster what little strength and hope he has left.
“You all right, lad?” Edgar peers down with a look of tender concern.
Zeke manages a nod and meager smile. “Yeah. I’m good. Thank you.” He hands the guitar up and climbs, his hands weak on the worn wooden rungs.
He emerges through a hatch in the floor of an expansive boathouse, in the center of which floats a pristine vintage yacht of gleaming wood with shining chrome fixtures. Edgar tells him it’s a 57 foot Trumpy Flushdeck, manufactured in 1962, but he isn’t listening.
As if in a dream, he watches Pratha usher Baphomet and Dimmi through the main salon of the boat, forward to the cramped crew quarters, speaking to them in words that can only be interpreted as a promise of fatal consequence should they misbehave. Edgar takes a seat outside their door, sword in hand, Mol at his side.
After depositing Fi on a berth in the owner’s stateroom, Peter leaves Pratha and Mrs. Mirskaya to look after her. Not knowing what else to do, Zeke follows him out to the aft deck, watches him climb to the bridge and fire up the engines. The tall boathouse doors open automatically and Peter backs the yacht out into the muddy Maumee River.
Zeke has lost track of time entirely. It’s still dark, but the rain has stopped. Through the mist and trees he sees a muted orange and yellow glow high on a hill, maybe a half mile upriver. The burning remnants of Peter’s house. Tiny blots of blue, white and red blink around it, lights from emergency vehicles that must have arrived while they were busy trying to survive down below. Fallen trees crisscross each other over indentations in the landscape where sections of the tunnels have collapsed, like needles in a deflated pincushion.
Peter swings the boat about and heads upriver in the direction of the house under low throttle. Zeke fights off his weariness and joins him on the bridge. Peter angles the boat to a thin wooded strip of land that forms a small islet near the center of the river. He keeps the boat as close to the bank as possible, peering through the mist.
“Kabir?” Zeke asks.
Peter’s throat rumbles but he says nothing. Zeke maintains the silence and keeps watch as well, listening to the soft splash of the bow and lap of the wake on the shore. They make a slow circle of the islet, search the far bank, cut back to the near, then out for another deliberate swing around the islet. No sign of anyone. As they round the side nearest the house, Peter pulls something Zeke can’t see from his pocket, studies it in shadow, then flings it ashore. He guns the engines and the boat lunges downriver, heading north-east toward Lake Erie, which Zeke approximates to be about 20 miles away.
Peter stares straight ahead, deep in thought. Still and statuesque in the mist and moonlight, there’s something about him that gives Zeke pause. He seems absolutely present but distant at the same time, both rock solid and ethereal, singular and infinite, as if Zeke can perceive with his feeble human faculties only a slice of something that exists in unfathomable dimensions.
In the face of such overwhelming presence and depth, Zeke feels tiny, fleeting, a speck of dust passing on the breeze, utterly humbled and insignificant. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.
Peter looks at him. Zeke’s breath catches. In those eyes he senses for the first time Peter’s incomprehensible age. Eyes set in a skull far too finite to contain his immanent intellect and memory, reflecting thoughts that span back to the immeasurable past and ahead to a troubled future only Peter can envision or comprehend, looking right at him yet through him, lucid and enigmatic.
“I broke my promise,” Zeke mutters. Peter’s eyes narrow. “I slipped.”
Peter’s features fold into sadness, a profound sorrow for everything that has ever lived and died, or never lived at all. The burden of the world laid bare, shame and self-recrimination, ageless and inviolate.
Then he smiles. “Get some rest.”
But Zeke doesn’t leave. Instead, he squeezes the bracing bar at the bridge entrance to steady himself. “I know I can’t be one of them...” he says, nodding below deck, but he can’t bring himself to say more, already fearing the answer, any answer, though he has absolutely no idea what it might be.
Peter smiles again. “No, you’re not one of them.”
Zeke almost laughs, feeling ridiculous and relieved. But not entirely relieved. There’s disappointment as well, and that makes him feel more ridiculous, even stupid.
There is something he can hold on to though, crazy, ridiculous and stupid, but real. “Then why can I slip?” he asks, doing that little sliding motion with his hand, again afraid of the answer.
Peter looks thoughtful. Zeke’s heart skips and thumps as he waits. Then Peter says, “I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“But... you must have a theory.”
Peter ponders a moment, then shrugs. “Not really.”
Zeke’s confused. If Peter doesn’t know... But then, there’s something oddly comforting in that, as though, if Peter can’t explain it, it’s okay that he can’t either. But that’s confusing too. Oh my head...
Peter catches hold of him as he sways. The hand on Zeke’s arm carries all the soothing, reassuring, all-encompassing power of a loving father cradling an infant child. That’s what it feels like to Zeke, anyway. His head is clearing, just a little, and the strength returning to his legs.
Peter says, “You may be just a man, but I’ll be keeping my eye on you, Zeke Prisco.”
His smile is deep as the sea, firm as the foundation of the earth, radiant as the sun. Zeke blinks at his own bad cliches...
Peter winks. “Get some sleep.”
Zeke descends wordlessly from the bridge. Having received no direction from the others and hesitant to knock on the cabin door, he makes his way along the rail to the foredeck where he drops his backpack and sits painfully against the divider between the front windows of the salon. He searches through his pack until he finds a thin insulated coat, and puts it on.
The moist air should feel good on his face. The low rumble of the dual diesel engines, the hush of the bow cutting the water, the subtle rise and fall of the deck should be comforting. But the feelings are lost on him. He’s a wreck, absolutely exhausted, mentally and physically, his overfull and addled brain a sluggish morass mulling his own condition and the day’s events--including the most mind-bending of them all--what happened when he chased down that man outside the bank, an experience shoved aside by everything else that’s happened since, but he knows he’ll have to deal with eventually. And tell Peter about.
For now, though, all he wants to do is sleep. But that’s not true. What he really wants, would give anything for, is for Fi to be alright. To open her glorious green eyes and smile that Fi smile that beams sunshine, to walk and talk and laugh and kiss him, and never let go.
Epilogues
Not twenty minutes after Peter’s boat has disappeared around a bend in the river, Kabir crawls from the flowing gloom onto the steep mucky bank of the islet. Muddied and bedraggled, he rubs his aching leg.
This isn’t exactly what he had in mind when he considered taking some time off from work, even if he did find Father and is spending time with family.
“We’re too late.” Cù Sìth towers atop the rise in human cloak, his black fur coat and hair dripping wet. “They’re gone.”
Kabir groans. It took long enough to dig themselves out of the rubble of the demolished house, but Cù Sìth insisted on completing yet another task. Then the mtoto authorities arrived and ha
d to be avoided with stealth and caution.
“But I found this.” Between thumb and forefinger, Cù holds up a large gold coin, pitted and worn, framed by the ruby glint of his eyes.
Kabir recognizes the token at once, the odd glyph stamped on its face. A Deva sigil. A call to war that cannot go unheeded. Cù Sìth may have some inkling as to what the coin signifies, but the glyphs themselves would mean nothing to him.
Exposed on the precipitous slope in the shadow of the dreaded Moddey Dhoo, Kabir feels acutely vulnerable. He considers plunging back into the river. Not for his own safety, but to try and lose Cù Sìth, on whom he still can’t bring himself to rely. But he needs to see the other side of that coin...
As if by providence, Cù flicks it with his thumb, sending it flipping into Kabir’s outstretched palm. Kabir keeps his eyes on Cù, not allowing himself to be distracted. Cù drops a makeshift sack of sopping black fur, red and ragged at the edges, dripping incarnadine--the result of his grisly endeavors back at the house. Kabir braces for the assault, but instead of hurtling them both into the river, Cù grips a tree branch for anchorage and offers a hand. After a moment of conflicted deliberation, Kabir takes it.
Cù slings the carcass sack over his shoulder. Kabir inspects the flipside of the coin. Now he has a clue as to where to find Father. The question is, how are they going to get there?
* * *
Tanuki ran. Over 50 miles, roughly north, through the bowels of the mighty Kaçkar Mountains. Twice the speed the fastest marathon runner could muster, clinging tight to the straps of his pack. Goaded by tragedy, whipped by demons of regret, through winding tunnels he raced, up and down steep inclines and endless switchback stairs, around sweeping ledges, across narrow stone bridges that spanned bottomless crevasses, never slowing until he reached the safe room hidden behind the mountain face that overlooks the Turkish city of Rize on the southern coast of the Black Sea.