“Is revenge really that important? You still couldn’t get in if we were dead. We’re leaving.”
“You’ve been wasting a lot of your time looking at me,” Cameron said, “Zoom in on the Soulforge.”
“When you should have been watching us,” Cameron said from the deck in full space suit. The field protecting the deck from the emptiness of space had receded. He held the flintlock aloft and with confidence. Ryoma pulled the trigger and nothing seemed to happen.
“Have you forgotten powder won’t ignite in space?” the man in black taunted.
At that magnification the man in black could not spot Cameron’s gun firing. Flying faster than a bullet was a stream of anti-matter. He had loaded one of the largest shells – a one-liter antimatter shell. He only used a shell that size in space where there was no matter to immediately annihilate since this much would actually damage the gun. A liter of anti-matter was enough to hurt a god – Cameron should know. The shockwaves would be enough that even something on the Astral would be hurt by it.
Space lacks significant friction so there would be no reason for the stream to lose any of its momentum. The stream had spread like a shotgun blast with a central splash surrounded by droplets of antimatter. One of the tiny droplets orbiting the lead touched a tiny piece of debris. It annihilated in the flash of an h-bomb and ignited the rest of the anti-matter. In a neighboring galaxy those looking through telescopes were simultaneously blinded. The Soulforge rocked from the force of the premature explosion and all of the furniture inside was knocked over.
The debris was still close enough to catch Hallow One in its terrible blast zone. The entire liter of liquid h-bomb clipped the ship with the end of the ensuing explosion. The malevolent aura swirling around the ship split, and White Knight Three shot her with an electric blue tractor beam. Hallow One shuddered for a moment then ceased movement. The beam formed a tunnel and down it traveled a payload of invaders.
A high heat laser was turned on the hull and burning through fast. Around Hallow One the aura changed from dull to a livid force with red speckles. As it writhed and swirled the ships systems roared back to life. Then it moved to expanding back into the hole left by the anti-matter annihilation. This progress was halted by the force beam and the invaders within furiously burning through the hull with a laser. Hallow One’s aura surrounded the beam in at attempt to crush it.
It swirled around the beam like a black sludge trying to crush a florescent light bulb. Cameron stopped for a moment to examine this aura. He pressed his palm against the beam, which separated, and voices flooded into his head.
Heed us pirate and die!
Flee from here!
Fear us the chosen of Almighty Old Ones!
Cameron sent a feeler tentacle of his aura through the beam. The feedback was intense – thousands of screaming, incoherent voices. One solid impression stuck with him in the man in black’s raspy voice Those of the Church may serve the Almighty Old Ones after their deaths. They shall be the chosen.
A matrix of ghosts? That’s Harvey’s secret weapon? What a jacktard leaving his doomsday device out where I could use it. He sent his energy through the feeler to conquer the wills of memories that have forgotten what it was like to be a person. His hand burned against the beam, and Cameron was force to withdraw the feeler or have it snapped off. This mass of ghosts wasn’t too big for him to control what could be stopping him? They are souls. Harvey, you son of a bitch, these are their souls.
Keeping a soul from the afterlife and preventing the second death of the Astral Body is a serious matter. Without becoming vampires or wraiths that feed on the energy of the living; souls in astral bodies simply do not stick around for years like Hollywood would like you to believe. Ghosts are memories and can be quite potent memories, but aside from the rare exception sentient ghosts simply do not exist. Cameron ran it through his mind, and the only way it could work was if they consented to this by joining Harvey’s church. That’s not a good word for it. A cult. That’s a far better term for it. He would bet good money that clause was fine print in an oath probably in a language they don’t speak.
What would Harvey the man in black need with these souls? Or his Old Ones? A dial in his head suddenly clicked. Harvey didn’t really serve any “Almighty Old Ones”. He was searching for creation’s source code under the direction of Lam. Lam was collecting these souls.
The laser finally cut a hole through Hallow One’s hull in a manner similar to a burglar cutting through a glass window. The beam shook and the tube was crushed by the black sludge. Then covered the hole.
19
Our parsonage is over three hundred strong. The Chosen not withstanding. The man in black’s voice crackled through the air like it was coming over the Wireless, but Cameron knew it wasn’t. Harvey was bouncing his thoughts off the soul net surrounding the ship and amplified them. I don’t care if you can make that ghost solid and use that gun! I’ll throw them all at you. They’re worth more to me dead!
The man in black sat in the bridge and salivated at the very thought of using the Mehmet talisman to manifest the Chosen. Once he had it that is…
Back at the breach Cameron looked on at the fifty cultists that had poured in. They all bore full black cloaks and face masks that struck him as terribly similar to the masks of Drama and Comedy. The eyes peering through the eyeholes were glossy and vacant. In their hands they clenched scythes and handheld masers, but they shambled forth like zombies. Drool drizzled down many of the frowning masks. He thought that the ones whose mask bore a malicious grin were closer to their actual expression.
Cameron grinned. Harvey doesn’t realize what I’ve done yet!
20
Heavy losses in the breached Cargo bay! reported a multitude of voices trapped in the Chosen.
Each death only brings us closer to our goal. The man in black replied without moving his lips. I would rather them complete the Ritual, but by the glory of the Old Ones, these are the trying times!
No casualties. So far seventy-five have been incapacitated.
Those masks are enchanted to prevent influence outside of mine. How could he knock out what I sent and the reinforcements? He’s just one man!
The chosen replied in thousands of words or rather a picture. The image played like an aging movie reel with scratch marks and burnt out splotches. There was not just Cameron on board; in fact he couldn’t be seen at all. Instead were the eleven of the armors of the Paladins. The maser pulses from the cultists’ pistols hardly left a scorch mark on the armor, and the sonic disruptors mounted on the armors’ gauntlets brought them down before close combat could be engaged.
The man in black was enraged, and the Chosen shifted with his demeanor.
Hey, bitches! What’s up? Cameron’s thought bounced off the Chosen. I made some improvements to the Paladins!
That’s impossible! You can’t bend the Paladins to your will!
I know, Harvey! That’s the improvement!
Harvey? The man in black rubbed his temples. This pirate is ruining everything! He considered using the tablets that he had absconded from Cameron, but those would only hurt his chances of winning. He was pretty sure that Cameron and his crew would not be affected. The man in black then realized why they were here.
“I fucking hate doppelgangers,” the man in black muttered.
21
Doppelgangers were a kind of artificial spirit that magicians created to do menial tasks on the Astral such as information gathering or recording the last episode of Lost. They often bore the resemblance of the magician hence the name. Humans unconsciously create doppelgangers all the time. The many stories of seeing an apparition of a person before they arrive or of a loved one as they die elsewhere are good examples of common doppelgangers.
The eleven armors (the damaged suit didn’t make it through the breach) bore down on the cultists with the sonic disruptors. The suits were contaminated with trace amounts of gamma radiation allowing profane spirits in the arm
or. The Chosen dripped through the hull and slapped a tendril through the helmet of one of the armors.
“Shit! I’ve lost visual!” Cameron shouted.
“Just look through the armor then!” Cameron replied from another armor.
The armor raised their disruptors in the direction of the black sludge dangling from the ceiling. It shuddered and swatted another suit of armor across the cargo bay. It shattered against the wall at the joints like a clay doll. This was the suit the man in black was aiming for since the chest plate bore the Anchor symbol. The disease spirit within poured out and lunged towards the unconscious cultists. The spirit chain burst from nine other suits and struck Xibulba through the abdomen.
He felt their will being imposed upon him, but strangely he could only feel the will of just one Cameron trying to overtake him. He saw a small opening where he might be able to grab the will and wrest the control away from him. He grasped it, but Xibulba was not at any seat of advantage here and it slipped from his hand. He wondered if Cameron let him inside like Ryoma if he would be at the advantage there.
“Look up guys!” Ryoma yelled through the speaker in the armor’s helmet, which was designed for allowing a spirit’s voice to be heard in the Physical. The suit opened the palm of its gauntlet and six reports of his Smith and Wesson rang out. All six .45 rounds burst through the sludge in the ceiling in sprays of black mist, but this did nothing to stop its momentum. The aura of the Chosen poured into the room and engulfed the armor. A crude oil that filled the cargo bay.
22
The barrel of a gun pressed into the back of the man in black’s head.
“How’s it going, Harvey?” Cameron pulled the hammer of the flintlock back.
“So all that down there was a ruse,” the man in black said. “And you’d sacrifice those friends of yours.”
“Ryoma can take care of himself. Xibulba…I want to lose. So tell me where those tablets are so I can kill you?”
“You presume that my soul won’t enter the Chosen so that I may serve the Old Ones forever.”
“Then you are presuming…I can’t shoot…to wound.”
“You also presume that I can’t create a doppelganger so dense that it was solid enough to press a gun into,” the man in black announced from across the room. Cameron allowed his aura that was dimmed to get the drop on Harvey bloom in full. His aura flashed a bright white, and he blinded the man in black. Cameron spun and fired the flintlock. The mushroom cloud burst forth from the barrel, and his hostage dissolved back into the Chosen and engulfed the explosion.
Cameron was reminded of a cartoon situation where a dog brought his owner a stick of dynamite, and no matter how many times they throw it the dog only brings it back till eventually the stick becomes inexplicable lit and explodes. Of course, the puppy remains unharmed through this entire interaction.
Sweat streamed down Cameron’s face as he felt the heat of that great fireball being carried back to him by the man in black’s Chosen. His attention was drawn elsewhere as he felt the presence of Lam sharing the room with them. Cameron raised his spiritual wavelength so he could spot the two shriveled gray men cautiously gripping a hole that he found far too familiar. Once they had noticed he was watching them Lam faded away. Cameron took the reigns of the portal and the fireball went through it into the world of the yellow things. The tunnel collapsed in Cameron’s hands.
The man in black whistled.
“I’m getting sick of all this foreplay,” Cameron said.
“Very well,” the man in black replied.
Magic doesn’t work they way it is often portrayed in fantasy literature and movies. An epic battle between wizards hurling fireballs at each other is simply unpractical and does not happen. Rather to say that it could, but to create a physical fireball from nothing would require so much energy it would be almost impossible to create. Not to mention if a passerby saw it and suddenly exclaimed, “Hey! Knock it off! That’s impossible!” Most likely the fireball would fizzle faster than an erection when the subject of mother in laws come up. Why go through all the trouble when a subtle change to the Astral could flat out kill someone? It’s much easier to do.
The average person has a great deal of immunity to the affects of magic since they are oblivious to the goings on in the Astral, but an accomplished magician has one foot in the Astral and the other in the Physical. A fight between magicians is pretty boring to watch since on the Physical it appears to be an intense staring contest. You don’t even get the satisfying nosebleed or headplosion like in Scanners. However, on the Astral it can be epic so we’ll keep our eyes there.
The Chosen swirled around the man in black and his stature grew to that of the Hallow One. He stood upon his ship and towered through space. Cameron joined him at that size on the aft of the ship.
“You should ask the Old Ones for some pants under that robe, Harvey,” Cameron said.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Harvey bellowed. That was the opening Cameron was waiting on. He thrust his fist into Harvey’s abdomen and detonated the three antimatter shells he palmed. The explosion tore through both of them and launched both from the ship. Cameron quickly reformed the arm and shoulder that bore the payload. The man in black was torn in half at the waist, which was still a grievous wound on the Astral where the center of energy rests in the abdomen.
Steam poured off the man in black, and while his stature was now slightly smaller, he was whole again. His hands turned to black tendrils and lashed around Cameron’s wrists before he could draw the Mehmet talisman on himself. He was dragged across space with great strength that Cameron could not resist without the talisman. Still even then, it might have been fruitless. He was face to face with the man in black. The man in black’s jaw became unhinged and slid down his chest.
Cameron felt an electric tingle as the tendrils from the man in black’s now void of a gullet brushed across his face. The breath he was expecting to be hot and obnoxious was neither. Icy air wafted into Cameron’s face and chilled him to the bone with a hint of cinnamon smell. That last fact was confusing and the most disheartening to the Pirate King.
Cameron quickly compressed himself again and all that energy suddenly releasing forced the man in black to the let him go. The man in black cackled and raised his palm to flatten Cameron.
“You know why your Old Ones have you after me? They came directly, already, and I hurt them pretty bad,” Cameron said and ran his index finger over his eye patch. “You’re Old Ones are frauds. Allow me to show the power of the real Old Ones, Harvey” Cameron pulled the eye patch off to reveal his blood red eye. The man in black screamed in rage, but caught Cameron’s glare.
His palm slammed into the ground, but completely missed the mark. His eyes darted around and he was surrounded only by black. The stars had gone out. The ships had faded away. He lifted his palm and found that Cameron was still there. He couldn’t make any details out except for Cameron’s red eye and his outline illuminated by the faint red aura surrounding him.
Despite the immense height advantage the man in black felt like an ant in the presence of the Pirate King. Above him space split and a giant red eye peered through. Light flashed between the man in black’s fingertips only revealing closed eyelids that outnumbered the stars they had replaced. Still he could make no detail of the Pirate King.
“What are you!?” the man in black screamed. He raked his fingernails across his own face. “You’re a monster! A monster!” He slid down and melted. He was now in the fetal position and sobbing. He clasped his hands over his eyes, but could still feel the glare of the Pirate King on him. The eyes opened all around him their light now visible through the backs of his hands. “A m-m-monster. S-s-s-pare me. Our c-c-church is y-y-ours. Please…just say something. Anything!”
The Pirate King spoke. On Earth a child was born with a full head of hair and mouth full of teeth much to the chagrin of her mother. In a desolate star system a star imploded taking the rest of the star system with it. In
Baltimore every single child started bawling. Warren Elliot threw up. A statue of a powerful yogi in every Lemurian temple began to spurt blood from every orifice. Lord Sananda the head of the Ashtar Command, while enjoying his afternoon tea, felt a shiver like someone had just stepped on his grave.
“Fuck you, Harvey.”
Far beyond the comprehension of mortals in the maddening seas of Ain outside all Universes the dark wanderer Nyarlahothep opened his left eye. An emerald eye that contrasted the blood red eye greatly. Just where Cameron had left it. The eye of Nyarlahothep was upon the man in black and all there was to see was a horrible wretch of a man. Blood streamed down his face and patches of his scalp were missing from pulling all his hair out. He rolled on the ground as if on fire and screamed. And that’s how he would always remain trapped in that terrible gaze.
The eyes blinked, and the nightmare vanished. The man in black along with it. The Pirate King covered the dread eye with the eye patch and reopened the green eye. His skin had faded and his breath was heavy. One of his dreadlocks had turned white and a single tear streaked down his cheek from his right eye.
Intermission: Meanwhile with Warren Elliot
Warren Elliot woke up sitting in a bench in the Inner Harbor. A book was in his lap, The Gunslinger by Stephen King – his favorite. He had lost his place and flipped through quickly looking for any possible dog-ears. He noticed that he had marked the first page. The first phrase The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed had been altered. The words the desert and gunslinger had been crossed out with a mechanical pencil. Space and Pirate King were scrawled in overhead with the same pencil.
“The man in black fled across space and the Pirate King followed,” Warren read aloud.
He was having more and more of these spells since Janet had left him. He felt that it meant that he was to write another one of those stories about the Dread Pirate Cameron, but he really hadn’t the will to do so in him. Strange things were happening to him and these periods of blacking out where just the tip of the iceberg. Janet had left him the morning after the horrible day spent with the Irishman.
The Spaces in Between Page 14