Jigsaw World

by JD Lovil

  They heard a voice in their heads that seemed to be an averaged registry between the two mentors’ voices, and it said the simple word “Return”. With the hearing of the command, the world around the four misted up totally, and when it dissipated, they had returned home. They were greeted in a taciturn manner by the Sorcerer and the Herald.

  A few moments later, the four and the animals were around a table set up in the courtyard discussing the trip that they took. They all agreed that there was something that they all took away from the trip, a sense of connectedness that they were carrying with them that began, or at least intensified, on the ride.

  The Herald had an old man that served as a combination Butler, maid and secretary to good old Harry, and he had set the group up with beer, coffee, tea, pie and some sort of small red meat game creatures that had evidently been grilled on a charcoal grill. Tom suspected that it was squirrel, but it might have been small Nutria or some other small mammal. Hell, it could have been Pekingese or some other small dog breed. As long as they didn’t come for Bailey, Tom was okay with it. Good food.

  One of the points of discussion was the resistance that the group felt on the journey. The other was the feeling that had been growing in them that the mission was finally doable, meaning that they now felt that they would be able to find the Place of Beginnings, if someone gave them the means to travel where they needed to, and once there, they would be able to make the repairs that were needed.

  The group understood that the resistance that they felt was caused by the world wide collective mind that fought to maintain the world in its Status Quo. It did not want to change, regardless of the damage that was being done by the flawed format. They had been cautioned by the powers that be that it would be a long and slow process of firm pressing against the resistance. The group could agree with that concept, now with the experience that they had accumulated. They knew that it would indeed be slow, and they innately felt that they would succeed in changing the setting on reality.

  The group spent several hours at that table, with the conversation growing louder and more energetic with the hours, and the spirit of the four climbed to the highest that it had been at for the duration of their time together. By somewhere close to the midnight hour, the words had turned from social and informational concerns, to the area of ardor, and so after a time, the two couples gravitated toward the bedrooms that had been grudgingly provided to them. Another two hours or so of acrobatic exercise ensued, before the arms of sleep took them into its loving embrace.

  ******

  17 The Chaos Sea

  Tom opened his eyes. Mostly his head was under the covers, and in his field of vision he saw two objects. The first object was the shapely left leg of the Lady Karla, which established that she must be snoring yet in the bed next to him, in some perverted reversed position. The second object was the furred and inquisitive face of a well dog washed possum. Tom’s best bet on the thoughts passing through that marsupial head was that he was trying to determine whether Tom’s nose was an edible appendage.

  Tom noted that he seemed to be the earliest rising amongst the company, and thus it fell to him to prepare the breakfasts and the coffee every morning. This was a deplorable state of affairs, and it went against his two most important and normally strict philosophical rules. First, try to never awaken before the crack of noon, and secondly, never do for others when it is possible to get them to do for you.

  Shoving the leg, the animal and the covers aside, he grudgingly evicted his body from the bed, and lurched slowly down the hallway leading to the kitchen. He was amazed when he arrived to discover that Vera had already arrived, and she had made the coffee, and had also cooked up a large plate of perfectly cooked bacon. Beside the bacon was a good supple of pancakes to use as bread.

  “Good morning, Vera.” Tom said. “Did you tire Markus out last night?”

  “Yeah, I think that he had to tag team with his host personality.” She joked. “Nice guy, but no way he can handle me by himself!”

  “You see our hosts yet?” Tom continued. “Maybe we got lucky today, and they decided to go out and do the mission themselves, and let us relax for a change.”

  “I saw the Herald just a minute ago.” She replied. “Looked like he had just come in from a night on the town. You think he has a girlfriend, or maybe boyfriend?”

  Tom chuckled. “It’s a tossup. Where is the Markus now? Time's wasting, as they say.”

  As Vera prepared her response, a shadow floats across the floor and into the seat across from Tom. A second or so of waiting yields the form of the Sorcerer sitting in the chair, stabbing a piece of bacon and a pancake with a fork. Karla wandered through the door just as this occurred, and the noise down the hallway suggested that they would shortly be visited by Markus. Vera nodded to Tom, her response to his question shortened by events.

  “Hey, Tom, I think the possum just took his leave of our company.” Karla said. “I saw him heading off into the woods a few seconds ago. It looked pretty final to me.”

  “Just as well. I don’t remember where, but I have been getting memory flashes of cooked possum, and how tasty the fat to lean ratio is. I am afraid his association with us would not have ended well for him.”

  The ever enigmatic Sorcerer looked up from where he had finished off his repast. “I figured out what was puzzling me about you and her.” He said as he looked at Tom and Karla. “You didn’t exactly fit the typical draftee for this sort of task. You are Watchers, but you aren’t Walkers, or any of the specialized talents that are usually tapped for this sort of thing.”

  “So what are we, then?” Tom asked. “I’ll go for interdimensional millionaire laypersons of leisure.”

  “Something more rare.” The Sorcerer said. “You and Karla are Aspects. That is why you seemed to fit, but also didn’t fit the profile.”

  “Aspects of what, pray-tell?” Tom asked.

  “You are Aspects of a universal Truth.” He replied. “What made the gods weren’t that they had unusual powers, but that their powers fit their personas, and also pointed out to all that saw the same principle in the universe. When one saw Yama, he said ‘There walks death’. It is obvious that Tyr is war. You two are the male and female parts of the same Aspect. It is a little more subtle than death. It is Death at the hands of Vengeance upon the field of Battle.”

  “It seems a little wordy to me. Can we shorten it to something like ‘Divine Justice’ or something like that?” Tom quipped.

  “I would be willing to rename it something like ‘Damn Idjiot and Sweet Stuff’. It is kind of hard to categorize you two, since death, murder, and most of the other killing related words are already spoken for. I have told you two, now you can think up a suitable description.” The Sorcerer continued. “Put some thought into it. You wouldn’t want to be confused with the Cool aide guy.”

  Finally, The Herald came strolling into the kitchen, dressed in his Italian suit with an air of superiority about him. He looked at the group and prepared to pontificate. Tom delayed the inevitable for an additional moment or so by handing him a cup of coffee.

  “Okay people, we have a weighty task ahead of us today.” The Herald said. “At least, Vera and Markus do. Tom and Karla can watch, or just kick back today.”

  He went on to tell the four of them what was supposed to happen that day, with the Sorcerer occasionally chiming in with a tidbit of information or explanation. This was to be the beginning of the search for the remaining two cosmic tools, the Book of Eternity and the Seed of Creation. Each couple would be invested with a directed shadow walk to search for and recover the two tools.

  He went on to relate the theory about the origin of the tools. According to legend, the tools were devices created by a species that had been labelled by the name of ‘The Travelers’, a species of unknown origin that had apparently used a partially mechanical method to explore the alternate worlds. The Asgardians claimed in a family story that one of their ancestors had met a Traveler, and
described ‘him’ as a bipedal creature, but definitely not a primate. He apparently had scaling like a reptile, a domed skull like humans, with some sort of horns that were not well described on their heads. The general impression of the description was that the Travelers resembled nothing if not the universal description of ‘The Devil’, except that there was no sense of any evilness to the description. Maybe the devil if he was a rational scientist type of thing.

  Whatever the Travelers were, they left a few tools around, probably lost in shadow. The tools were able to make changes to shadow according to their programming. The Stone was able to alter a worldline at any midpoint, regardless of the causal sequence that created the timeline. The Staff was able to both separate and meld worldlines as needed, while the Book caused an intrinsic change in the reality of any given locale, making it more real in some fundamental way. The longer it stayed in an alternate world, the more that world would be centered in a cloud of shadow worlds cast from it. The Seed would do something similar to the Book, but it actually made a shadow world develop like wildfire if the Seed was present.

  The two mentors would invest Markus and Vera with the power to walk in shadow to one of the two tools and back again. That was the compulsion laid upon the spell, that one of the tools is the only destination. The Sorcerer suggested that the process was sort of like the process of Dowsing for the tools while shadow walking.

  The Sorcerer also stated that he had taken the liberty of extending the compound into shadow, so that now there was far more of the compound than there used to be. In other words, it was a whole lot bigger on the inside than on the outside, like the Tardis. Tom thought that the Herald didn’t look all that happy with the change, but he didn’t speak out on the subject.

  Like at the Sage’s house, the shadow walk would be started by going through a door and down a hall. Unlike that trip, this would be a trans-dimensional walk, but it wouldn’t be a trip through time down the mouth of a wormhole. According to the old guys, the changes would come into the world around them at the rate that their minds dictated. It would be in their hands.

  It was still morning, and for psychological reasons, such workings as these were best done at or around sunset. According to the impeccably equipped Herald, sunset was due on that day at 6:47. The two of them suggested that they all reconvene at 6:30 to start the mission. The four of them drifted out to sit at the court table for a couple of minutes.

  “I still think that the old guys should go do these tasks themselves.” Markus said. “Let them do this shit, and we can spend our days committing acts of sex and gluttony.”

  “I agree with you.” Tom agreed. “But you can no more get these old mystics out doing the work than you can get the politicians to go fight the wars they start.”

  The four of them discovered that they were all on the same page in this regard, but they also thought that someone had to fix things. The deciding factor was that none of them really trusted anyone else to do it right, so they were stuck with it. Just as they reached that conclusion, there was a shimmery patch in the air in front of them, and what looked to be a normal guy stepped into view.

  None of the four recognized him, or could determine where he had come from. Was he a friend, or was he a danger? They didn’t know. Tom was just about to get up and go introduce himself when Bailey came dashing out of the compound, and hurled himself at the man in a leap. Tom instantaneously decided the man was a foe, since he trusted Bailey’s sense in these matters. All doubt was removed when the man drew a large dagger and stabbed the dog.

  Tom did not remember how it came to be, but from that instant when the dog was stabbed, he remembered nothing until he came to himself, holding the now limp and unconscious man up with his left hand as he probed deep within the torso with his right hand. He withdrew his bloodied hand with the man’s heart beating in it, and tore loose the arteries attaching it to the body. He threw the heart away, let the body drop, and then he kicked it as hard as he could on the back of the head.

  “Bring me a shovel and a machete from the RV.” He said as he settled down beside the dying dog. Bailey was still breathing, but he was having trouble with it. One of his lungs was obviously punctured. Under these circumstances, there could be no saving of him. The dog had been a good companion, and Tom would stay with him as he died, so that he would not die alone.

  After about twenty minutes, Bailey finally took his last breath, with all of them looking on. When he was gone, Tom arose and used the machete to hack the man’s body into small pieces, which he threw one by one into the pond for the catfish to eat. When he was finally finished with that, he picked up the shovel, and started to dig a grave for the dog beneath a nearby honeysuckle shrub.

  By about 12:30, the tasks were done. Karla was hovering close to Tom in order to comfort him, while Vera and Markus seemed to be a bit frightened by recent events. Tom went over to the RV and grabbed a fifth of Scotch to help to turn his frown upside down, and after a time, the others joined him in sipping this fine whiskey.

  The group discussed the odd normality of the recent appearance of the man. He was not the usual monster. Why had he come? Was he coming to help or interfere with their tasks? The only reason why he was even labeled as one of the ‘events’ is because he popped into existence from thin air. Maybe he meant to help them. If so, he shouldn’t have killed Tom’s dog.

  After a while, the time had got along to about six, and the four of them started to get ready for the night’s adventure. Vera and Markus went to freshen up a bit, and Tom and Karla went to find good seats to watch the evening’s happenings from. Once the two of them went out of sight down the hallway, and started their shadow walk, the Sorcerer had reassured everyone that he could still conjure up a view of them on their shadow walk in a viewing globe he happened to have on hand. Your typical psychic charlatan would have called it a crystal ball.

  Finally, everyone had arrived for the evening. The Herald and the Sorcerer stood in front of Vera and Markus, instructing them in the finer points of their task. Karla and Tom sat back watching the activity, and eating the popcorn that Tom had brought in for the occasion. A few moments of this, and the parties were ready for the figurative starting gun to sound.

  The Sorcerer activated the orb, and it was eerie to see the movement of the two duplicated so faithfully in the globe. Both the Herald and the Sorcerer muttered some arcane sounding words just below a comprehensible volume, and made some small motions with their arms and fingers that was somewhere between silly looking and impressive. Then the Sorcerer snapped his fingers.

  The large double arch door at that end of the room opened on its own accord, and they could see a light hazy misting effect was starting in the distance down the length of the hallway. The two voyagers on this task began to walk slowly toward the doorway, and then finally they passed through the doorway. The obscuring mists sprang up and hid them completely.

  Tom looked over at the globe, and the two adventurers could be plainly seen in it, walking down a stone lined dirt path under a line of hardwood trees. The grass and the trees looked so green there. Tom had a clear view of the pair walking, and he had never seen them look as alive as they did right then. As he watched them, the surroundings started to take on a translucent sheen, and where had stood trees was now large boulders, spaced about as though moved to their present positions by glaciers.

  Markus and Vera walked down the path, chattering endlessly to each other about the strange difference they felt in this place to that in the world they were used to. This place felt real, the colors were brighter, the sounds were more musical, hard rocks and trees felt harder, the stream they had passed seemed wetter than usual.

  Now they walked through a place of Rolling Meadows and trees in bloom in a warm evening just after the sun had left the sky, but the blindness of the night had not yet set in. At a distance, they suddenly began to see people standing as though all alone. When they looked carefully at the nearest of these, they saw that they were ghostly.
Markus could see the tree behind her that mortal flesh should have obscured.

  These people did not seem to be less. It was as if they were made more real by their very insubstantiality. It was a sense of them that made no logical sense. A moment later, they were gone. In the distance were others, but now they stood like mountains, huge forms of men and women, which stood motionless in the distance, forms which stood beside the distant mountains as equals. There was a feeling of chilling concentration by these vast beings, as though they thought their vast thoughts, thoughts that moved with glacial slowness and relentlessness, thoughts that spanned the centuries. If there were gods, these beings may be beyond them, a manner of god of gods.

  Again the vista changed, and now they stood in a cemetery, which seemed to span the whole of the earth. For miles they walked, and the headstones and monuments continued in proud rows for all those miles. After a time, they concluded that this time, the scenery would not be changing. They both felt that something was different. Perhaps they were close to their prize.

  “I feel like we need to walk that way.” Vera commented as she pointed in the direction she meant. Markus nodded in agreement, because he felt the same way. They abandoned the pathway, and started to walk between the stones. It was next to an oversized monument depicting gargoyles guarding the sarcophagus that they saw him. He seemed to be a normal seeming young man with Mideast or Eastern Europe classic features, but the way he moved as though walking was a type of dance, the precision of all of his movements told Markus that he was no young man. In a millennium a man may learn to move like that, but never in a single life. He was most certainly the oldest man that Markus had ever seen.

  “Have you come to take it away?” The man asked, and Markus can see the flash of fangs as he speaks. “If you are, you must hurry. Some of the others will stop you if they find you here.” He turns and moves toward the sarcophagus, where Markus and Vera can see a faint glow deep within it.