by JD Lovil
The blood was the debt, and the payment, and the scales of balance for the freedom of the world. Without the blood, those who dance the dances of life would be in the chains of those who he destroys. It is in the blood that Life has value, the innocent are honored as their blood runs, and the guilty are eliminated from harming the innocent as their blood runs. It is with sorrow or with outrage that Tom kills.
Tyr speaks. “You perform a great need.” The others all nod beyond the vision, which is fading now. Tyr clasps Tom shoulder as the vision fades away, and now the world is back to normal for this place once again.
Cernunnos motioned Tom and Tyr away from the front, and then he motioned for Karla and Heimdall to step forward.
“Come forth, Karla, with your Second Heimdall of Asgard.” Cernunnos said. “It is your time to be confessed.” Karla and Heimdall broke through the crowd, and moved forward toward Cernunnos.
As Karla passed Tom on her way to the front, He gave her a rueful smile of encouragement. The mountainous mass of Heimdall at her back seemed adequate protection from all possible danger to her.
As Tom reached the crowd, Karla reached the place in front of Cernunnos. The air about her begins to shimmer, and the vistas of hundreds of past scenes are flashing in and out of existence, scenes of hundreds of battlefields, and also thousands of places such as forests whose trees tower into the heavens, waterfalls that seem to descend forever, the place of bones in the valley of white rocks, the sea in another world where monsters break the surface to stare at the not quite human crews of sailing ships that ply between the ports.
An emotion drifts upon the winds in this place, the waiting of Karla for Tom in whatever incarnation he wears, to wait with folded hands and lonely heart until the universe should grow old and cold, and still to wait until that time that they can be together forever. Through Eons of blood she is destined to wait, through life and death and life again, she waits.
The vision drifts and fades and finally it is gone. Karla stands weeping, but Heimdall stands at her back, and has put his hand upon her shoulder to show compassion and comfort her. They walk in silence back to the crowd.
Even though none of the four could put their hands on what if anything had been clarified by this little exercise, they all felt a little happier for having gone through it. Tom for one had always hated tests, but at least this one appeared to have been a pass/fail sort of thing. As far as he could tell, they had all passed.
Everyone clustered around, and Tom and several others lit up cigarettes as they took a few moments to relax before the last phase of this project. He wasn’t sure if smoking here at this particular spot in space-time was allowed, but nobody tried to stop them, so he guessed it was okay. Finally, when everybody was done with their smokes and getting anxious to conclude their business in this place, it was time.
“Bring forth the heart of the dragon.” Cernunnos said. Veritasia and Arpad stepped forward, and Veritasia carried the cask which held the heart of Unhcegila. She walked up to Cernunnos and presented the cask to him as she bowed. Cernunnos took the cask and he opened it, and from the cask could be seen a light of blue and green.
“This is the Place of Beginnings.” He intoned. “Before me are the Pilgrims of the Healing that is to come. I hold the heart of the Dragon, the heart of Desire. The Pilgrims have been Shriven, and now shall they be bound by the vow, and the blessing of the Heart shall aid them in their mission.”
“Pilgrims, stand forth.” The four moved forward to stand once more in front of Cernunnos, and at his signal they each knelt before him. “Repeat these words to make the vow.”
“I will use all my power, all my skills and all my will to heal this world at this the place of beginnings. In this place, we will bring the four artifacts of the old ones, and we will use them to heal the world. Though the demons of the Shadows attack, we will complete our task. So say we all!”
“I will use all my power, all my skills and all my will to heal this world at this the place of beginnings. In this place, we will bring the four artifacts of the old ones, and we will use them to heal the world. Though the demons of the Shadows attack, we will complete our task. So say we all!”
As soon as these words were said and repeated, Cernunnos reached into the cask and took up the glowing heart of the dragon. He held the heart above each of the Four, first Vera, then Markus, then Tom and last Karla, and from the heart where he held it above each of their heads, a shower of small dust like sparkling specks of light fell upon each of them, and seemed to be absorbed into them.
With this last bit the ceremony was done, and the Seer led the assembly back to the parlor from which they had come. As they came into the room, the double doors swung shut once again, but it was obvious to all that this time the wormhole would remain active until the entire task was done.
Soon they had settled outside at the courtyard table to eat the pizza and drink the beer that the Herald’s man had laid in for this celebratory feast. For an hour or so, the party held sway, and then the attendees slowly began to float away to their beds.
******
23 The Waiting
Karla woke up from her position spooned with Tom on the couch. The whole group had been excited last night after the Shriving, and the discussions of optimistic things had gone on until the break of dawn, when everybody had either toddled off to their beds, or bunked down where they were for the night. Tom, Karla, Vera, Markus, Tyr, Veritasia and Arpad had all stayed in the living room area and slept there for the last six hours or so.
Tom woke up as she moved to get up, and after a brief struggle, managed to position his body into a slumped sitting position. At a nearby table, Markus, Tyr, Veritasia, Arpad and Vera were playing a game of cards. Markus was winning.
“Wa Sup, y’all?” Tom groused in his best imitation nearly asleep Southern drawl.
“Markus is winning a big part of what is left of the Walmart cash.” Vera said. “Tyr is getting antsy to do something heroic, Arpad is itching to go visit someone called ‘Zane’, and Charlie was in a few minutes ago to let us know that the Sage will be here later today.”
“Damn it, I collected that cash because I am the frugal sort, not so all my friends can sponge off of me!” Tom said. “And I guess if the Sage is coming in, I better hide the Claymore and practice looking innocent.”
Karla made it back to Tom to hand him the tar like substance in a cup that Tyr preferentially made and called coffee. One could dip their finger into it and lick it, if all they wanted to feel was an adrenaline surge, Goosebumps and restless leg syndrome. Tom figured that he could use about two cups of the tarry goo this morning. He held his breath as he took the first sip, hoping that it didn’t have an overly caustic effect on his teeth, or the cup itself.
The Sorcerer came into the room and poured himself a cup of the coffee. It was a treat to see a shadow glide across the room, resolve itself into the Sorcerer’s form, pour a cup of coffee, and then make a face that expressed both repugnance and pain as the bitter brew hit his taste buds. When he recovered enough to turn around, the look of irritation on his face as he noticed the group was all laughing at his reactions was a keeper. He looked about ready to stalk out, but finally, he sat down in a nearby chair with the current newspaper.
The group was rarely in agreement about the correct procedure for any activity, but all of them could agree that the proper response to seeing a man sit down with the newspaper is to sit beside him while making sure that he has no opportunity to concentrate on the reading of the paper. In honor of this agreement, they all got up and pulled their chairs to surround him where he was scan-laxing with the paper.
“I have a question.” Said Markus. “If time is not a dimension, how can we be stepping back seventy-three years to the Place of Beginnings? Doesn’t it have to be a dimension for us to traverse it?”
The Sorcerer reluctantly put down the newspaper, and turned to face Markus. “In order to answer that, I will have to explain quantum objects and
dimensions.” He said.
“The characteristic of a dimension that defines it, is that it is traversable. You can go in both directions in the x, y and z directions, so you can call space three dimensional. If one of those were not traversable, so that you cannot travel in it, then it would be a two dimensional space. While you are moving around in the three dimensions, you can create events, let’s say taking a step, and you can record the duration of time it takes, and peg each part of it to a particular second in the sequence, but you cannot walk back through the seconds of time like you can retrace your steps.” The Sorcerer tried to explain.
“You can pass by the same points in space over and over, but you can only pass a particular instant once.” He explained. “You can find worlds in shadow that appear to exist in any time period you seek, but they are all actually in whatever constitutes the present time in their world.”
“Wormholes are the wild cards in this.” He continues. “By definition, a wormhole can open up into any world at all, even the ones that we see as impossible. They are Quantum Objects, and there are no limitations to where they can access. You can never walk to a past time, but neither can you ever deny access to the past to a wormhole.”
“I have a headache.” Markus complained. “You might as well have said that time travel isn’t possible, unless you use magic.”
“Fair enough.” The Sorcerer said. “Lucky we all have magic, then, isn’t it? Tom there is pre-telekinetic, for instance.” He motioned languidly at Tom.
“You need to explain that one.” Tom said. “I don’t feel like a television.”
“Why don’t I show you, instead of telling you?” The Sorcerer asked. “Close your eyes for a moment. Visualize the Stone of Creation, and rotate it in your mind’s eye. When you have it steady in your mind, feel a stiff breeze blowing past you, the sound and the feeling, blowing through and blowing doors open or closed.”
Tom closed his eyes as instructed, visualized the stone and began to rotate it in his mind’s eye. It was much easier than he imagined it would be. He felt a sense of a power build up, almost like he was sitting in the middle of a puddle composed of some odd form of electricity which made some mental equivalent to the pre-shock electrical twinges of current flow.
He began to imagine the sensation of a steady pickup in the wind around him, and he thought he felt the air moving on his skin, and even felt a very slight change in temperature around him. In a couple of seconds, the sensation seemed very real, maybe too real.
His eyes jerked open when he heard the sound of a nearby set of interior doors slam shut just as the outer door slammed back against the wall as it swung open. The small objects in the room were being swept toward the outer door by the wind, which rapidly dropped away to nothing after he opened his eyes.
“Told you.” The Sorcerer said. “I laid on a suggestion, but you did all of the work of the telekinesis.”
“That will take some getting used to.” Tom said. “It should come in handy, if Karla starts wearing a dress.”
“I agree completely.” Said Heimdall, who had just walked into the room. “Telekinesis comes in handy, but you also have a strong precognitive talent.”
“Splain yourself, mister.” Tom said. He enjoyed having silly conversations about silly subjects, and he certainly did not think of himself as particularly talented in the paranormal department. “I usually have a problem with what happened yesterday, let alone tomorrow.”
“You did mention that you had a dream in which you talked to Tyr, before you ever met him, right?” Heimdall asked. “That means you saw a god that you would meet in the future, and found out things that were useful in future events, right?”
“Yeah, I met him in a dream.” Tom said as he drew the Moonblade out into view. “In the dream, he gave me this knife, and when I woke up, I had the blade.”
“Interesting.” Heimdall remarked. “You must have manifested the blade based on knowledge of future events. Have you talked to Tyr about the blade?”
“No, but I will.” Tom replied. “I think I will go find him in a few minutes.”
“You might want to explore your talents a bit more very soon.” Heimdall remarked. “So far, we have seen Watcher’s immunity, Telekinesis, Precognition and the raising of a most unique Aspect.”
“Don’t forget my empathetic soul and my magical ability to attract Karla.” Tom smirked. He really didn’t like situations where he was the center of the conversation. He got up and ambled slowly out of the Court door to find Tyr. Karla went with him so that she could avoid being hit upon by the various male sluts in the house.
Out in the courtyard, they found Tyr working with Arpad’s horse, currying and petting him, and putting the bridle bit into his mouth. It looked as though he was preparing to take the horse out for a walk. It also looked like perfect timing.
“Where are you heading, Tyr?” Tom asked. “I need to ask you about a dream and a knife.”
“I thought that I would just take the horse out for a little exercise.” Tyr replied. “If you two want to come along, we can just walk him.”
“Sounds good.” Tom said. “So I had a dream with you in it before I met you, and you gave me a knife made of silver in the dream, and when I woke up, I really had the knife. Do you know anything about it?”
“Not a thing, I am afraid.” Tyr replied. “You probably either manifested it in this world, or you pulled it in from some nearby Shadow. Either way, you are showing promise in the manipulation of Shadow. Let’s see if you can Shadow Walk.”
Over the next two hours, as they walked the horse slowly down a country trail, Tyr instructed Tom and Karla in the esoteric art of Shadow Walking. He explained that one needs to cultivate a walking meditative state, and develop the ability to visualize mental constructs with your eyes open.
He said that the process is relatively simple, and is truly only different from normal life in that you are consciously doing what you generally do unconsciously all the time. Once you have entered the walking meditative state, you begin to visualize those changes to the world around you that you wish to create, and insert those visualizations into the world around you. Little by little, the changes will become part of the reality around you.
As they walked and talked, they practiced the techniques. On the return trip, both Karla and Tom noticed some small but exciting alterations of the world that they had tried for. Nothing conclusive, you understand, but they were convinced that they had indeed changed the world in a very small way.
“You two need a lot of practice, but you are certainly able to Shadow Walk.” Tyr said as they returned the horse to the courtyard, where he was earning his keep cropping the grass. “Between that and Tom’s ability to manifest, you are bound to have interesting times ahead.”
Tom was not usually prone to needing to feel special, but he was starting to see himself as something other than the average Joe with a body count that he usually did. Karla was starting to get that look in her eyes, like she traded for an old Pinto, and discovered that it was really a BMW under all that dirt.
It was getting along about four in the afternoon. They had the rest of the evening and night to kill. The next ‘save the world’ event would start tomorrow, and would be the setup for the use of the four artifacts at the Place of Beginnings. They were footloose and fancy free, as the old saying goes.
Karla and Tom went back into the parlor, where the party was in full swing. It was actually not so much a party as a television watching, subject discussing, game playing sort of shindig. Everybody was there, except for Veritasia and Arpad. Tom wandered over and sat down by the Sorcerer.
“Turns out that both Karla and I have a little talent in the Shadow Walking department.” Tom said. “Once we get done with the current mission, I guess we ought to go get a little training. Speaking of the current mission, I have a question about it.”
“I will set up training for you two after this.” The Sorcerer said. “What is your question?”
&n
bsp; “I noticed that the artifacts are described to be unique tools of the Travelers.” Tom said. “But the Stone was one of many that I saw taking out the Old Ones. Why is it considered as singular?”
“Because it is.” Came the answer. “There was only one of the Stone, but it manifested itself in several thousand different places and states, according to quantum theory. One treatment of electrons in QT is that there is really only one electron, manifesting throughout the universe. Probably not true for electrons, but it is true for the Stone.”
Apparently the Stone really was one of a kind, and the four artifacts really were unique tools after all. There was nothing left to do except to drink, and talk and play until bedtime. Charlie had already pointed out that the newspapers were reporting a slightly altered world situation to the one that they had reported on before their visit to the Place of Beginnings. The wormhole still whirled behind the doors of the hallway, connecting the place 73 years in the past to the present, but still the changes resulting from the visit to that place had manifested in the world they all had awoken in this morning.
The compound really was a labyrinth of rooms and doors, and over the last few days, the group had explored most of it. In one room was the paraphernalia of various games, including a billiard table, chess and checker boards, a card table and other more exotic gaming devices. Markus and Tom took control of the pool table, with Markus racking the balls for Tom’s break.
One of the things that Tom had found that he did extremely well was to shoot pool, as long as no money or competition was involved. Markus only got two shots on the first game, and then Tom had won by shooting in all of his balls, and then all of Markus’s. On the next game, Markus racked again, and Tom revised his rules so that he could only shoot called bank shots, while Markus could shoot any shots he wanted without calling them. Markus got three shots in that game.