by Dyrk Ashton
* * *
The Chair lurches, vines flailing. Mol barks. Fi shouts Zeke’s name, screams at the others to help him.
The tentacles of vine holding Zeke recoil, whipping off him, and the Chair bucks, throwing him to the floor. Fi and Edgar rush to him.
Zeke looks up at Fi and his eyes are clear, though he’s sweating like mad and breathing hard. “Hi.”
Fi wraps her arms around his head, then both turn to peer at the Chair.
It shudders, vines thrashing, and it’s wailing, the high pitch of gale winds cutting through a narrow canyon. It unravels and squirms like a pile of snakes in the throes of death. The vines twitch, then lie still.
Myrddin’s mouth opens and closes without words. Finally he finds his voice. “I cannot believe my eyes. The Siege Perilous is undone.”
* * *
In another room, Peter shoves wood from broken crates into a cooking hearth while the others arrange boxes, old pillows and furs in a half-circle in front of it. Peter strikes a flint, sending sparks into straw kindling.
Fi lays another fur on a stack. It occurs to her there’s no dust. The place is perfectly clean, other than the damage from whomever ransacked the place. She looks around the room. Along one wall is a plain kitchen counter with a soapstone sink beneath cabinets and shelves. Otherwise the place is bare. She asks, “Didn’t she—The Lady—Isis—have any furniture?”
“A few pieces,” says Myrddin. “It was beautiful, but it’s all gone now.”
“When was the last time any of you were here?”
“Over fifteen hundred years for me.”
Mrs. Mirskaya says, “When we searched for Myrddin, so, much the same.” Pratha nods in agreement.
Peter stares into the flames of his freshly lit fire. “Much longer, for me.”
Mrs. Mirskaya points a commanding finger at Zeke, who’s sipping from a canteen, and aims it to the furs Fi has placed nearest the hearth. He’s not about to argue with her. Not ever, if he can help it. He sits, and she places a blanket over his shoulders before taking a seat opposite him.
Zeke’s weary and nervous, but otherwise none the worse for wear, considering his ordeal with the Chair. Fi sits next to him and his anxiety lessens. He’s relieved she wants to be near him at all after what he said in the Siege Perilous about his feelings for her, and then went crazy and broke it. He hands her the canteen. She thanks him with a smile.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“Okay, I guess, considering. How about you?”
“I’m not the one who just found out they’re some kind of prince, a descendent of Cain, admitted he saw himself on another world, and killed King Arthur’s chair.”
“Well, if you put it that way.” He makes a ‘freaked-out’ face.
Fi laughs. “Any idea how you did that? Break the Chair?”
Zeke holds his hands up. “No idea.”
She takes another sip from the canteen. “Okay, if I’ve got this right, now two people have survived that thing. Sir Galahad, the perfect fucking knight, and Zeke Prisco, the guitar-playing history nerd. You’re a legend.”
Zeke chuckles. “Shit.”
“So, what should I call you?” she asks. “The Old One, Prince Zeke, or Tent Peg?”
Zeke laughs. “Don’t forget, you’re Firstborn.”
“How could I forget that?” She wants badly to tell him about killing the soldier today, the strength she felt, but doesn’t think now’s the time to bring it up, after all he’s just been through.
“And psychic too,” Zeke adds.
“Shut up,” she replies, shoving him with her shoulder. “And it’s clairvoyant, not psychic. Get it right, Tent Peg, child of Cain.” The two of them laugh.
Pratha watches from where she leans with one shoulder against the wall, wondering about the both of them and their strange abilities. But she’s also remembering what it was like to be young and in love, so very long ago. She pushes the thought away as petty and self-indulgent, and looks down at Baphomet.
Still bound by Pratha’s chains, Baphomet sits on a box against the wall between Pratha and the hearth, his pink eyes narrowed and distant, stroking his white goatee. He’s fascinated by the boy’s destruction of the Chair, but troubled as well. The loss of the Siege Perilous changes things. The thought of sitting in it frightened him, but he found that exhilarating. It presented an opportunity, as well as a challenge to his intellect and willpower, that he’d begun to look forward to, in his own twisted way. Being subjected to its powers would have made things easier in a way. They would have believed anything he said, which could have worked to his advantage. If he’d survived. As it is, he’ll have to come up with a new set of moves in his game.
Peter pushes to his feet, scratching his chin, and takes a seat opposite the fire. He speaks without prelude. “As Zeke struggled with two competing memories, two truths, two personalities, so did the Chair. It simply couldn’t make a definitive decision between conflicting truths and thus was destroyed.”
“That’s a sound theory,” says Pratha.
“Do you have another?” Peter asks.
She smiles back. “Not really.”
Zeke recalls Peter saying the same thing when they were on the boat, when he asked if Peter knew why he could slip. “Not really.” He didn’t think Peter was telling the whole truth then, and now he suspects Pratha isn’t either.
Peter addresses him now. “That you survived physical contact with your other self, were able to separate from him, and can still suppress his memories, keeping the two distinct by holding to one identity, is astounding, Zeke. You should understand that.” Myrddin and Mrs. Mirskaya both nod in confirmation. “Joining with another of one’s self hasn’t happened often, but when it has, most died as a result of brain hemorrhage or heart attack, sometimes simply from shock. Those who survived most often became stark raving mad.”
What little color Zeke has in his face drains away. “Is that going to happen to me?”
“It’s possible.” Zeke gulps. “But it’s also possible it will not. That you have lasted this long is nothing less than a miracle, if you believe in such things.”
“But, why am I okay?” Zeke asks. “Well, as okay as I am? Is it because of my birthmark, or whatever that might mean?”
“Possibly, but not likely,” Peter replies. “The fact that you have it, though, could mean you have Firstborn tendencies.”
Zeke’s mouth drops open. “Like what?”
“Not all of them, of course, but that you picked up Gungnir today without shriveling into a burnt-out husk would support that notion, though few Firstborn have been able to hold it for long. Not even Cain.”
“So, you don’t know.”
“No, I do not. Nor does anyone here, I imagine.” He looks to the others, as if hoping someone else has an idea. By their expressions, none do, though Pratha’s face is frozen in speculation, one eyebrow slightly raised, a corner of her mouth lifted.
Zeke fiddles with his hands in his lap, says under his breath, “Why me?”
Fi lays a hand on his. “Someone told me something today when I asked the same thing. She said, ‘Why not?’ It made me mad at the time. But now it makes sense.”
Zeke says, “I guess...”
Fi says to Peter, “I still don’t get it. How could there be another Zeke?”
“It’s not just another Zeke,” says Peter. “It is Zeke.” He ponders for a moment. “You’ve been to other worlds, you know they exist. Yet they’re not just other earths. They are earth. The one we’re on now is the original, which formed in the Big Bang when the universe was created. At least, that theory of the origin of the universe is as good as any.
“At some point in the life of the planet, however, these splits or doublings of the world began, like when a cell divides to make a replica of itself. A whole new earth would spring into existence, with its own solar system, galaxy, even another complete universe, as far as I can tell. They seem to occur at random, and I only know of
them if I’m slipping and come upon a new world. I don’t know why they happen. Perhaps the limits of possibility reach critical mass. We have theories, having to do with contingent possibility, avenues of potential, and balance. As entropy and enthalpy are laws of nature, possibility itself may be a force that tends toward a multiplication of potentials for life, evolution, for the emergence of the positive, even the good. I just don’t know.
“I have determined, however, that in each case of a split there’s an inciting incident, something that initiates the doubling. It can be momentous, like a global catastrophe, but it can also be quite small. A scientific discovery, even a thought, as far as I can tell. The earth splits, doubles, at that very instant. On one world, whatever prompted the split actually happened, while on the other it did not. Sometimes it’s on this world, sometimes it’s the new one. There seems to be no real pattern. Other than that, both worlds have exactly the same past, and same people, since human beings are also doubled in these splits. Firstborn, however, are not. Most of the time they remain on this earth, though not always. And for some reason, the same goes for Astra weapons. Don’t ask me why. You won’t find another Sword of David on another world, or another Prathamaja Nandana, Myrddin Wyllt, and so forth. Nor would you find another me.
“I should add that other worlds split as well, not only this one, but it occurs much less frequently. Even this world doesn’t split all that often. Not just any event can cause them, apparently. Which brings me back to the idea of inciting incidents. I believe we have an example right here. When I murdered Zeke’s foster parents and removed him from that situation, there must have been a split. Call it a correction, perhaps. I had altered something. Whatever led to it or whatever the reason it happened, this world doubled, and on the other, Zeke was not removed from that environment and continued his life as if the event never happened. I didn’t know this until today, though I had my suspicions when Zeke returned to the bank.
“I mentioned it before, but you must fully understand that this other Zeke is Zeke. That means this Zeke is also him. There’s not an original Zeke and a copy, a true Zeke and a false Zeke. They’re the same person in every way. The only difference between this Zeke and the other is in what they’ve experienced since the split occurred, and how their personalities have developed as a result of those experiences.
“Pratha, and Baphomet, from what I’ve been told, have explained the brain’s function to Fi, and the way in which it transmits and receives memories, uploads and downloads, if you will, to and from World Memory, with each person having a different wavelength or frequency which keeps each person’s memories discrete.”
“And I told Zeke about that,” says Fi.
“Excellent,” Peter replies. “Zeke, a significant result of you and the other Zeke being the same is you also share the same access to World Memory, with only the slightest of differences separating your memories since the split from his. The instant you two came into physical contact with each other, that difference was eradicated. You both now have equal access to the memories of the other.”
Zeke’s head is hurting again. The dreams of drug addiction, violent crime and misery make sense now. The visions of the other Zeke chasing after him and Fi, the crazy power and destruction, though, that’s just insane. But could those be memories too?
“The melding of doppelgangers goes further than that, however,” Peter continues. “When the two of you subsumed each other, you ceased to exist as discrete entities. Imagine one person stepping inside another. We’ve read about it in books, seen it in movies. In fictional examples, however, one personality usually takes over and controls the other, like a possession. In less insidious instances, the two entities can communicate within the one body. In the reality of meeting another self, however, one of you does not ‘step into’ the other. You step into each other. You possess each other, combine, becoming one body, one mind, but with a most terribly entangled split personality. In your case, the other Zeke is a very different kind of person than you are, and that is the most dangerous case. Experiments have been conducted in the past, by Kleron’s master, now long dead, in which he sought out and forcibly combined the multiple selves of people. The result was the same as with the rare examples of accidental melding I’ve mentioned before. Insanity or death.
“I must reiterate, however, the fact that you were able to separate from the other Zeke, mentally and physically, is extraordinary. That you’ve maintained a stable mind since, even more so.”
The group sits quietly while Zeke and Fi try to soak it all in.
After a time, Myrddin says, “Perhaps it’s fate”. They all look at him. “That the splitting of the world happened when it did. With Zeke being who he is. Considering where we are now, and what is happening.”
Peter snaps at him, “You know my position on fate.” He calms himself, looking to Fi and Zeke. “There’s no such thing. In all my time I’ve never seen it proven. There may be potential for predestination, a willful progression for life, for the worlds, but I don’t believe there is fate for people, no destiny, and no prophecy either.”
Mrs. Mirskaya says in a calm yet defiant manner, “There are some among us who believe differently.” Myrddin nods. Edgar smiles at Fi and Zeke. Pratha’s only response is her trademark unreadable smirk.
Baphomet leans his head against the wall. He doesn’t believe in fate either. He believes in other things, or fears the possibility of them. Reincarnation or metempsychosis, for example. Mostly, however, he holds to the tenet of free will. To one’s ability to make their own destiny, should they be courageous and clever enough.
As if he knows Baphomet’s thoughts, Peter says to him, “As for you, I suppose we’ll have to use more primitive methods than the Chair to extract the truth.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Baphomet replies evenly.
Mrs. Mirskaya says, “I do not believe pain and torture will work on Goat.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Pratha remarks. “I may be able to help with that.”
Myrddin’s eyes glint with mischief of a cruel kind. “Perhaps if we took something he holds dear. The Goat has always been fond of his horns.” Now there’s a reaction from Baphomet. Small, but it’s there. Fear.
“Rightfully so,” says Pratha. She crouches and removes his chains, her body and face closer to him than need be. He swallows hard as she whispers in his ear, “Let’s have a look at them, shall we?” Reluctantly, he reveals his Trueface. Pratha stands and touches one of his horns. He flinches, though it’s slight. “They are splendid,” she says, tracing her fingers gently along it’s length and thumbing the point to test its sharpness.
Baphomet’s discomfort at her touch shows in his expression. He says, “I would rather—”
Pratha cuts him off, ignoring him. “I could use something like these.” She grips a horn in each hand, about two thirds of the way up from the base. She pushes on one, pulls on the other. There’s little effort on her part, but the skin of her palms squeaks at the pressure she exerts. Baphomet winces, and the horns creak. “Oh yes, this would be easy. A little more pressure and they’ll pop right off. I imagine it will hurt terribly. And there will be bleeding.”
Fi wants to look away. No, she wants to want to look away, which is a different thing. She’s fascinated by what’s happening, which surprises and scares her. And she feels what it was like when she lifted that soldier and broke his back against the canyon wall. The rage. The power. Am I some kind of freak? she thinks. Her eyes pass over the others. Just like them? Her old babysitter, Mrs. Mirskaya, brusque and critical, but always caring. Even her beloved Uncle Edgar. They have such gentleness and kindness, but also incredible strength, and a frightening comfort and ease with violence.
Baphomet’s eyes dart to Peter, but The Father’s intentions are inscrutable on his features. He may actually let Pratha do this. “I will tell you anything you like. That has been my intention all along,” Baphomet says. “Just... not the horns.”
E
dgar’s radio chirps. He pulls it from his belt and acknowledges. The reply is only wind noise, and what could be the crackling of a fire, then it’s silent. Edgar tries again. A rustling sound, moaning, and a scream in the distance. Then they hear a familiar voice singing. It would be lovely if they didn’t recognize its source.
“Oh, the Incy, Wincy Spider,
Climbed up the water spout...”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HIGHLANDS
PARLEY
The group bounds up the stairs with Peter in the lead, Pratha right behind him hauling Baphomet, who’s bound and in human cloak once again, by one arm. Peter triggers the door and they’re met with the harsh glow of fire in the night. Gungnir springs to life in Peter’s hand and Edgar draws his sword. Mol poises for attack by his side, hair bristling, a menacing growl in his throat. Fi and Zeke come last, recoiling at the macabre display before them.
Trucks crumpled and burning with orange and yellow flame, illuminating a carnival of horror. Templar tents, crookedly erected. The old willow tree, stripped of its leaves, madly woven with gossamer webs.
And bound in the webs, dozens of Templar soldiers, dead and dying. Some wrapped up, some splayed with arms and legs out. Some right side up, some upside down. All have had their eyes gouged out and holes punched in their foreheads, a gruesome semblance of eight eyes.
Their hands have been removed, thumbs bitten or torn off, and jammed into their mouths so eight bloody fingers hang out between shattered teeth. Moans of those still living hang on the air like the haunting of ghosts they will soon become.
And everywhere there are spiders. Of all types, brown haired and shining black, thick and thin legged. The smallest the size of a small breed of dog, the largest as big as a truck.
Some crawl the web of the tree, tormenting the soldiers still living and feeding on the dead. Inside the open tents, others flay bodies of soldiers, wrench off their limbs, peel back their skin, and feed as well.