by Dyrk Ashton
Kleron seems uncertain, but says, “Then let us proceed.” He walks to where the ring slowly spins, no longer fearing Peter or Pratha will strike him down now they are bound by the Oath.
Kleron’s cold eyes meet Fi’s. “You are sure you want to do this?”
Fi says, “Very. You killed my friend. Samson was his name, but I knew him as Billy. All those people I worked with.”
“It was nothing personal,” says Kleron. “Though I did take some pleasure in it.” Fi can tell he’s searching her face for any trace of fear. She shows him none.
Still in his human form, he pushes the sleeves of his leather jacket and shirt up to the elbow of his right arm. The ring stops spinning and he reaches through it, as if offering to shake. Fi looks into his eyes once more but can’t make the connection with him again. She still has no control over it. She pushes up her sleeve, then hesitates. What am I doing?
Peter places a hand on her shoulder. His touch calms her. Otherwise, she’s pretty sure she’d chicken out and run screaming. “Go ahead,” he says. “You can’t be harmed during the parley.”
She takes a deep breath and puts her hand through the ring, her fingers sliding past Kleron’s. He grasps her forearm, and she grasps his. His skin is both hot and cold, and there is power there. Fi realizes it’s not entirely revolting, as she’d expected. His touch is soothing, seductive even, in a way she knows is entirely wrong.
The ring contracts until it encircles their wrists, holding them together firmly. In unison, Peter and Kleron speak identical words in the ancient language, reciting the Oath of Odin. It sounds like a lost Skaldic poem of yore. Which, in fact, it is.
Fi doesn’t listen closely. She’s trying to dredge up what it felt like during her vision earlier that day, when she and Kleron entered a strange world—and she succeeds.
Once again, she soars through the clouds, seeing through Kleron’s eyes, feeling what he feels in body and emotion. They slip from world to world, locusts on each, but keeping their distance.
She recognizes the landscape below as the one she saw before the final slip, and concentrates—now she has a new vantage point, flying alongside Kleron. She focuses on his face, sees the deliberation and worry there, and waits for him to speak. When Kleron said something before the slip in the earlier vision, she didn’t catch the words. Now she does.
She slips with him, through the oily black veil, to the world of primordial swamps and a vast wasteland, smoking from cracks in red earth.
Then another dark veil and they’re soaring over the same red wasteland, but now there’s the ivory road she saw before, lined with ivory walls, that leads straight to an imposing mountain hidden from sight only a moment ago. Black, jagged against the yellow sky, at the edge of a great gray ocean.
As before, the image blurs, obscured by swooping phantoms of shadow.
Then, through Kleron’s eyes, a dark chamber comes into focus, lit by wavering pools of light. She senses Kleron is nervous, agitated, while a massive figure moves in the shadows, conversing with him in a harsh and terrible tongue. Its voice is deep and has an odd reverberating timbre, as if there are two voices speaking at once, slightly offset. The sound of it sets Fi’s head ringing with so much pain she can’t make out the words, and the beast’s presence chills her spine and prickles her skin.
Glimpses of it as it skirts the edges of the light. A black-clawed toe. A knobby hand with nails like arrowheads chipped of black onyx. Scarred crimson scales. Dull metal plating. And wings. She guesses at its height, maybe eighteen feet.
The voice goes silent and the beast stoops in front of Kleron, staring into his eyes. Fi feels Kleron’s distress, but more strongly, her own astonishment.
Its face is red, reptilian, its eyes yellow, with pupils like black fangs. Flared pits for nostrils, and two cadaverous mouths, separated by what looks like an axe wound, roughly healed. On the corners of its forehead are horns.
Its words, spoken from both mouths, are like spikes driven into her skull, but now she understands what they mean.
“You’ve brought someone with you, Lucifer.” It grips Kleron’s shoulders and leans closer, looking deep into Kleron’s eyes, through them, right at Fi. Its mouths twist in heinous grins, packed with teeth like sabers, and it speaks in English. “Greetings, Fiona Megan Patterson.”
The pain in Fi’s head becomes agony. She wants to scream, to get away, but she can’t, as if she’s trapped in Kleron’s body, in the unbreakable grip of the monster.
But the beast says, “Goodbye, for now.”
It shouts more unspeakable words and Fi’s blown back as if hit by the wind of a hurricane, cast out of Kleron’s body to tumble through the wall of the chamber, the stone of the mountain itself, into darkness. She opens her mouth to scream, but there’s no sound. She fears she might pass out from the pain and shock and horror.
Then she’s out of the mountain, spinning out of control, and the agony in her head grows worse while the creature inside the mountain continues its spell.
She flies up and up, and she’s sure she’ll leave the atmosphere and die in the cold reaches of space. The moon comes into view, full and bright. The voice of the beast vanishes. And the moon blinks.
Fi’s stunned at the sight, then she starts to fall. Her stomach twists, a new terror rising as she plummets toward the earth.
But another sound rises, silencing her screams and the roar of the wind. She recognizes it from the earlier vision. A song with no words, just impressions of hope and sadness, loneliness and strength, beyond any Fi can imagine she could ever experience.
It comforts her as it did before. Her mind eases, the terror assuaged, and she realizes once again, the voice is calling to its father...
“Fiona.”
Peter’s voice snaps Fi out of her trance. She still clasps arms with Kleron, held by the glowing ring. Kleron and Peter are watching her, but they don’t seem aware she was having a vision. No convulsions. No blackout. And this time she remembers.
Peter says, “It is done.”
Kleron releases his grip, the ring expands, and he inspects his wrist. A band of runes, beautifully scrolled in red and black, cover his skin like tattoos where the ring touched him. Fi has them as well. If they were to grasp arms again, the band would be complete, half on his wrist, half on hers.
“Yours will hold us to our word, then fade once the parley is ended,” Peter explains to her. “Kleron’s will do the same, but not fade for a day.”
Fi swallows. “Okay.”
Peter smiles and responds in kind, “Okay.”
* * *
A campfire burns near the formation of rock that holds the door to the vault. Kleron sits in a folding chair rummaged from the Templars’ belongings, his back to where Max and his progeny wait in silence. Peter sits opposite the fire, Fi on her feet at his side, the others standing behind.
“How many worlds are we talking about?” asks Peter, leaning forward.
“Seven that I have seen,” Kleron answers. “Some utterly destroyed, others stripped of atmosphere, burned beyond reclamation, their moon broken.”
Peter’s eyes narrow in thought so intense it appears he’s scanning every memory he’s ever had for an explanation. He looks to Kleron and something unspoken passes between them. “It’s too soon,” he says.
Kleron bows his head in acknowledgment.
Peter leans back in his seat. “Why come to us, great Master of the Asura? Why didn’t you put an end to this menace yourself?”
“I tried.” Kleron pushes up from the chair, a grunt of pain escaping his lips. His image shimmers and he steps closer to the fire in Trueface, spreading his wings. Each in the group emits a small sound of surprise.
The left side of Kleron’s face is badly burned, red and raw, the lid of his eye nearly gone, a portion of his cheek seared away, teeth visible through the puckering hole. His bat-ear is melted and torn, the skin down his left side, from neck to knee, cracked, pink and seeping. The webbed skin of his l
eft wing had fared little better, and though it still holds, there are ragged holes. His arm is shriveled and charred.
In spite of Peter’s distaste for The Bat, pity and anguish flit across his features. “Lucifer,” he says, standing, “who could do this to you? Who is this destroyer of worlds?”
Kleron folds his wings behind him, raises his burned left arm, and points a ruined finger at Zeke.
Zeke’s mortified as all eyes go to him. Peter stares at him a moment, then glances at Pratha.
“I attempted to recruit him to my cause,” says Kleron, “but he is irrational. When I threatened him, he laughed. I took him by the arm, and he did this.”
Zeke stumbles up to Peter, and Kleron takes a quick step back at his advance. The move doesn’t go unnoticed by the others, but surprises Zeke more than anyone.
Fi says, “He’s afraid of you.”
Kleron regains his composure but says nothing.
“I—I don’t understand,” Zeke stutters. It’s like shards of glass are being shoved into his brain. The pain nearly incapacitates him. It’s real. It’s all real...
Peter studies him like he did the first time he realized Zeke could slip, and places a hand on his shoulder.
“I believe this parley is concluded,” says Kleron. “This... other... is close, and will be here soon. I suggest you do not let that happen, for the sake of us all.”
“What are his motives?” Peter asks. “What does he want?”
Kleron’s gaze moves from Zeke to Fi. “I think you already know.”
Peter’s jaw sets tight. Zeke’s mouth moves soundlessly.
“What?” Fi asks.
“He’s after you,” Zeke replies. Fi’s eyes widen in shock. “He wants you.”
Kleron shouts to Max and Hugin in an ugly primordial tongue. Max sneers and Hugin blinks, but neither move.
Kleron turns back to the group and fixes his eyes on Baphomet, behind the others in the shadows. Baphomet returns his gaze, his expression revealing nothing. “Twenty-four hours, Pater. Goodnight.”
He spins and spreads his wings to take flight, but Fi calls to him, “Go ahead, Lucifer. Run back to your master.” Kleron drops his wings. Fi takes a step toward him. “Tell him we’re coming.”
Kleron says, “I don’t know what you’re talking—“
Fi cuts him off. “Just tell him. We’re coming.” Kleron opens his mouth to speak again, but she continues, “But he already knows, doesn’t he? That’s the point. Drive us to him. Keep us running and off guard. Hoping we’ll make a mistake. I’ll bet we make plenty, but that’s not going to stop us.”
“You’re quite perceptive.” Kleron is obviously shaken, but his tone is derisive. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”
“I don’t care what you think. You’re just his dancing bat-puppet.”
Kleron’s eyes simmer red, but the glyphs on his arm begin to glow and smoke. He winces, and forces his temper under control. “Do you fully comprehend who I am?”
“He’s clairvoyant, your boss. Like me. He knows you’re here. I think he’s watching us right now. Through you.”
Kleron’s false bravado is gone. “How could you possibly—?”
“Because when he saw me, I saw him too.”
Now Kleron is shocked so completely it takes him awhile to regain his pride and dignity. His eyes once again cold as the abyss, he says, “This one has a sharp tongue. I found it intriguing once. Charming, even. Now I look forward to removing it.”
He shoots out his wings, slices them through the air, and slips away.
Myrddin claps. “Bravo, Fiona! Bravo!”
Peter stares at her. “‘Dancing bat-puppet?’”
“It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
Peter waves a hand to the chair where he was seated, beckoning Fi to sit. She does, forcing herself to sit on her hands so she won’t bite her nails. He gets down on the ground and crosses his legs to face her. The others crowd around.
“I wanted to make him mad,” Fi says. “I can’t read his mind, but I get a stronger sense of what’s going on with him from an emotional response.” Peter nods for her to go on. “I had to know if what I saw when I touched him was real. I mean, I knew it was real, but I wanted confirmation, you know?”
Peter says, “Did you get it? This confirmation?”
“Yeah. It was real. Super real. And bad, I think. Really bad.”
Zeke runs his fingers through his hair, scratches his arms through his jacket. He blurts out, “I’m sorry Fi, but Peter, what about this other me? Destroying worlds? I don’t understand it at all, but we have to do something.”
Peter’s calm but firm. “And we will, Zeke. Once we’re all safely to Freyja’s, I’ll seek him out to see if what Kleron tells us is true. I have the feeling it is, but it’s no longer safe here.”
Baphomet steps forward. “If I may. I have been closer to Kleron than any other, and for longer. I believe his plea is genuine.”
“And I will look into it,” Peter replies.
“But he’s close,” Zeke pleads, “and he’s coming for Fi.”
“So Kleron says,” Peter replies.
“No, Baphomet’s right,” Zeke insists. “It’s true. I know it is.” He groans, rubbing his face. “I know because he’s me. He’s in my head. All his insanity and anger and hate.” He jabs a finger at his temple. “He’s right here, and he’s coming for Fi. He’s going to kill us all. Kill everything. Even her, whether he wants to or not!”
Edgar takes his arm. “Zeke.”
“No!” Zeke pulls away. “He’s coming for you, Fi.” Tears stream down his face as he clutches his hair with both hands. “And it’s all my fault.”
Fi’s up from the chair. “Zeke, even if it’s true, it’s not your fault.” She reaches to take him by the shoulder, but he steps back, holding a hand out to keep her away. Then he groans again and squeezes his head.
Peter says, “Pratha.”
Pratha, who’s been watching with supreme interest, walks slowly toward Zeke, speaking softly in words of the First Language, interspersed with clicks and grunts, but mollifying, like a mother’s song.
By the time she reaches him, he’s already calming, and makes no move to keep her away. She traces a finger on his forehead, then puts an arm around his shoulders and whispers, lips brushing his ear. His breath judders, then settles. He looks at her, then at the others, as if seeing them clearly for the first time in a while. Pratha ceases her spell.
Zeke wipes the tears from his eyes, off his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Fi puts a hand on his chest. “It’s okay.”
“No need for sorry, remember, Zeke?” says Peter, his voice sympathetic. “You may indeed have a connection to your other self. If he’s close, your frequencies of transmission, so to speak, between yourselves and World Memory, might be bleeding into one another in real time. We need to hear Fi out right now, but soon as we’re done, I’ll go take care of this, all right?”
“All right,” Zeke says. “Thank you.”
Edgar takes Zeke by the shoulders, moving him back to a low rock on which to sit.
Once they’ve stepped away, Fi asks Pratha, “What did you do?”
“A simple pacification spell,” Pratha replies. “A realignment of the third eye. Nothing serious.”
Zeke takes a drink from his canteen. Edgar smooths his hair in a fatherly gesture. Zeke realizes he hasn’t had anyone treat him like that, genuinely care for him, since his foster mother died several years ago. He offers Edgar a weak but appreciative smile.
“Peter will keep his word,” Edgar says. “He will go, and everything will be fine.”
“Okay,” says Zeke. “And thank you, for everything.”
“It is my supreme pleasure, lad. You just hang in there.”
Mol places his head on Zeke’s knee. Zeke pets him. The Molossus. A three-thousand-year-old dog, a warrior, and, Zeke realizes with an odd lump in his throat, his friend. He looks at the others a
round the fire, and Fi. They’ve all helped him so much. He hasn’t felt this close to anyone in a long time, and here he is, worrying them more. Worthless. Worse than worthless. If there was some way he could help... and maybe there is. If he only had the courage.
For now, though, he tries to concentrate on the conversation at the fire.
“What did you mean about Kleron’s master?” Peter asks.
Fi’s returned to the chair, but glances over her shoulder at Zeke. “Is he okay?” Peter looks to Pratha.
“He’ll be fine,” she says with her crooked smile.
But Pratha’s answer is cursory and incomplete. Fi can tell her mind is busy with other thoughts. She’s so hard to read. Fi’s glad she hasn’t gained access to Pratha’s past, though. She can’t imagine what terrors she might see there.
“Fi, this is important,” says Peter. “What have you seen?”
“It was the same thing I saw when I had the episode this afternoon. I couldn’t remember it then, but I do now. That’s why I volunteered to be proxy. I needed to touch him. Which is, you know, yuck, but it worked.” She takes a deep breath and her eyes become distant. “Kleron isn’t alone.”
The others crowd closer, but none are more intent on Fi than Peter and Pratha.
Fi shivers and wraps her arms around herself. “He’s taking orders from someone else.” Fi’s rapt in her vision while the others hang on her every word. “He looked at me, through Kleron. And his eyes...” She shivers again, looks to Peter. “He knew I was there. He said my name. Then he, I don’t know, cast me out with some awful spell or something.” The others exchange glances.
Fi dredges the memory further. “Then I was floating above the atmosphere, and the moon blinked at me—which makes no sense, I know. The other parts were so real, but that was like a weird dream, for sure. Then I heard the most amazing singing. Not words, really, but that was definitely real. It helped me get back.” She starts as she recalls further. “And whoever it was, they were calling for you with their song. Calling for their father.”