by Dyrk Ashton
“Thank you.” Zeke takes a sip, which burns his tongue, but it may be the best coffee he’s ever tasted.
“Did you rest well?” Edgar asks.
“I must have. I didn’t hear you all doing any of this,” Zeke replies, indicating the pavilion, litter, and griddle over the fire. He balances the cup beside him on the log and begins to eat. “Where did this come from?”
“The Father provides,” says Mrs. Mirskaya, setting her empty plate on the ground in front of her. Mol trots up and starts licking it.
Fi says, “Peter ran off last night and came back with it. Says he paid some hunters at a lodge.”
“It’s delicious,” Zeke says through a mouthful of potatoes. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine, but not much.”
“Did they question Baphomet?”
“No, they’re waiting now until we get to Freyja’s. Said it’s another fifty miles or so.
“Oh. That’s a ways.”
“For us, yeah, but not for them.”
“Right.” The food is making Zeke feel better, its warmth spreading in his belly. The coffee helps too. He says, “Wait, you are one of them, Fi.”
“Don’t remind me.” She’s silent, as if considering what to say next. Or whether to say it at all.
Mol finishes licking Mrs. Mirskaya’s plate clean and barks at Edgar, who has returned to the fire and is dishing himself some food.
“More?” Edgar says to him. “You are a gluttonous creature.” Mol wags his tail as Edgar carries his plate and the griddle to Mol, places the griddle on the ground and sits next to him. Mol wolfs down what remains, which is quite a bit, oblivious to its heat.
Fi says to Zeke, “We were up most of the night talking. Well, they talked, mostly Peter, and I listened.”
“What about?”
“How much did you hear after Kleron told us about the other Zeke?”
“I don’t remember. Not much. I was a little crazy. A lot crazy.”
“How are you doing with that, by the way?”
“Okay, I guess. I didn’t have any bad dreams last night. It’s still creepy, though, and really fucked up, to be honest.” Pratha observes him from across the fire.
“I’ll bet,” Fi says. “Did you hear us talking about ash-Shaitan?” Zeke chokes on his bacon. Edgar grunts as if punched in the gut and crosses himself. Fi says to Edgar, “It’s just a name. And not even his real name.”
Mrs. Mirskaya responds, “Names have power, Fiona, even sobriquets, if old enough. Better to say Khagan.”
“Okay, but his real name is Iblis-Thevetat.” Edgar groans and crosses himself again.
Mrs. Mirskaya scowls at her. “Fine. But if he comes for you when you sleep, I am looking other way.” She gathers Fi’s plate and goes to collect those of the others.
Mrs. Mirskaya’s got Fi’s attention now, though. As she walks away, Fi asks, “He couldn’t do that, could he?” Mrs. Mirskaya puts nose in the air and doesn’t answer.
“No,” says Peter, who heard the conversation. “He can’t come just from saying his name. Still, it’s not good practice.”
Zeke says, “ash-Shaitan is an Islamic term for a particularly evil Jinn, or the Devil. And Iblis is likened to Satan. Are we talking about the Satan?”
Mrs. Mirskaya huffs and throws up her arms. “I give up.”
Zeke cringes. “Sorry. But, there’s Lucifer and Sat... I mean, him?”
“He was Kleron’s master,” says Fi. “The first Master of the Asura. He’s supposed to be dead, but now we think he isn’t, and he’s the one who’s really behind all this. Kleron’s working for him.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw him, in one of my visions. And Kleron didn’t deny it when I brought it up.”
“Oh.” Zeke looks around at the others, who’ve grown more solemn. “And I take it this is a bad thing.”
“From what they tell me, as bad as can be,” Fi replies. “Worse than if it was just Kleron.”
“Much worse,” Mrs. Mirskaya chimes in from the other side of the fire.
Zeke’s quiet for a moment. How much worse could it be?
Fi says, “Remember in the tunnel chamber under Peter’s house when we saw the illusion of that hell-type place, with the monsters, and people being tortured?”
“Yeah,” Zeke answers.
“And there was that awful red monster face in the flames above the well, with horns and hooky yellow eyes?”
Zeke adds, “And two mouths.”
“That was him. Khagan. And it wasn’t an illusion.” Zeke blanches. “And not from the past, either.”
Zeke points with his fork. “You said his real name is Iblis-Thevetat.” Mrs. Mirskaya rolls her eyes. “Sorry. In the 1800s, there was a woman named Helena Blavatsky who had a kind of church, or cult, kind of, called the Theosophical Society. She claimed to be a medium, and wrote about Atlantis and its king. She said his name was Thevetat, and that he was a dragon.”
Having finished building the litter, Peter takes a seat beneath the pavilion and says, “Madame Blavatsky did have a connection to World Memory. Some humans are clairvoyant to some extent. She was one of them.”
“Her stories were true?” Zeke asks.
“Partially. They came to her in dreams, and dreams are not always clear, regardless of the source.”
“From what I remember,” Zeke continues, “there were flying machines, and it was a war that destroyed Atlantis—wait, shit, that means there really was an Atlantis.”
“Yes, though it was called something else then,” says Peter. “But I think Fi should tell you. I’ve already had my say, and I’m sure there will be fewer digressions this way.”
Fi is surprised by Peter’s suggestion. All eyes turn to her. Even Edgar and Mrs. Mirskaya, who are cleaning up, and Myrddin, who’s loading gear onto the litter. Mrs. Mirskaya nods in encouragement, and Edgar says, “You can do it, Fiona. Of course you can.”
She looks at the fire, collecting her thoughts, recalling all they told her in the wee hours of the morning, condensing as much as she can while retaining what she thinks Zeke will be most interested in. She remembers it all. Every detail. Which is weird.
Still staring at the fire, she begins to speak, and as she does, it’s as if she sees what she’s talking about projected in the coals and flames. “Khagan was born over seventy million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period. Pratha recognized his brilliance when he was young, and took him on as her first student. She taught him everything she knew at the time, for thousands of years. Science, magic, language, even the First Language. The good and the bad. Powers of life, and death. When he was grown and had already become an accomplished scientist, or powerful sorcerer, whatever you want to call it, they founded a city on a tropical island continent.
“The best-known story of Atlantis comes from Plato, as I’m sure you know. Then another ancient Greek scholar, Theopompus, wrote about it too, only he called it Meropis. Scholars today think Theopompus’s story was a joke, written to make fun of Plato’s version, but I’m told it’s actually the truer version, and the original name really was Meropis. Theopompus was apparently partially clairvoyant as well. His is a story of ancient races, fiendish experiments, and war.
“It didn’t start out that way. The capital of Meropis was a huge city of colored stone, grander than anything we see in ancient ruins or temples today. Larger in scale in part because it was populated by Firstborn and their progeny, from mostly what we call dinosaurs. It was the center of trade, culture and science for the whole world. There were other civilizations as well at the time, crazy as that is to imagine.
“Khagan began to experiment on his own, and his cruelty and true passions, dark passions, came to the surface. There’s never been anyone more driven for knowledge and power. Mostly power. He did his research in secret at first, then more openly as his command of the ancient magics grew.
“He was the first to experiment with genetics and aeronautics, but pretty much every othe
r science as well, and also weapons of mass destruction our nuclear bombs can’t hold a candle to. Of course there were many failures, but he was tireless.
“Imagine what the Nazi’s did in World War II with their experiments. What Khagan did was even worse. Pratha became disgusted and ordered him to stop, but he wouldn’t. And instead of stopping him herself, she left.
“Though he traveled a lot, Peter lived in Meropis for a while, a couple of times. Still, he didn’t know the darkest depths of Khagan’s mind, since Khagan hid the worst from him, using laboratories in caverns deep below the city. Khagan’s depravity, and cruelty, spread among the citizens. Eventually Peter got tired of the corruption as well, and moved away.”
“I knew,” says Peter, so softly they barely hear him. He’s gazing at the coals of the fire. Gazing into the past.
Mrs. Mirskaya, Myrddin and Edgar exchange looks. “Pardon, milord?” Edgar says.
Peter’s jaw muscles work beneath taut skin, and there’s a manic look in his unblinking eyes, still focused on the fire. “I knew what he was doing. The truth is, I considered the whole thing a grand experiment myself. The city. The empire. And Khagan was a genius in ways I had only seen in one other before him. The Prathamaja Nandana. But he was curious about things even she feared to investigate, or had tried herself and abandoned. And I was curious as well. I did not encourage him, but he showed me all, like the son that he was. Proud and excited to demonstrate what he was accomplishing to his father. And I was proud.
“Meropis had become a wicked place,” Peter continues. “All manner of carnal pleasures could be had there, and entertainments. Gladiatorial spectacles grander and more terrible than any seen in Rome so much later. Indulgences of the flesh of every nature, including the most degenerate. And I partook in them all.”
“Pater,” says Pratha, in an attempt to calm him. But Peter’s eyes contain a fevered spark.
Zeke senses something wrong. In the tautness of the bodies of the Firstborn, the looks of worry, even fear, on their faces.
Fi feels it too. “Peter?” she says.
He lifts his eyes to her, wild and afraid. “You must not get the wrong impression of me,” he says, frantic for her to understand. “You have to know what I am capable of. All the horrors in which Idimmu Mulla indulged, the decadence and cruelty of Maskim Xul. The calculating, vicious nature of Lucifer. And so many others. So many of my children...” His eyes narrow, squeezing away the fear, and his visage becomes cold. “Imagine the most vile and disgusting act anyone could inflict on another. Rape. The murder of children. Torture. Genocide. I have done worse. I am the greatest terror. Not them.”
“Pater,” Pratha says again, with authority. He looks at her, as if just realizing she’s there. She speaks in the First Language, the Original Tongue he and she invented together when she was young. Forcefully at first, then more soothing, ending with a musical rolling and clicking of her tongue.
Peter blinks as if waking, looks around to everyone at the fire. He swallows and stands, rubbing his palms on his pant legs as he doesn’t know what to do with them, then spins and walks away.
Not knowing what else to do, Fi begins to stand, but Mrs. Mirskaya grabs her arm. “Let him go.” She pulls Fi back down to sit. Fi looks to Edgar.
“He’ll be all right,” Edgar says. “It will pass.”
But both Fi and Zeke are aware of the unsettled nature of the Firstborn, the nervous glances. Baphomet, however, observes with cold fascination.
“Is it true?” Fi asks.
“On occasion,” says Edgar, “The Father suffers from an affliction of the mind and spirit. A madness, you might say, that has come to be called the patermania. Much like the patermentia, of which you are aware, he has no control over it. There are various spectrums of it, but when fully enthralled...” His voice trails off. “Eventually it passes.” He pauses and doesn’t look at her when he says, “But yes, he has done such things.”
Mrs. Mirskaya says, “Remember, too, at that time he did not have a human form. He was one of them.”
Fi doesn’t know what to think.
Zeke says, “In nearly every myth I’ve studied, many of the higher gods, even the highest, embody and manifest both noble and ignoble traits. Wise and loving, and degenerate, unbound by the morals we know and claim to strive toward. We’ve always thought it was part of the instructional narrative of myths and fables, devised and evolved to teach us about ourselves.”
“What do we do?” Fi asks, watching Peter, who’s facing the forest at the edge of the camp, hands folded behind his back, shoulders slumped, staring at the ground.
“Nothing,” says Mrs. Mirskaya. “This outburst is still effect of recovering from patermentia. It has only been a few days. It will take time.”
“Time we may not have,” says Pratha.
Mrs. Mirskaya glowers at her, then says to Fi, “Continue with your story, Fiona.”
“You sure?”
Edgar says, “Zeke needs to know.”
“Okay,” Fi replies. It takes her a moment to focus again, to push what Peter said to the back of her mind. This is her father. A god, and a monster.
She begins slowly, but soon picks up the rhythm. “Meropis, or Atlantis, was actually two large areas of land connected by an isthmus. Khagan devastated one side with his experiments and moved to the other, banishing his rivals, and mistakes, to the desolation he left behind. But they became strong too, and there was a war that lasted for thousands of years.
“Then Khagan thought he’d invented the perfect weapon. A machine that could draw meteors from space. But in his arrogance he didn’t test it. Peter explained how it worked last night, sort of, having to do with sub-atomic particles we don’t even know about, gravity wells and collapsing space, but it still doesn’t make sense to me and I guess it doesn’t matter.
“It was Khagan who brought the meteors to earth that caused the K-T extinction event 65 million years ago, that wiped out the dinosaurs, and a whole lot more than just them. The largest meteor, the one scientists named Shiva, struck Atlantis directly, obliterating it and killing the entire population, including the Firstborn, on both sides of the war. They called it the Cataclysm. The last golden age of the Firstborn—of which, they tell me, there were quite a few—was over.
“But Khagan didn’t die. Peter had sensed the coming of the meteors, they were so big. He went to Atlantis and slipped Khagan away before Shiva struck. He did it with the intention of punishing him—but also because he wanted to know more about his machine. But when he slipped back to save others, the meteor hit. He survived, unhurt, though it took him ten thousand years, which they call a ‘myria,’ to escape from where he was buried beneath the ocean.
“When he finally surfaced, he saw what happened to the earth. He was disgusted at what his children had done to the world, devastated at the loss of so much life.
“He slipped Khagan to an unstable world, still burning with volcanoes and ash, and with only primitive life, and left him there, then slept for over a million years. When he does that, they call it a patersleep.”
Fi puts a hand on Zeke’s knee. “I know this all sounds fucking ridiculous, believe me. But it’s no crazier than any of the myths, is it?”
“Yes, it does,” Zeke replies. “And no, it isn’t.”
Fi moves her hand to her lap, where she wrings them both. “I don’t know world mythology like you do, but they tell me some of what happened seeped into the myths we know today, first carried by Firstborn to humans, then on and on for generations, combining with other stories, but mostly it wasn’t much talked about, so only a tiny bit exists, like the fables of Atlantis and Meropis.”
Peter shuffles back to the fire. His manic appearance and behavior are gone and he sits with a faraway look in his eyes, picking at dirt beneath his fingernails.
Fi’s enthusiasm for storytelling is waning. “Anyway, they told me a whole lot more, but after Khagan took Kleron as an apprentice, they gathered the bad Firstborn together,
called themselves the Asura, and started the First Holocaust. Basically, even compared to Kleron and Max, Khagan is a really bad dude, and we should be scared as shit.”
* * *
The fire is doused and preparations for the trek to Freyja’s nearly complete. Zeke finishes stowing his tent in its sack. Not very well. It isn’t nearly the compact unit it was when packed by Edgar. He attaches it to his backpack anyway.
He’s not moving very fast, or efficiently. He’s still exhausted, sore, and his head spins from the story Fi told him of Khagan and Atlantis. There’s so much more to history than he could ever have thought, than anyone would believe even if he told them. And these people he’s with know all about it. Some of them were there. But they aren’t people, really. They’re gods. And he’s traveling with them. Right now, getting ready to hike further into the interior of Norway. How did his simple life come to this? It would be exciting, and it should be, but he’s so tired it’s hard to muster the zeal for it.
His fingers feel thick and clumsy as he tightens the straps of the pack, clasps the flaps, zips up pockets. When he stands, he groans at the thought of lifting the damned heavy thing to his shoulders.
But as he reaches for it, Peter snatches it up. “This will go on the litter. No need for you to strain yourself.”
“Oh,” says Zeke. “Thank you.”
“And not just the pack. You’ll ride as well.” Peter strides to the litter.
“Wait,” says Zeke, stumbling along behind him. “You don’t need to do that.”
Mrs. Mirskaya clucks her tongue. “We will go much faster without you tripping and groaning.”
“I don’t trip and groan,” Zeke argues. He turns to Fi, who’s positioning one of Pratha’s boxes on the litter. “Do I?”
“No,” says Fi. “I mean, not much.” Zeke frowns. “I’m kidding! Look, it’ll be fun. Like being a king, or a pharaoh, or something.” She steps back, wincing at the pain in her buttock and leg. She sits on a log, stretching out her leg.
“I just...” Zeke mutters. “Who’s going to carry it?”