F-Infinity Saga Canto I
Page 9
Chapter 8: A Demon in the Mist
Through the steady and powerful roar of the engine, pounding like thunder, Alyrin Delling heard only her own doubts and fears, echoing as though from the walls of an endlessly deep well. Her crimson hair, glowing like rivulets of blood in the radiance of emergency lights hung about her lowered face like a veil, concealing the dangerous look sculpted onto her perfect features. White breath puffed from her lips like dragon smoke, crystallized by the frozen heights.
It seemed strange, that the Order would still support her after she had refused orders -- but then again none knew of her intent to betray; to slay the one shining dream they had shared until only a few hours before.
The helicopter suddenly pitched sideways, caught by angry turbulence, and she just missed biting her tongue; teeth clicking shut and held there in a tight and bitter grimace; stark contrast to her cool, inviting cerulean eyes.
"Touchdown in five!" the pilot shouted over his shoulder as the tips of young, slender pine trees rose into view beyond the cut off panorama of the open bay door.
Alyrin nodded but chose to say nothing, already slipping into the silent guise of the hunter.
She reached up and flipped a switch on the device strapped to her head. Her vision changed to a million shades of green as night vision lenses slid in front of her eyes. They displayed important statistics, relayed in a nebulous array of numbers assembled seemingly at random -- daydreams plucked from the mind of some maddened mathematician and scrawled like bright yellow ink on the forest green canvas. The numbers 1135784 floated next to the co-pilot's head. It indicated he was one meter away, human, male, and in good health -- focused on his task.
Alyrin considered technology only one short step from disappearing down slippery slope leading to abject heresy. But her quarry was so near, and the fulfillment of a dream thousands of years in the making seemed to wait impatiently just over the horizon, where the moon was crawling up the ladder of the starry sky.
Still, she nodded in satisfaction at the display's reliability and looked down to check her equipment belt. The various tools of her trade were all securely fastened into heavy black Velcro latches and pouches; safety catches turned off and primed for either stealth or violence -- whichever suited the situation best. She gave a final nod at the pilot, who dipped the mechanical bird to within just a few meters of the ground.
He looked back at her, and a number next to his head clicked to a 9 -- a smile. She flashed a final thumbs up before tumbling to the side and out the door into the eclipsed forest.
She hit the ground in a cat-like crouch, braced to absorb the impact. Her clothes adjusted to cushion and support the blow, designed with that specific purpose firmly in mind -- the midnight spider silk fabric smooth and insulated against the New England chill.
Alyrin waited for a moment in the engulfing shadow, unmoving save for the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed silently in and out; inhaling calm and exhaling fear. Seconds ticked by as she acclimated her aura to the uninviting wilderness.
Stepping slowly and carefully through the underbrush, she used the goggle's built-in compass and GPS to navigate east towards the insignificant town that the map function told her was named Megid. Roughly two kilometers away, the dot already frustrated her. Small towns never offered much in the way of comfort or food.
Were it not for the technological guidance, she would have quickly become lost. The winding paths seemed to know intruders and become more sinuous in spite, curling in on itself to resist invasion.
Cursing her luck in the eight languages she knew, she wandered further, trusting only the blinking spot above and to the right of the same eye -- an accessorized star -- to show her the way..
An hour later, though, she grew suspicious of its supposed accuracy. The weak light of Megid still radiated softly above the treetops but seemed no closer for her trek. She ripped the goggles from her head and gave them a hard shake. Nothing changed, she noted, as she fastened it back on.
"Oh well," Alyrin muttered before she ordered loudly and clearly, "Disengage."
The system shut down, bathing her in darkness. Fear might have come, then, were she capable of such banal emotion -- the angel would not allow it, cut her off from the emotion entirely. She was a dog on a leash, and Clarion her master.
Another hour passed, leaving her more lost than before. Her fingers lingered on the GPS beacon tucked away in her tool bag. If activated, it would bring not only help but grim consequences.
For starters, she'd be very lucky not to be expelled from the Order, not that it really mattered any longer -- lucky just to keep her life; that likely wouldn't happen either, angel or no. More, though, Megid would be destroyed down to the last glimpse of a memory. The others left no witnesses, no chance of innocent humanity to be tainted by the world that existed only in their dreams -- and worst nightmares, the tangential reality that corrupted far easier than it purified. They'd purge every soul that lived in the peaceful little village: men, women, children; history itself could not escape the Order's reach.
She unclipped her belts, letting the extraneous tools fall to earth. In the ebb and flow of time, such things were unnecessary. Alyrin had been born -- forged in the flames of chaotic destiny -- with all the tools she needed; power that reached beyond human definition.
Empty-handed now, she pulled the zipper of her jumpsuit open, revealing her skin to the biting wind. Around her, a barren copse of trees watched silently, skeletal sentinels arrayed in a near perfect circle that served as a "house" of sorts in which she could practice her divine arts.
Her left hand came up, pointing southward towards the Devil's Gate, and her right swept northward to indicate Heaven's Gate leaving glowing silver trails in the air wherever her fingers brushed. She traced the left in a sweeping arc until it crossed over her chest and pointed towards the Astral Gate in the east as her right hand split the north into two equal halves. Only then, with the field properly set, did she open her soul to the power.
Energy rushed through her, holy and electric, tingling down her extremities and bathing her in an icy rush. She struggled to hold back an ecstatic gasp, knowing such distraction could cause the ceremony to fail unpredictably. Instead, she grappled with the energy, forcing it into her fingers as they began to draw angelic symbols in the air, each shimmering unbound, as though carved into the fabric of the universe. They glowed an endless hue of blues and pinks. Half of the symbols meant nothing to Alyrin, even the angel within did not understand their meaning -- they had been lost to time, but it did not matter if her conscious mind knew them -- they existed as knowledge inscribed upon her soul.
A solid pillar of silver light broke forth from the ground in a perfect circle about her feet, shooting into the deepening sky like a holy arrow and the earth itself shook violently, rumbling as Alyrin bridged a temporal connection between this world and one of the next. The spectacle, evoked beauty reminiscent of the first act of creation, fraught with untold dangers. The least of which, perhaps, would reveal herself to her enemies as surely as if she had scrawled it upon the ceiling of the night sky in racing stardust.
At last, the light and the ecstasy faded, the beam of silver breaking through the clouds and disappearing into the vast beyond, and Alyrin found only despair. No answer had been proffered; her prayers spent on deaf ears. Alone and lost, she cast her teary eyes up at the pale waning gibbous moon -- no more than a sliver of illumination railing against the fuzzy blanket that had swallowed her single hope.
But something was off -- shadowed in the light and shape above, an object gently rode the wind down to earth. Alyrin watched, and rekindled hope sought salvation somewhere beyond the next rolling twist.
When it drifted low enough, Alyrin plucked it from its course. With half a smile, a mostly disbelieving twist of her lips, she studied it closer.
The feather shared the same luminesce
nce of the moon above. Long, thin, and perfect -- striated blue streaks ran throughout the individual barbs, forming complex geometrical patterns. One, Alyrin recognized -- the constellation Orion, The Hunter. No bird had ever possessed such unique and distinctive markings.
Only one creature in all existence could claim such fine plumage. And where angels walked, so did those like her -- souls neither human nor angel, but something else entirely -- crafted as weapons to wage the proxy wars of Above and Below. Existences far too dangerous to be allowed freedom; for where the Ascended walked , chaos followed -- a constant and tireless companion.
The feather's markings were clear indication as well -- they belonged to a renegade angel named Terradyn. At the thought of the name, the angel within awakened once more, railing at her conscious mind -- demanding Alyrin fulfill her end of the contract. Angels were not her concern, though.
She sucked in her breath, barely believing that she had managed to track down the soul who called herself Mirai Kishida. The hunt of two thousand years finally neared its end. Putting the Keystone to the blade remained a priority, but all took a back seat compared to the vengeance burning deep inside, inextinguishable, stronger than trembling faith.
Fingers trembling gently in excitement at her blind luck, she pulled the goggles back on and clicked the switch. Numbers set to the bottom left offered important environmental statistics: air pressure, humidity, wind speed, and wind direction. With a gentle push of the button on the side of the frame, the display switched to a detailed list of information over the past few hours. Her eye movements controlled the scrolling, and with a few rolls downward, she arrived at what she wanted. Though the wind was currently silent, it had been blowing from the west. With a final glance to appropriately orient herself, she ordered the device off once again and set off into the darkness.
Had she bothered to glance at her reflection in the dull lens as she pulled it free, she might have been surprised to see that her violet eyes had washed a steely silver and that her teeth no longer smiled as usual; instead they bared themselves at nothing -- a bloodthirsty and rabid wolf. Or if she'd taken the time to look at the feather one last time as she let it slip from her fingers, she would have noticed that it had faded to black -- a simple crow's feather and nothing more.
And if she had only taken the time to listen, Alyrin Delling would have noticed the forest had hushed -- either in fear or supplication of the demon who now raged silently in its midst.