Rage of the Ancient Gods

by Craig Robertson

  “I did say just a few minutes ago you appeared stress ridden.”

  “No you did not. You said that the day I got here. That was a month ago, I think, maybe. Could be longer.”

  “I think you're right,” Sapale agreed with the ghost. “Pretty stress ridden. Babbling like a fool.”

  I held out palms in both directions. “I am fine. Thank you for your touching and united concerns. Now collectively get off my back.”

  “Is there something I can do to help?” asked the ghost.

  “I will focus on the positive and say for the moment no.”

  “Do you mean to say you are happy with your assaults on Dominion Splitter and Beal's Point?”

  “What's Dominion Splitter?” asked Toño.

  “The transfolding vortex.”

  “The spinning cloud has a name?” asked Sapale.

  “Why wouldn't it? It lives, it thinks, it consumes. Why wouldn't it have a name?”

  “It sure as hell holds grudges,” I observed.

  “Yes, DS really hates you, Jon Ryan.”

  “Oh, he's DS to you? You two buddies?”

  “Hardly friends. But we've been mutually ignored for so long that we … we … we talk now and then.”

  “Why does my life continue to get crazier and crazier?” I mumbled to myself.

  “Sorry, Jon, DS is a transfolding vortex, not an oracle. He cannot answer that question.”

  “But the oracle can?” I replied with a weak giggle.

  “An oracle, yes. Well most. Some are more reliable than others.”

  “That's been my experience too,” I said with a louder silly giggle. I raised a finger to Heaven. “I really hate the sports oracles. Never bet on what they'll try and sell you.”

  “Not all. A few are competent. They're naturally quite busy and hard to access, but, no, there are proven prognosticators out there.”

  “My worldview just grew brighter.”

  “You are welcome then.”

  “I think he was being sarcastic,” said Sapale.

  “Either way I thank him.”

  “Why is that, sir?” asked Toño.

  “If he was being genuine, then I'm glad to have helped. If he was deriding me for no other reason than to prop up his childish ego, then I'm thankful anyway. Even the mindless heckling of the immature beats the hell out of being ignored.”

  “Good one, cloud boy,” chuckled my supposedly loving wife.

  “If we're through with the bash-Jon portion of tonight's program, I have a question. Assuming quite safely that I am correct and you come and go most annoyingly, why are you here now?”

  “I … I missed you.”

  Was that a question or a statement?

  “By the dirty soles of Davdiad's feet, I think he just made a funny at your expense, brood-mate.”

  “Okay, you're hilarious, ghost of Don Rickles. Seriously, to what do we owe little for the joy that your presence is?”

  “I … I like you.”

  “Not funny twice-baked, pal. You can't use the same joke sequentially.”

  “I was speaking to Sapale.”

  Toño and she snickered something awful.

  “Jon, his humor is as lame and painful as yours,” marveled Toño.

  “I thought we were going to avoid insulting our new friend, Toño,” responded Sapale.

  “True. My apologies.”

  “None needed among friends,” replied the spirit.

  “Can I leave now, return when you're done massaging one another?” I asked rather pointedly.

  “Please stay, Jon,” replied the ghost. “I have news you must hear.”

  “Say what? You're our spy now?”

  “Spy,” he said, seeming to taste the word as he spoke it. “Spy?” he questioned. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Nice. One prob, pal,” I said. “You're technically one of our sworn enemies. It's not wise to trust a dubious ally.”

  “I am?” he really sounded surprised. “I was not aware of that state of existence.”

  “Let's review the facts as we know them,” I began. “One, you live here. Two, the Cleinoids live here. End of discussion.”

  “What if he's their prisoner?” interjected Sapale.

  “Yes … what if I'm here against my … my will?” responded my nebulous nutcase.

  “Excellent point. Ghost, are you being held captive here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “That doesn't really lessen my inclination to not trust you,” I replied.

  “Jon, let's look at that question logically,” said Doc.

  “Okay, Spock, go.”

  “If he were one of them, he'd not admit he didn't know if he was captive. If he was not a prisoner and he wished to deceive us, he'd say he was one. If he was a captive, he could not be one of them and he'd tell us honestly. His uncertainty proves his credibility.” Toño sure looked pleased with himself when he finished.

  “No, not, you know, necessarily.”

  “Do tell,” Toño replied dubiously.

  “Maybe he's being coerced. Yeah, he's being forced to aid the enemy.”

  “A ghost?” asked my wife with incredulity.

  “Why not?”

  “So, maybe they're holding his ghost family as hostages and threaten to evaporate them if he fails on his mission to trick us to believe him so they can fool us into … into what? They could just walk through that door and disrupt our atomic structures. Why all the Rube-Goldberg machinations of faulty thinking? Hmm?” pressed the love of my life.

  “I am not certain at the present time.”

  “You can be such a big baby, General Ryan,” snapped Toño. “We are in an existential crisis on multiple levels, yet you offer that mental diarrhea as a counterpoint to the obvious?”

  “General?” muttered you-know-who.

  “What now?' I snapped.

  “No, I was remarking,” said the ghost. “A general now? All four stars?”

  “No, I'm not a four-star general now. I was two billion years ago when there was still an Earth.” Honest to goodness, I wasn't sure why I was being so pissy.

  “Mom must be proud,” he said cryptically.

  “I'm sure she would be if she wasn't so dead. I wish to return to the productive side of life, if it's all right with you, Mr. Ghost. What were you saying about your BFF DS and our raid on Beal's Point?”

  “I was asking if you were satisfied with your results. Did you obtain your objectives?”

  “And why would you be interested? Remember I'm being directed to believe you are not a spy.”

  “If he were a spy, why would he ask about our collective sabotage?” asked Sapale. “If Vorc knew it for a fact, he'd sic that little girl on us and we'd join the ghost.” She thumbed in his direction.

  “She represents a valid point, Jon,” agreed the ghost.

  She did. I was being, well, close to unreasonable. Jon close to it. “How did you find out about our acts?” I asked.

  “From being with you every moment like I said.” He then added an old familiar phrase. “Duh, air-dale.”

  “What the devil's an air-dale?” asked Sapale.

  “It's a breed of extinct dog,” replied Toño.

  “Oh yeah. Big muzzle and wiry fur,” she said to herself. “Why are you a funny-looking dog?” she asked me.

  “No, there's a hyphen and there's no e. It's an Air Force term for a pilot.”

  Toño and Sapale turned and stared at the apparition.

  “Please don't ask him how he knows that. He'll just say I have no idea and I'll be more stressed out.”

  “I do have no idea,” the ghost remarked.

  “Do … don't say it. I asked you not to.” Then, because I could smell it coming, I shouted, “No, I didn't ask you, I said I didn't want to hear you say it, which is pretty damn close.”

  “No. But I'll let it pass.”

  I balled my fists. I relaxed my fists. I rose to my tiptoes. I rested back on my heels. I counted to ten. I counted
sheep. I counted how many times I'd blown up people for irritating me less than the ghostest with the mostest had. Finally I could not help myself. “No what and you'll let what pass?” I hated myself instantly for inquiring.

  “Are you certain …”

  “No what and you'll let what pass?” I basically shouted for all I was worth.

  “No, you neither asked me not to say I didn't know, nor delineated that you did not wish to hear me say it. You said I'd just answer in the manner I did.”

  With my teeth tightly clenched, I followed up. “And what are you allowing to pass?”

  “What just happened. You being held accountable and overreacting. I'm better than that.”

  “Better than that? Are not you the one who keeps parroting I don't exist, I don't exist? If ya don't exist, how can you be better than anything?” I placed my face in my palms and steadied myself for the response.

  “You've convinced me I exist.”

  I peeked one eye between two fingers. “I convinced you? Me? I had an effect on your wiggly mind?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I prefer believing I exist.”

  “You're welcome?” I said. “And you only prefer believing as opposed to …”

  “Knowing. How can we know anything?” he queried.

  “Is it okay if I don't answer that and we get back to our acts of sabotage?” I asked meekly.

  “Your call.”

  “I call no philosophy.”

  “Fine by me. It a bit nebulous to me anyway.”

  I started to say that he was nebulous, but I preordained the lack of that being in any sense of the word a positive action. “So do you have any information for us as to how Vorc and his people reacted to our assault on Beal's Point?”

  “No. I was with you and haven't separated to spy on him yet.”

  “You were with us?” I asked with incredulity. “After Sapale freed Toño, which direction did they flee in?”

  “To the west.”

  They had.

  “What was the second statue they blew up?”

  “The second? The first was Honifero. Second was … ah, Bef.”

  I angled my head at Sapale as if to ask, That true?

  She nodded yes.

  “Okay, you were with us.”

  “I know.”

  “Now we all know. Life's good. The answer to your question is yes, I'm happy with our attack. We suffered minimal damage and fully attained our objective.”

  “Which was the defacing of what is important to the Cleinoid leadership?”

  “No, not even close. We wanted to get ahold of a lot of the neutral matter in the intermixers.”

  “By blowing them up?” he asked with manifest confusion.

  “No, silly. By blowing them up and stealing the replacement fixtures.”

  “What replacement units?”

  “The ones they'll need to fabricate to repair the statues.”

  He was blessedly quiet a spell. “I see. Excellent plan on your part. I doubt they'll suspect your crafty trick.”

  “So do we. And if they do and we don't steal what we want, we'll be anonymous and try again some other way.”

  “I concur. So, what will you do with the intermixers?”

  “We will kill your pal DS,” I stated flatly.

  That brought a longer silence. Ah.

  “I think if you used twenty to thirty that might do the trick, based on what DS told me he felt like after you hit him with one.”

  “And that won't upset you? Us killing your friend?”

  “No, you see, he's not my friend. He's someone I talk to occasionally. He is our sworn enemy.”

  “Oh so now we're one big happy family unit?”

  Brief silence. “We have always been, Jon.”

  “I know. Forever of a month because what's the diff?”

  “What is the diff?”

  I … I kind of shrank internally and let that one pass.

  “Jon and my other friends, I see a potential issue in your plan.”

  “Okay. Don't keep us in suspense.”

  “If you successfully destroy DS, you might well be stranded here forever. I believe it is the only natural mechanism to move into and out of this universe.”

  “We all understand that's a likely outcome. It's worth it to us to protect our universe. We're willing to be stranded here forever if that's what it takes.”

  “Being stranded here alone forever isn't that bad,” he mused.

  “We're committed,” said Toño softly.

  Seemingly more to himself, he said, “I've been marooned here forever. Look at me. I'm doing okay.”

  “Ah, Mr. Ghost. Please don't set my brood-mate up so well for a one-liner. He's impossible enough as it is.”

  “You are likely correct, Sapale. Plus, you could always use your spacecraft to escape. Then you needn't face an eternity here with me.”

  If my lungs were functional, I'd have gasped so hard I'd have exploded them. “My ship is here?”

  “Of course. What did you think you came in?”

  “We scrambled some anti-matter and Tefnuf zapped us here. Right?”

  “She can do that?” he asked.

  “How should I know? My ship is here?”

  “I don't know how you can know what is not true, and yes.”

  “My ship is here and you didn't tell me it was here?”

  “You didn't ask.”

  “I'm betting that's true, husband.”

  “But you … you had to know I'd want my ship.”

  “Of course. I guess. Maybe.”

  Why did that sound familiar? Maybe he heard me say it?

  “So Tefnuf zapped my ship and its crew here?”

  “I believe that's how the process works in a case such as yours.”

  “Where's my ship?”

  “In the Lower Chambers. The room next to the Jell-O one you awoke in.”

  “And you didn't tell me?”

  “You didn't ask,” sang out Toño and Sapale in unison.

  Als, are you there? I said in my head.

  Yes, Pilot. Where else would we be?

  And you didn't contact me? You were here the entire time I struggled—we struggled—and you didn't say a peep?

  I do not believe we did. You didn't contact us.

  I didn't know you were here.

  Where else would we be?

  But … er … you could have spoken up. Alerted me as to your presence.

  I must admit, Form One, you are technically correct, chimed in Stingray.

  Technically correct? I was surrounded by lunatics.

  But I had my ride!

  FOURTEEN

  “Ah, master Vorc, might you have a moment?” asked Dalfury sheepishly even for a demigod of cloudy memories.

  “Do I have a moment?”

  “I can come back. I will come back.” As always it was unclear if Dalfury actually turned, but he did begin to retreat.

  “Damnit, Dalfury, you're in charge of my schedule. Who better to know if I have a moment? I don't actually know because I depend on you to keep me informed on such matters.”

  The cloud continued to depart.

  “Dalfury, I'm ordering you to stop.”

  He did, though he might have drifted a bit in the farther-away direction.

  “I will ask you directly. Do I have a moment to speak to you?” Vorc was clearly upset.

  “Well, in a sense yes, you do.”

  “In a sense? I'm confused. Please rally to my aid. It would seem you, as keeper of my calendar, would know if I did or did not have a moment to speak to my right-hand aide. I either do or do not. Am I off base here?”

  “Yes. I mean no, you are not incorrect. There is no wiggle room in having free time or not. It is not a qualitative issue.”

  “Thank you.”

  “May I go now?”

  “W … I suppose so. But didn't you have something to discuss that brought you to me before you set about to confound me?”

  “Oh, I wouldn
't characterize it in that manner, in that light.”

  “You wouldn't characterize what in the light?”

  “I wasn't here to discuss anything. And trust me on my life, I did not come here to confound you. No. Inform, yes. Update, possibly. Alert you, pot …”

  “Dalfury, bear with me a moment, okay?”

  “By your desire, sir.”

  “I am the center seat of the conclave.”

  “You are.”

  “I am given this,” he held up a short, thick metal rod, “as part of my office.”

  “Yes, sir. The Fire of Justice is at your disposal.”

  “You, Dalfury, are a cloud.”

  “Er, I believe we can agree on that fact.”

  “Clouds do not do so well with fire, excessive heat of any sort.”

  Even not possessing a throat or digestive system, Dalfury gulped. “That is a fact.”

  “My last word here. If you do not immediately tell me what you came here to tell me, you will be steam or some alternate form of water soon and very soon. Am I unambiguously clear on that, Dalfury?”

  “Manifestly so, lord.”

  “One. Two. Thre …”

  “Someone has destroyed multiple statues at Beal's Point will there be anything else, sir?” Dalfury resumed his exodus, only quicker.

  “Freeze.”

  “Sir?”

  “I want you hovering right there.” Vorc stood and pointed to a spot on the floor right in front of his desk.

  The cloud slowly repositioned itself where directed.

  “As you asked so professionally, yes, there will be one tiny last item, if you don't mind?”

  “It's funny you should frame it …”

  “Silence.”

  And there was quiet.

  “What happened at Beal's Point?”

  There was no response.

  “Is there a problem with your auditory pathways, Dalfury?'

  Nada.

  Vorc hefted the Fire of Justice and directed it at the cloud's geometric center.

  “But, sir, you ordered me to be silent,” whined Dalfury.

  “Technically, yes. I relieve you of that burden. What, I shall ask but once, happened?”

  “I told you. Someone, well, I suppose someone or some set of individuals, blew the living daylights out of thirty monuments up on the point.”

  “Thirty monuments?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not, say, thirty-one?”

  “Ah, no, sir.”