Eden's Jester

by Ty Beltramo

  Near the end of the chasm, where the long-gone river had met a wall and descended below the ground, stood a graveyard--the end of the line, the entrance to the underworld.

  Burial mounds were scattered about with no apparent order. Loose bones were strewn about like litter. Blackened pieces of burnt wood were concentrated in a pit between the burial mounds and the back wall. Cut stones lay strewn about the pit.

  I wondered how these simple people dealt with higher concepts, like purpose and death. They probably didn’t have much time for the former and couldn’t resist the inevitability of the latter.

  The pictures that covered the end walls had a different character. Scenes of death mixed with abstract symbols. The stickmen had a skeletal look.

  One scene was larger than the rest and covered roughly the center of the end wall. It had an official look. Stickmen approached a giant stick-skeleton, presenting it with several non-dead stickmen, apparently as some kind of an offering. It looked like they were trying to bribe death with sacrifices of the living. I could almost hear them saying, “Here, kill these guys and leave us alone. We didn’t like them much anyway, but you’ll find them to be good enough chaps. Thank you, good-bye, and hope never to see you again.” I wondered how that worked out for them.

  I kicked around in the human rubble. A rock rolled over and turned out to be a small skull, a child victim. I picked it up and brushed it off. It looked up at me in amused silence, its grin mocking me for being so stupid as to live. Who was this young joker? What kind of games did he or she play, so long ago? How did the kid end up here? I’d never know. But the nearby stones were arranged in a way that had the look of an altar, broken and wasted. This was possibly a child sacrifice. People shouldn’t need to sacrifice their children to survive. What had this child’s life purchased for his people? Did his short existence make a difference? Such an end should have meaning.

  What kind of world was this that drove people to such horrors, such crimes? It was Aeson’s kind of world, and Melanthios’s too. He wouldn’t be above such atrocities to gain some advancement, some prize.

  I didn’t like this world anymore. Something had gone wrong at the highest level and the sickness drizzled down like slime, corrupting everything it touched. Half of me wanted to leave. To go anywhere else. Surely, somewhere, there had to be a place not so diseased. But the other half of me wouldn’t allow it. I had a duty, and it was to this very world.

  The conflict squeezed me in its vise, crushing the breath from my artificial lungs. Like great tectonic plates pressing against one another, something had to give. Running a microscopic guerrilla war was no longer sufficient.

  I looked at the chalk drawing of the giant skeletal figure. Shadows reached out from all around me, seeking to consume any remnant of light that stubbornly insisted on shining. Dirt and death invaded my sight wherever I looked.

  This place sucked.

  I lifted up the child skull and commanded its elements to return to their primordial form. Brilliant light filled the chasm like it never had before. These rocks had never seen such pure light. Fire erupted and began to cleanse the rock of its sad past. The small area contained the heat, causing the walls to melt. Glass began to form, reflecting hues of blue and green as the strength infused into the skull’s atoms since the beginning of time was released to do its final work. The chasm shook as the top of the walls blew away from the heat and expanding air. A great valley was formed where the chasm had been. As the skull’s light faded, it was replaced with the warmth of golden rays from a newly risen sun. This place would never be shrouded in shadow again.

  A strange hissing sound filled my ears. I looked behind me to see water bubbling to the surface, instantly vaporized by the residual heat held within the rock. The ancient river had returned. In this valley, life would invade the depths of death and push it away.

  I looked at my handiwork, and it was good. It occurred to me right there, right then, that a fundamental change had to occur.

  No more mister nice guy.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  What the powers-that-be needed was to be turned upside down. They, and I, had lost something down through the eons of serving the Designers: we had forgotten to serve this world. To be truthful, most of us felt we were doing just that. Our confusion lay in what this world was. We saw it as a whole, treating all the parts equally, as if it were a gigantic body that had good parts and bad parts. We cultivated the good and pruned the bad. We looked upon the people of this world as cogs in some wondrous machine, and the machine was paramount.

  But that was not true. Nor was it true that we were separate from this world. We were part of it, along with the elementals, the humans, and who knew what else.

  The intelligent beings of this world were the point. The rest was furniture, decoration. Evolution was not an academic concept to be measured on paper according to some abstract principles of civilization. Evolution meant people, humans and non-humans, becoming better at being people: collectively and individually. We had been looking only at the collective. We had sacrificed the individual. I had sacrificed the individual, many times. No more.

  Our error was seeking to serve the Designers. I bet they never intended that. That’s why they’re not here. That’s why they left. They did give us everything we would need to do our job. Our job was just hidden from us. Who could do such a thing? That was only one possible answer--the Preceptors.

  Ah, therein lies the rub. The Preceptors. The most powerful beings in this world, titans, in fact, leading us down a path. Why? I didn’t care. Their motives were irrelevant. The problem was their power.

  How many of them were there? Only a few, I was sure. Maybe a dozen or so. I could only name about half that many. How many of us were there? Hundreds of thousands, by my best estimation.

  What this world needed was less evolution and more revolution.

  Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Aello deserved a better explanation for what I’d done in the cave. I needed to apologize to her before I left to begin my new project. She was a friend I’d betrayed, and I needed to set that right. No more sacrificing individuals--even Engineers. I’d apologize, explain, then help her get Diomedes sprung from jail. That should set things right. Besides, I could use some good counsel from a wise guy like Diomedes. Surely he had come to some of the same conclusions about the Preceptors long ago.

  I called out to Aello, but got no answer. She’d be angry, no doubt. I’d have to go to her. Typical.

  I focused on the glamour that I had placed on her, and listened. At first, I heard and felt nothing. Then, as if from a deep well, I could hear the echo of her pain. She was terrified. She was wailing in horror and anger and pain. Something had gone very wrong. Aello was tough. I shuddered to think what could drive her to such a state.

  I tried to locate her through the glamour, but it led into a haze. It was functional. But something was obscuring my ability to discern specific details. I’d have to travel down it blindly to learn anything more. That sounded like a trap and half.

  I decided instead to chance tipping off Aeson about my escape and headed for Washington. If Aello was in trouble, Melanthios would help. His beef was with me, not her.

  The North American headquarters of Law looked much the same as it did the last time I’d been there. I walked up to the door and pounded hard.

  Rolic answered the door. He stared at me but didn’t say anything or move to let me in. Something was wrong.

  “What’s the deal, Rolic? Move or I might get rough. I need to see His Bigness, and I don’t have time to play reindeer games.”

  “There’s a conference going on, Elson. You’re not on the list,” he said.

  “Really? Who’s in the house?”

  “None of your business.”

  He didn’t sound happy about it. My curiosity was piqued. Who could show up that would rile the un-rile-able Rolic? But that would have to wait. I was sure that whatever was h
appening to Aello, couldn’t.

  “Ok, man. Could you just quietly tell him I’m here? I think he’ll want to see me. Tell him it’s about Aello. I’m sure she’s in real trouble. She needs him.”

  His face fell and he looked away. I’d seen that expression before many times: guilt. He hesitated, was about to say something, then shut the door in my face without a word.

  I waited. In about a minute, the door opened again. Rolic rushed me in. “He’ll see you.” He escorted me to the closed doors of the business office and stopped. Turning to me, he whispered, “Steel yourself.” Whatever that meant.

  “Why? What’s going on?” I asked.

  He looked up and down the hall. Seeing it empty, he said, “The balance of power has shifted. Certain servants of Law have,” he looked even more sickened, “left. Many servants. It has weakened Law tremendously. New alliances are forming as a consequence. So prepare yourself.”

  I considered his words. “’Left?’ You mean ‘escaped,’ don’t you. What’s wrong? Somebody slip someone a file in their birthday cake? I know who you’re talking about, Rolic. And you know what? It’s just the beginning.”

  Rolic’s eyes narrowed. “This is big, Elson. It changes everything. The balance of power between Law and Chaos has been stable for over seven hundred years, almost a thousand. Now Chaos has the upper hand, and it is a strong hand. Stronger than I ever remember.”

  That kind of sucked. But it also sang like opportunity. But, again, that would have to wait.

  “Whatever, Rolic. Let’s go. I need to help Aello. Melanthios needs to help her. So do you mind?”

  He shook his head. He knocked and we entered the room.

  I almost lost my lunch. The only thing that saved the moment from being a total embarrassment was a similar reaction from Melanthios’s guest--Aeson.

  “Come in, Elson. We were just talking about where to go from here,” Melanthios said.

  “Elson!” Aeson exclaimed. “How . . . I sent you to the Abyss myself. How can you be here?” He almost stuttered. He certainly spit.

  Melanthios’s jaw dropped. Rolic stopped in his tracks. I was sure several heads popped out of doorways along the hall. This was priceless. I mustered every ounce of self-control I had and nonchalantly strode into the room and took a seat next to Aeson as if I owned the place. Anger at whatever betrayal was brewing, and what it could mean for Aello and Diomedes, pushed my fear of these two jokers into the pit. This was big. I had considered telling on Sancrotos, but changed my mind. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

  “You put him in the Abyss? Surely you must be mistaken,” Melanthios said.

  In the back of my mind I noticed Rolic, Apolik, and one or two of Melanthios’s secretaries eavesdropping.

  “He’s not mistaken. Search me, you can see that I’m telling the truth.”

  Melanthios could still do that. His glamour was still in place.

  I turned to the knee-biter next to me. “Aeson, I’m going to screw with you so bad, you’ll wish you were in the Abyss, which I just might entertain as an endgame, depending on how this works out.”

  Aeson was incredulous. “You are threatening me? You bug! I’ll crush you until there’s not a memory left in the universe of your insipid, incessant irritations!”

  “Really, now. What are you going to do? The Abyss is no threat to me. It can’t hold me. Neither can you.” I reserved enough energy, slowly so as not to be detected, to make a quick escape if I had to. I wouldn’t be captured so easily as before. I also opened a small portal, also difficult to detect, to the astral plane, just in case.

  “I don’t like you anymore, Aeson,” I said without any emotion. I was creeping myself out.

  Melanthios finally got his royal act together and spoke up.

  “Silence!” He boomed.

  The whole house shook. We became silent. “Elson, how did you escape from the Abyss?”

  Of course, such knowledge would be priceless to anyone concerned about ending up there. It would also be very important to suppress such information if one intended to use the Abyss as a threat.

  “I’m not telling,” I said.

  “Yes, you will.” Through the glamour, I felt his will pressing upon mine. In a few moments, I’d have to spill my guts, so to speak. I could never win a battle of wills with the likes of Melanthios, especially since he had had that glamour installed. I’d have to take care of that.

  “Yes I will, “ I said in a robotic voice. My eyes focused on nothing and my face became blank. I held the face for a few seconds. Aeson and Melanthios both looked expectant, leaning forward in their chairs. The mystery of the Abyss was something they couldn’t resist. After a moment of my blank face, they looked confused.

  “Oh, you’re talking about your glamour. Well . . . here.” I reached into my pocket for a piece of lint. As I tossed it to him, I reached into myself and removed his glamour from my soul, letting it unravel. But before it was totally gone, I shot as much juice back up its length as I could muster on short notice.

  The effects were just short of spectacular. Melanthios yelped like a kicked dog and jumped out of his chair, clutching at his belly. His cashmere sweater burst into flames and was gone. His hair actually began to smolder.

  Rolic stood like a statue. Apolik hissed, but before he could make a move, Melanthios put up his hand, signaling everything was fine. He patted his sweater to make sure it was out, and sat back down.

  Melanthios said, “Well, Elson. It appears that I’ve misjudged you. Two firsts in one day: you’ve escaped the inescapable and you’ve removed the irremovable. How amazing.”

  He had no idea. Again, his tone was all business. He ran his hands through his singed hair, failing to smooth it down.

  “You haven’t misjudged me, Melanthios. I’m still the meddling weasel you’ve known and loved.” I changed my clothing back to jeans. I replace my standard tee shirt for one with Yosemite Sam—guns a blazin’ of course. “But I am far more pissed and hankering for havoc than ever. I smote all Aeson’s bozos, and I’ll be doing yours next, Your Lowness. You guys just made the list.”

  Aeson went rigid, as if I’d stuck an icicle up his butt. Come to think of it, that was worth a try. But I was beyond reason at this point. That little voice--you know, the one that is always trying to kill me--took over.

  “Oh, and I want you both to know, I’ve officially started a new organization, along with the commensurate propaganda and recruiting machines. It’s for those who are, and will become, fed up with both of your Gestapo mentalities. I’m holding an open house this Saturday at my coffee shop. Open to all--except you two. You’re not invited. It’s only for honest injuns, like me.”

  I could lie all I wanted now. Melanthios would believe me if I told him his nose had turned into a pickle.

  “Honest injuns? What kind of a stupid name is that?” asked Aeson.

  “You remember them. They’re the guys who were all willing to be friends, but they got so screwed by the Man that they traded in their arts and crafts for firewater and guns. We’re a militant anti-establishment establishment.” Okay, so I was making this up as I went.

  “Elson, you are a fool,” Melanthios said.

  “Yeah, I’m quite the joker. And I want Aello. Where is she?” I asked.

  “Elson, I am master of this domain. You are not. What I do with Aello is my own business. She is no longer your concern,” he said in his most business-like voice. Aeson covered his mouth, attempting, but failing, to conceal a smile.

  It was all I could do to keep from blowing my top. These guys really cheesed me off.

  I said, in an equally calm, but loud, voice, “So, you’re betraying your loyal subjects, teaming up with Captain Chaos here, and conducting covert operations against him in Chile at the very moment that he’s bargaining with you in good faith. You really are a role model for all us weasels, mein fuhrer. Are you interviewing for any intern positions? Because I’d really like to sign up.”

  Melanthios made a
signal to Rolic to shut the doors. But it was too late. The cat was out of the bag. I hoped Borse kept a low profile in Chile.

  “Elson, I’m going to skin you alive and feed your carcass to fish on Mars.” He was really mad. There were no fish on Mars.

  “Yeah, yeah. Like I’ve never been threatened by a superpower before.”

  I got up, went to the door, and opened it. Rolic was blocking my exit.

  I turned to Melanthios and Aeson. “I’m going to free Aello and Diomedes. When I get some time, I’ll stop by and we can finish this.”

  I felt Rolic reaching toward me with a particularly sticky-looking web of energy, probably designed specifically to capture someone like me. But I was ready and he was slow, too slow for Rolic. As I slipped into the black depths of the astral plane, I swear he winked at me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  My gut screamed that it was no time for thinking. It was time for acting. But I had to take some precautions.

  I beat feet back to my coffee shop, where I found Jill, working as always. She sure worked a lot of hours.

  “Hi, Elson. What can I get for you?”

  “Uh,” I looked around. There was a nice red espresso cup as part of a display. It looked like it should be part of a holiday gift package. It was small and would do nicely. “I’ll take an espresso--and put it in this, would you?”

  She looked at the cup.

  “Ookaay. No problem.” She brewed some espresso in record time, as only Jill can, and handed me the little nuclear reactor. I handed her a ten dollar bill. While she was taking the money, our hands touched. At first, I couldn’t even sense her soul. But after a half-second, I found it and felt its comfort. She looked me in the eye as our fingers parted. There was a bit of a glint there I couldn’t quite make out. I always had an unusual amount of difficulty reading Jill. No matter.

  I took the cup to the bathroom, further confusing her, I was sure, and emptied it in one gulp. That would help. I took the cup and began the delicate process of weaving it into the core of my soul, trapping it there with a web of energy strings. Once I had it in place, I double checked my work. I really didn’t know what to look for, as I’d never done anything like this before. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up dispersed across some bad neighborhood in one of the seedier planes of existence. Well, there was nothing else to do.