by Ty Beltramo
I began to uncork the energy contained within the cup. I had to do it slowly or I might not be able to contain it. That would be the end of my favorite coffee shop. As the energy began to pour forth, I struggled for a moment to get the rate of flow correct. The temperature began to climb in the restroom. The soap melted and the tile began to creak as it expanded. I had to begin to consume the cup’s energy before I lost control.
Using the cup’s energy as a booster, I jumped onto the thread that connected me to Aello. I felt myself hurling through the cosmos at record speed. The pipeline of the thread again stretched out in front of me in loops and hills like a twisted roller coaster from hell. I zipped along its length until I sensed I was reaching the end, where I expected to find Aello.
I had made record time traveling to the Abyss.
The monotonous grey wasn’t so monotonous today. Dark objects dotted the normally empty space in all directions. There were hundreds of them. A reddish-brown mist formed weak clouds around some of them.
As I moved forward, I floated past one of the objects close enough see what it was: a human corpse. Its face was frozen in a grotesque shape, in a desperate plea for aid. Tears still streaked the face, frozen now forever.
Others weren’t so pretty, oozing from every pore, their blood forming a fine mist as their life had been sucked into the vacuum of this empty, frigid world. More than one had horrible wounds to their faces. I looked closer and could see flesh in their fingernails. Their injuries had been self-inflicted--vain attempts to gouge out their own eyes. I couldn’t imagine what had driven these poor souls to such horror.
I sensed movement ahead. Far away, I could make out several large, spiderweb-looking shapes frantically circling a position, darting in and out, darting at one another. They looked like piranha. It was a feeding frenzy.
From the center of the swarm came weak psychic blasts echoing screams of rage mixed with fear. It was Aello. From this side of the battle, the storm of psychic combat looked like fireworks on the Fourth of July. But her attempts at defense were futile. Clearly, the only thing keeping the monsters off of Aello was their frenzied competition. Soon, she’d share the fate of these dead humans, who floated among the combatants like some doomed synchronized swimming team. If I had a dollar for every time I wished I had a camera . . .
There was no time to think. There was no time to prepare. In desperation I let the energy from the cup begin to flow freely, and channelled it through my soul. The world turned white as my senses were overwhelmed by the primal power.
Frantically, I searched for any means to stay conscious. As the cup burned hotter and hotter, I reached for its diminishing earthy matter as an anchor. The stability of the clay held me fast, providing a memory of my home, myself.
I had no time nor the ability to provide any meaningful form or focus to the attack. I simply conceived of truth, justice, and kindness. I concentrated on everything that I felt was good and right in the world and screamed those thoughts at the swarm. The cup’s energy, taking the form of my thoughts and emotions, poured the brimstone of my heart upon all of them.
It was a blast of biblical proportions. I followed it with another, then another. The monsters became confused and disoriented, which was not surprising as large chunks of their souls were being blasted away. Their attacks subsided as they searched for their unnamed opponent. I didn’t wait for them to figure it out. The mini-nova in my gut burned. I let its vengeance flow.
I couldn’t think. But I knew I had to get Aello out of there. Like lightning falling from heaven, I descended upon the murder of crows, unleashing enhanced psychic energy in every direction, careful only to avoid harming Aello.
I came near to Aello and called to her. But she only whimpered. I could see she was badly hurt. Her lattice was in disarray, its energy pulsing in irregular, even chaotic patterns. These things had mauled her like a piece of meat.
“Aello,” I said, “listen to me. Hold on. I’ll get you out of here. Just stay with me.”
The demons began to close in on us, but with caution. They had been hurt. Some were barely able to remain coherent, as if they ever were. The outer branches of their souls flickered like a Christmas tree. A particularly nasty and familiar looking demon radiated anger and hate. It was my old friend, Legion.
“Back off, prisoner of the Patron, or I’ll do you like I did your friends,” I said.
It quivered with anger. “PATRON!” It bellowed. Then it turned its attention to me.
“We smell you. We will find you. It is the only thing. You will be ours. You will be . . .”
I sensed some communication passing between the brutes. Thinking their prey was about to escape, they were coordinating their attack. I couldn’t let that happen. My mind was numb already. Darkness threatened to overtake me at any moment. The burn of the cup continued, but it would not last long. The light kept the beasts at bay. They tried to come closer, but they were swimming against a current that burned.
I gathered Aello to myself and locked our latticework together. We fit nicely; a side-effect of our Psychic Duel, though I noticed aspects of her soul had changed. She’d been beaten down by these beasts, but also by someone else. Judging by the perpetrator’s imprint left on Aello’s soul, I had a good idea who that somebody was. If we got out of this, he was going to learn with exquisite intimate detail the full implications of the quintessential payback. In other words, I was going to get medieval on someone’s butt. And since I had been doing that since before medieval times, I knew how to do it with style.
The only way I knew to go from here was back toward the land of the Builders, and that way was blocked by one of Legion’s demon cronies. I had nothing left for concentration or planning an escape. Instead, with a Herculean effort, I formed a cone-shaped shield of savage will in front of Aello and myself and bent the last of the cup’s energy toward propulsion. We leapt forward with blinding speed, faster than I’d ever gone before. The poor demon was taken completely off guard and just sat there stunned as we rammed through its soul, riding on waves formed from the primal stuff of the universe.
It never had a chance. The shockwave we created as we passed through was too much for its ragtag spirit. It shattered and dissipated with a groan.
I had killed a soul.
The Law of Unintended Consequences wouldn’t stand for such an act. There is a relationship between the fabric of the multiverse and the souls that fill it. Destroying one was like removing a thread in the tapestry. It might not make a difference. But it could cause bigger portions of the picture to unravel. Of course, until now it was just a theory, pure speculation. Perhaps in the Abyss, such an event had less effect.
Well, that was four things I’d done this week that had never been done before— five, if you include finding someone stranded in the Abyss.
I amazed even myself.
Aello was limp in my hands, figuratively speaking. I couldn’t tell if there was anything left of her, or if her soul had been wounded beyond healing. She was calm, at any rate, which made it easier for me to get her out of the horrible place.
As we travelled toward the land of the Builders, I tried to bring her out of it. The proximity of our souls made communication and expression easy. We were intimate. But she was unresponsive.
As the grey emptiness of the Abyss receded and was replaced by brown, I scanned the vicinity. There was no sign of Legion in pursuit. For all I knew, they couldn’t get this far on their own. It took a lot of effort, and you had to know the way.
I brought us to the base of a large mountain and rested. My nerves were on edge from all that had just happened. What I needed to do would take patience and care.
Once I felt I had a grip, I inspected Aello’s soul. It looked like spaghetti out of a dumpster.
Slowly, I began the delicate work of straightening and smoothing. I untangled what I could, massaged what I couldn’t straighten. Scars were everywhere. I recognized some I had made. Those from the monsters in the Abyss were
easy to spot. But the most grotesque scars were from someone else—from an agent of Chaos who had been brutal and merciless while Law had sat back and watched. I took little comfort in knowing I was right about Melanthios. I always had known I was right about Aeson.
In the places where there was no recognizable order to her soul and nothing to straighten or work with, I placed my own imprint. I pushed away the feeling that I was violating her. Without my imprint on those twisted knots in her soul, she’d be hopelessly insane. I was only slightly insane. Which was better, but only a little.
The process was long and arduous. But there was no way to tell how long in this timeless land. The only thing left for me was the work of healing Aello. I stayed at it until I was sure it was finished and I had covered every part of her. Then I did it again, to be sure.
Then I waited.
Slowly, she began to recover. The pulse and hum of her latticework began to correct itself, to get stronger.
Finally, Aello came to her senses. I was honestly surprised she had any left. She didn’t focus much at first.
“I’ve been dreaming, I think.” That was something Engineers—who didn’t sleep--didn’t do. But there was no telling what a coma induced by a Psychic Duel will do to you.
“What about?” I asked.
“About you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. But you were nice to me. Not mean, like you normally are. You were taking care of me. And tickling me.”
“I was trying to put you back together. Those things back there ripped out your brains and rolled in them.”
“Yeah . . . thanks for reminding me. I don’t feel very well. Kind of strange.”
“I think you’ll be okay. I was pretty thorough.”
“Why’d you come?” She asked. “You could have been trapped with those monsters too.”
“Believe me, Aello. I like you plenty. But I wouldn’t have come for you if I didn’t think I could bring us both out of there,” I lied.
“Thanks, Elson. I love you too.” She drank in the ambient energy of the place. She was at peace at any rate. Though I could sense something else. Deep down she had been changed.
“Elson, where did you learn how to do that?”
“Do what?”
“All of that. Traveling through the Abyss, that form of attack you used against those things. Where did you learn how to do all that? The power . . .”
“Uh, I remembered.” That’s what it was. I was remembering.
“It just came to you? The means to enter and leave the Abyss just came to you? I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. Sometimes things just occur to me.”
She was strengthening, and didn’t seem at all insane.
“Where are we?” She asked.
“I really don’t know where, exactly. But I’ve visited before. The last time I busted out of the Abyss.”
“You’re kidding.”
“So I broke you out, and you don’t believe I could break myself out?”
“I can’t argue with that. When were you last in?”
“Well, time has been a little fickle recently, so it’s hard to tell. But I’d say less than a week ago. But like I said, I escaped.”
“So I see. You really are amazing, Elson.”
“That’s me. The Amazing Elson,” I said in my most serious voice.
“Okay. Enough of that. Where are we?”
“This is the land of a people I call the Builders. They build stuff. Hence the catchy name. But they only build one thing: a pyramid. They build them. They don’t know why. When you’re stronger, I’ll show you.”
She surveyed the flat plane, then stared at the hills in the distance. “Is this the place?” She asked. I guess some of my memories were now hers.
“Yes.” I didn’t know how she’d take it. To my surprise, she didn’t care.
“Too much coincidence,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Seems to me that someone has been planning this,” she said.
“Yeah. A friend told me the same thing recently. But I don’t see how someone could foresee all this, let alone plan it.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”
“Aeson and Melanthios?” I asked.
“You were right. About him, I mean.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” She asked.
“I’m sorry your world has changed. That those you trusted let you down. That you had to suffer what you did.”
She was silent. But I sensed something stir within her.
“I’m sorry about what happened in the cave. I should have explained.”
“So explain,” she said.
“History repeats itself—but usually when it’s forgotten, as the saying goes. The Patron of Man, whoever that was, fought once to keep the information Diomedes possessed safe. He hid it here, in fact. He also put those demons in the Abyss, as part of that battle. I’m not sure how the demons are related, but they are. That scared me. I had a run-in with them, not so different from yours. So I had a decision to make and I made it: honor the Patron of Man’s judgment. Keep it hidden. At the time, that seemed the best thing to do. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you think Diomedes followed that same reasoning, Elson?”
“Now I do. I didn’t see it then.” I had acted too hastily, out of fear of the demons and their kind. Our kind.
“Whatever Aeson has planned caused Diomedes to consider things changed. Why he felt we were better equipped to make the right decision is still beyond me,” she said.
“There must have been something in the cave that we missed. Something he learned that made him think differently.”
“Possibly. What’s next?” She asked.
“Next, we free Diomedes and ask him.”
“Okay. Then I forgive you. Now I’m feeling better. Let’s go.”
Before I took her to the build site, we both converted some of the local mass to form new bodies. As I have explained, crafting a body is an innate ability of an Engineer. But we don’t get to determine our appearance. When Aello finished hers, I just stared. No longer was she the smart looking business woman with formal attire. Before me stood a fine looking lady--one I wouldn’t want to meet in an alley. She had a dueling scar on her right cheek and several tattoos on her arms and neck. Probably other places, too. There was no single theme to them. Some were gothic skulls and various underworld-looking symbols I didn’t recognize. But there were other figures as well. I recognized several symbols from the walls of my home cave. The only thing more startling than the yellow eyes with her black hair was the white and black tattoo of the yin and yang on her forehead.
“What are you staring at?” She asked.
She was scary. I didn’t know how much of the outside came from the inside. If it was more than just a little, I pitied the fool who crossed her.
“You look like a biker chick escaped from hell. That’s what.”
She looked herself over, but didn’t seem surprised or concerned. “Yeah. Well, that’s what I feel like. You got a problem with it?”
“Uh, no.”
“Good.” She took another look at herself, studying the tattoos. She tried to straighten her clothes, as if she was not sure about their fit.
“I’m different, aren’t I?”
This was going to get personal. I could tell.
“Well, you look different. You said you felt different. Given what you’ve been through, I think anything on this side of crazy is a bonus.”
Her hands found her belly. She looked up at me, her expression worried.
“You want me to remove it?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“I put it there for you, Aello. Not for me.” I said.
“I know.” She straightened her shoulders. “Leave it. And don’t call me ‘Aello.’ I’m no longer her.”
“What should I call you?”
“Els.”
; “Are you sure? I don’t think Engineers are allowed to change their names.” I said.
“I am Els. That’s my name now. And since when do we have a problem with breaking rules?”
“I don’t. But you do--did, I mean.”
“Sometimes rules are just rules, Elson. You know that.”
I had broken Diomedes’ favorite pupil. Somehow, I knew this was going to come back to haunt me.
“Now show me where this Breath is,” she said.
As we crested a large mountain range, I was shocked at what I saw. The place had changed. When I left, there had been five pyramids. Now, there were hundreds, thousands. These guys might not be too bright, but they sure were industrious.
Els whistled. “It’s fantastic.” She paused to look around. “They’re still building, it looks like.”
It was true. The shambling crowd of big-time wrestlers I had met only a few days before had been replaced by a myriad of busy workers. Hundreds of thousands of them teemed and swarmed about the structures on the outskirts of the field. A ring of dust signaling their relentless construction continued on all sides of the new city of pyramids.
Their numbers must grow as the task grows. I felt the pit of my stomach sink. That didn’t bode well for the natural resources of this place. This plane had better be infinite, because infinity was about to get company.
As we approached the outskirts of the construction, the air came alive with the deep thunderous harmony of thousands of voices, singing.
“What’s that sound?” Els asked.
“They’re singing. They sing to their work.”
She stopped and listened. “It’s beautiful.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. “Can you hear the undercurrents? There must be hundreds of songs, all woven together into one. The harmony is staggering--daunting.”
