by Ryk E. Spoor
Chapter 81: Secrets of Ancient Days
“You need what?” Verne looked confused. I had driven back to his house the next day, and slept there while waiting for him to wake up in the evening. I had not gotten much sleep in the cabin, even though the thing had made no attempts on me the rest of that night.
“I need to know about Atlantaea. At least a few details.”
He nodded, still clearly not understanding what I was looking for. “I will tell you what I can. But you must understand that I have spent countless centuries not thinking about it.”
“You’ve forgotten a lot?”
He sighed. “There are…limits on what a mortal mind can keep within itself, Jason, and though I do not die as do normal men, still my mind is very much that of a mortal man. I never forgot certain events, aspects of the world that were important to me, but as half a million years passed, I had to make choices of what I would keep. The soul never forgets, true, but accessing that memory once it is lost from the immediacy of the mind requires, at the least, that the right set of ideas or reminders trigger the recall.
“So, I will try to answer your questions, but understand that I may have no answers.”
“Okay.” I thought a moment, getting my questions in order. “Your descriptions of Atlantaea were always pretty vague—mainly I guess because you were talking about events that happened, not giving me a virtual travelogue. I’ve gotten the impression of some kind of, well, shining city of fantasy crossed with super-tech, skyscrapers and aircars and all that, with these Seven Towers surrounding it like a wall. But other things you’ve said make me wonder—I mean, it couldn’t have been just one city.”
He laughed. “Ahhh, no, certainly not, my friend. And I apologize for giving you such a, well, clichéd and inaccurate picture. And yet…it is not entirely inaccurate, in its way. The…the impression, the spirit—that is accurate. It was a ‘shining city,’ Jason, the City of the Seven Towers, and indeed that was how many would have represented it, as a city with Seven Towers defending it. But that representation would be no more accurate than picturing, oh, the United States as being the city of Washington flanked by a giant Eagle and the Statue of Liberty.”
“So Atlantaea was like Earth today—lots and lots of cities all over the planet—and the city you are talking about was more like the capital?”
He considered that. “Not…exactly. The city that many called simply Atlantaea was the founding location of the government from which the rest of the civilization grew. It was more than the capital, it was the very heart of our culture. There were other cities, other outposts; for example, one around each of the Seven Towers, which were themselves spaced around the Earth in a mystically, but not geometrically, symmetrical pattern. But because Eönae was our patron from the beginning, and because we did not grow from multiple opposed, advanced civilizations, as you have and still are today, we did not spread so randomly and completely over the globe. Many areas were still very wild, even at the height of Atlantaea’s power.”
“So…you never reached the population we have now.” So far, this was actually fitting together better than I thought.
“On the contrary, the civilization of Atlantaea had more citizens than you could grasp, Jason. Because we did not limit ourselves to this world.” He gave a soft laugh at my expression. “In a hundred thousand years, Jason, can you imagine that human beings would not have spread out? If they were not to overrun this world, then naturally there was only one way to go. Outward, to the stars.”
“Whoa.” I had to assimilate this. I realized I was guilty of making the wrong kind of assumptions again. I associated magic, gods, and so on with faux-medieval material; Verne was talking about something far beyond that. “How big was Atlantaea, then?”
He gestured upward. “Step outside, and gaze upward, Jason, and realize that all of the stars you see were once part of the Atlantaean…Empire, I suppose. All of them. At the end, Atlantaea held sway over essentially the entirety of the Galaxy, and was poised to sweep outward to others of those island universes.”
“Urk. Okay, I’d better leave that for later. So, your Earthly population never reached our level, then.”
“Oh, certainly not. I belive Earth stabilized at something short of a billion people, of which over one hundred million lived in the capital city.”
Biiig city. “What about this area? What was here back then?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I see where you are going, I think. Unfortunately…I cannot be certain. The geography has changed considerably, both due to unnatural and natural forces, since that time. Off to the east, on or near Cape Cod, was one of the Towers, so it was not an entirely deserted area, but this far out…I suppose it would have been something like an isolated suburb. The Towers, due to their nature, attracted many wizards, priests, alchemists, and so on to their general neighborhood, and many such would live relatively nearby; with flight or teleportation capability usually available, ‘nearby’ could have a very broad interpretation. If you are asking if someone of that civilization might have lived at the site of your friend’s cabin, I would say it is entirely possible—even probable, since you have come here asking the question.”
“Good. Then, assuming that what I think is right…” I sketched out a plan of attack. “I’m not a magician, but would this work as I’ve planned it, or do I need someone like Syl to activate it?”
“Normally…yes, but in this case, I think your knowledge and technology can carry the day. And the creature is, after all, aware you are far from ordinary. This will lend a certain mystical force to your actions against it.”
“Come again? I thought you said I was a mundane?”
He smiled. “And you are, Jason, but there is no human being—no living intelligent being, in fact—who is so mundane as to have absolutely no connection to the mystical. Life and thought and souls are mystical in the very essence of what they are, and because of that there is some real magic in us all. Magic depends on belief, symbolism, and knowledge. The symbolism inherent in you—in what you have achieved previously, in your dedication to your work, in your courage in facing and defeating this creature already—these will give a not inconsiderable reinforcement to your actions as you have outlined them. Not a spell, as such, but…call it sympathetic magic. If the target believes in magic, and is affected by it—and all such beings as this must be fall into that category—it will, by believing, invest some of its own power into your countermeasures.”
“So, I’m basically hitting it with psychological warfare that it’s going to make real?”
“Well put.” He grew serious again. “But it is not without risk, this plan of yours. Even if you are right, the creature may not be able to control itself long enough. If you are wrong, the creature will attempt to use the weaknesses of your approach against you—and it will do so now with full knowledge of what you can do, and why.”
“Not the first time I’ve been betting on a throw of the dice. But I’d appreciate it if you can hang out close by—as close as you think you can get without blowing your cover.”
The black-haired, immaculate head gave an assenting nod. “But of course, Jason. Tomorrow night?”
I nodded myself. “No point in giving it any more time to prep. Tomorrow night we finish this, one way or another.”
“Very good.” Verne gave a sharp-toothed smile. “But you need do no preparations tonight. Let us relax. I can tell you are not entirely recovered from your ordeal.”
“I can go for that,” I said with a grin. At least this threat wasn’t going to be ambushing me. I was going to ambush it.
Chapter 82: Truth and Dare
Nighttime again. This time, I was sleeping in a sleeping bag on the (no longer pellet-covered) living room floor. Well, more accurately, I was trying to sleep. I knew the thing would have to try again; whether my main guess was right or not, it could not afford to lose now that it had started. A ghost would have no choice at all, at least not the automated-recording type. A dem
on…from everything Verne had told us about them, they were ruled by pride more than anything else, and my being able to chase it away and then come back would be more than it could bear. And a thansaelasavi…
The pieces were all there, even if there was hardly a single shred of evidence I could hold in my hand. But in this particular game, emotions were really the key. I now knew the thing did not live on fear alone. It had fled when I offered up a dish of the real thing that wasn’t focused on it directly. It had been scared by what it saw. Instead of grabbing that image to use it, the creature had been terrified by the Werewolf King.
Fear was what the creature projected—maybe because that was a strong emotion easily roused in people who didn’t know what was going on—but the emotions I really kept feeling from it, that were an undertone in everything it sent, were very different. Negative emotions, yes, but ones with a common theme indeed.
Of course, that could be a demonic trap…or the undertone of a repeating ryunihav. But I didn’t think so.
Not most of the time anyway. Right now, in the silent twilight of the cabin’s main room, I was strongly tempted to beat feet down the mountain and drag Verne back with me.
The thought seemed to trigger the event. My cell phone rang, causing me to jump in the semidarkness. I pulled the little gadget out. “Hello?”
“Jason. I must warn you; after our conversation last night, I have done some considerable thinking, trying to reawaken memories that would be relevant, and one just surfaced—one that I find extremely worrisome.”
Great, just what I need, more worry. “What is it, Verne?”
“I have mentioned that the Seven Towers protected Atlantaea. It may have occurred to you to wonder, then, how it was that the demons could invade at all.” His voice was sad rather than grim. “There was no simple way through the wards the Towers made, and no power that even Kerlamion wielded could have broken those wards swiftly enough to have prevented a truly massive mobilization of our forces—more than enough to have prevented the near-total victory that he instead achieved.
“As those few of us who survived learned later, they had managed—through what maneuverings we could not determine—to recruit one of our own to their aid; at this point the details are not important. For your purposes tonight you need only know this: first, that he was the one who created the vampires of Elias Klein’s type, and is therefore likely one of the ones behind his appearance and possibly one of those assisting Mr. Carruthers’ group. And secondly, that one of his principal research locations in the old days—his summer home, one might say—was somewhere in this region.”
Now that was a very unpleasant thought. “He’s still alive?”
“Alive may be an inaccurate term. He is still functioning and active, yes.”
“Damn. I thought you and, I guess, Raiakafan were the only survivors.”
He gave a slight chortle. “Close. Besides myself and my son’s family—who are themselves a puzzle, as you know—there are to my knowledge only three other survivors of Atlantaea itself, with perhaps one other who is not and has not been on Earth since the cataclysm. We will discuss this later. I simply wished to warn you that it is possible that we are dealing with something the thansaelasavi summoned, created, or bound. And that would be something very bad indeed.”
I thought about it. How sure was I of what I had been sensing? “I’m guessing that demons or things like them could make me feel things that weren’t true, right? Well, okay, the fear I’m feeling when the thing attacks isn’t true either, but what I mean is could they be letting me sense other feelings that it wasn’t really feeling, to fake me out?”
Verne hesitated a moment; I suppose I hadn’t asked the question as clearly as I would have liked. But after he untangled it, he replied, “Yes…yes, they could do so.”
“Then I guess it comes down to whether or not I can trust my instincts. My gut says it’s worth a try. My head’s not so sure.”
Verne sighed. “Only you can make that judgment, my friend. Your instincts have served you well, yet anyone can be misled under the wrong circumstances.”
I stood silently for a few minutes, thinking. The dark sensation of a lurking threat did nothing to encourage me to stay, and there were plenty of reasons I should just bag this one. But…
“Okay. I might be stupid, but I’ve never walked out on a job yet. More importantly, I’m pretty good at picking out patterns, and the thing I’m up against wouldn’t know this. So I don’t think what I was sensing was fake. I’m staying.”
“I truly expected no other decision, Jason,” Verne said quietly. “I shall be waiting with all my senses out and ready to respond.”
“That does make me feel better. Hopefully, you won’t need to do anything. Bye for now.”
“Good-bye, Jason.”
I put the phone away, took a deep breath, let it out, and lay down again. I tried counting sheep, working out math problems in my head, concentrating on how tired I was. Still that grim, menacing sensation would NOT let me sleep.
Maybe I could force the confrontation. It was worth a shot. The thing must have picked up the language, or at least be able to get the basic sense of what people were saying, if it had such intimate contact with the minds. I stood up.
“All right, I know you’re there. And I know for damn sure you know I’m here.” I made myself relax, leaned casually against one wall. “You lost last night’s matchup. So what are you doing now? Trying to make me not go to sleep, because you don’t want to try it again?”
The atmosphere of the room suddenly thickened; it was fear-laden, but with an undertone of fury and desperation. The fear pressed in on me, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as last night; for one thing, I was fully awake and it hadn’t had the chance to worm its way into my dreams tonight.
“Oh, yeah, like that is going to work,” I said with a sneer. “Whatever you are, you know you don’t have what it takes to scare me for real, not if you don’t catch me when I’m sleeping. And I don’t have to sleep. I can stay up all night and sleep during the day.” I pushed away from the wall. “Or…if you want to have another go at me…you can stop being so stupidly obvious and go away for a while. I’m not going to sleep while you’re trying to creep me out, but if you take off for the next hour or so, I’ll bet I could manage a nap. Then you go for it. What do you say?”
For the briefest moment, I sensed a new emotion; confusion, followed by a flash of angry agreement mixed with challenge. And then the room seemed to brighten, although there wasn’t a light on anywhere in the cabin. I opened the window a crack and breathed in the calmness of the night air. I even heard crickets starting to chirp near the cabin.
It had taken the dare. Okay, that meant it probably wasn’t a ryunihav; according to Verne, most of them weren’t that flexible. Definitely didn’t rule out demon—in fact, that last flicker of arrogant confidence pointed more in the demonic direction than anything.
Still, we’d established a form of communication and reached an accord, even if it was only the equivalent of a temporary cease-fire. Good enough, though. I would be able to sleep now and if I lived through the hour or so after that, Dave Plunkett just might get his cabin back.
If I didn’t, well, there were worse places to be buried. I slid into the sleeping bag, closed my eyes, and slowly started drifting off to sleep. I wondered if it would wait for me to go under, or jump the gun…
Chapter 83: Rage and Loss
Black acid fire raining down on me as I fled through streets filled with werewolves and monsters. I gave a croaking scream and lunged upward, feeling tentacles coiling tighter, dragging me down…
No, wait, that was the sleeping bag. I rolled onto my back, started to wiggle out, and suddenly the darkness coalesced into that monstrous bipedal void, grabbing the bag, lifting it off the ground. I felt a spurt of genuine, not-generated-from-outside, fear at that; I had never thought it could manage that level of strength.
Possibly it couldn’t yet, not for long, beca
use in that same moment I was dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. I shoved my way out of the bag as it slashed at me. This time it actually drew blood, the rake of almost-invisible talons cutting like thorns of ice, injecting terror with the cuts.
Despite the muzziness of sleep and its hold on my dreams, I found I could act. My body was shaky and uncertain, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to try moving around an obstacle course, but I wasn’t nearly frozen like last night. I glanced around in the gloom, then pulled the goggles around my neck over my eyes.
Ah, there, light without light. Image intensification with a little NIR illumination made the room bright as day for me. Possibly, depending on how the thing itself “saw,” it might be seeing a little light of some kind coming from me, but very little. Damn, damn, damn. Its unexpected maneuver had moved me significantly and it was circling. I had to get it to the right spot before I could act. And if it could sense that, I might never get it there. I had to concentrate on keeping it distracted, off-balance and angry.
“Still…can’t quite…ring the bell, Mr. Shadow,” I said, trying to keep the quiver from my voice. “I’ve gotten worse cuts from rosebushes. I thought for a minute you might actually have something, but all you managed was to cut up my sleeping bag. That the best you have?”
It gave a soundless snarl and took a step towards me. I pulled out my laser pointer. It began to shrink back, then halted as I tossed the little cylinder away. “I don’t think I need that,” I said. “In fact, you’ve already beaten yourself, don’t you know? Whatever you thought you’d get from people visiting here, it’s pretty much over. Once I leave, no one’s coming. Ever.”
It dissolved, became a black shrieking whirlwind around me with a thousand tiny mouths and eyes, gnashing and mouthing and trying to tear at me but succeeding only in making a few more scratches. I felt desperation echoing from it. “You screwed up. You can’t get what you want from animals, can you? They don’t have enough…life force, will, whatever, for you to work on. They run away, they have no real tie to the land. And you’re stuck here. You can’t leave, or you won’t. So you’ve driven away the people who used to come here, and pretty soon no one will come here anymore.” I checked, took two steps back. The whirlwind parted as I was about to touch it, rematerialized as the claw-handed horror. It was bombarding me with fear now, and part of me—the instinctive part—responded, screaming at me to hide or run. But my mind was still in control. My voice might be ready to dry up or crack, but I was still thinking. “You’ve lost it all. You can’t even scare me anymore. It’s over.”
