by Lucian Bane
Valentine regarded Poe. “I have always felt it to be a universal hazard to have so much… confidence stuffed into one being.”
Poe let his smile go at that one. He never agreed with the whole idea of making stars of characters, but Valentine might have just swayed his opinion. At the same time, he felt prone to keep a unity between the three of them. “I suppose in the right situation, it would come in quite handy.”
At Sabre’s loud, single laugh of triumph, Poe nearly regretted it. But Valentine’s grin of approval and pat on his shoulder stayed the emotion.
“I am a Blood Guardian,” he said then.
“Blood,” Poe said, confused.
“The Seventh Realm Codes are embedded in the blood of humans. I am a guardian of both the blood and the code infused in it.”
“Fascinating,” Poe couldn’t keep from saying. “The Seventh Realm. I have read of this in Octava’s codecs. The realm from which all realms are born.”
He gave a slow smile and nod.
Poe regarded Contessant who appeared to be frozen in confusion and awe, her mouth hanging open. “I…” She shook her head with furrowed brows. “I don’t recall that.”
“You hadn’t made it up yet,” Sabre said.
“Then…” She regarded him and he merely smiled with a shrug.
“It’s a dance,” he said. “What humans create is only half of it. The Tabard around Earth is preventing Scribbler’s of all art forms from realizing that they are, in fact, dancing with other realms in a divine expression of life. And death.”
Poe wanted to ask how that might serve them on the fictional side of the coin now.
“We ready to hit the road, V?” Sabre stood and stretched and Poe marveled over the human like trait he’d apparently merged with his fictional one.
“I was created ready,” Valentine muttered, grabbing a large red bow and slinging it on his back as he walked to the door.
A moment later, they were climbing in the transporter—or car, which resembled sitting in the center of a blob of blood. There wasn’t one thing that wasn’t some hue of red in it. The only variation occurred at texture, ranging from shiny and dull to rough and silky.
“Why not the main highway?” Poe asked when he turned the car onto one of the rarely used roads.
“Quicker this way,” Valentine said.
Before Poe could wonder how, he flipped a few switches and increased the g-force by about four, plastering their bodies to the seats.
“Whoa!” the boy cried, laughing then. “We’re flying!”
Sabre laughed and shouted “Whoooooooooeeee!” holding the back of the seat with one arm.
Poe grabbed Contessant’s hand, who appeared as though she’d never encountered such speeds. She clutched his hand tight in both of hers, her feet pressed into the floor. So much for his idea to fly her around Octava in the wings. They were only half as fast, but in the open air, the exhilaration was unmatched.
The transporter slowed and released them abruptly from the gravitational pull.
“What’s wrong?” Sabre muttered.
Valentine came to a complete stop on the lone road, pointing before them. “There.”
Sabre leaned a little, peering. “I don’t… oh hell,” he muttered.
“Veritably.” Valentine’s deep voice spelled certain danger as he shut off the car.
“Stay in the car,” Poe ordered Contessant and the boy, as he followed Sabre and Valentine out. He searched for whatever they peered at, only finding the mountainous horizon before them and vacant desert on the left and right.
Poe came to stand with the two of them at the front of the car. “There, Rider.” Valentine glided his hand across the horizon, filling the air with a red mist. The lens illuminated the mile wide line of dense black.
“Divinities,” Poe muttered. “What is it?”
“Nothing divine, that’s for sure,” Sabre whispered.
Chapter Eleven
Valentine spread both arms at once, issuing more bloody mist, but this time he pulled it back toward him.
Poe jumped back in alarm when the black line zoomed to appear right before them. “Quarks!”
“That’s… The Gorge,” Sabre sounded dumbfounded.
“Ver-i-ta-bly,” Valentine said again, his tone more ominous than before.
The Gorge. Poe wondered if this were the same as The Shadow Gorge.
“That’s a bad sign,” Sabre said, sounding surprised but not. “So soon.”
“The Gorge,” Poe said. “What exactly are they?”
“The legendary creatures of a classical story,” Valentine said as he paced and eyed the line.
“Then how are they….?”
“Because somebody on Earth has been mused upon,” Sabre concluded.
“What do we do?” Poe said. “What exactly are they here for?”
“To stop us from getting to the Queen,” Sabre said.
“You know more than you’re telling about all of this,” Poe said finally. “I should like to know what we’re facing.”
Sabre eyed him briefly. “If you must know, Rider. You’re facing the beginning of a final war.”
“Final?” Poe looked from Valentine to Sabre who both paced before the car as though contemplating a strategy. “Final as in how?”
“As in, this is it,” Sabre said.
“As in no more wars after this,” Valentine added. “All and none.”
Fear gripped Poe. “All and none, what does that mean?”
Valentine turned to him. “To us, it means they all die and we all live.”
“And to them?” It was a dumb question, Poe realized.
“We all die and they all live.”
Poe regarded Sabre. “Quarks and hadrons. When were you going to tell me this?”
“As soon as we needed to, Rider,” Sabre said.
“And you need to tell me this now,” Poe reiterated, pacing along the car as well.
“Poe?”
He turned to Contessant who stood next to the car, waiting for word. “I’m coming,” he said. “Stay in the car.”
She searched the horizon, fearing the unseeing thing, as she lowered back into the vehicle.
Poe faced the two of them. “What do we do, how do we stop them?”
“We can’t stop them, there is nothing to stop,” Valentine said. “But we need to get through them.”
“Nothing to stop.” Poe didn’t quite get that as he looked behind them. “How about we go back, go another route?”
“Too late,” Valentine said. “We’re surrounded.”
Divinities. “What are their weaknesses?” Poe asked. “Their strengths?”
“We could try to plow through them,” Sabre suggested, facing the black mass fully with hands on his hips.
“We may have no choice,” Valentine agreed.
“Plow how?” Poe needed to understand and ensure they could.
“They belong to The Nothing, therefore they are nothing,” Sabre explained. “Until you are within the grip of their devouring absence. Then, they are a vortex, like a black hole, only it sucks your mind from your soul.”
Poe paused, gripped with those disturbing details. Then he remembered. “Are you saying they are like the Shadow Gorge?”
They both eyed him. “You know of this?” Sabre asked.
“I fought him,” Poe said.
They turned to face him entirely now. “Him. Explain, Rider,” Valentine said.
“I was on Earth and Contessant had just learned of my existence and that of Octava. The learning of it very much challenged her mental stability. I don’t know why, but the Shadow Gorge came for her.”
“Because,” Sabre said, back to pacing with hands on hips. “Anytime one suffers a fracture in the psyche, it’s like a knock-knock-knock upon the portal of The Shadow Gorge.”
“How did you escape it?” Valentine asked.
Poe thought about it. “I… I grabbed hold of my Scribbler and commanded my ownership of her. We fou
ght it. Together. And I…” Poe paused, feeling awkward to tell the defining blow. “I had the notion to… to kiss her to break the hold.”
He eyed them and found their brows raised in a mix of amused awe.
“It worked,” Poe said, before they could think to consider it as foolish as it sounded.
“Impressive, Rider,” Sabre said with a grin.
“I don’t know why the notion came, and I didn’t question it, I merely acted.”
Valentine looked at Sabre now. “His human instincts took over.”
“Clearly,” Sabre said. “And they bonded. The two worlds as one. One realm with another.”
Valentine continued, looking at Poe, “Once the bond forms, it’s formed, it’s no longer “empty” and eligible for a union. When her mind unhinged, it threw her into the realm of the Shadow Gorge.” Valentine eyed him. “It is fascinating that you were able to fight him in human form, or knew to.” He eyed Sabre. “His spirit was that strong on Earth?”
Sabre gave him a nodding grin. “Quite strong.”
“I see.” Valentine angled his head as though reconsidering Poe in light of this new information.
Poe focused on the task at hand. “If defeating the Shadow Gorge is simply bonding with energies, can’t we… form some kind of shield similar to that?”
Valentine let out a single laugh before aiming his bright red irises at him. “You fought a Shadow Gorge.” He tossed his head at the horizon without breaking eye contact with Poe. “That is the entire Shadow Gorge Realm. This is not a knock-knock-knock upon their portal door with a brush of insanity, this is a prophetic tactical war-move. They are not here to bond with stray energy sources, they are here to rape it out of us—bonds or not—and take us eternally captive into the None.”
Poe nodded a lot, forcing his mind to remain logical while Sabre let out a deep sigh. “Todd,” he muttered.
Poe heard the mental kicking in Sabre’s tone as he continued thinking of a strategy. What if they had a hard enough bond that wouldn’t break? How thick did it have to be? Everything had its measurements and codes. He paused, considering. What about its weakness? Everything had its weaknesses. He eyed the horizon. What was The Gorge’s? If it was empty and functioned on substance…
“What if we strip to nothing? What if we strip away the things they seek? Become invisible to them? I can write a shield that would divide the two essences in a being—mind and sprit—then cloak both sides to appear as though nothing is there.” He looked at Sabre. “And you could re-enforce it with your power.”
They eyed him for several seconds and Valentine said, “I could distract them.”
Poe looked at him. “How?”
“Approach the Gorge at another location. My energy would attract them to me, helping with the mirage.”
“And we’re supposed to let you get sucked into the Nothing,” Sabre mused, clearly annoyed by the sheer stupidity of that.
“Think about it,” Valentine said. “A Blood Guardian in The Nothing. I guard and keep blood and codes. It might take me a while, but I will find my way back out.” His nods became more confident as he considered. “The blood owns me and will reclaim me.”
Sabre still paced, shaking his head, seeming more agitated than ever. “And it is from the Seventh Realm,” he said as though trying to shore up his theory.
“Unless you’ve got a better idea,” Valentine offered. “But we need to decide. They’ve figured out we’re not coming, and now they are.”
Sabre grit his teeth and hit his fist on the car before pointing at Poe. “Write the codes, Rider. Quickly and so very carefully. Strip us to the essence of nothing and I will reinforce it with power. I just pray we do not vanish from the realm.”
Poe was sure they wouldn’t. He understood that he wasn’t erasing them at all, merely camouflaging. He began with Sabre and located the point where mind and spirit melded into a being, then very carefully replaced that bond with an invisible one. After, he cloaked each side with a code matching the essence of nothing, making them appear non-existent.
He hurried to Contessant and the boy, and explained in the least alarming way, what he was doing. After performing his trick on the boy, he looked at Contessant who stared at him before nodding. “Do it. I trust you.” He kissed her softly, then quickly and very carefully, performed the dividing and cloaking. And finally, he did it to himself.
“I don’t feel any different,” Sabre said as Poe met them at the front of the car.
“That’s because you’re not. The divide I placed is merely a mirror, making it appear as though it’s divided. And that which appears divided is cloaked with a code that matches nothing.”
Sabre shook his head. “You, my dear brother…” he pointed at him, “…are brilliant.”
Poe let out a breath, half expecting him to argue with him, which Poe was fully prepared to do. He understood codes better than anything. It would work. Divinities, it had to.
“I’ll get us as close as we can,” Valentine said, headed back to the car. “Get in. When we’re near enough, I will veer left and draw the realm to me. When you see it’s safe, continue straight on the road and through it to the other side.”
“Don’t they know there’s more than one of us?” Contessant whispered as Valentine drove quickly toward the looming wall of dense black still invisible to his Scribbler and the boy. Poe hoped it remained that way. Just the sight of it had the power to turn the bones into mush and render a person petrified.
“I’m hoping not,” Valentine said. “I will bring my power to the surface in clusters. Maybe that will resemble the same.”
Contessant’s concern was one Poe hadn’t considered.
“How long do you think it will take you to find your way out of that mess of nothing?” Sabre asked him as they barreled at a reckless speed toward the darkness.
“I have no realmly idea. Why?” Valentine tossed a grin at Sabre. “You going to miss me?”
“I happen to have need of your clever asinine particles still,” he said. “Would prefer not to lose you to the nothing for long.”
“Right,” Valentine said. “That’s why I’ll do something remarkable and escape it.”
“Good,” Sabre mumbled, angrily. “Can’t be expected to carry your load and mine.”
Despite Sabre’s attempt to hide his affections for the man, Poe very much sensed his worry. Or maybe it was Poe projecting his own. It was a very valiant and foolish thing Valentine was doing, but he thanked the realms he was, for the boy and Contessant’s sake.
“Isn’t this close enough?” Sabre finally cried, hand on dashboard.
Valentine screeched the tires until they all sat.
“Oh. My. God,” Contessant whispered.
“You can see it,” Poe barely realized aloud as he stared out the window. The dense black was now a mile high and wide. The creatures were visible now, massive fat bodies pushing into one another while some invisible force held them together tightly. The sight of it was as a wall of rapidly boiling tar.
The air and car shook suddenly with a dreadful bone grating growl.
“They opened the portal,” Valentine said quickly as he opened his door. “The vortex is engaged.” He peered back into the car at Sabre. “When it begins to follow me, wait long enough before attempting to move.”
“Got it,” Sabre said, eyeing the wall through the windshield.
“Here goes nothing,” Valentine said, slamming the door shut. His coat and clothes seemed to melt into thick blood, forming a shiny tight glove over his body.
“Wow,” the boy whispered, watching him.
Blood drops moved like fingers across his hair, loosening the braid until it flowed freely all around him in thick ropes of shiny ruby. He took several steps, parallel to the black wall, eyeing it as his nails extended to min-swords and more blood raced to his feet and pooled on the ground.
Valentine looked over his shoulder while bracing his legs apart on what seemed to be a kind of surf board. Hi
s eyes glowed with red sparks of fire and a staff stretched from his right hand until it was twice his height but only the breadth of a needle.
The boy’s face was plastered to the window in awe and Valentine smiled at him and winked before shooting out like a rivulet of blood through the sand.
“It’s moving,” Contessant whispered. “The black is moving, it’s working.”
Poe kept his eye on the red giant as long as he could, watching him lure the Gorge Realm away from them.
“The Gorge is moving faster,” Sabre muttered. “Dear God, it’s huge.”
“Mr. Valentine is even faster!” Todd gasped. “He looks amazing. A real superhero.”
“A super-fool,” Sabre mumbled.
“We should go now,” Poe said, in case the Gorge figured out the thing he’d not thought of.
Sabre looked over the seat at him. “If your theory is correct, we should be able to run and not be detected.”
“How long will it take to get past them?” Contessant asked.
Sabre opened his door. “I don’t know and I’m not going to try and calculate now. Let’s go.”
Poe knew. An hour. A full hour of running without stopping.
Chapter Twelve
Contessant felt like that character in the bible who got turned to a pillar of salt for looking back. She expected something bad to happen every time she did. Sabre had said don’t look back and yet over and over, she did just that. She couldn’t help it. She had to know what it was doing, if it had figured out their trick and was coming to suck them in.
The first twenty minutes of non-stop running was a nightmare. She couldn’t tell what was happening. The black was before, above and around them. Time seemed as non-existent as them. There was just her legs moving, her heart hammering, her fears screaming in her ears in concert with the echo of the growling that rattled their bodies and shook the road.
Then finally she saw it. The end of the line, the light at the end of this category 5 god of cyclones from the realm of Nothing.
The roar of a man in the distance struck her with such fear, she nearly tripped. Valentine.
“Do not stop!” Sabre yelled.
The agony in Sabre’s voice was palpable. It stabbed Contessant’s heart. What had Valentine done? Surely he would be okay, she never imagined he might not be. This was fiction. Yes, fiction, that’s what she kept thinking at the back of her mind. It wasn’t real. It was all fiction and they’d all be fine.
