by David Finn
His dark robe was all he wore, open to the waist. His white flesh shimmered gold to white, blazing with shifting tattoos. The bracelet upon his left wrist sizzled, burning the flesh.
She could see the truth, almost feel it.
‘It’s a prison,’ she whispered. ‘The world, this whole universe . . . is a prison.’
His touch crackled with weird kinetic energy. ‘Ah, don’t read too much into your first vision of the truth, little killer.’
‘But it is,’ she countered. ‘Hungry gods stalking souls, Baby Jesus with a scythe.’
The Tyrant laughed. ‘Maybe.’
He pointed to the Jade Pyramid around her neck. ‘Look, it’s caught aflame.’
And it had. Gone was the jade colored diamond. It burnt a pure white. She felt the music in her head, songs that had not been sung, and some that had, buried under layers of memory.
The Tyrant ripped off the pain locket, and it stung when the chain broke on her neck. His form above her was dark, a velvet cloud of red and purple stars.
‘You will need this no longer! Back to Exile, sick spirit of Pain!’
He threw the locket away against the metallic mirrors and she heard it crack and break into nothingness. She felt strange, sick strength leave her. In her chest, Xalos stirred almost approvingly, sending a warm fire through her heart.
He chuckled. The energy waves returned and the mirrors vanished. ‘Don’t be so keen to throw your soul away again, Demorn. For the gifts of Mictecaciuatl were never kind.’
Her hand stayed clasped around the Gem. It was a different kind of power, cleansing the stains. She knew he was right.
‘I was desperate. I would be dead without the locket.’
‘And so was Mictecaciuatl, which is how you kept even a portion of yourself. She’s a pale reflection of what she was. In her glory, you would have been a walking horror bearing her brand.’
She laughed softly. It all felt true. She had felt that sick power flowing through her veins for so long. ‘Look at me now. Alive, well adjusted, spawning magic swords. Happy days.’
Demorn looked into the many mirrors and for a moment she saw Jason, dragging himself across a white carpet, madly typing instructions into a device in his hand.
The mirror cracked and the image vanished.
Demorn asked, ‘How did you wind up here? In Babelzon. Did he create you, too?’
The Tyrant pressed his hand into the reflections, bringing images into focus to match his words.
‘I’m far older than his games. I was the spoiled son of a minor noble. I thought myself a wizard. In truth, I could conjure not even a dove without my trinkets. But I was proud of my tricks, and clever. Too clever for a small, suspicious city. Soon, it was said that I drunk the blood of a dark god, and the guards came knocking.
‘My family cast me out to the streets. How else could they ever explain it? They were scared of magic and the totems and my tarot deck, floating around them at the rituals.’
Beautiful women and men filled the mirror and the chamber. Most of them were unclothed, signs inscribed across their faces and bodies. Everything seemed dreamlike. It’s like a bad hippy scene, Demorn thought.
The Tyrant floated amongst them, ageless, the same as now.
‘What a surprise your groupies were gorgeous,’ she said.
The Tyrant laughed. ‘I was young. I meddled in things I didn’t understand. People especially.’
Demorn saw the town guards bursting in, torchlights shining into the room, the acolytes screaming when he crashed to the floor, mortal.
The Tyrant passed his hands across the images and they vanished, replaced by golden waves.
She said, ‘I could see the signs on their faces. I remember my training with the Corizan. It was a mishmash of pagan forest symbols, but that wasn’t evil magic.’
The Tyrant laughed with his purple eyes.
‘Oh, we believed in things like wood spirits and holy circles of trust. You can imagine how nobody understood us but us. I went insane for a time. It’s just like true love when you start to learn real magic, when you begin to tap the Source. You give everything of yourself and there is a price for that.’
Demorn remembered the ice cavern, where it began with the Goddess, the slash across her cheek, the pain and the power mingled as one.
The Tyrant brushed his fingers across Demorn’s forehand and images jumped unbidden into her mind. She saw Babelzon as he saw it, stripped of the flashing lights and flying cars, without any of the constant electronic haze.
Instead she saw a burning ocean with iconic hearts flashing like emoticons, purple to red to black.
‘This is your vision,’ she murmured.
Demorn saw a thin figure in black clothes laying down the first Source Stone on a grassy plain. She felt a shiver of danger. His eyes sparkled, so hungry.
‘You are a Rising God . . . getting ready to feed.’
He smiled. ‘Words, Princess. Rumors. Nobody is a god till they’ve risen from the flock.’
‘But you’re trying real hard.’
He raised his fingers and green crackling lightning arced across the sky, thick, pulsing veins beneath the clouds.
‘If I fall, we all shall. I’ve tried to slow down Ultimate Fate. I’ve watched alternate realities collapse upon themselves, seen my best agents consumed by the force opposing us.’
‘Are you talking about Wrecking Ball? He’s still alive—’
The Tyrant spoke sharply. ‘But he won’t escape. Jason wasn’t lying. That dimension is doomed. After all his adventures, the world of Wrecking Ball is nothing but a cage for the beast. Your presence there just delayed things.’
His voice was distant and crystal clear. She knew the horrible truth in his fatalism. Shooting at skeletons erupting onto city streets. Chicago, totally gone. A vision of a dead LA flooded her mind, and she had to think of something else, for there was no hope to be found there.
Demorn fingered her pearl-handed pistol.
‘People don’t throw parties when the world ends. It happens fast. It’s not like a classic movie. They just scream and turn on each other. The whole planet crashes out to static channels, no more internet, no more movie franchises, no more daytime TV. The clock-towers stop ringing out. It’s awful and quiet. I started writing poetry by the end. That’s when I knew I either needed to blow my head off or get out.’
‘How depressing.’ The Tyrant sounded sad and detached. The bracelet tinkled on his wrist. ‘I wanted to lounge with super-people on couches, drinking good coffee, deciding which city to save as the world burned, while we chatted about classic albums and covertly fucked each other.’
She laughed. ‘You’re so old. Nobody listens to albums anymore.’
He gripped her roughly and they kissed, Demorn giving back just as hard as him. He stopped to look over the burning land with the flashing hearts in the night. The ship had vanished.
They drifted high in the sky for a long time. Demorn felt light-headed and hungry. The water glistened beneath them and the air was warm.
‘I keep expecting to find out I’m dead and this is all dreams.’
He raised his fingers and she saw a giant ice ring form upon his finger. Fear flickered through her heart. She knew that chill, she knew that pain, the cold wind of the grave.
His arm gripped around her the waist. His black robe blew away, his whole body was filled with burning lights.
She could feel the shuddering, she knew the effort it cost him, straining against the fabric of everything. There were traces of the skull in his face, shimmering reflections of bone. Over everything there was just his fire eyes, orange and black void.
The water just below them had crystallized, each wave frozen and immaculate. The light in the ring faded and they touched down on the ice.
‘It’s the Skull-Master Ring. The power of life and death. Every universe has one of these.’
The bone shadows faded away in his face. He looked almost human again.
&nbs
p; ‘I really have conquered this world, Demorn.’
‘Why don’t you go to The Grave yourself? Change it back, save them all.’
He laughed a little bitterly. ‘Do you really believe I could do that? Different ring, different universe. It’s probably all a trick of some errant god. Wrecking Ball never found it, and now it’s too late.’
The Tyrant gestured to the frozen waves.
‘I could do this to the whole world, you know. Leave an ice tomb for whatever bursts through the universe walls.’
‘Would you even want that?’ she said.
‘No, I just like the ice waves,’ he said ruefully. ‘I wish I knew a way to connect with people. The Tyrant Run is childish.’
She slipped a hand into his. ‘You should put that on a billboard, and don’t be so hard on yourself. I’ve buried so many Innocents in the Clubhouse Garden. In the end, it gets down to one or two people. I hold on tight to them.’
He looked at her with ruthless, smoldering eyes. ‘We can’t lose the last things left.’
He flicked out something from his cloak, and it shone above the ice. It was a movie of her and Kate.
‘Or everything is for nothing and will be eaten along with the universe.’
She reached out to the images, tears blinding her and nostalgia ravaging her heart raw. She and Kate kissing in the Winter park. Kate levitating in the apartment, Marilyn on the TV.
Demorn slid the purple sunglasses on, trying to cover eyes that hurt too much. She heard distant music filter through her mind, old songs from childhood, bands and people whose names she felt she would ruin by saying them aloud. She saw herself.
Demorn heard the beat of electro-chants and rhythms of songs which she had not heard yet, but she knew lay in her future. She could feel the tears that she had shed in Chicago winter parks, where the sun was so pure and cold. She could feel the tight grip of her brother on her hand as they left Asanti, exploding into nothingness, her past dying dying dying.
She could feel a savage hunger for a clean start, beneath this perfect black sky, nestling in the still crystal waves. She could feel everything. The Spectral Gem blazed wildly upon her breast, a new kind of magic reborn, casting a shimmering light blue.
The sounds of the music and the chimes faded and she heard a great crying and moaning from the sky itself.
Is this really it, is this really the end of the world?
Demorn looked into the sky and she could see the end, she could see the Ultimate Fate, sparkling and hanging in the sky. Her mouth opened in horror mixed with wonder. She forgot all about the voices and songs of childhood, she forget about the people she had killed, polluting her life-soul with their blood and grime.
There was just her and Fate, above her, crushing her eyes with vast, inevitable power, taking her deeper and deeper . . .
The Tyrant ruffled his cold hand through her long hair. He swept a hand over her magic eyes. Slowly, the images in the night sky faded.
‘It hasn’t come yet, Demorn. It’s still just a dream.’
She was upon her knees looking at the black sky. ‘It’s more than a dream. Wow, I feel wasted.’
‘We’re a long way out from Babelzon. Reality morphs out here.’ The Tyrant was looking to the sky. ‘Did you love it? Did you love what you saw?’
She looked at him strangely. ‘Kinda, I guess. It’s all fading, I forget.’
The Tyrant smiled scarily. ‘Oh, I know why. For one moment, you see everything, and it’s wonderful.’ There was brittle edge to his voice.
‘Do you doubt it? What did you see?’
His fiery eyes turned to her. ‘I’m blind to Fate, fair Princess. I can take you here, where the magic is strong, and the boundaries of our universe decays. I don’t see anything but an empty sky.’
He raised his hand. Some of the crystals shattered. He took her hand and they rose back into sky. The frozen ocean broke and fell apart.
‘Maybe I have stayed too long in this magical kingdom. The spells now feel like machines.’ His voice was so much quieter, delicate and sad.
Oh, you’re getting tired, aren’t you, Tyrant, Demorn thought, with a sudden compulsive sympathy. ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.
He looked tired, the fire burning low, and his hands colder than ever. They rose higher and higher, and she clung to his dark robes, blowing in the crisp wind.
‘A long time.’
His eyes burned with fire as he looked out over the sea. Nobody could have bought the blank nonchalance in his voice. A long, strange moment passed, filled with all sorts of secret understanding.
‘It’s not just one ghost that haunts you, is it?’
He sighed. ‘She’s gone. My past. My love. I don’t know about dead. I don’t want to know.’
A small burning sun lit up the sky, drifting from his hand. It shone for a moment and encased them. They stood on the top of a massive tower jutting out from his ship.
Night was over, it was early morning. It was cold up here. The city changed back to normality as his magic slowly faded.
Demorn looked out over the wide ocean, sparkling in the early morning.
The Tyrant brushed his cold fingers across her eyes. ‘Don’t trust the visions too much. It’s the same old promises, promising to cure everything, all our wrongs, all our rights . . . If the angry gods tear into our reality, do you really believe they will cure anything, Princess?’
Demorn laughed to herself. ‘Will you? I never really believed in these crazy myths. Even if they exist, I think we’re just rats in a cruel experiment. I know it’s going to come down to me shooting bad guys.’
‘Yes. End of the world scenarios have a certain rhythm about them.’
He looked at her with a slight smile. ‘This has all been very heavy. Do you want head back to bed?’
Demorn gave him a direct look with her blazing green eyes. ‘What’s your real name, Tyrant?’
His eyes glowed. ‘I have absolutely no idea anymore.’
She drained her soda from the glass. ‘It’s a very practiced routine, isn’t it? That’s okay, I like it. I practice mine, too.’
Demorn threw her jacket off. The Pyramid lit up her face. She felt younger, years of pain washed away, and this didn’t feel like magic.
Demorn did a slow dance shuffle, grooving up to him, pulling the death mask over her face, the hideous grin glistening.
‘Make my clothes vanish,’ she whispered, ‘Make me feel something. Make me feel anything.’
4
* * *
An explosion echoed through the bedroom. Demorn woke up instantly, in his arms, shuddering. She grabbed the pearl-handed pistol beneath her pillow, but it was just the old action movie playing in the air around them.
It was a different room. More personal. A glass painting of a woman’s face that flickered with electric blue rain. Purple fire licked the edges of the walls. She watched the runes glow dimly upon his bracelet.
She ran her finger along the metal.
‘Does it really make you a god?’
His voice was dangerously soft. ‘Ask the guy I killed to gain it.’
She lashed out with a swift grace, catching him by his neck with her metal hand. He didn’t make a sound, she pressed his head against the backboard.
His face was different, obviously older, the skin darker, scarred, and he was horribly thin, though he had the same haunted, burning eyes.
‘You’re not the Tyrant!’ she hissed.
He screamed inside her head.
I AM THE TYRANT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU NEVER UNDERSTAND I AM THE TYRANT I AM . . .
She broke his neck. She watched the fire die out of his eyes.
The bracelet snapped, falling off his wrist. Her whole heart was filled with a weird mix of sadness and unreality. She picked up the broken bracelet. Up close, it obviously wasn’t real. It just an cheap dime-store copy. The thin body vanished, blurring into blue energy. Nothing about this made sense.
And maybe I don’t
want to understand, Demorn thought. Some part of her thought it would be hilarious if this asshole had spiked her diet cola.
There was an old-school pair of headphones by the bed table. She could hear soft music playing from them. Her heart was beating fast. She felt cold in this stranger’s vast bed.
She huddled up in the sheets, putting the headphones on. It was mid-Sixties Beatles.
Listening to John Lennon’s voice her eyes filled with tears. The music was warm and smooth, lulling her to nostalgic slumber.
With a mighty effort, Demorn tore herself out of the bed, her feet cold against the wooden floor and the air cold on her skin. She slung a black shirt on.
A ghostly image of the Tyrant stood before the bed. His thin, translucent skin covered a core of red energy inside him. He carried a strange helmet in his arms, and he was talking to a shimmering girl in the bed beside her.
A long scar glistened raw across the girl’s cheek.
It was herself, Demorn realized. But the girl’s hair was up in a messy bun, the way she didn’t like it. Her eyes were huge and pale.
It’s somebody very close to me, Demorn realized. It’s almost me. But it’s not me.
The girl said, ‘If he was so powerful, how did you get the Bracelet?’
The Tyrant spoke matter-of-factly.
‘Trickery. He was old and desperate. He knew me as the Banker. I lured him to a temple far to the South. He thought I wanted to buy exotic trinkets. I chopped off his hands, bled him out while the Twin Wizards fought his worst magic. With his dying breath he thanked me. Imagine that.’
Demorn watched the scene with cold eyes. She felt Xalos burning in her chest. She didn’t know for who or what.
The girl spoke again, but her words could not be heard in this weirdly refracted vision.
‘I’ve got to go. Stay the night,’ the Tyrant said.
Demorn watched the girl who was almost her nod, and put the headphones back on, sleepy, lulled by the rhythms of the music. The girl’s head morphed into a strange were-beast, becoming that of a bull, with peaceful, clear eyes, before she fell asleep.
That could have been me, Demorn thought, with a savage clarity. I was one with the animals, when I was young and in Firethorn, but I didn’t take that path. I stopped the wild hunts. I did not follow and find the Dead King in the deep forest. I forgot those wilds for the sword.
