The Shape of Rain

by Michael B. Koep

  Doubling Back

  November 11, this year

  Upper Priest Lake, Idaho

  6:01 pm PST

  When Marcel cuts the zip-tie, Astrid whirls around and throws her arms around him. She cannot let go. Marcel holds her. She has never hugged him and does not immediately note his awkward embrace.

  He says, “I take it that stealing the van with you in it was the right choice?” Astrid squeezes harder. “I didn’t like the look of those men. And when I saw your hands were tied—well, what else was there to do?” Astrid squeezes again. “And, I mean, what did they expect? You don’t just leave a nice van like that running without anyone to watch it—this is a bad neighborhood.” Astrid feels a smile. “There are ruffians about.” She releases him, rests her forehead at the center of his chest for a moment and then looks up at him.

  A spray of orange freckles almost seem to glow on his pale skin. Clear pinpricks of stars crown his shoulder-length red hair. His twenty-something eyes are troubled, confident and frightened all at once.

  “Professor,” he says lowering his arms, “what’s going on?”

  How to answer? Astrid wonders. Her life’s work vindicated? The glory of Wyn Avuqua’s unearthing? The reality of a living, breathing Immortal Queen? The anomaly of a 1970s spiral notebook found in a millennia-old coffin? Of all the ways to begin, she cannot shake the horror of the dark ride to what she thought would be her end.

  Opening her mouth to answer him, she has no words. He watches her. “Professor, what is going on?”

  “Graham Cremo…” she says, finally.

  “Graham Cremo?” Marcel repeats. “Graham Cremo. Who is Graham Cremo?”

  The fear subsides.

  Tonight she will not be strangled, or shot in the head here in the woods beside Priest Lake—buried in a shallow grave. Silenced. Tonight she has escaped assassination through sheer luck. Fate. Because her assistant Marcel Hruska just happened to find her—just in time. Luck…

  Graham, however, is so far, not so lucky.

  “We have to go back,” she tells him.

  “Who is Graham Cremo?” Marcel says.

  “They are going to kill him. They were going to kill me,” she hears herself say. She hears her own panic. She steadies herself.

  “Okay. Okay,” Marcel says. “Slow down.”

  “Graham is the head archeologist on the dig. He was hurt. He was shot. Now they are going to kill him. We have to go back.”

  “Prof,” Marcel says, his palms out like a calming pair of leaves, “Don’t sweat it. Look.” He steps to the side.

  Marcel parked just within the trees, high up on a steep hill overlooking the entire excavation site. If Astrid were to throw a stone it might very well land just inside the fence line along the northwestern wall.

  “It felt as if you drove much farther,” Astrid says without looking away from ancient Wyn Avuqua.

  “I parked my ATV over there,” he says pointing to a particularly shadowed niche just a little northeast of their position. “I decided to visit Wyn Avuqua from across country. When I saw the western fence and the Coldwater Security guys, for some reason I opted to climb over instead of go through one of their gates. As usual, I trusted my spirit guide. I headed toward the Avu, and you were just coming out. But you didn’t look happy —and your hands were tied. I followed you and that tall woman to their security headquarters tent. I listened from outside—heard that Rearden dude—and some other things I didn’t quite understand. Then they put you into a van. You were screaming.” Worry flashes across his face. “They left you in a running van. A chance came when no one was nearby—so I got in and slowly drove you out of there.

  “So yeah, I drove for a little bit. Once I left their service path, I raced down to that old logging road we know, I circled back and took the wide portage trail. That rounded me back and up here—and here we are. I’m pretty sure there’s no finding us for a short time, at least. I don’t think they would guess that we would return…” He casts a dubious glance at the van. “Do you think they can track this thing?”

  “Probably,” Astrid says.

  “Well, that said, if there’s a time to go and see if we can help your friend, Graham, it’s now. Let’s roll. The game trail down is right over there,” he points and takes a step in the direction.

  “No,” Astrid feels the sudden rush of clarity. “No, I have a feeling they’ve moved him.”

  He turns to her. “Where?”

  “Want to see Dellithion Omvide?” she says.

  Marcel’s white teeth catch the cold glimmer of the sky. His smile is huge. “They found the fucking pyramid?”

  The Impossibility of William Greenhame

  1010 A.D.

  The Realm of Wyn Avuqua

  Two long pulls of scotch, a slight wavering of balance, a subdued cough (or chuckle), the cork planted back into the throat of the bottle. William of Leaves says in slightly slurred Anglo Saxon to Cynthia, “I know what you’re thinking. You’ve seen me before, yes? Or perhaps not. We drift in circles. Such wide, whirling, magnificent circles.” He leans and sets the bottle on the stage beside his right foot. “Nothing?” he says rising and pointing to his own face, “This visage doesn’t ring a bell? Ring-a-ding-a-dildo?”

  Cynthia stares blankly.

  William stares back. A moment passes.

  “You know, ring a bell.” After another beat he says, “Ah! Of course. A little early for you to understand Dr. Pavlov’s bells. Let me see, that would be an early twentieth century idiom. You see, Dr. Pavlov offered, or rather, will offer much to the fields of physiology and neurological science. His experiments were the foundation of classical conditioning. It is really very simple. Each time he fed his dog, he rang a bell. After a time, the dog became conditioned to expect that when the bell was rung, food would follow. Much like if you and your brood, here,” he motions to the crowd, “hears the suffering of an Itonalya or a human being—and at the sound, each of you toss yourselves in a twitterpated orgasm and lose all sense of your godlike potential. So, when I ask if my face rings a bell, I’m really asking if you’re truly ready to have your head handed to you, by me, for by now, you should know what happens when we meet.”

  Cynthia’s green eyes study William from head to foot while he speaks. She does not appear to be listening, but Loche imagines that by some twisting or folding of the void between Cynthia’s divinity and her human form, some essence of William Greenhame lingers within her memory—even if they have not met yet. We cannot alter what is to come. Corey’s whispered statement settles over Loche’s thought like a net.

  “There is something about you that is odd,” Cynthia says stepping closer, her course circling around behind. “Something odd, indeed.”

  “Understatement,” William clarifies, his index finger raised between them.

  “Will you champion for the Old Law?”

  “You’re a tool, Cynthia. But yes. And be warned, it is my turn to win—despite my pain in the neck.”

  “Your turn? What might that mean?”

  “Oh come now, Cy,” William says. “May I call you Cy? You don’t recall my magic trick? The bit with those precious leaves? The trick that has yet to be played upon you? Well, let us recollect together. To do this we should take a short look back on one of your many popular biographical moments: you, slithering about in the limbs of the aptly named Tree of Life. Let it not be said that you’ve never had an interest in botany. Goodness, you have, without a doubt. Especially the forbidden kind—the kind of plants and fruits that some claim created Hell and damnation. At least that is what Eve might say, and has she got a bone to pick with you over the whole affair! And so it goes that you’ve not given up on that nefarious little hobby of yours—wanting to taste a little of that magic plant—wanting a piece of what was forbidden—so you persevered.

  “Thanks to my loving mother, I’ve an in with the aforementioned tree, or at least a distant seedling relative—and when last you and I met, I pulled my full stren
gth abracadabra bit upon you and your rather unsavory crew, and managed to prevent you from getting your dirty mitts on it. Tell me you remember,” William burps. “Perhaps I shouldn’t go into too much detail. There exists a very real possibility of damaging not only the future, but more important, the magician’s creed: never share the illusion’s secret—or, if you prefer, keep safe the prestige. I can see this has you frustrated. Don’t be too troubled. In time, you’ll remember, though I dare say, by then, it will be too late. Or it will be the other way around.”

  He bends, seizes the bottle, rises, chirps the cork from the throat, pulls, packs the cork back, bends, and returns it to the wood slat beside his right foot.

  He blurts out, “My, my, how wonderfully befuddling to speak of a shared experience as both memory and predestination. There should be a word for such a puzzling quagmire. Oh, let’s gather and surmise, shall we? Let me think.”

  William lays a finger along his chin and considers. Cynthia continues to circle her prey. She has given no response, nor has any expression appeared on her face save that of complete control. But Loche senses a mask hiding a profound and seething contempt.

  “The word must encompass a paradoxical truth, yes?” Greenhame deadpans. “Promises to be tricky.” He brightens with mock enlightenment, “How about, impossible? Yes, Impossible. What we are yearning to define is, I suppose, for the most part, impossible. One of those rare words lacking vicissitude, for it rests firmly in that dreaded absolute category. I’m not one who appreciate absolutes, of course, save in matters of love, perhaps. I will always love love, you see. Always.” A tender smile spreads, “As George would say, Stupid crazy.” He nods determinedly, “I say that this vexing conundrum betwixt you and me should be called, impossible. And yet, I dare say, it may not be that in truth. Ah, here we are, Cy, you and I, twisting together on the wheel of time. How we circle back…”

  Cynthia, still pacing a gentle gyre, says, “You know nothing of impossible.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” William says, his attention straying to the scotch bottle, then to the crowd, “especially given present company.” He addresses the audience, “You know, impossible?” and then rattles off the word impossible in several different languages, Greek, Chinese, French, Arabic, and others. Loche hears them each articulated, though in his mind, the maddening meaning of impossible, impossible, impossible pounds against his reason.

  “And speaking of impossible,” Greenhame segues with a lilt, “do you truly believe that killing this boy will set any of you free?” He faces Cynthia. “Free…whatever that may mean? This is, of course, the year of your lordlings, 1010, and while I must accept that cleverness and simple intelligence for you and your hooligan host is challenged at best, you cannot tell me that by simply ending Thi’s mortal life here, such an act will eliminate Thi from the continuum of existence. If so, I must suggest that we spend some time discussing the definition of impossible.”

  Cynthia replies, “As I’ve said, Itonalya, you know nothing of impossible. And clearly, you know nothing of the Old Law—”

  “Come, come,” Greenhame says, waving her off with his left hand and raising his sword with his right. “Let’s not bandy words—ah, you likely have never played the game of bandy. No. Not yet. A game a few centuries from now that will involve batting a ball back and forth. Much later it will be called tennis. To bandy words means… Oh never mind.” Greenhame shakes his head with a kind of humored frustration.

  “But you speak true. I am Itonalya. The Earth’s chosen guard. I am Melgia. I am no crossing deity. I am no trespassing god come to leech upon Thi’s masterwork. I am no seraph sent to deviate humankind from their intended course—beauty and truth. I am no fucking Devil, Cymachena, like you, you misguided bitch, a killer of innocence in the name of your Old Law. I’m the New Law. As one of my sons might have said, ‘Fuck that shit, I’m the big, deep heavy!’”

  Corey’s voice from behind hisses, “Now! Get Edwin out through the east door!”

  Where It Leads

  November 11, this year

  Upper Priest Lake, Idaho

  7:21 pm PST

  Astrid reaches for Marcel’s hand. His fright tingles in the air around her, and she can almost hear his synapses crackling and arching their electrical charges between reason and utter disbelief. From under the cover of the dark tree-line, Marcel and Astrid have just witnessed three people disappear into thin air, Dr. Marcus Rearden, Dr. Graham Cremo and Queen Yafarra. It is certain that neither witness could readily process the sight without a mental wrestling match.

  With her other hand, Astrid lifts the cell phone she had miraculously kept from being confiscated. She lowers it down to hide the illuminated screen and notes the time: 7:21pm. “A half hour or so and we can follow,” she whispers. She then smiles sadly, looking back up to the anomalous structure, “but no tea…”

  Surrounding the fifteen meter high pyramid are a half dozen armed security personnel along with their supervising officer, Lynn Eastman. Her hands are on her hips.

  Just before the three travelers crossed the top Astrid heard Eastman tell them, “Walk slowly, and carefully.” Then, as they vanished, both Astrid and Eastman muttered, almost simultaneously, “I’ll be damned.”

  Graham was not conscious when the trio crossed. He had been hoisted to the height on a stretcher by two burly security guards. At the top, they balanced him in between Rearden and Yafarra and stepped down. The three vanished a moment later.

  And at that moment, Marcel asked a poignant question, “What the fuck?”

  “Precisely,” Astrid had answered.

  Marcel’s question was repeated several times while they hiked up to the clearing upon which they now stand. Along the way, Astrid told him everything—from the Grant Board meeting earlier that morning, to Yafarra, to Rearden, to the Red Notebook, to Graham, to her potential murder. Between her gasps for breath along the uphill game trail, she could hear him whispering over and over, “What the fuck.” And as if her tale wasn’t enough—as if Wyn Avuqua unearthed wasn’t sufficient, the fifteen meter high apex the of the whispered pyramid of the Sun or Dellithion omvide is a stone’s throw away, and three figures just vanished as they crossed its top.

  Two large earth-moving machines are silhouetted against the sky like sleeping dinosaurs. A single wall tent and a few work lamps illuminate the newly discovered dig site. Along the opposite border of the clearing are three security vehicles.

  Marcel asks, “So, that was Rearden, your Graham, and…”

  “Yafarra.”

  Marcel nods. “Yafarra.”

  “Yafarra,” Astrid says again.

  “The Queen Yafarra, daughter of Althemis Falruthia of Vastiris. That Yafarra?” Marcel asks.

  “The one and only,” Astrid agrees.

  “What the fuck?”

  Lynn Eastman is still standing at the base with her hands on her hips watching. “I’ll be damned,” Astrid hears her say. She then turns toward the tent and calls out to her team, “Let’s get back to it.”

  Astrid scans through the blurry light. The guards disperse and walk back to the two vans parked beside a temporary path cutting through the glade. From what Astrid can see, the path looks treacherous and tricky to navigate. Eastman lingers a little longer and takes an appraising glance around the clearing. When her gaze returns to the pyramid she starts walking slowly to the vehicles. A few minutes later, the vans start down through the narrow fissure. Their red tail lights blink and fade in the trees.

  The night is moonless. Faint starlight blues the newly exposed stones of the pyramid. Astrid’s body is frozen at the sight. A breath of wind combs the upper treetops.

  Marcel says, “Can we just stare at this for a few hours? It is just as the Elders said. The spirits are with us. But I can’t figure out how we missed it. How? How did we miss this?”

  Astrid puzzles. “I don’t know,” she says after a pause.

  “We were just here, Professor.”

  “Yes.
”

  “How could we have missed…” Marcel’s voice trails off. A moment later he asks, “Where do you think that omvide leads?”

  Astrid purses her lips and squints at the peak. Where? To the mystery of Albion Ravistelle? To Albion’s home—Italy? Venice? To the Red Notebook? The unequivocal proof to her life’s work? To a deeper labyrinth? To their death?

  But Astrid feels a truer answer. It comes in the form of a quickening pulse, a change in her breathing, and a surge of adrenaline. She translates the answer to words, “It leads to Graham.”

  Othayr

  1010 A.D.

  The Realm of Wyn Avuqua

  When Cynthia’s thrusting sword blurs and is parried by William, the collective roar of the host lances painfully into Loche’s injured ear. He vaults forward, pushed by both his own volition and the shoving crowd jostling for a better view. The contingent of regal guards surrounding the stage, Etheldred among them, have now turned to the fray and are crying for blood. Colliding with the chest-high platform, Loche attempts to thread his body downward between the shoving weight of the bodies behind him and the rough timbered edge of the stage. With some effort he drops and rolls underneath. Squinting through the slats of light, he sees that the space is just high enough to crawl on all fours, and he scuttles across the distance. He halts just below his son’s bier and peers up through the boards. Edwin is there; one of his little arms dangling. Surrounding Loche on all sides is a wall of stomping heavy boots and armored lower legs. After a moment’s consideration as just how he might pry his way out of the maddening throng he is suddenly astonished at a random, fleeting memory. A memory from his younger days, college perhaps—an experience that Basil Fenn would surely appreciate, when, at a riotous rock concert in Spokane, Washington, seeing a band blaring out an aggressive mixture of infectious rock hooks punctuated with dual drummers and a wicked horn section—a group called Black Happy—he recalls his body being pressed against the front row rail while the rapturous audience behind knocked him down. All he could see was feet jockeying for position. Certain that he would not escape being trampled to death, or at least, being injured badly, Loche concluded that the only way to rise up was to become one with the crowd and mosh. Moshing, was the frenzied, primatial dance of the period, the mid to late 1990s. To Loche, and to most, the ritual resembled more of a gang fight than a dance.