by Dan Glover
"One day the oceans will boil away, just before the sun engulfs the earth and burns us to a crisp."
He recalled Lady Lauren's lament on the demise of all life on the planet. She had become morose since Lady Lily had left Orchardton Hall to live by herself. Though he knew some rift had come between the Ladies he had no idea how to fix it and so he left them alone.
Surfacing three kilometers from the beach with Ena by his side, he kissed her and grinned before whispering words of love into her auditory organ, the only sort of talk he knew.
"I'm not that old, little girl. I can still beat you to the shore."
Chapter 1 9—Magic Carpet Ride
She remembered the dragons coming for her.
She had pushed Natalia away to save her from the swarm but she shoved her much harder than she intended. As her lover slammed into the wall and slumped to the floor Lily rushed to her aid the same moment a dark cloud swept into the room carrying her away on wings of wrought iron.
Now, Lily was caught in a spider web. Her arms and legs were melded into the sticky steel fibers that comprised an intricate mesh stretching as far as her eyes could see. They were in the clouds moving with a rapidity that indicated she was dreaming and yet try as she might she couldn't wake.
She feared where they were going.
Malevolence permeated the air around her as a hissing sound dominated her senses. The atmosphere was fetid, redolent of a diseased mind sending out its vaporous tendrils to encompass all it perceived. She knew she would be questioned and what's more she realized her answers would be forthright and truthful if only to avoid the putrid longing that was awaiting her arrival.
She worried about Natalia, whether the dragons devoured her or left her alone. She hoped by pushing her lover away from her the girl was spared yet she feared Natalia's presence might have attracted the swarm.
The waves of hate rolling off Lauren startled her. She knew Lauren never approved of her seeing her son, Bilbla, but she didn’t understand the depths of that dissatisfaction until she showed up at her door with Natalia.
Though she had desired nothing more than to rush into both her lovers arms Lily had held back knowing her presence presented a danger to everyone around her. Something was coming for her and if anyone else happened to be in her vicinity they too might be snatched away.
She sensed she was high over the sea.
When she attempted to struggle against the restrains holding her in place, the tendrils only tightened around her wrists and her ankles. She vaguely remembered hearing Natalia tell Russian stories of Ivan the Fool using magic carpets to transport himself instantaneously from one spot to another. This was different yet the results would doubtlessly be much the same.
She was the fool.
She was clearly being taken on a journey. She sensed great speed and yet the air around her was still, stagnant as a scummed-over pond, and becoming increasingly difficult to breathe as her gills fluttered uselessly attempting to extract extra oxygen. The sun was but a gray ball hidden beneath a cloak of terror. She felt as if she was being pricked by a billion tiny pins all over her body. The pain wasn’t overwhelming at first but as the trip continued on it became all she could think of.
The thought burst into her head that she was being kidnapped for a second time in her life, and this time she would not escape as easily as the first time. Her former captors, Hector and Karen, were mere human beings. This time she was being taken by something far more dangerous.
She knew Micah waited at the end of this journey. Though she never met the vicious creature during their trip to old New York City, she listened as Karen described him and his obsession with tiny machines he called nanobots.
Instinct told her this was what the dragons were composed of: myriad particles comprised of metallic clouds capable of assuming any form they wished. They were sent for her. Like Hector and Karen, Micah desired to learn the secret of the immortality she carried in her bloodstreams. Like them, she knew he would fail to find what he sought.
Human beings were incredibly dull and stupid, even the most intelligent. They ruined everything they touched, even each other. To her, it was a marvel they had managed to survive as long as they did. If not for the Lake Fever spreading around the world, they would have surely destroyed themselves by now anyway.
The earth would have shaken them off like the slow creeping virus they were. The human beings she had the misfortune of meeting didn’t seem to understand that the planet upon which they lived and breathed was as alive as they were... that it too could become infuriated when aroused by malfeasances great and small.
Most humans seemed intent upon subduing the earth... they believed it was their birthright. Even though they shared the planet with countless millions of other life forms, human beings seemed ignorant of the suffering caused by their constant pillaging.
They had driven her people from the Lake by dumping their poisons into it and had continued to desecrate the rest of the planet. If left to their own devices, she was certain the humans wouldn’t have been satisfied until they had fouled every square inch of both and water while all the while proclaiming how much better it was than before.
They had lived in a paradise without ever realizing it.
She remembered a discussion she had with Karen while they were sailing home from old America. Lily had wondered if any or all of them were infected with the tiny machines that caused the affliction suffered by the three scientists they saved.
"Just by being there we were all exposed to Micah's nanobots, sweet Lily. Something about the presence of Lake people negates their power, however. You paid daily visits to the vicinity of Cornell University because you feared I would begin to suffer Lake Syndrome and die... is that right?"
"Of course I did, darling Karen. I hated having to leave you there but we were all in terrible danger. We did what we were told. Otherwise we might have all died."
"By doing so, you not only saved my life, lovely Lily, but you restored the four men living in that building to their former selves. Micah used his nanobots to survive the Great Dying but the side effects were more than he counted on."
"Why did he let you go, sweet Karen?"
"I think he became human again and with that change he felt guilty for keeping me there against his will. He asked me to stay with him. He was terribly lonely. But he said he wouldn’t force me into doing something against my will. I left before he could change his mind.
"I'm afraid that after we departed old New York City, he'd revert to what he was before we arrived: a monster. When that happens, his heart will harden again. We must take care never to return to old America. That is his domain now."
Now, she was returning.
She had dreamed of an iron landscape filled with seething cauldrons of hissing hatred. Everything was gray, dead, and diseased. The life had been sucked out of the soil itself replaced by particles of silicon intent upon replicating and becoming better, always better.
She hoped no one came for her though she feared Nate the shining knight of her nights would come, riding over the ocean armed with certitude yet lacking in strength to oppose this evil invading the world.
She had done everything in her power to push him away, to kill any spark of love he once harbored for her. Though it had killed her spirit, she also pushed away Lauren and Natalia knowing full well they too might mount a rescue.
If this was her destiny, then she must be prepared to face it alone.
Though Micah might well feel he had the upper hand, he did not reckon on the wisdom of a million years. Lily had lived through far worse scourges than this. She was ready to deal with him and his menacing machines in a way he never imaged possible.
She laid back and enjoyed the first magic carpet ride of her life.
Chapter 20—Death
His grip upon reality had always been tenuous at best.
Kāne was at home here in deep inside the jungle. His days were spent creating masterful works of art no one wo
uld ever gaze upon while his nights were filled with dreams of solitude. He had no desire to ever leave this sanctuary yet he knew he could be yanked away with but a thought.
After leaving Edinburgh Castle he'd traveled to back Orchardton Hall more out of habit than anything. He had fallen too easily into old patterns still engrained in his psyche from the long ages of dwelling beneath Lake Baikal.
"Lily isn't here, my precious son."
"Who?"
The name seemed to reflect off the wall of his memory without taking hold as most all his past moments had a way of doing. Once someone was out of his presence he forgot they ever existed. He wouldn’t remember his own mother if not for the vibrations she put off.
"Lady Lily was your first love, my darling son."
Her words meant nothing more to him than the wind whipping across the white-crested waves on the ocean. He knew he didn’t belong among the living yet he dreaded the dead.
"I am leaving, mother."
"I know, my sweet son. Take care that you do not loose your way completely. Return to me when you can."
The leaving was easy but for the nagging thought of Daughter. He remembered her. It was an odd feeling for him, the memory of a loved one no longer by his side. She cried when he told her he was going yet she did not try to stop him.
"Why do you have to go so far away, my precious Father? Who will feed you and care for you?"
He realized he was an imposition upon others. Like a child, he hadn’t the skill to cook a meal or to wash out his dirty clothes. He was uncouth in both movement and his presence.
He wanted to explain to Daughter the reason for his leaving yet he couldn’t remember what it was. He only knew he had decided and once the decision was made it was inalterable.
The past was a blank and the future something he could never know. He understood this viscerally. It had always been that way for him... regret was as foreign as his childhood.
So far as he knew, he had come into the world fully formed, a rock fallen from a storm-shrouded sky. Though he sensed his mother she too was no more than a vagrant, a teller of lies made sweet to lull him into staying where he was not welcomed.
He knew what the others thought of him. On the surface they treated him kindly but their thoughts betrayed the ill will hidden there without them ever knowing. He wanted to belong and perhaps he might if only he could shut off the cacophony of screeches emanating from the minds of his tormentors.
Daughter alone soothed his being. If he could make her happy he would stay. Yet he knew her destiny was forever sundered from his. She was a light in the darkness of his world and his presence would only serve to dull that illumination into the deepening dread of his own psyche.
His presence caused others to flounder. No one had to tell him that. He wondered if it was the same with all males of his species. The Ladies were so giving yet all he did was take. If he could hold but one thought in his head he might change his world for the better yet even that was too much. It was there and then gone leaving nothing behind, not even a trace of its being.
Learning for him was impossible yet his artwork called out to him. Still, once finished, it too fell by the wayside and in a day when he gazed upon the finished product it was as if someone else had created it.
He was a feral thing in the midst of the domesticated, a beast come in from the wilderness trailing fear and disgust in his wake. Here in the ever-present heat of the equatorial sun he could feel the memories melting from his body like water pouring from his pores.
He spoke to the beasts of the jungle and they in turn kept their distance from him, shy and recalcitrant at approaching him. The big cats black as night peered down with their jade eyes from perches high in the treetops as he walked familiar paths as well as the unknown ones in search of tiny treasures to make use of in his artwork.
They paid him the strictest of attention as if gauging the goodness of his meat yet when he stroked them with his mind they settled down to sleep. He wondered if they might dream like he did.
In his sleep Kāne took on myriad shapes: birds, jaguars, even hyenas. He often saw his sleeping body lying prone on the ground exposed to the night but when he shouted out a warning to himself all he heard was the screech of a ravenous animal with a hunger for flesh.
He felt safe in the jungle, sheltered and secure amid the stench of rotting vegetation and the canopy high overhead holding in the heat and moisture while blotting out the sun. The stinging and biting insects that he saw troubling the other creatures into insanity did not so much as alight upon him. Perhaps they sensed the parasites that made such hideous display when aroused or maybe they simply did not relish the taste of his flesh.
The pair of giant Buddhas he carved out of limestone bluffs overlooking the great river that brought him here were nearly finished. He planned on coating their surface with a glaze of bronze which he imagined might extend their lives beyond the few years they might expect otherwise. The daily downpours of drenching rains did wonders for his spirits and the lush jungle but millimeter by millimeter the face of the cliff was washed away taking with it the Buddhas' visages.
The temporal nature of the world seemed strange and yet comforting too... everything was born with its own demise melded into its shape... even him. Though he couldn’t remember coming into the world he had no visions of immortality. He knew viscerally that his death was right beside him.
"Grandmother Lily says we are immortal beings who will go on living even after the sun goes out and the oceans freeze. Do you think so too, Father?"
He didn’t want to dash Daughter's hopes on eternal life yet he knew he could never lie to the girl. She saw the answer written on his brow before the words formed in his mind. Still, he had to speak.
"Your Grandmother Lily has always been the idealist. She sees the world through a bright light that has gone dark for me. I believe the fire that burns inside all living beings burns on even when the log of the body has been consumed."
"I'm not sure what you mean, sweet Father. Do you mean like ghosts?"
"What are ghosts, darling Daughter?"
"The People believe that the spirits of the dead live on as disembodied beings that are called ghosts. They haunt the places where they died, or where they lived and loved."
"This seems a strange notion, my lovely Daughter. The fire I speak of is not a disembodied being. Rather, it is that which has no corporality. It alights anew and once again burns brightly yet there is no memory of that which has gone before."
"You're talking about reincarnation, right, my precious Father?"
"If I understand you rightly, reincarnation means the re-emergence of life once it has passed away into the great unknown. You may be correct in assuming this is what I mean, my darling Daughter, though that may pertain to the beliefs of humanity more than to the people of the Lake."
"Are you frightened of dying, sweet Father? I am."
"I die each night when unconsciousness overcomes my mind and I fall into the abyss of sleep, my precious Daughter. There is nothing to fear."
Chapter 21—Star Dreaming
The anti-gravity unit would not function properly.
Nate had been over the schematics a thousand times. Everything was aligning as it should. The circuit boards all tested fine and the current running through them was at the optimal limit for the unit.
He had hopes of ironing out the wrinkles before Ronald and Freddi returned from the Isle of Skye where they are visiting with Pete. Ronald was positive the diametric drive they had constructed would work without the theoretically requisite disjunctive element requiring a separate power source to drive the unit. Though his equations all seemed to confirm his hypothesis Nate was no longer sure.
The work was consuming such a great deal of time he couldn't spend his days and nights with his wives and family as he once did. He knew Ginger and Amanda understood his obsession and yet he also realized there was only so much leeway they would allow him before they decided to confront
him.
Kirk was a worry too.
He missed the times they used to spend together, how Kirk never made any demands on him like the rest of the people in his life seemed to do. There were times when he longed to take all his work and dump it into the sea, to forget about it, to go back to being a normal person... not someone fixated on reaching the stars and the planets whirling overhead. He had lost the person who used to be just Nate and he missed him.
"If you manage to get this anti-gravity device to work, sweet Nate, what will you do with it?"
He didn’t know how to answer Ginger.
He understood she detested Kirk and for good cause. Part of the reason Nate withdrew from his old friend was in an effort to placate the lovers in his life. On the other hand, he couldn't help but notice how her eyes glazed over when he tried to talk to her about some of his interests. Though he loved Ginger with both his hearts he knew her curiosities and his would forever be sundered.
"We plan on sending probes to the nearest star systems, darling Ginger."
"Why?"
He had no answer. He could tell her that one day the Earth would be devoured by a sun gone wild but he doubted Ginger would consider that far off future to be worthy of concern today. She would of course be right.
She was a simple girl and yet the depth of her knowledge was profoundly troubling. Ginger had a way of surveying a scene—any scene—and knowing the outcome within but a moment. He had heard of a thing called woman's intuition and long ago decided Ginger had more than her share of it.
Still, ever since they returned from old America Nate had been troubled by recurrent dreams of metallic dragons coming ever closer to Orchardton Hall. The storms they threatened to bring were not of rain and lightening but rather forgetfulness and sleep, not only for him but all his wives, his friends, his family, and his progeny.
Though he tried to push the thoughts of Micah and his tiny machines from his mind Nate couldn't help but believe the man and his minions had plans to not only dominate the old Western hemisphere but the entire world. Would they even stop there?
