by T. S. Mann
Now angry, Doc crossed his arms over his face and said something in French. In response, a silver armor appeared out of nowhere to encase his body and cover his face, and a silver longsword to match it grew from his hand. At first, Mother Eagle was amazed that he would dare to challenge her to a sword fight, but she soon saw that he was a much better swordsman than she'd ever imagined.
For nearly a minute, they dueled with mortal swordsmanship augmented by the advantages of strangeness but without casting any hexes at one another. And to her chagrin, Doc soon had the advantage and was forcing her into increasingly desperate defensive moves.
But then, she realized that she had been tricked, and her Third Eye revealed the truth. This was not Doc she was fighting. It was a corporeal manifestation of the idea of swordsmanship summoned by his magic and given temporary control over his physical body. With that realization, she danced away out of his reach and then held her sword up to the heavens as she called upon the Paragon to expel the spirit Doc had summoned.
It cost a good bit of juice, but she was able to instantly exorcise the spirit, leaving Doc staggered and unarmed. She ran towards him to press her advantage, but Doc was both faster and more desperate. He focused all his remaining juice into a single overpowering attack and flung it in her direction before she could dodge.
To her dismay, the spell was strong enough to bypass her shields. The gym and dueling circle faded away as she was suddenly trapped in a memory. Not just a traumatic flashback as before, but an actual memory she was forced to relive as if it were real. And while it was not as harrowing as the fire that took her sight and made her a Stranger, it was a far worse memory.
It was the day she lost Brendan.
***
April, 2002. With the assistance of an independent mercenary Stranger who called himself The Cowboy, the Church had been conducting a raid against an antiques dealer suspected of trafficking in cursed and anomalous art objects.
Unfortunately, one of those antiques had been misidentified during the investigatory phase, and what was thought to be a minor anomaly turned out to be a Rank 4 demon that had been bound and trapped in the form of a gargoyle statue, one that had unfortunately been released accidentally during the raid.
The paladins at the scene chose to make pursuit of the demon a priority over checking to see if anyone had been affected by the creature’s awakening. This was in accordance with standard Church protocols. In hindsight, however, their priorities were completely wrong.
Because John Sullivan went strange that day.
And by the time the Church became aware of his strangeness, he’d already caused anomalous incidents all over town as part of his futile and catastrophic efforts to reconnect with his wife and children.
Worse, he’d somehow won the support of Dr. Parker Ellington, the head of Boston’s Invisible College chapter, and Ellington had persuaded Father Condor (the former leader of the Boston congregation) that it was important to take Sullivan alive rather than follow Church doctrine.
To be fair, there were no signs of corruption by the Adversary attending Sullivan’s strangeness. And to be scrupulously fair – as Father Condor usually tried to be – it was arguably the Church’s fault that Sullivan had gone strange due to their botched raid.
Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and Sullivan’s obstinate refusal to accept that his pre-Insight life was over soon led to disaster. Three days after going strange, Sullivan attended his own funeral and opened his own coffin … only to find a crack in the universe waiting inside.
The result was a Stage 4 Cataclysm, a near-total collapse of local Reality. Worse, it seemed poised to grow quickly in intensity and scope, with the potential to become a Stage 7 Cataclysm. To put that into proper context, under the Unity Blade’s nomenclature, there was no such thing as a Stage 8 Cataclysm, since a Stage 7 was enough to completely reconfigure the entire universe.
By this point in Mother Eagle’s memory, every Stranger in Boston had descended on St. Mark’s Church to lend their aid, but it would not be enough. Sister Eagle (as she was still known back then), Father Condor, and Dr. Ellington were near the focal point in front of the church, with a shell-shocked John Sullivan standing near.
As she relived the memory, Mother Eagle was amazed at how young both she and Ellington looked. Neither of them appeared older than 40. The experience that would turn him into an old man was still several years away. The experience that turned her into an old woman, however, was imminent.
As experienced as the first three were with the Beyond – between them they had nearly three centuries of life spent in strangeness – even they were speechless at the magnitude of the problem. St. Mark’s Church and the entire city block surrounding it were engulfed in a miasma of raw chaos. And it was only through the continual efforts of dozens of Strangers that the breach had not already exploded to cover all of Boston or further, rewriting every bit of Reality in its path in unpredictable ways.
“I … I did this?” Sullivan said dazedly.
“It wasn’t your fault, John,” Doc said softly without taking his eyes from the bubbling storm of pure insanity.
“Debatable,” Sister Eagle muttered under her breath. Meanwhile, Father Condor had completed a quick mystical analysis of the miasma.
“We’re not going to be able to contain it with the tactics we’re using now,” the man said grimly. “We need something stronger.” He hesitated. “I think we’ll need … sacrificial magic.”
Sister Eagle gasped. Sacrificial magic came in many forms, but against something like this, only one kind of sacrifice would work. “Father Condor! You can’t! The Church forbids human sacrifice, even in the face of world-ending events!”
He smiled at the woman who’d stood by his side for decades, the woman who’d come to love him as he loved her, despite the oaths they’d both taken that made a romantic relationship impossible.
“Not all human sacrifice is forbidden by doctrine, Sister Eagle. Self-sacrifice is perfectly fine.”
Sister Eagle looked up at him in shock. “… Brendan! No!” she whispered urgently. It was a testament to how stunned she was that she used his True Name. He’d told her in secret years before, but she’d never called him Brendan except when they were alone.
Sullivan was close enough to hear what was said, and with an audible gulp, he stepped forward.
“Alright, I did this. It’s my fault. So, if a sacrifice is needed … I volunteer. Just tell me what to do. And … look after my family, I guess.”
“Your courage does you credit, John,” said Ellington. “But being willing to die is not enough. You’re too new to all this. You’re not powerful enough for your death to weigh against the breach enough to close it. Plus, you don’t know enough about magic to focus your sacrifice properly.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. “Which is why it has to be ….”
“Morphia.”
Before Doc could finish his sentence, Father Condor had struck him and Sullivan from behind with a sleeping spell. They each dropped like a stone.
“Brendan?!?” Sister Eagle asked urgently. “What are you doing?”
He turned and smiled to her. “You know what I’m doing … Helen. Doc’s powerful, but not as powerful as I. So, I should be the sacrifice. My death would bring the greatest chance of closing the breach.”
“NO!” she cried out as she rushed towards him. He caught her and pulled her into an embrace.
“It’s not fair,” he said gently. “I know it, and I’m so sorry. But I took an oath to stand against the Adversary even at the cost of my own life. And now it’s time for that oath to be fulfilled.”
He looked into her eyes which were wet with tears. “There are so many things I always wanted to say to you, but I never found the nerve. Or the time. And now there’s no time left. So, I can only say this: I love you.”
He bent down to kiss her for the very first and very last time. Then he took a step back.
“We will
meet again. If not in this Reality, then in another. And next time, we’ll take the time to do things right.”
And with that, he turned and went for the miasma, calling out incantations as he ran. The woman screamed his name again and tried to follow only to realize that some subtle wordless spell he’d cast during their kiss had rooted her to the spot to prevent just such a suicidal action.
“Brendan!!!” she screamed again, as he disappeared into the Beyond.
***
And then, she screamed a third time. Only this one was in the here and now. And instead of grief, this scream was fueled by incandescent rage.
“DAMN YOU!” she shrieked as her power lashed out in all directions. The force of the blast picked Doc up off the ground and slammed him against the dueling circle’s barrier. But before he could slump to the floor, she pointed her blade at him before whipping it around in a fury.
In response, Doc was telekinetically picked up and hurled at the opposite wall. And then the ceiling. And then the floor, causing his defensive shields to finally collapse. When he showed signs of movement, Mother Eagle limped over to him, her blade glowing with killing magic and pointed directly at him.
“It … is … over, Ellington,” Mother Eagle growled as she pointed her blade at the wounded man on the floor. She was at once exhausted but also exultant. “It is over, and you have lost. I will give you this one chance. Surrender or die! Make your choice!”
Ellington looked up defiantly at his opponent. “I … choose … neither, Helen. And … you’re – cough – you’re wrong. I haven’t lost yet.” Then, to Mother Eagle’s surprise, Ellington smiled at her, and all the signs of injury and exhaustion seemed to melt away. “On the contrary, I already won this battle ages ago.”
At that surprising remark, Mother Eagle blinked …
***
… and found herself standing on the far side of the circle posed in the same stance she’d assumed at the start of the duel. The room was utterly silent, as all the observers seemed frozen in place.
Her confusion only increased when she looked up at Bartok’s timer which had begun counting down the duel’s one-hour time limit, only to be frozen halfway between 00:00 and 59:59. At the opposite side of the circle, Doc studied her calmly, his hands still locked in a mudra of contemplation.
“You were, naturally, well-prepared for the most common high-level psychic attacks, Helen. And in a duel against the average mind-wizard, your combat training would have given you an easy victory. But you fall to appreciate that the Psychic Axiom also governs our perception of time’s passage. And for a master psychomancer, there is no difference between subjective time and objective time.
“In the millisecond between the clock striking zero and you perceiving that the clock had struck zero, I created a temporal embolism. While you were effectively frozen between tick and tock, I had literally all the time in the world to bypass your own psychic defenses.”
He looked at her with an unusually cold expression for such a normally affable man.
“I could have killed you then and there, you know. Shut down your medulla oblongata with a thought. Instant death. But I was curious. After all these years, I wanted to know what you really thought of me. And how much you truly hated me for what happened to Brendan. So, I placed within your mind an idea – a scenario in which I would strike at you with all the attacks you expected me to use against you and with just enough power to make you work hard to defend yourself.”
He shook his head angrily. “For the record, Helen? Brendan was my friend too, just as you once were. And I would never use your memories of him as a weapon like that. Frankly, I am genuinely hurt that you think so little of ….”
Before Doc could finish his sentence, Mother Eagle screamed in fury and pointed her sword directly at him. “DIE!!!” Instantly, a blast of pure golden fire shot from her sword to engulf the psychomancer, one hot enough to melt steel … normally. Doc, however, just stood placidly in the heart of the inferno before finally ending it with a single word.
“No.”
The old woman staggered, her sword hand now shaking violently. “How?” she asked weakly. “How are you doing this? You couldn’t affect me at all with your peace-binding spell!”
He shrugged. “Things change quickly for Strangers, as you should well know. Harmful magic requires the Stranger to form a specific level of intent in spellcasting. And intent is something else that falls within the psychic purview. I simply prevented your desire to bring about my death from manifesting as a magical intent to kill.”
He grinned. “Or to put it in the words of one of my favorite philosophers: I rejected your reality and substituted my own.”
“Impossible!” Mother Eagle spat. “Not even a master psychomancer can interfere with another Stranger’s magical intentions!”
“That is quite true… of masters.”
A silence fell between the two, and Mother Eagle took a step back, suddenly concerned for the first time since the duel began. More than concerned – she was frightened. Her fingers went slack, and her sword fell to the ground.
“You … you have … surpassed mastery? You have Transcended.” There was a slight but unmistakable tremor in her voice.
“Yes,” Doc answered calmly. “In a way, I have you to thank for it. If the Church of the Unity Blade had been less … doctrinaire during this crisis we just resolved, I would not have been forced to confront certain … unsavory aspects of myself. My ego. My need for control. My disregard for the mental integrity of people who I judged to be less wise than myself. Seeing firsthand how your own autocratic tendencies finally led you to impose a death sentence against someone who I know you love like a daughter was the last epiphany I needed.”
“YOU CANNOT BE HERE!” she shrieked, ignoring his words completely. “You have become a direct conduit from the psychic plane into the Infrastructure! Your continued existence will degrade Reality just as surely as any beyonder or nephilim!”
“Helen,” he said placatingly. “I know. I know all that, and I don’t plan to stay. This duel represents the severing of all my ties to this plane of existence. I’m moving on now.”
Her forehead crinkled in confusion for a moment, and then she barked out a laugh.
“You knew when you offered terms for the duel, didn’t you! That even if you won, you would still be leaving your precious Invisible College behind!”
Doc shrugged casually. “Not entirely. After all, I’m not the first Collegian to Transcend. And I’m quite looking forward to meeting the legends of my order, the great magical-scientists who’ve gone before me. And hopefully, to those Strangers who are important to me joining me at some point.”
He tilted his head slightly and considered the woman who’d been both a friend and an enemy over the course of their long lives.
“Come with me,” he said invitingly.
Her eyes widened in shock. “Wh-what?”
“Come with me into the Superstructure. To dimensions of pure thought and emotion and belief. To realms of infinite possibility. You were once further along this path than I, back before Brendan died, and you let your grief consume you.”
“N-no,” she said uncertainly. “My congregation needs me!”
“Now see, that was my problem too. The College needs me. I’m the only one who can hold it together. It will fall apart without me. That’s ego talking, nothing more.
“The Invisible College is an idea, just as the Doctrine of Unity is. Just as Mammonism and Continuity Theory are. And an idea is always stronger than any single proponent of it. The Invisible College will continue without me. Maybe not in Boston. Who knows what the future holds?
“But I have faith in Widget and Bryce. Just as I know you have faith in those you’ve trained to follow in your steps. Whatever the future holds, it belongs to the young. It’s time for fossils like us to cede the playing field of Reality to the next generation.”
At that Mother Eagle grew angry. “No, no! There’s too mu
ch at stake! The Adversary constantly strives against us, whether you see it or not! I cannot abandon my oaths! The Unity Blade is Reality’s best defense against the forces that wish to tear it apart!”
Doc chuckled and shook his head. “Well, first of all, I bet the Ministry of Continuity would have something to say about who is Reality’s best defense.?”
“But as for the rest – Helen, you want to fight the Adversary! The Superstructure represents the front line in that battle! Who’s to say you can’t do more to defend Reality out there than you accomplish here by sending kill squads after every stray vampire or werewolf who wanders into Boston.”
Mother Eagle gave him a dirty look at his critique of her order’s activities, but the man simply smiled warmly and held out his hand. She took a step towards him and reached out with her own only to pause and draw it back suddenly.
“Ellington … Joe? Do you … do you think Brendan might somehow be alive out there after all these years?”
“There’s magic out there beyond our comprehension, Helen. Anything is possible.”
She smiled warmly for the first time in years and gingerly took the hand of her friend-and-enemy who could have killed her with a thought (literally) but instead offered her both mercy and grace.
And then, they were gone.
CHAPTER 20:
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
Three seconds earlier…
0:03
0:02
0:01
The clock struck zero, and the duel commenced … and immediately ended. As the numbers rolled over to 59:59, Doc and Mother Eagle instantly vanished from within the circle. The only sign of their former presence was the old woman’s short sword which clattered to the floor.
Simultaneously, the runes on the protective barrier flowed and shifted once more, reorienting themselves on the side of the circle where Doc had been standing and forming an occult pattern which told everyone present (even those who couldn’t understand the runes) that Doc had won.
