The Sin of Moloch

by Andrew Gordinier

  “How do you feel?” The second voice sounded concerned and caring, but again Radha couldn’t remember the owner's name.

  Radha forced her eyes open. She saw two familiar faces against a background of green and light, but could not place their names right away. “I hurt.” She said.

  “I can imagine you do.” Radha slowly realized this voice belonged to Yvonne, her friend Yvonne. The thought of it made her smile.

  “Thirsty,” Radha mumbled weakly.

  “Here, let me help you sit up, and we’ll get you some water.” Radha knew this shadows name now too, Deanna. They helped her upright, and she felt a plastic bottle put to her lips, she weakly grabbed it and drank. The water tasted gritty and was warm, but it slaked her thirst. As she sat there looking around her at the jungle, she took a moment to enjoy the gentle breeze across her shoulders and skin.

  “How do you feel?” Deanna asked while putting the cap back on the bottle.

  “My chest hurts when I breathe.” Radha said, putting a hand over her heart, her skin felt hot and gritty. “I need a bath.”

  “We all do.” Said Yvonne with a gentle laugh. “Now, let me have a look at those cuts.” Yvonne gently pulled away Radha’s hand and very gently started examining the area around Radha’s collar bone. Radha looked down and was horrified to see that she had ugly wounds along her collar bone and that she was mostly topless. Radha gasped and hurried to cover herself as she struggled to remember where the wounds came from. Covering herself with her shirt was pointless, it was shredded. One of the straps on her bra had been cut, so it wasn’t perfect, but she felt better.

  “Radha, relax. Said Yvonne in a soothing tone. “You’re safe, it’s dead.” Radha’s mind took a moment to think about those words, about the wounds on her chest. Slowly the memory of the attack surfaced in her mind. It did nothing to calm her, but a simple important question escaped her; “How?”

  “I got a shot off at it when it was leaping at you, wounded it but didn’t kill it. Yvonne managed to shoot it after you knocked her over.” Deanna nodded towards Yvonne.

  “I figured there was no point in trying to get out from under, but I managed to get my gun around and pushed it right into the jaguar's face.” Yvonne said it calmly, but her shoulders were slumped, and she seemed to be searching for something to do with her hands.

  Radha was at a total loss for what to say or how to act. Slowly she saw through the fog of shock and trauma. “I owe you both my life.” She whispered with a choked voice and tears forming. “I owe you both my life.” She said again more clearly before hugging Deanna and Yvonne.

  Deanna smiled and wiped away a few stray tears, Yvonne started to gently weep, her eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth pressed into a thin line. Radha let go from the hug, but Yvonne clung to her tightly. Deanna noticed, rubbed Yvonne’s back, and told her it was all right. An almost explosive sob escaped Yvonne, she let go of Radha and covered her face. There were streaks of Radha’s blood on Yvonne’s shirt. As they tried to comfort Yvonne, Radha and Deanna exchanged glances. The night had been traumatic, but they had survived, and Radha sensed that this was the release of something deeper and stronger.

  After a time, her uncontrollable sobbing subsided, but Yvonne still shook, and when she spoke, her voice was weak. “I’ve never killed anything before, I thought I would feel bad, I never thought I could kill. Is this what he made me? Is this what that son of a bitch made me into?”

  “You saved my life, it was truly an act of self-defense.” Radha didn’t know what else to say.

  “No one has made you into anything!” Deanna said as she gently pulled Yvonne’s hands from her face. “What he did to you was cruel and inhuman. Radha is right, this was self-defense-“

  “No, but I know now…” Yvonne closed her eyes and looked away. “I know now I could kill him. I know I WANT to kill him. For all that he’s done to me, and I wish I were big enough to say for the others too, but I want his fucking blood on my hands! I want his blood and screams for me!” Yvonne shook more heavily as she began to sob again. “And, that makes me a monster too.”

  “No,” Radha said gently but forcibly. “You’re not a monster, you have survived something I can’t even imagine. I can only guess at what he has done to you, and I want to kill him too.”

  “If anything, it makes you human and sane.” Added Deanna gently.

  Yvonne looked back and forth between her two friends with tears streaking her face, and all her scars visible to the sunlight. “I don’t believe you, I want to, I think I should. But, it is not how I feel.” She paused. “I feel evil, selfish, and… hungry.” A faint smile flashed across her face.

  “That sounds human to me.” Said Deanna with a laugh. “At least today, we have meat and not bugs.”

  “You want to eat the jaguar?” Radha was not appalled so much as she was surprised that it sounded good.

  “Sure, I bet it tastes like chicken.”

  “You’ve had better jokes.” Radha smiled.

  “If you want to be critical, then you do the comic relief. I’m running out of material.”

  “If my x-boyfriend were here, I know what he would joke about.” Yvonne said with a weak smile.

  “Ugh, that’s all guys joke about, and not one of them knows how to do it right.” Deanna said with disgust. She got up and started going through their supplies, looking for a knife.

  “I think I might have hit my head too hard last night because I don’t get it.” Said Radha.

  “Eating pussy.” Said Deanna as she went to work trying to butcher the jaguar.

  It still wasn’t funny to Radha, and she was getting sick of the sex jokes.

  Chapter 34

  “Things are getting out of hand, aren’t they?” Conrad said in an offhand manner to the European Emissary Lacharte as he poured him a fresh cup of tea.

  “I can’t help but agree. Though, it is not our fault that things have moved so far so fast.” Lacharte sipped his tea and smiled. “Excellent tea, Conrad. Ginger something?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Eric took a liking to it a while back and has kept it stocked in the kitchen. I simply raid it from time to time.” Conrad added sugar to his own cup.

  “I’ll have to ask him on the way out then.”

  “I’m sure he would be happy to point you to where you can get more. As for our current dilemma, I believe there is a peaceful way out of this.”

  “You and your rogue mages could surrender.”

  “Only to find ourselves at the mercy of Censors, and returned to a pointlessly brutal form of government. No.”

  “There isn’t much of an option then.” Lacharte sipped his tea in an attempt to hide a small smile.

  “There is one option, we call a grand conclave.”

  “That hasn’t been done since ancient times, and even then, it was mostly ceremonial.”

  “Yes.” Conrad set his cup on the table. “But, I think it is time we made an effort to resolve this before we embroil the world in a war that it will not recover from. As it is, the economic situation is ruining the lives of everyday people.”

  “Everyday people? What about the family fortunes of mages that you and your rebels have plundered through economic sanctions?” The emissary said with a scowl.

  “How many is that? Count them on your fingers and tell me. I am talking about thousands and millions of lives that our actions impact, and you sit here counting your pennies! Have you no soul?”

  “Your appeals to humanity are not wasted, but I can only worry about what I can control and influence.”

  “What you are paid to influence.”

  “You know as well as I do that as a Regent and Emissary I am not paid-“

  “Not directly, but you receive influence, power, and prestige from your position. If you are doing this because you enjoy it… I return to my assertion that you have no soul.”

  “So, we are to seek peace for the betterment of our fellow man? Clearly, you don’t watch the news, precious
few of them care about each other.”

  “You would think that was the case, but I don’t see it that way. I think the vast majority of humanity wants to be left in peace. Many of them find themselves pushed to violence by circumstances that are manufactured by their leaders, and others, for profit.”

  “And, you see mages as the leaders and manipulators of the world?”

  “How much stock do you own? Who are your friends in the government? What deals have you cut, and who do you hold influence over? There may not be many of us, but it only takes a few.”

  “And, a grand conclave will solve this how?”

  “I have something to offer, something that will change the balance of power. It can be either done through violence or peacefully.”

  “What can you conceivably offer that would change the balance of power so drastically?”

  “Power, the kind of which even mages have not seen.”

  Lacharte paused and looked at Conrad closely. Taking a moment to sip his tea. “There seems to be a hint of orange in the tea as well.”

  “Yes.”

  “We have heard rumors about why Mr. Carter has been so bold to go off-world. Is this part of the power you offer?”

  “I can’t say, but you should ask your Censors about that and look for your own answers.”

  “You know how they are.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

  “Every mage on the planet gathered in one place.” Lacharte mused as he set aside his empty teacup.

  “There aren’t so many of us. A large theater would hold everyone.”

  “And what is to prevent it from becoming an all-out battle then and there on the spot?”

  “Nothing but common sense.” Conrad said with a surprisingly straight face.

  “I’ll return to Geneva, and relay your request.”

  “One more thing.”

  “What else could there possibly be?”

  “A cooling of hostilities, no more aggressive moves till after the conclave. A show of good intention on both parts.”

  “That would seem reasonable, what do you have in mind?”

  “We release economic sanctions against each other and stop third party negotiations.”

  “Third-party?”

  “We know you have been approached by mages not directly involved in this. That they have offered support in various forms.” Conrad watched Lacharte carefully. “It would be in all our best interests if those negotiations were halted or called off.”

  “I don’t have any knowledge of that, but I will be happy to pass it along.” Lacharte held a stoic demeanor.

  “That is all I can ask of you.” Conrad smiled gently.

  Eric opened the door and escorted Lacharte out of the sitting room. Conrad allowed himself to enjoy the moment and waited patiently for Eric to return.

  “Why the hell did you tell him it was my tea?” Eric said with a gentle laugh.

  “I didn’t want him to know we had gotten it specifically for him.”

  “That’s fine, but next time the prick drinks coffee.” Eric took his usual seat across from Conrad. “So? Is it going to work?”

  “I think so. I find it a lamentable, but trustworthy, fact that greed is a universal constant.”

  “Now we just have to find that girl John was working with, and Radha. This is a long shot, Conrad.”

  “Yes, but the alternatives are dire.”

  “Dire?” Eric chuckled. “That is an understatement.”

  “I suppose it is.” Conrad wanted a real drink, and perhaps some rest. But, he still had work to do. “If you would be so kind as to contact the others and give them an update. We should make a show of peace as soon as possible, even if it is not immediately returned.”

  “I’ll make the calls. You should get some rest.”

  “I wish I could.” Conrad looked out the window and hoped that his long-shot was not the only chance that they had.

  Chapter 35

  John arrived well short of the location where Finley had arrived, a practice that John was getting used to, and annoyed with at the same time. This latest stop seemed to be a rogue planet. It had no moon, and there were no other planets or stars nearby. Even in a cosmic sense, it was isolated and far away from anything else. It was, however, very interesting to John in a dangerous sort of way. It was surrounded by a vast storm of broken patterns that made it seemingly impossible to approach. It was John's guess that the storm was what kept the fleet at bay.

  There were ships, lots of ships, all holding position well away from the storm of fractured patterns. They could detect the danger, and that made John consider all kinds of things very quickly. The ships were not uniform in type, size, or construction. There were large ships that looked to be crystals with vast internal fires. A couple of smaller ones looked like they were plants with silvery and golden leaves. A few seemed animalistic and alive, but John couldn’t be sure. There were, of course, some that were metallic and more conventional to what John thought starships should look like, but still clearly alien in design. As John watched, one of the lead ships launched a probe of some kind into the storm. The effects were spectacular. The probe underwent quick and violent transformations before exploding. They may be able to detect the cloud but were clearly unable to penetrate it safely.

  John allowed himself to drift gently while he considered his options and the nature of the alien fleet. They all seemed to be from different civilizations, part of a coalition or alliance, or at the very least working towards some common goal. Not outright enemies. Did that mean they were friendly, or were they to blame for the devastation he had seen? Were they the fleet that the strange spider creatures had built defenses against?

  John saw the simple pattern of empty space start to shift around him, he teleported away blindly on gut instinct, it almost wasn’t fast enough. He could feel the temperature inside his spacesuit rise a few degrees and wondered how hot the outside of it was. John turned gently and looked back the several thousand miles to where he had been, it was no longer empty space. It glowed and blazed in an angry orange-white boiling inferno.

  “That answers that,” John said to the flames that had almost consumed him. There were no friendly aliens here.

  Teleporting to the opposite side of the planet, John floated outside the storm of chaotic patterns and considered his options. John had seen and created similar shattered patterns in the past. He had only ever been able to correct them by allowing them to be destructively canceled out by uncorrupted patterns. Like matter hitting anti-matter, the process was violent and destructive even at the small scales he had seen. Something this large would easily destroy whole worlds. Then there was the question of where such a massive fracture of ordered reality had come from, there could be no doubt it was deliberate. Who and why were questions that John felt to always be banging his head against. There always seemed to be a purpose and a reason that was hidden from him.

  John could sense/see that the chaos stopped short of the planet's surface, he had never teleported through or past something like this and wondered if it was safe. Only one way to find out… and not be stupid. John pulled his tablet out, turned on the camera, and set it to record if this didn’t work, it would be an expensive test. If his tablet didn’t survive, he would lose the pictures of all those worlds, and the alien creature he had saved. John teleported the tablet to the surface, gave a 5 count, and brought it back. It was intact and undamaged. John played back the video and groaned, the tablet ended up on the surface face down, all he got was darkness. He tried again and was careful to make sure it landed facing the right way this time. When he brought it back, the video didn’t show much beyond a dark sky with large rock outcroppings reaching into the stars. John teleported to the same location.

  To John's shock, the suit said that the air was breathable, there was minimal radiation. He was surrounded by ruins. What had seemed to be rock formations were, in fact, the ruined spires of towers. There were vast mountains of rubble every
where. With drifts of dust clinging to the debris. It was a dim and gloomy sight under weak starlight.

  John opened his Primer and was pleased to find that the thread that connected it to his stolen one was stronger than it had been since leaving home. John looked down the thread and could see the book sitting on a ruined stone table or platform. There was also a large beaten and ripped camping backpack near it and several empty cans of soup. John arrived with his gun drawn, he wasn’t sure what to expect from Finley.

  John opened his helmet and took a cautious breath, and when it didn’t kill him, he shouted, “Finley!! You jack ass! Where are you?” There was no immediate response, John stepped forward and picked up his Primer and put it in his pack next to the borrowed one.

  “I was going to return it to you, but it’s just as well you chased me out here.” John turned, startled by the sound of Finley’s voice, and he was shocked by his almost unrecognizable appearance. Small open wounds covered his face, neck, and arms. Finley’s hair had fallen out, his face looked puffy and swollen. His clothing was in rags, and there were spots of dried blood mixed in with fresher spots that hinted at the wounds covering his entire body. Finley’s pattern told the story all on its own, there were random threads stuck everywhere, each radiating shades of purple and blue like needles in a pincushion. There were also signs that his pattern had been forcibly altered, it was collapsed in places, severely discolored in others. The man standing in front of John was a horrific ghost of Finley and had hours to live at best.

  “You don’t look good, Finley.” John felt bad for him but did not lower his gun.

  “I know, my appearance must be appealing, I haven’t had a fresh change of clothes in some time. To say nothing of not bathing.”

  “What happened?”

  “I teleported too close to a pulsar, I think that’s what they’re called.”

  “Neutron star, at least according to what I’ve read.” John said casually.

  “Either way, it has been the death of me.” Finley sat down on a shattered stone that had one side that was still polished mirror-smooth. “How did you find me?”