by Greg Curtis
The others had gotten out too, and yet all had suffered the same fate. Hermen hadn’t even gone in. He’d blasted the door apart with his space aged cannon and sent in robots armed to their back teeth and more powerful than a speeding locomotive. Yet despite being completely outside the lair at all times he’d been caught and branded. How? Hermen hadn’t said nor, Mikel knew, would he. In fact almost no one had said anything to him about their assaults. Even now so many months later, he knew little more than he had at the start. Yet no more had he told them about his failure, the raw pain and terrible shame too much to bear.
What little he did know was that the others, for the most part less well prepared for an all out onslaught than himself, well, maybe, had gone inside, yet all, even Abrax had made it out. None, as far as he knew, as far as any of them knew, had gone in and never come out. It smacked of being let go. Of being discarded as too pathetic to be any sort of threat.
It was insulting, but surely true. The sense of failure and shame threatened to overwhelm him once more, as it did a hundred times a day.
A distant echo of something warm and loving flashed before him then and he knew Sherial, wherever she was, was thinking of him. She’d felt his pain, and was trying to give comfort as only she could. Yet her effort hurt him perhaps even more than all the rest that had gone before. For not only had he failed himself and those poor lost souls in that damned hell, he’d also failed her.
The shame and hurt was crushing. For the first time in decades he was in love, and of all the unimaginable things in this universe he was loved by an angel, the one creature that should surely reject him out of hand for what he was. And he had failed her. How, even if he ever got out of this accursed village intact, could she love him again? He’d failed her.
A thief, probably the greatest master of his craft in his world. Able to overcome every manmade defence system, versed in every con known, supposedly an intelligent and resourceful man. He had broken down like all the rest. He had failed the prisoners. He had failed Sherial.
He had failed.
This then was the heart of his blackness. The despair that ruled his life was that he knew of no way to atone. He had no way of freeing those people, no way of defeating the demons, no way of leaving this place. No way of being with Sherial again as a man. As an anything.
The burn ignited once more on his face, an incandescent fury that tore into him like a million red hot scalpels, and he had to scream and then chant out his mantra until it went away. At the same time the wounds on his back, massive gaping blemishes running from his shoulders to his tail bone also started their own sweet song of torment. The prints of Sherial’s hands were fighting back, and creating every bit as much anguish. Between the two of them was his mere mortal flesh. It was like being ripped slowly apart on a rack of molten lava.
“I live. I strive. I win.” Over and over he chanted those words, their power slowly pulling him away from the brink of screaming madness that he had verged on for so long. For this surely was also the reason for the branding. The pain, the despair, the self-hate, all would one day overwhelm him. They would overwhelm them all and one by one they’d slip into complete insanity. He hoped only that he’d be able to kill himself first.
And it was always when he felt Sherial, or when he thought of her that he felt the brand most. As if it hated the very thought of her. As if it was trying to burn her into oblivion. Which of course it was.
How did the others survive this? They all had the brands on their faces. They all had the angels’ marks on their bodies. Though neither were so large in their cases, - was that important? Surely they too all suffered the same.
The beginnings of a thought tickled around the back of his mind at that as it had before, but the pain and his desperate concentration as he tried to master it drove it away again.
Five minutes or five hours later, as he forced the pain back into a dull ache in his head, the anger started once again. He used it. He was supposed to be a thinker. A clever little bastard, able to find the holes in anything and wriggle through. Yet in months of futile effort he’d gotten exactly nowhere, and come perilously close to giving in to the dangers of despair. Despair like fear, was a mind killer. And his mind was all he had.
As he had so many times before, he simply let his rage build, and used it. After four months of hell, he still wasn’t ready to concede, something that scared the other villages, something that pleased him in turn. He might not have been in this hole for as long as they, but he knew he had lasted longer than they in fighting. He did not give up. He did not know how. Time to try again.
Marshalling his anger, calling once more on his meditative techniques he let his mind run free over the problem, reviewing the elements anew.
Problem: A hostile lair filled with demons, resistant to every known and possibly unknown weapon or knowledge in existence. How could he get through them, find the prisoners and escape.
Tools: Six already beaten, tortured and tormented souls with between them all the knowledge of the scientific, technological, magical, psychical, and natural realms, as well as a dash of cunning, crime and brute strength. They didn’t, couldn’t work together, wouldn’t share, and hated each other’s guts in general. Each was a reminder of the other’s failure. Yet between them surely, they had all the knowledge they needed. Together, perhaps, just maybe, they could cobble together something that could work.
It was a thin hope. Their technology was almost wiped out, the animals all but destroyed and the magic, while still potent, had been tossed aside as easily as a pretzel. He had no way of assessing the power of the psychic against the demons, but it clearly wasn’t enough alone, as brute force hadn’t been either. Cunning was all he personally had left to offer, his tools of the trade lost in that dark labyrinth and hand-to-hand combat was no match for the demons.
Besides which, how on earth did you combine them? It would take years, centuries even for all of all their worlds’ greatest minds to link all their knowledge into one cohesive whole, which was what was surely needed to produce the super weapon they wanted. Something so powerful it would blow those monsters all the way back to Hell and beyond.
They didn’t have those minds. Nor those centuries.
It just wasn’t possible for this ragged bunch. What was possible for them - all that was possible - was a coordinated attack, each concentrating on their own specialty. Lea, Mya and Hermen providing the covering fire outside while he, Abrax and Grould tried the inside. A classic two pronged attack. But it wouldn’t work. Just the memory of the thousands of demons that had come for him was enough to tell him that nothing like that could succeed, - even if he could have persuaded the others. Even if he could have persuaded himself to go back in.
What they needed was the super technology, or perhaps – just maybe, another knowledge all together. Perhaps what they had between them simply wasn’t the entire extent of the knowledge in the universe. Almost certainly it wasn’t. Perhaps another knowledge might succeed where they had failed. Or perhaps another technology could link them all, producing their super weapon.
It was something he’d considered many times before, an idea he’d raised with the rest, but one they’d all rejected. Apathy and despair were part of it, but deep inside they’d all secretly believed that even if they could communicate with their respective angels, even if they could overcome their shame and guilt, they’d just be trapping some other poor sod here with them. It wouldn’t be right. They had to do it themselves, and they already knew they’d failed.
So if he couldn’t bring a new technology in, he’d have to create it himself. Faint hope, since he had absolutely no idea of how to do it, but still it was all he had left. As it had been the last thousand times he’d reached the same conclusion.
What he asked himself for the thousandth time, would a new knowledge be based upon?
He struggled with the concept as he had so often before, desperate to find any hope in this god-forsaken nightmare. For without hope ther
e was only despair. And death, if he was lucky.
Between the six of them they had science and its associated technology, magic and the mind both its psychical forces and its cleverness. They had the forces of nature and the raw power of the body. How he wondered for the millionth time, did they all relate to each other? What was their common thread?
Clearly they were all based upon an understanding of the universe, or some aspect of it. Even brute strength was based on the control of the body. Abrax in his own limited vocabulary had told him he concentrated on growing his own body. He ‘thinked’ its size and speed in his own words. At some fundamental level he could control every single aspect of himself down to the level of a single cell, and make it stronger.
Yet he couldn’t get rid of the brand he wore, nor could he remove the angel’s marks.
And that, Mikel suddenly realized, was interesting. Because it told him that the demon brand at least was not a brand in the normal sense. If it was of the flesh, Abrax could have, would have removed it, healed it. It also wasn’t magic and it wasn’t any science he’d ever heard of, or more importantly one that Hermen had ever heard of. And his people were apparently centuries ahead of Earth. Therefore it was the result of other knowledge.
The demons had other knowledge. Immediately he realized that simple fact, the key to defeating them became totally clear. Learn whatever other knowledge the demons had, and counter it. Use their own knowledge against them. That after all was what he was good at.
For the first time in ages Mikel started to feel something other than despair. He’d finally developed an original thought. Many months in the coming when it should have been there instantly, but at least it had come. He seized on it with everything he had. It was hope. He felt the brand starting a slow warning burn, and ignored it stoically.
On instinct he suddenly bent down to the dirt at his feet and with his hand drew a large circle. And in it he drew seven segments of pie, one for each of the villagers and their associated knowledge, and one for the unknown knowledge still somewhere out there. Of course the unknown might actually fill a hundred or a thousand segments, there was no way of knowing, but at least he’d acknowledged it existed.
Around it he drew an even larger circle to represent the universe. For everything they knew, and surely everything the demons knew had to be a part of the universe. If what they knew was outside of it, then all hope was lost, and the demons would be unstoppable.
But they weren’t. The sudden thought possessed him.
The demons weren’t invincible. In fact they were stopped cold in their tracks. They never left their lair. Or at least they hadn’t seen them leave. In fact the only one he’d seen outside it save when they’d fought him, was the dark man. The leader. Why? Why would anyone choose to live in such a dank, dark hole? Surely they couldn’t like it. Were they afraid? Another novel thought, and in his gut he instantly knew it was correct. They were afraid. The idea enthralled him. The demons were afraid. Instinctively he knew it was the right answer. There was something out here that terrified them. Something that made them hide in their little dark hole.
But of what were they afraid?
They certainly weren’t afraid of anything the villagers could do to them. They had already laughed long and hard at them. Nor was there anything in the wider world that seemed particularly dangerous. If anything it seemed one of the most beautiful and tranquil places he’d ever imagined. And Sherial had told him the world had never known the violence and hatred that had marked Earth. If anything it should be easy pickings for them.
Even as he thought of her and her words the pain in his face started again, and in the split second before he fell screaming to the ground he finally understood. The demons were afraid of the angels. So bloody afraid that even thinking of them was an anathema to them. Above everything else the demon brands were there to stop the angels from speaking with them.
Minutes, hours later his mantra began to pull him away from the pain, and with a sense of elation he knew he was becoming stronger again. The hope had fired through him, giving strength to his soul. The strength to resist.
“I’m going to get you.” He screamed his defiance at them, hoping that they heard, and feared. A primitive but satisfying hope. But he marshalled his anger quickly and re-entered the meditative stage. Now, when he was finally beginning to think, was not the time to give into emotion. The years of discipline took over, and once more his mind roamed free over the problem, fury and pain ignored as best he could.
Why did they fear the angels? Clearly whatever knowledge the demons had, the angels also had. They could both fight fire with fire. And with one side being inherently good and the other side evil, they naturally opposed each other. But angels didn’t fight. He had to leave that paradox behind.
So what was the other knowledge that both sides had? And more importantly could these six misfits use it against them? So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that he didn’t notice the others approaching, surrounding him, watching. He didn’t even feel it when one of them tapped him on the shoulder.
Clearly Mikel realized, they both had mind power. The same psychic power that Grould held in abundance, yet surely to an even higher level. Yet if that was so why had they sent Grould at all? Surely they must have known he was doomed to fail. Then they also had the natural power that Lea exercised. They could control the animals.
No! He shook his head in instant denial. Something was wrong with that picture. He could suddenly see it so clearly. Sherial had never controlled the animals at all. They had come to her again and again and again out of innocent love. He saw the simple truth of it, of her court. They loved her. The creatures of the woods adored her. As did he. Lea controlled, Sherial simply loved, and was loved absolutely in return.
Sherial was loved. Sherial had other knowledge. The two facts became one and he knew triumph even as demonic pain overcame him again. Love was their knowledge. Love terrified the demons. Even its memory was a nightmare to them, and they fought it with all they had.
More fire possessed him as the demons heard him thinking of her. Fire and ice ripped through him, causing him to scream out once more. But even as he screamed he knew hope, and his discipline pulled him back to the world stronger and more determined yet again. For the first time in months he knew hope and perversely the more often the brand burnt him, the greater that hope burned within him.
He ignored the hand he discovered holding a wet cloth to his face and returned to his diagram. Quickly he drew a line through the centre of the empty piece of pie, and in one segment wrote ‘love’, in the other ‘hate’. For that was the centre of their knowledge. Angels loved and demons hated. That was surely the knowledge they held.
But something was still wrong. Why?
He racked his brains in desperation, trying to fathom the error he’d made. For some reason, love and hate didn’t look right mixed in with the other forms of knowledge. They weren’t forms of knowledge. What were they?
He scrubbed them out and thought. They were emotions surely. Things people feel rather than know. They were physical needs and emotional reactions, screwed up into a twisted mess that called itself a mind. They surely weren’t knowledge. They didn’t require years of study by learned men over many centuries. Even babies understood them. Yet when he looked at it like that he already knew he was making a mistake. He was somehow underestimating them. For those emotions were powerful things, incredibly powerful. Many men would prefer death over a broken heart. Others gave their entire life over to love. Hadn’t he nearly killed himself making love to Sherial? Hadn’t the others too?
Another revelation hit with the power of a lightening bolt. He didn’t know! He had assumed. They all bore the marks of the angels, they had all been recruited by them, yet that did not mean they all had loved as had he and Sherial. Was it important? He didn’t know. But it was galling that he should have assumed so much on simple circumstance. What else had he assumed?
Another bout of agony ri
pped through him, and he fought it as before, even more determined to win through. He was close. He was so god damned close he could taste it. It gave him strength, and once again he bested it. Somewhere deep within he asked himself, was the demons’ fire as terrible as before? He almost dared hope as the thought crossed what little remained of his mind.
“You miserable shit heads are dead meat!” The cry of defiance simply ripped out of him by itself. He hoped they heard and feared. It was a faint hope, but still a hope.
On impulse Mikel drew a line through the centre of his circle and extending out to the edges of the universe. One end he labelled ‘love’, the other ‘hate’. And that looked so right. Then working on instincts he didn’t understand, off to one side he wrote down a list. A list of the things the six of them had in common. First there was power. For all of them had some form of power, whatever it be, and all of them had far more than their fellows. Far more.
Mya he recalled, had called herself a ‘world class mage’, one who had tried to change her world by stopping their wars. Lea too was a clan leader, and a respected guide in their council of trails despite his tender age. He also had the strongest talent of any of his people, befriending and controlling more creatures at once than any two others, so he’d said. Hermen had said almost nothing about himself, but he filled the role of mad scientist to a tee. Wasn’t his pet project though some sort of new energy system, a free energy?
