Cerulean Dreams

by Dan O'Brien

  Moving forward, he kept his body close to the ground. The sands dipped into a ravine. There in the shade was a staggered heap of rocks. Desert creatures sat in the shade, watching the passing assassin with malice. There amidst them, he saw another piece of the trail. A glint of steel was lying at the center of brazen insects and lethargic reptiles. Stingers rose in warning, tongues flicked in caution.

  “Corporal,” he shouted.

  The solder appeared after a moment, his exterior armor sand-damaged and faded. “Sir?”

  Armon pointed at the center of the den of creatures.

  “There is his weapon. We have come the right way.”

  “That could be anyone’s weapon…”

  Armon stood, holding the shirt to the man’s face. “This is his shirt,” he hissed and then poking his fingers through the gaping hole, he continued. “This is where I wounded him, made him bleed. He went this way.”

  The corporal rested his weapon across his forearm. “If that is the case, then he maintained a westerly heading. How strange….”

  Armon looked at the man, standing taller.

  “Why is that strange?”

  The corporal shrugged. “I have felt this pulling toward the west for some time, ever since we stepped outside of Orion, in point of fact. I just find it strange that this man would travel the same course.”

  Armon realized something at that moment.

  They were drawn to the west: to the Tower.

  Panic struck him at his heart. Could Children of Babylon not feel the pull as well? Were Orionians predisposed to feeling the signal?

  “Remove your helmet,” Armon ordered harshly.

  The corporal stood straight. “Sir?”

  Armon moved closer, menacingly.

  “Remove your helmet.”

  The soldier nodded and returned his weapon to his back. Reaching to the sides of his helmet, he removed the latches with a hiss. He pulled the faceplate free, revealing his features: brown hair, blue eyes, fair complexion.

  There was nothing extraordinary about him, save that his eyes were not silver. He was not a Child of Babylon. “You may replace your helmet. I had thought you might be of superior breeding, but I was mistaken.”

  The corporal looked at him quizzically before returning his faceplate. “I do not understand, sir.”

  “I had thought perhaps you were not born of Orion. That you were something else, something that would have separated you from him.” Armon turned to face him. “It appears that I was wrong.”

  Moving past the assassin, the corporal scaled the side of the dune. He shook his head, muttering to himself as he bent to crawl. His voice had begun to rise as he reached the apex, but what he witnessed silenced him instead: the Wall of Shadows.

  Dark and glistening, it was a sentinel in the desert.

  “Corporal,” warned Armon.

  He ignored the voice.

  The wall called to him. He heard whispers, faint at first, but building on themselves. His feet felt heavy. The heaviness spread from his legs to his mind. Drowsiness gripped him.

  “Corporal,” came Armon’s sharp tone again.

  He continued to step forward, slowly. The words of the assassin passed through him as if they had not been spoken. The wall spoke to him in hushed, hurried tones. Armon mounted the side of the dune, his words cut short as he witnessed the wall.

  “It’s speaking to me,” murmured the corporal, his words slurred.

  Armon looked at the man and then the wall.

  “The wall?”

  The corporal nodded sluggishly.

  The assassin slunk closer.

  “What does it say?”

  Arms useless at his sides, he lifted his hands slowly. “He flees; the wall says that he goes, west. It hates him. Hates him.”

  Armon looked at the wall again, seeing only the blackened stone shining in the desert sun. Cracks carved a highway across its face. “What hates him?”

  The corporal turned his faceless helmet to Armon.

  “He. It.”

  Armon grabbed the man hard by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. “What is its name? Who flees?”

  The corporal pushed away Armon’s hands. Reaching to his faceplate, he tore it from his face aggressively. He licked his lips as he took another step toward the wall, his heavy steps sinking into the sand.

  Armon moved with the corporal.

  “Who is it? Marlowe? Marlowe flees?”

  The man shook his head.

  A cruel smile came to his lips.

  There was distance in his eyes, a faraway stare that frightened Armon. “He knows you. It knows you, Child of Babylon.”

  Armon stopped, wind whipping across his body.

  “What did you call me?”

  The corporal turned.

  His eyes were glassy.

  The smile was horrific, the ends of his mouth upturned. His lips had cracked from the heat. “You made him, you and your kind. He goes west to end your people.”

  *

  Marlowe looked over his shoulder as the squat, demolished buildings of Shadowfall began to disappear from view. Ahead was the other part of the wall––obsidian and menacing it was a portent of the Lurking.

  The creature Alezander controlled, and was controlled by, the wall. Sephes stayed close to Dana, Icarus flying overhead. Marlowe watched the two of them with sadness. He knew how this journey would end. There in that dream desert as he faced the Lurking, the creature that had called itself Alezander, he realized what he must do.

  “Alexander.”

  Marlowe had felt the shaman coming up behind him.

  “What do you want?”

  Mograli moved up next to him. A bow was strapped across his back, a scythe hung through a loop. Brown leather straps dangled from the pack that was fitted around his waist behind the bow and quiver.

  “Do you believe that you can slay the Mimic?”

  Marlowe nodded grimly.

  Mograli was unconvinced. “They say that it is so massive that a sandstorm swirls about it, dragging all those who are near into the sands below. They say that it hides in the desert, beneath our feet. They say that it is a monster the size of mountains that hides in plain sight.”

  Marlowe looked at him.

  This time he smiled.

  “They say many things, do they not?”

  Mograli grimaced, a strange facial expression for his features. “This is no simple matter, Alexander. The Mimic is a creature of much fear…”

  “Exactly. Fear is what gives it strength. Fear is why you cannot beat it.”

  The shaman looked at him with suspicion. “What did you learn in that dream desert, Alexander? You spoke of the inscription, making a connection between belief and manifestation. I still do not understand as you do.”

  Marlowe shook his head, his eyes lowering to the passing sand. “Nor do you need to. If the Mimic is destroyed, your people will have a chance. With the plague destroyed, you may begin anew. Do you question my strength?”

  “No.”

  Marlowe smirked. “My bravery?”

  Mograli shook his head furiously.

  “You are very brave to confront the Mimic.”

  Marlowe looked at the wall.

  It was very close now.

  “Do you question my wisdom, my sanity?”

  Mograli stopped.

  “I must. I do not wish your death, Alexander.”

  Sephes and Dana had reached the two men, their words coming to a hush as they stopped behind Mograli. Dana was still very pale. Since leaving Shadowfall, the ache in her mind and muscles had returned.

  Marlowe stared at the wall.

  War: humanity could not escape it. This madness of destruction, the whimsical decimation of the world was as much a part of being human as breathing. Yet Marlowe did not feel the bloodlust.

  There was purpose.

  It needed to be done.

  He had chosen to remain bare-chested, the sight of the runes a comfort now. They were his
guides. That is what he had learned. The Forgotten had charged him with a task, one that he meant to see through. “When I pass beyond this wall, it will come,” Marlowe spoke.

  Mograli took a step forward.

  “It may, it may not.”

  “It was not a question, shaman. I know that when I walk beyond that wall, it will come. Alezander, the Lurking, knows me now. We are owed a meeting, flesh to flesh. It will come. Your horror, your plague, will come.”

  Dana coughed as she moved toward Marlowe.

  “What is this? What are you planning to do, Marlowe?”

  Marlowe lowered his head, not wishing to meet her gaze. Not hers. “Sephes, watch her. Make sure that she does not venture beyond this wall until I return. And only if I return.”

  Dana looked from Sephes to Marlowe’s back. “Wherever you go, I go. Remember? You promised, Marlowe.”

  Marlowe shook his head.

  “Not this time. This I have to do alone.”

  Dana grabbed the arm of the shaman hard, drawing his gaze. “Mograli, you cannot let him do this alone. That thing out there will kill him. You can’t….” Her voice faltered as she saw the fear in Mograli’s eyes.

  The shaman shook his head.

  “Here he must walk alone, child.”

  Dana looked at Sephes and saw that the huntress would do as Marlowe had instructed. She stepped forward hurriedly, faltering in Sephes’ arms. “Marlowe, you can’t leave me behind. Please, don’t leave me behind.”

  Marlowe opened his mouth to respond, but closed it slowly. He moved forward as Dana continued to plead. The sun washed over him. He felt the heat, the sand at his feet. His world was silent, his thoughts singular: this path must be taken alone.

  XXVIII

  M

  arlowe crossed the threshold of the blackened wall. The western partition had no gate. There was an archway of stone, weathered from many days in the desert. His eyes saw the listless bodies writhing, worming around in a convoluted mass. But they no longer seemed horrifying.

  They were alone.

  Afraid, they desired to be free.

  He dare not turn around, for he did not wish to risk looking back. The sun was no longer high in the sky. Night would be upon the desert soon. The white sands lay out before him unfettered. Wind caressed his face, but it was the hot wind of the sands, not the cool breeze of reprieve, that he wished.

  His blade was still strapped in its sheath along his back. The shaman had given him other weapons. Two axes hung from twin harness along his lower back.

  He drew them purposefully.

  There was calm about the desert.

  It was the eye of a hurricane.

  “Alezander,” he screamed, raising his axes high into the air. The desert was silent. “Lurking, creature of darkness, show yourself.”

  Silence the rebuke.

  Marlowe moved forward, his chest heaving. He looked around the desert for some sign, some portent of the creature. Cacti protruded from the ground a distance from him. There was a copse of sickly colored desert plants that seemed too much the part of a thicket to be natural. He stalked toward it, his hands clenching around his weapons.

  The thunder was like a hiccup, stopping Marlowe in his tracks. Looking around, he saw ripples in the sands: desert waves.

  “Show yourself,” he roared.

  His voice echoed across the sands.

  The thunder came again.

  This time it was the beating of drums.

  He thumped his chest vigorously.

  The rumble was deafening.

  The sand was thrown into turmoil.

  Marlowe did not stand down.

  The white wave careened all about him, but he moved closer. Sand poured into a crevice, pulling Marlowe with it. The air was full, ablaze in a storm of sand. A massive leg lifted from the desert with a mighty groan, scales and dark spiny hairs covered it, then another, and another.

  Four massive pillars erupted from the desert. Dark black eyes, thousands of them atop a blackened dome, shook itself free of the sands. A piercing cry shot across the desert. The ground shook as the creature continued its monumental expulsion from the deeper sands.

  Marlowe looked upon the beast in horror. This was fear incarnate. This was the physical manifestation of belief in the Lurking.

  Marlowe felt his world go numb.

  He was deaf.

  His eyes consumed with only the blackened form of the Mimic. He dove forward, driving his twin axes into the eyes of the creature. Feet dug deep into its eyes, bulbs bursting as he thrashed upon the face of the creature.

  Swinging, hacking, he roared as his body became covered in the purplish ooze that ran from the creature’s eyes. Mighty legs wobbled as it tried to strike out at the smaller body of Marlowe, but the man would not be deterred. Frightening jaws opened, marred with mashing fangs. But, he would not relent.

  *

  Armon had managed to get the corporal to sit. He looked back over his shoulder as he approached the wall. The legion remained just below the dune, insisting that they stay out of sight until he, Armon, had scouted beyond it.

  Shadowfall surprised the assassin.

  He flattened himself along the outer edge of the hills that Marlowe and Holarian had walked past before entering Shadowfall. The assassin craned his neck, lowering his body as he looked deeper. He recognized the broken buildings for what they were.

  Babylon had deceived him.

  There was life in the desert.

  This was the first site––what had been before Orion, the mythical location of Ark. He felt his breath catch in his throat. Women and children were walking around, some carrying baskets atop their heads. Others chattered mindlessly as they moved about the center square that had once been the common district of Ark.

  The schematics were on display in Babylon.

  He had seen them a dozen times. Lord Niehl had assured him they were a myth, an image of the beginning stages of Orion, what it would come to be.

  This was something else altogether.

  Turning behind the hill once more, he pressed his back against the sand, flattening himself. He replayed the image of what he had seen: women and children. No guards, no sentries of any kind.

  Were there no men?

  He shook his head.

  He knew the answer: Marlowe.

  He had made it to this village, perhaps warming to them and telling them of the monster that hunted him. This was most assuredly a trap. It smelled too much like one to be otherwise. Looking at the afternoon, he smiled: nightfall. He would wait until dark to strike.

  *

  Dana’s hands trembled.

  She had felt the thunder.

  Sephes remained impassive.

  Mograli stood with his arms crossed. “It begins.”

  Dana felt her eyes tear up.

  “You think it is out there?”

  Mograli did not turn.

  “Did you feel the thunder, hear the cries?”

  She nodded.

  He returned the nod.

  “Then I would say that it is up to the Fates now.”

  The cry of Icarus above echoed across the desert. The hawk was far ahead in the distance, circling a place in the desert trapped amidst a sandstorm. Dana pointed at the swirling vector of sand. “There….”

  *

  Marlowe felt the heat from the creature’s mouth, the stale taste of death that permeated the air all about him. He felt as if he would retch. The Mimic had not yet managed to free itself completely from the sand.

  It was in a frenzy as it curled and flicked out with its legs. Jaws clamped together menacingly. Shards of soldier’s clothing, and metallic pieces that had once been weapons, hung from glistening fang to glistening fang.

  His mind was clear.

  The axe dug deep into the eye, past the soft tissue and membranes into the skull of the creature. He felt flesh give way to bone. The stark whiteness of it gushed with amber and purple blood that ran down its face.

&nb
sp; Marlowe felt his feet slide into the ooze. He fought for footing, craning his neck to see the mashing fangs that awaited him if he were to stumble.

  Axe dug into flesh.

  He pulled at it, testing to see if it would support his weight. Again he dug with the other axe, finding a solid base. Hand over hand he climbed the face of the creature, axes as ladder rungs. His boots dug into the creature’s torn flesh. He could feel it tremble beneath his feet, the cries rebounding through his body. He reached the apex of the creature, looking down at the desert several stories below.

  Mograli had not been wrong.

  It was the size of a mountain.

  He could see Shadowfall beyond. The wall stood brazenly in the distance. And then there, just in the distance, there was a twinkle: the lights of Orion.

  Marlowe reached down, grabbing a fistful of blackened fur as the Mimic bucked, feeling the smaller form of Marlowe upon his back. An axe flew free as he gripped tighter, sacrificing hold of his weapon in his left hand for stability.

  His other hand dangled above him, axe held tightly. He drove it down, an arc of gushing blood splattered across the fur.

  His grip was tenuous.

  He watched his hand slide.

  Marlowe fell back, away from the face, down the back of the creature at tremendous speeds. The spilling blood followed him, wetting the fur so that he could not stop his descent.

  He rolled over, his free hand reaching out desperately to find a hold. Finally, he dug the axe deep into the creature’s hump, finding a hold that stopped him suddenly.

  Breath expelled, he felt the heat of the blood, the sickening smell that infested his nostrils. Dangling from his weapon, he gripped it with two hands. He stood tall once more and looked about the Mimic’s back.

  He saw it then: the reason a creature this large could hide in plain sight. The majority of the back of the creature was covered in dark green spines, curved and crusted in such a way that they resembled a throng of cacti from a distance. Drawing his blade with his right hand, he stalked forward, making sure to dig deep into the hide of the creature.