“Look at that handsome stud,” Wodan said loudly, feigning self-assurance. “I could learn a thing or two watching his moves. Pity I don’t have the time.”
He forced one foot in front of the other, focusing on the distant doorway as the endless pornographic parade danced in his peripheral vision. He looked over his shoulder and saw the robot servant still shuffling behind him. The poor construct only stared downward, nonplused by the drama of human sexuality. When Wodan drew near the exit, the images were suddenly cut off. There was a rush of audio chatter, then silence filled the room as it returned to amber stillness.
Wodan entered a gently curving black hallway. Capricornus cast ethereal green light on smooth marble, then the hallway widened. Wodan heard wind, felt heat, and then he came to a series of squat, wide, open windows. He stopped and looked at the rusty brown wasteland far below. Clouds of dust crept along. The land stretched into a white horizon, the sky starkly pale. Leaning out, he saw that he was alarmingly high within the Tower. He felt nauseous. Just as he began to turn upward to see how far was the summit, he jerked away from the window in shock - a short, black-armored robot was glaring at him.
The thing had drawn alarmingly near with perfect stealth. Its limbs were skinny, though its torso was thick and strong, and its face was full of malevolent teeth, beady black-glass eyes, and a chin that came to a cruel point. Wodan raised his sword and made as if to move toward it, but the robot instantly backed away, then to the side, sliding on silent feet. Its fingers clicked against one another, each ending in sharp blades, and its chest puffed outward aggressively. Wodan sidestepped further down the hall and the thing sidestepped as well, glaring at him hatefully. As the black robot came into the light, he saw that its back was malformed. Some sort of jetpack was built into it.
“You,” Wodan hissed. “You took Dove.”
The robot only clicked its sharp fingers in response.
The servant robot shuffled nearby. The two robots ignored one another as the servant shuffled on. Even though the black robot matched the description of the thing that had taken Dove Langley, it seemed little more than a brooding goon. Wodan reasoned that it could be extremely dangerous, but it was most likely not the mastermind behind the kidnapping. Wodan backed further along the curving hall until he lost sight of the black robot. Relieved that no trick had been played, he passed the servant and continued on.
Wodan circumnavigated the curving hall of windows for a long time. The black robot did not follow. Eventually he came to an arched doorway covered only by jeweled strings that swayed in the light breeze. Wodan parted the curtain with his sword and entered a wide, curving chamber filled with blue light. The floor was bluish white marble cut into tiers and steps, and was decorated by large pillows covered in ornate designs. The windows continued throughout the chamber, though some were dozens of feet high. They were narrow and decorated with wind chimes studded with purple gems that danced slowly in the desert wind.
Wodan walked along the wide, curving chamber, fully expecting to see a reclining robot polishing some kind of lethal sniper rifle as it waited for him. Then he stopped, for in the distance he saw a slender, pale-skinned woman with long black hair meditating on a mound of pillows. She wore shining robes of blue and purple. Many of the pillows around her were shredded and scorched. Shock blasted through his chest like a hammer, for he realized that the beautiful woman was the Engel known as Dove Langley. Wodan watched her for a long time, overcome by the sight of her. She had matured from a mysterious, smiling girl into a woman of untouchable grace.
When the servant robot shuffled nearby, Langley opened her eyes. For an instant she and Wodan stared into one another, empty of thought, then both reacted violently.
“Who are you?” she shouted, rising quickly. Her voice was firm and commanding.
Wodan caught his voice. “Langley, it’s me,” he said. “I’m here to get you out!”
As he took a step, she raised her hand. “Stop!” she said, and he obeyed. Her eyes ran along him. “Is that you, Wodan?” she said quietly.
He nodded, suddenly aware of his rough appearance.
“You can’t cross,” she said. “See? Along the floor.”
Wodan looked and saw that a strip of black glass lay in a circle around her, perhaps one hundred feet in circumference. An identical circle sat on the roof.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said, glaring. “But I can’t break through it.” She tilted her head slightly, then said, “It’s good to see you again, Wodan.”
Wodan nodded. He smiled awkwardly, unsure of what to say. She rose and walked to the edge of the circle. Pillows skittered out of her path as she moved them unconsciously with her powers. Wodan moved to join her. They stopped on either side of the ring of black glass that lay along the floor.
“Justyn and Matthias are outside,” he said. “They’re trying to think of a way to get you out.” The phrase seemed meaningless to him, for it was difficult to think, to move, with her standing near. Her presence was completely overwhelming.
“Wodan,” she said suddenly, “he says he’ll kill you. I appreciate what you’ve done... but you have to get out of this place.”
“Who?” said Wodan.
“Whoever it is that lives here,” she said, curling her lips. “I don’t know who, exactly. I’ve only heard his voice.”
“Langley, what does he… what does it want?”
She sighed. “Wodan, if I repeated every crazy thing I’ve heard him say, then I would sound crazy myself. Does it really matter?”
“I guess not. Anyway, I’ve come this far. I’ll try to get you out.”
Wodan surveyed the perimeter of black glass lying on the floor. “It generates some sort of impenetrable field,” she said. “I can’t move it with… um, my…”
“Your Cognati abilities.”
She paused. “So you know about that?”
“Matthias told me. I’ve seen those powers before, and not just from you. My people are in Srila dealing with those Cognati thugs. But this...” Wodan unsheathed Capricornus, then said, “This sword has the ability to break invisible force fields. Maybe this one is similar.”
“I don’t know,” said Langley, backing away quickly. “If this was like a Cognati field, I could walk right through it. I don’t know if you should mess with it, Wodan. If you touch it, it hurts.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Wodan. He raised the sword, then-
Wodan woke on his back among a cluster of pillows. He heard Langley calling out to him. His senses were submerged in a haze of nausea. Unsure what had happened, he could only hold his head and wave to acknowledge her concern.
“Are you okay?” she shouted.
He ached all over. He saw Capricornus embedded in the floor, glowing angrily. He crawled over to retrieve it. The hilt throbbed reassuringly.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Not dead,” he muttered. “What happened?”
“You swung at the field, but there was some kind of reaction. You were thrown. I thought you were dead!”
Unsure what to do, Wodan staggered to the perimeter once more, then squatted on the floor. Langley sat beside him. The ring of black glass and its invisible shield sat between them. They looked at one another quietly.
After a moment, Langley said, “I appreciate that you came here.”
Wodan nodded.
She crinkled her brow in agitation. “Hey,” she said. “Did you... did you see any images... while you were here?”
“Images?”
“Moving images. Of maybe… me... and anyone else...?”
Wodan remembered the humiliating recordings he’d seen of himself, and he knew that Langley must be referring to her Engel husband in San Ktari. “No,” he said. “No, I didn’t.”
She peered into his face. He immediately flushed his mind of all thought and suppressed all emotion, as if fearing that she could somehow read his true self. She finally sighed in relief. “Nevermind, then,�
�� she said.
“If I’m going to get you out,” he said, rising quickly, “then I’ll have to destroy whatever power source runs this place. If the field turns off, hurry on without me. I’ll see you shortly.” He turned and continued on through the chamber.
“Wodan, wait!” she called. “You can’t just-”
“I’ll be back!” he shouted, hoping that the anger in his voice sounded like determination.
“He says he’ll kill you!”
“No one can kill me,” he said under his breath. Langley disappeared from view as he passed through the curving chamber. The servant robot clattered behind him.
Anger, disappointment, frustration – all wrestled in Wodan’s heart. With each step he wondered why he should help these people, these superhuman Engels. He realized that he had dearly hoped they would be like himself, and not only physically. But no, it seemed that they were like anyone else. Fear defined them. They weren’t his friends. They would use him to free one of their own, then they would return to their Empire and continue the work of destroying and consuming every nation within their reach. How much time would it take for the soldiers of San Ktari to come to the Black Valley? When they torched his towns and put his people to the sword, would Wodan be rewarded by the Warmaster Josef for saving his wife? Would Wodan be allowed to live in comfortable retirement while his people were killed? If he begged, would a few of his friends be allowed to live, perhaps as slaves?
They serve humans when they have the power of gods! They serve humans who kill other humans! And then we wonder why the demons allow San Ktari to do as they will?
Wodan could no longer even see the room. All was a blur, a dream of shifting forms, a nightmare of absurdities. He came to a wide door of aged wood and, without thinking, brought the weight of Capricornus crashing through it, then kicked the remains open in a shower of splinters.
But I didn’t come here for them! he thought, trying and failing to calm himself. I’m not disappointed in them. I was the one who fell short! I should have told them from the start that I came here for my own reasons – not theirs!
He entered a small black chamber lit only by the fading blue light behind him. A staircase ascended to his right. While Wodan peered upward, the servant robot shuffled nearby, then bent over and peered at the ruined door, seemingly distressed. Wodan left it to its worries and ascended the stairs.
The black stairs were wide and the curving stairwell soon grew dark. It was cold. In time he could dimly make out the lines and planes in a dull, dim red light. He sheathed his sword and moved quickly. The red light grew stronger. Soon he no longer felt the need to mask the sound of his footsteps, as the hum of great machines shook the stairwell. He felt as if he was drawing near an infernal kitchen, where the souls of the damn were surely roasting. But he could see his breath in the cold stairwell; the feast above was mechanical, a soulless affair that the inhabitants of the world below could not imagine. Only Wodan dared press ahead to see the dreadful thing. His heart pounded because he somehow knew what he would find.
A massive arch of sculpted black marble etched with purple stood at the top of the staircase. Wodan entered a large black chamber supported by columns covered with red draperies free of any symbol or sign. Red veins like blood lined the marble floor and formed a circle in the center. At the end of the room, atop six wide steps, stood a great throne. And on the throne sat the Master of the Tower.
Wodan walked the length of the chamber and stood just outside the circle. Below the throne, on the Master’s left hand side, stood the short black robot. It glared at Wodan with dull malevolence. The servant robot bearing its dead brother shuffled past Wodan, then climbed the stairs and stood at the Master’s right hand side. On the steps at the feet of the Master reclined a robot in the shape of a woman. It was made of interlocking white panels, a wig of red hair, and red smudges to signify lips and eyes. She traced a circle on the ground with two gleaming fingers.
And the Master who sat the throne - Wodan recognized him from the images of the terrible cave in the Black Valley that he had seen a decade ago. He was tall, a marble-skinned superbeing with short black hair that came down in a cowl, a long nose, and a sinister goatee that framed his cruel smile. He wore black pants and an open-front robe that glittered with black jewels. His shockingly violet eyes bore into Wodan. Wodan guessed that the Master had to be ancient, a creature whose age was beyond reckoning.
“Let Dove Langley go,” said Wodan. He knew that the statement was more of a ritual maneuver than an actual demand.
The Master tilted his head slightly, parted his smile, then shook his head once. He rose from the throne, and as he descended the steps he let his robe part and fall behind him. His shining body was lean and muscular, and he was taller than Wodan. The Master entered the circle of red and lifted one hand, gesturing for Wodan to approach. Wodan unsheathed Capricornus and entered. As his foot crossed the periphery of the circle, any notion that he was in a dream ended. He felt as if he was awake for the first time. This was reality.
The two circled, studying one another. Wodan crouched with his sword held before him. The Master shifted about lightly on his feet, palms held outward. Wodan felt his will shrinking under the other’s gaze. Frustrated, Wodan dashed forward and swung his green blade in a blow that could have shattered brick as if it were thin glass. Violet eyes hovered before him, then like a snake his opponent whirled around the blade and was upon him. Wodan tried to sidestep, but the Master moved like moonlight on the face of a flowing stream. Fingers of steel gripped his wrists and swung him about on his own momentum. He heard Capricornus clatter along the ground as long legs tripped him up. Before he could reorient himself, he felt a wave of nausea, then he fell like a heap upon the hard stone floor. One wrist remained clamped at his back. In hypervisual detail Wodan saw the simple black slippers on the feet that stood on either side of him. Wodan thrashed about and tried to smash the legs of his opponent with his knees – then the vice grip jerked, and he heard bone snapping. Agony rode in waves along his arm.
His wrist was shattered. The Master nudged him with a toe and rolled him away. Wodan could only clutch his poor wrist and watch through pain-misted eyes as the Master stalked away from the circle, donned his robe once more, and ascended to the throne.
Wodan felt his strength ebbing as his body rushed to heal itself. Pain lashed at him as bone moved against sinew. The Master watched with interest as Wodan gulped in air, thrashing and sliding in his own sweat. Wodan fought his way back onto his feet, then glared back at the Master. He could feel himself weakening with each moment.
Finally the Master nodded as if satisfied. He spoke. His voice was rich and deep, his accent a remnant from a language long since dead, and each word held Wodan in a grip.
“My name is Setsassanar, and I am thousands of years old. I am your true father, Wodan, because it was I who designed your body. Before you were formed in the womb I knew you. I have watched you for all of your thirty-two years.
“I have watched you fight to survive in a world that despises what is great in you, even though it would be the death of the world should all greatness be snuffed out. I have watched you cling to your ideals long after others would have given up on their own. I have watched you give birth to something great in a world that, in a few short years, will drown in one giant puddle of mediocrity and barbarity. And I have watched your grapple with your faults like a fool dancing with his own shadow. It could be no other way, boy, because you have no example of strength to guide you toward achieving your secret ambitions.
“Wodan, you have passed all of my tests to gain entrance here. The test of fear - walking to an alien place where you were not welcome. The test of endurance - climbing when it seemed there was no end. The test of determination - knocking where there was no door. The test of combat - fighting where victory was not assured against an enemy whose capabilities you could not guess. The test of humiliation - not crying out in terror or losing yourself to outrage when you we
re shown things that made you uncomfortable. The test of passing on - not fighting that which was not an immediate threat when you encountered this little black simulacrum.
“You have passed all the tests in order to gain admittance to the Throne Room, but do you know what to do now that you’ve come here?”
Wodan let the words of Setsassanar roll through him. He said nothing, only listened.
“As always,” said Setsassanar, “you have thrown yourself at obstacles that stood in the way of your will. Sometimes overcoming with strength… sometimes with weakness. But now you have come upon a wall. This secret dream that you hold close to your heart – after all these years, are you any closer to making it real? You’ve carved out a niche for yourself, which is all well and good. But it’s nowhere near enough, is it, Wodan? Little men and little girls look up to you and, if they can overcome their envy, they say ‘Look at the great king! Look at what he has accomplished!’ And you… you feel only a dull sense of disappointment. You watch the horizon. You see a black wave of rotting flesh, a tidal wave of decay spreading unchecked. No one else sees it. No one but you. Like the first man to see microorganisms so long ago, you see what others cannot, and you know that only the madhouse and the graveyard wait for you if something doesn’t change.
“And before you say that none of this is true, that there are no obstacles that you cannot, somehow, bash your head against and overcome, I would ask that you first look within. Ask your heart if it is not needful of a higher mastery of this pathetic world. Ask yourself if you can go on, living in chaos, as you have done so far. Look at you! Unhappy, partly lucky, mostly childish. Say nothing to me that your heart already knows is a lie. I know you far better than you think you know yourself.”
Setsassanar and Wodan watched one another for a long time. Wodan felt pulled in two directions. A part of him was ready to cast aside all his old frustrations and habits and hopes and rush ahead into something so strange that no one but he could understand. Another part felt that old obligations were all he had, and leaving them behind would be tantamount to suicide.
Demonworld Book 6: The Love of Tyrants Page 24
