by Yronwode
He was in some sort of sylvan glade, and the way the trees danced in the wind and the birds were all wearing tiny little Archonex hats made it somehow magical.
The woman had flowing blond hair, flawless skin, awesome knockers, and every cell of her glowed with inner light, creating an effect like sequins. She wore a kind of toga, or maybe she was naked. Eddie could not tell for sure. But he was naked, and not ashamed, and there was nothing unusual about that.
She gestured at him, bidding him to come to her. Her voice was musical, and Eddie was sure he had heard it before as well. Good Dreaming To You Eddie/ Art thou ready?
“Ready for what?” he dream-asked her.
She drew close to him and asked in an entirely different voice. “Do you want to touch my balls?”
“Excuse me?”
But there was no time to think because then they were in bed making love to each other, or she was making love to him. She was inside of him, somehow. And, anyway, where had the bed come from?
She sang,
There are questions in your mind
But stay close to me and you will find/
There is nothing here
That you need to fear
Eddie, this was all foretold
Something Something Something Gold.
“What was that last line?” Eddie asked.
She kissed him. She continued to make love to him. Eddie’s head was swimming. And while she made love to him, she sang, And now that you have passed your test
To prove you are the very best
Into your soul, my powers divest
That I might for a time rest
And, so, in his dream, Eddie made love to her again. And at the moment of climax, a bright light passed from her to him, a night breeze came in through a hidden window, and she was gone.
Eddie snapped to consciousness. He was alone. He was in his chambers, the luxurious suite he had come to regard as a temporary home. The dream slipped away from him, and he felt confused and disoriented. The windows were closed against the night and someone had turned off the telereceiver.
Eddie felt strange. As he sat up in bed, his body felt all wrong, as though he had lost a large amount of weight in the night. And his head felt weird, in a way he would have been hard-put to describe. In a way, it was like his mind had suddenly become vastly too big for his head to contain.
I could use some water, he thought.
And, as soon as he had thought it, a carafe drifted across the room to his hand.
It was filled with sweet cold water.
“Um, how about an ale,” he said, this time out loud.
The water in the carafe shimmered, and then turned a nutty brown golden color.
When Eddie drank it, it was the best ale he had ever tasted.
He also realized that although the lamps were extinguished, the room was completely dark, he could see everything as clear as day.
“If I’m still dreaming, I want the chick back,” he said out loud.
He felt something coursing through his blood, a kind of energy, warm and electric. He soon realized it wasn’t the ale. It was not until then that he noticed his hands were glowing with inner light, as though a tiny light in the nucleus of each cell had just turned on. He rose from the bed and walked over to the mirror, his feet not quite touching the ground. When he got to the mirror, he saw that his eyes were glowing with a strange inner light.
“Oh, boy,” he said.
Yronwode – Wilderness of Howling Zeal
Hundreds of kilometers away, in a tent in the desert between Urbtar Lek and Izzan-Al-Izzan, K-Rock slept also, his snores reverberated off the canvas walls and rang in the ears of the sentries guarding his rest.
In K-Rock’s dreams, he found himself walking through some desert or other, and he stared at the sky. The clouds in the sky were forming into faces of people he thought he should recognize, except for one that distinctly resembled a cat. But when he tried to focus on the faces in the clouds, they dissolved away.
There was an old man walking with him. Because it was a dream, the old man had neither approached nor appeared, he was just there. And he and K-Rock were holding a conversation, one that had neither been initiated, nor had been joined in progress, but was just happening.
And Their Dream Conversation went more or less like this.
Old Man: So, I see you found another way to make a damned fool of yourself.
K-Rock: I know you old man, when I was near dying, you came to me and told me I was K-Rock.
Old Man: No, I told you not to listen to the horse.
K-Rock: It wasn’t you.
Old Man: I don’t have time for such foolishness
K-Rock: Then, it was by my own will alone that I set my mind in motion and allowed myself to become K-Rock.
Old Man: K-Rock is a horse’s ass.
K-Rock: I’m not in the mood for this, old man.
Old Man: Moods are for sex and milkbeasts, and sometimes for both, like your Uncle Roy the Borealan, whom we’re not supposed to talk about. And sometimes, moods are for Drama, which brings us back to Uncle Roy again.
But definitely not for fighting! Saturday nights are all right for fighting, but not moods.
In the distance, on the horizon, but looming over large as though she were a giantess, the woman Bang, dressed in an inky black cloak, was holding out a vessel of water.
“Bitch,” said the Old Man.
As the dream conversation went on, K-Rock realized that his dialog was flowing through him, as though coming from some other place and time. The next thing K-Rock knew, he was saying to the old man, “Yronwode was created by the ancients to contain the faithless. Am I trapped here because my faith was not strong. Is faith the key to escaping?”
Old Man: I bet … (The Old Man then used a name K-Rock did not recognize. It sounded like ‘Alchemy’) … would love to know that.
K-Rock: Some thoughts have a certain sound, that being the equivalent to a form. Through sound and motion, you will be able to paralyze nerves, shatter bones, set fires, suffocate an enemy or burst his organs.
Old Man: Thoughts have sound? What have you been drinking? The truth is, if you and your horde over-run Midian, as ye are fixed to do, within a month, it’ll be no different than the rest of this godforsaken heckpit. I don’t care much for uppity Republicker control freaks, but as bad as they are, they are the only beacon of hope on this world, and you want to snuff them out.
K-Rock: Did you know my name is a killing word.
Old Man: (Repeating in mocking voice) My name is a killing word. No, Blade Toto’s is a killing word. Redfire’s name is a killing word. Blades kill people.
Redfire kills people, but Redfire is not himself these days. And, of course, Change kills people.
K-Rock: Rocks kill people, too.
Old Man: But paper covers a rock.
As if on cue, thousands and thousands of sheets of paper appeared, blowing through the desert, chased by the wind. K-Rock recognized them as scriptures, and suddenly he was terrified.
The Old Man muttered something.
K-Rock: Rock beats fire as well.
Old Man: Stick smashes rock.
K-Rock: Neg, rock smashes stick.
Old Man: Stick smashes rock, and stick masters fire.
K-Rock: You are mad. Fire burns stick.
The Old Man snatched away the battle staff from out of his hands: “Gimme that stick”.
When the Old Man grabbed the walking stick, the sigils carved along its length began to glow. The Old Man walked with it to the cliff’s edge and raised it in his left hand.
As he did so, bright beams of light beamed out from it. The Old Man sang out over the valley, an alien song of clicks and chirps.
Presently, a dragon rose from the floor beneath. It was a horrifying beast, covered in black iron scales, its eyes glowing like hot magma. Its gazed was fixed on the light from the walking stick, as though hypnotized. The Old Man moved the stick to the right and the great
dragon’s head swayed to the right. The Old Man moved the stick to the left, and the dragon’s head swayed to the left.
Then, the Old Man was astride the dragon’s neck.
Thousands more filled the sky behind him.
And then there was an earthquake.
And someone was shaking him. “Wake, Lord K-Rock!”
K-Rock opened his eyes and screamed.
“You call for me!” Big Mclargehuge insisted.
“I wha-a-a-a?” K-Rock mumbled. The dream was receding, and yet behind Big McLargehuge, he still saw an afterimage of the Old Man riding a dragon, battlestaff held triumphantly over his head and beaming shafts of white light. He scrambled to see if his staff was still in the bed with him, but it was right in his hand.
Bang entered the tent behind McLargehuge and held her canteen out to him.
“Water, my lord.”
“I had a dream,” K-Rock said, taking the canteen. “I know how to defeat the Theocrats now.”
Bang smiled. “Destroy them, you mean.”
“Whatever,” K-Rock smiled and leaned backward. “Dragons.”
“Dragons?”
“The dragons are the guardians of this world,” K-Rock said. “But they are not its masters. I can master them.
“Dragons?” McLargehuge asked. “Like, giant flying thunder-lizards.”
“Za, those dragons,” K-Rock assured him.
“What dragons?” Bang demanded.
“They live in the sky,” K-Rock told her. “This is a prison, they are the guards. I had a dream.”
“There are no dragons?” Bang spat at him.
“Shut up and make me pancakes, foolish woman!” K-Rock shouted at her. “I am K-Rock! I play the hits! Do not question me, or I will smite you as I smited… several others who needed smiting!”
He took a long drink from the canteen, rose from bed and began looking for his mantle. “We have work, McLargehuge. We have to prepare our armies and time is short. Prepare to break camp and move to Nimali. Nothing can stop us now. We have the ultimate power of the planet with us.”
As he said this, there came a flash, high in the sky above him. It was just a sudden flash, like lightning, but it was in a clear sky high above where clouds would be.
Also, it persisted for many long seconds before it dissipated.
“You see my sign,” K-Rock thundered. “Follow me and victory is ours!” CHAPTER: 13
Yronwode – Xiyyon - Emissarial Complex of the Starcross Eddie Roebuck was quite amazed at the things he could suddenly do, such as levitating objects around the room, and transforming things into other things. He had transformed a whole tub full of water into ale, then bathed in it. He then transformed it into shrimp bisque and bathed in it again. Then, he had transformed it back into water, drained it, and made a fresh tub of ale for bathing in, transforming it into a warm, scented cologne as he had finished.
He found he could change the telereceiver channels with his mind. He tried to use his powers to make the programs more interesting, like, for example, willing certain female performers to shed most of their clothing, but that had been unsuccessful.
Archonex Meek came into his chambers in mid-morning. “Meek, look what I can do!” Eddie had enthused. He forced a stream of water to jump from his tub, transform to wine in midair, and fill an empty goblet on his service bar.
Meek did not seem surprised, or even impressed. “I was aware,” he said. “Last night, our lady Pontifex Solace the 21st passed through the veil. In doing so, she passed the powers to her designate.”
“Wait, you mean she’s dead?” Eddie already knew the answer, but it seemed proper to ask.
“She has passed beyond the veil,” Meek told him. “And she has vested her Pontifectual powers in you.”
“You mean, she could always do this?” Eddie asked in amazement.
“Indeed.”
“Then, why didn’t she?” Eddie could not imagine having this degree of power and not using it for fun or personal gain.
“She understood the wisdom that told her that if one has great power, one must be careful in its use because if one does not control the power, one will be controlled by the power, Compendium of Beta Ceres…”
“… Chapter 6, verse 5,” Eddie finished. “I knew that. How could I know that?”
“She passed her knowledge to you as well,” Meek confirmed.
“Za, I know things…” Roebuck said. “I know things I could not possibly know. …” Meek bowed slightly, and seemed for the first time in Eddie’s presence, a little nervous. “Most Holy, we must now begin the preparations for your installation as Pontifex.”
Yronwode – Midian Security Base 1
In the late afternoon, the two sand crawlers returned to the Midian Defense Base 1. If the Midians noticed that ten soldiers went out and eleven came back, they didn’t say anything. Anton Stratos was put up on the barracks and allowed to rest while BarLass kept watch over him.
“He didn’t know anything about the commander, except that the commander let him eject first,” Dayvan Cowboy reported to Kitaen and Alkema as they huddled in a broom closet that had been determined free of listening devices.
“Have you made any progress working with Midian Intelligence,” Kitaen asked Alkema.
“I honestly don’t know,” Alkema told them. “I’ve even tried to probe Steadfast telepathically. She’s the one I know best, but I can’t even get a clear read on her. If they know anything, they’re hiding it pretty darn well.”
“According to our latest intercepts, they’re more concerned with some new leader who’s arisen among the Xirong,” Cowboy reported. “They think he’s a threat, probably an old Phalangist going under a new identity. But they can’t get an image of him, and they can’t track him because he moves constantly from place to place.” Parka suggested. “That’s a concern for the Midians. Our focus is finding the commander.”
“Or determining his fate,” Cowboy suggested.
“He’s alive,” Alkema snapped.
There was a knock at the closet door. It was General Parka. “You gentlemen may wish to come out and see this.”
The trio exited the closet and stepped into their jury-rigged command center, where the primary screen was displaying the scene at the Emissarial Temple of the Starcross Holy Empire. Eddie Roebuck was standing on a balcony, dressed in gold and purple robes, wearing a large spherical hat, and waving to throngs of the faithful gathered in Pontifex Wise Square. A pair of information telecasters, one of whom had appeared earlier in a dream of Max Jordan, were looking in on the scene from their studio.
“An alien pontifex,” the male telecaster was saying (he had not been in Max’s dream). “I don’t believe this has ever happened.”
“Not since the early days of the first Emissaries,” the woman explained. “There have been several Pontifexes born off-world.”
“But I understand the new Pontifex isn’t even a Brianist,” the man argued.
“Adherents prefer to be called Starcrossers, Tim…” the woman said.
“Of course, I’m sorry, but this is still highly unusual,” said the man.
“The new pontifex is an unusual person in every respect,” the woman continued. “Apparently, he has rejected the name of all predecessors and named himself Pontifex Grexxx Grebulon I.”
Kitean and some of the older warfighters began laughing out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Alkema asked.
“He named himself after an actor in Mining Guild Pirate Pornography,” Kitaen laughed. “What a strange child that one is. Are you sure you want him as your religious figurehead.”
“It is not my religion, nor is it my choice,” Parka asked. “While I am here, I would like to advise you that the Security Forces will be on a heightened state of alert while the Pontifex Transition is in effect. We also have unconfirmed reports that large numbers of Xirong are moving toward the city of Nimali, which is less than 100
kilometers away from here across the dem
ilitarized zone.”
“Should we be alarmed?” Kitaen asked.
“Many Xirong are always moving toward Nimali,” Parka explained. “It is the nearest large city to ours, and there are opportunities to work. We monitor the city closely. For years, there has been talk of a renewed ferkaktata against the Midian state, and Nimali would be a natural place for it to be launched.”
“What is a ‘ ferkaktata? ’” Kitaen asked.
“It’s a word of uncertain pedigree, but essentially it means a mass uprising,” Parka explained. “I have recommended that we go to high alert, that we suspend border crossings, and return bonded Xirong to Nimali temporarily. But, the Ward of Economics says it would be too disruptive to commerce, and the Ward of Externalities says it would infuriate the Xirong.”
Kitaen may smirked a little. “It would seem your people have to walk on eggshells to avoid perturbing their feelings. Perhaps, the problem is theirs.” Parka shook his head. “That is beyond my ability to deal with. But I understand uniquely that the Xirong perceive weakness in every concession. Someday, we will pay a high price for our unwillingness to confront them directly.” Yronwode – The Wilderness of Howling Zeal
In his tent at the base camp of Urk-El, 200 km northeast of Nimali, K-Rock and his military advisors made their war plans. This was three days after he had dreamed of the old man and the dragons.
Since that dream, K-Rock had all but forgotten the troubling lack of memories from more than a few days before. What happened before he awoke in Izzan-Al-Izzan did not matter. He was K-Rock, he had always been K-Rock, and it was K-Rock’s mission to conquer, subjugate, and ultimately destroy the Theocrat Invaders and raise up the Tsi Bai, to whom this world had been given by the Commonwealth Agents.
It was all totally clear to him, now. There was no doubt.
“Have all ten tribes committed,” K-Rock asked Big McLargehuge, his senior advisor. Bang hung back patiently in the background, dressed in the plain black robes typical of Xirong women.
“Cheiftain Ziger, ain’t committed no forces yet,” McLargeHuge reported.
K-Rock noted. “Doesn’t he want to live?”
