The Lord of Always

by David Brian

  Once we finished stacking the trolley, we set off on the steep climb to George’s cottage. As we passed it by, I cast my eyes over the quaint gray stone walls of The Cobweb Inn, licking at my dry lips as the smell of local brewed ales and ciders reached my nostrils, wishing desperately that our honeymoon trip to Cornwall hadn’t taken place in this crazy topsy-turvy version of reality. I longed for normal.

  George saw me eyeing the public house. “Shame, but I guess we won’t have time for that pint of scrumpy, eh lad?”

  I nodded, my throat dry, tightness compressing every fiber of my being. It was a feeling I had known previously, back in Egypt, on occasions prior to my unit engaging in conflict.

  Chapter 24

  Sitting in the Smokes’ kitchen, a steaming mug of black coffee wrapped between my palms, ruing both the quantity and inadequacy of the tot added to my drink, the brandy failing miserably to still the multitude of questions assailing my mind – such impossible claims being made.

  “It’s crazy. It’s all insane.” It was a flaccid rebuttal, though the best I could muster.

  “I don’t doubt it appears that way, lad. But perhaps you should ask yourself, just how much crazy have you experienced already today?”

  “Christ in a frock! A romantic walk through beautiful woodland, which resulted in Roz and me coming under fire from a tribe of insane primates. Is a collection of monkeys even called a tribe? I don’t know. Hell, it’s becoming apparent that I don’t know a whole lot about anything, lately.

  “Events started out weirdly enough, and then quickly progressed to downright insane. Following on from that first incident, we then ran into those glowing things which you claim are an order of higher beings, known as archons. Then, and crazier still, those damn pig-men. This whole day has turned to insanity, and to top it all off Roz vanished inside a hotel which then morphed into a building straight out of a Shirley Jackson novel – what the hell is really going on, George? Because, let me tell you, I’ve always had an interest in mythology and past civilizations, and yet I’ve never read any books that tell of angelic beings, or pig-men hybrids that enjoy rending humans into shreds!

  “Seriously, I thought I had seen it all, but those events in Boscastle topped even what came before. Those nightmares we encountered previously, you believe them to be at the behest of… of what exactly, a demon? Is she some sort of demon? And if she is, then how does that stack up with you being her cousin? Come to think of it, is she even a she?”

  “You need to take a breath, son.”

  “Take a breath. Seriously?”

  “Certainly, Anat sports a daunting appearance, though it is fair to say that her visage pales to insignificance when compared to actual accounts of her manner.”

  “She looks like a demon. And that alone is as insane as it is frightful. But you keep claiming she is some sort of minor goddess…which is downright bonkers!”

  I had never been a religious man, but if monsters such as these were the reality we faced at the time of our end, then how could the universe be considered just?

  Anat and her pig-men, or hoggish (to use the name George used); they wrought terrible destruction on so many innocents in that village. Awful acts perpetrated, seemingly witnessed and then just as readily forgotten by a substantial number of the populace. I witnessed all of that craziness, and yet it now paled alongside the latest declarations being made: Penhale House was, according to George, a focal point for all of this bizarre activity. What would my Roz say? Trust you to book us into a rot spot!

  According to George, the house had been built at a point where numerous realities converged, merging then splitting into fractured amalgams of what they once had been; and all of this occurring within a spit of the place from where my wife disappeared.

  George claimed there were pros and cons to our current predicament. The archons would be occupied with trying to manage this rift between realities, preventing it from expanding further, and thus, they would be less concerned with mopping up any debris until such time as they secured the ruptured seam.

  This sounded like good news, especially considering both Roz and I were among those viewed as debris.

  Being at the center of the rift made it difficult for the archons to identify which life forms belonged where, and so any they found near to the source would be allowed to go on breathing, at least for the short term, until it was determined whether they had stepped beyond the boundary of their designated existence. Worse still, George claimed it was possible Roz may have fallen through a tear into a different reality. If this turned out to be the case, it would make finding her extremely problematic. He kept avoiding elaborating on how he knew any of this, it made no sense: Anat referred to him as cousin.

  I was baffled, confused and frightened, though also a little relieved; George claimed to have a plan.

  I took a sip of coffee, wincing as the burn scalded my lips. My head spinning with a multitude of questions, I remained consumed by a single fixation: finding my wife. Roz was in terrible danger, and I realized that if we didn’t succeed over these coming hours I would never get to hold her in my arms again. The thought made me sick to the core of my being.

  “I can’t live without her,” I said with a pathetic sniffle, aware that my tone sounded infantile.

  Molly placed a gentle touch to the back of my neck, and then stroked tears from my eyes with the fingertips of her left hand; a smell of cinnamon loitered around her, reminding me of the woman’s propensity for fine baking.

  George stopped sucking on the Calabash, his long face resolute and strong. “It’ll be okay, Frank. I told you. We have time.”

  His words continued to sound convincing, but at this stage I needed more than words. The nagging doubt of failure nibbled at my soul.

  “I want it to be like it is with you two; Roz and me together throughout eternity. We love each other that much.”

  “It doesn’t work this way for most people, son. Like I told you, life is an ocean of possibilities. Even if you were to live the same life again, the smallest decision made could alter the course of everything. Even when we sort this mess, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have a ‘happily ever after’, or even that you’ll stay together for the rest of your lives. Sorry. I don’t mean to sound harsh. I know you’re hurting, but it’s important you understand.”

  I shook my head and cuffed a dribble of snot from my nose. “No. You’re wrong. We are meant to be together, forever.”

  Molly planted a kiss on my forehead and ruffled a hand through my hair. “I think you may be right, Frank.”

  George heaved himself forward in the chair, leaning and placing his palms flat on the table. “Any right or wrong of your future together, son, it’s irrelevant at this point. All that matters for now, it’s time to get busy.”

  It had been barely an hour since we huffed and puffed the flatbed up from the village. As we parked the trolley beside the front porch, the sky over distant houses once again began blinking with specks of dancing light. We looked back in the direction of Boscastle as the pitch of that waspish-din changed, softening to an almost ethereal melody which seemed to have a center in the direction of the harbor. Before we had a chance to turn away, the waterfront fizzed and crackled, erupting into a frenzy of screams, a cacophony of pain and fear echoing across the valley. A sickness – similar, though different – to the one I felt back in the village, churned at my insides. I was so relieved to feel safe – at least for the time being – and yet a wave of self-reproach overwhelmed me. We did nothing to aid those poor souls being butchered.

  Sitting in the kitchen, with Molly providing pots of tea and slices of Battenberg, it seemed bizarre given those earlier events in the village, but my appetite didn’t fail me – in fact, it verged on insatiable. I tucked into cake as though I hadn’t eaten a meal in days, listening as George further elaborated details which seemed incredulous. Perhaps beyond even the bounds of sanity.

  George said these creatures he called archons, the
y are the gatekeepers of reality – the fact he was able to know such things, I considered it damning indication that George Smoke was something other than human.

  He talked of old English folklore, and its many stories proclaiming Cornwall as the place of high magic within these isles. Apparently, it is a constant when dealing with rules governing existence; places deemed to be steeped in magic nearly always exist at nexus points – places where the fabrics of reality are at their most threadbare. Cornwall exists at such a point – a tear which has been slowly leaking for millennia.

  “Imagine, if you will,” said George, “that the ball of oceanic possibilities to which I earlier referred was constructed not of water but of fabric; a giant mattress of intangible linen; a fabric of options, so to speak. Every droplet of experience exists in a pocket universe of its own; events woven together upon this unending, and ever deepening fabric.

  “This is – sort of – how each world exists…how each reality exists. Each built above, below, or alongside another virtually identical reality, though not necessarily a physical world; the astral, etheric, and numerous other subtler worlds also exist within these same confines.

  “Now, imagine this: a tear occurs somewhere within the lining of one of these realities. Over time, events begin leaking from one lifetime into another, slowly at first, drip-dropping their way between existences. Then, if this open wound is left untreated, it begins to bleed infection, spreading disruption as events unfold between worlds, colliding, shifting, and allowing happenings to slip beyond their intended borders. This is one of the reasons archons exist. Their primary purpose is to manage, to oversee and subjugate various planes of reality, and the beings that exist therein. It is important for them to repair these damaged fabrics…these breaches, though only because removing the debris which has bled through ruptured barriers, it allows them easier control of their subjects.”

  “Subjects?”

  “I’ll get to explaining subjects at a later date, Frank. For now, though, I need you to understand something. As I already explained, both Roz and you are interlopers. As were all those poor souls lost today. Swept from existence because they had misfortune enough to slip through a void into a place they had no right being.”

  “Hold on a minute. You know this all sounds nuts, right? But even if any of what you are saying is true, then surely the archons would have just returned the displaced back to their rightful realities, wouldn’t they?”

  “They could have,” George agreed. “Instead, they chose to remove them from existence. Just as they look to remove you from existence. If they get to you they will wipe the slate. You will be disappeared from here, and back in the life you knew, there will be no one even remembers you existed.”

  “But you said the archons’ existence is based solely around overseeing. They are here to ensure realities don’t become corrupted. You said different religions have allotted them various titles, but to all intent and purpose, they are the creatures most often mistaken as angels. So why then would they seek to destroy us? Wouldn’t they instead be trying to help?”

  “If you think the angels mentioned in the Old Testament ever served at the behest of mankind, I would suggest you pick up a copy of that tome. These are the beings aptly described in those pages, though the angels mentioned in that Testament were no such thing. These beings are propagators of fear and brutality.”

  “What you are saying makes no sense. Why would they act like that?”

  “They are flawed; corrupted.”

  “Corrupted by Satan?”

  George snorted a guffaw. “That was not a question I expected from someone who claims not to be religious. But no, the Adversary is not the sole cause of these current woes.”

  I considered this reply for a moment, and then decided I needed to ask anyway. “So, you’re saying Satan does exist?”

  “Yes, well, sort of. Though like the majority of them, he wears multiple guises.”

  “But it wasn’t him who corrupted the archons?”

  “It was realization which corrupted the archons.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Forget everything taught to you at Sunday school. The progenitor of this realm – and of all significant realms within this creation, including Hell below and the Seven Heavens above – is the material force from which all mankind’s deities’ spring, and all religions are birthed. And, almost without exception, the ancient gods of such religions, they are all archons, the children spawned by a being which refers to itself as the Ancient of Days, and the Son of Chaos. His true name is Yaldabaoth.”

  “I can’t claim to be a religious man, but that sounds more ridiculous than anything I ever read in the Bible.”

  “Nevertheless, Frank, above the Seventh Heaven there is Chaos, and it was Chaos which fathered Yaldabaoth.”

  “I’m struggling with this, but regardless: what has any of this mess actually to do with Yaldadabbydoobe – whatsisname?”

  “The archons are the gods of yore, and they are for the most part brutal…these are flawed beings, who feed and prosper from mankind’s despair.”

  “So are you saying that angels are really demons, and vice versa?”

  “At least in this instance, yes.”

  “That’s bat-shit crazy!”

  George smiled. “I’ve said too much, already.”

  “So what has this got to do with that bitch we encountered earlier? Are you suggesting she is operating under orders from the Devil himself?”

  “Should she so wish, Anat could easily have returned home each of those displaced.”

  “Then why didn’t she?”

  “I’ve already explained these are beings that thrive on fear and misfortune. To the likes of her, you are not even as bugs. It would require marginally more effort to return you than it does to squish you. Also, and possibly just as important when understanding her true motives, there is no longer anyone left in this realm – or indeed in any other – who makes sacrifice to her name. She is a remnant of a past forgotten, a deity as petulant and spiteful to those who once worshipped her name as once she was to those who refused it. Anat’s role is now purely one of servitor to the Demiurge, she has been forced to bow and scrape before a being more vengeful than ever she was. No longer is the name Anat remembered for her feats, neither in fear nor with reverence. She can only thrive through acts of cruelty and strife, fear she now perpetuates in another’s name.”

  George’s features twisted into a look I couldn’t then discern. “Even in her high times she was a deceiver not to be trusted.”

  “I understand every word you’re saying, George, but, honestly, none of it is making much sense.”

  A rueful grimace lined the old man’s face. “What I say, Frank, these things I have told you; it really doesn’t matter. All that is important is trying to right this dreadful wrong being inflicted here.”

  I was confused as hell, and also deeply unsettled by the distress showing on George’s face. I needed to feel he was in control; it was the only way I could maintain confidence about our rescuing Roz. I decided to try and refocus things on the task at hand.

  “But you can help me. You can help me find Rosalind, and you can help us return home, yes?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am sure I can do that…I can, and I will.”

  “And those people who died today… you will wind back time and save them, too?”

  George turned his eyes to the floor. “It doesn’t work like that. Once erased, they are gone forever. They never existed. No one from their lives, past or present will even remember them.”

  “But I remember them. We remember them.”

  “Things work a little differently for those standing in my shadow.”

  His answer made as little sense as most everything else he was telling me, but I didn’t query it; too much of what he had just said sounded barking mad. All that mattered was finding Roz. This whole situation was insane. I couldn’t allow myself to become distracted by any other concerns th
an those for my wife, although something unpleasant continued tugging on a thread in the back of my mind. George claimed that Anat was – to all intent and purpose – working directly for God…and yet hadn’t she referenced George falling? Again I asked myself: just who is George Smoke?

  Chapter 25

  At George’s behest, I helped roll back the lounge carpet and then stood puzzled as he sliced open one of the bags of salt and laid a liberal scattering of sodium around the edges of the room. Once finished, he ordered me to clear out, urging that I be careful to avoid treading on the trail of salt he had laid.

  We made our way to the garden shed, and from there retrieved a rucksack, a spool of string, a leather tool belt, two pickaxes – George took great pains to assure me that each head was cast of iron, though the relevance of this information (at least at the time) remained lost to me – a rusted wheelbarrow, which appeared about as aged as George himself, and finally, we retrieved an old tin bath from where it had been tucked away beneath the workbench.

  After securing the items from the shed, we returned to the front garden and the supplies we scavenged from the store. Thankfully – and to my great surprise – the hoggish who assailed the house had not bothered returning. The flatbed remained undisturbed, fully loaded.

  I watched curiously as George lifted a squeezy bottle from the flatbed, emptying out three-quarters of its contents into the tin bath set on the lawn. He then added a few tablespoons of salt to the bottle, instructing me as he did so to follow his lead and help in preparing more bottles. I complied, although the purpose of the exercise wasn’t obvious. Each time we finished prepping a bottle; Molly relieved us of our wares and disappeared inside. On each occasion, she returned minutes later with the bottle topped to within three-or-four inches short of its brim.

  Once we had a line of containers assembled on the grass – reminiscent of a platoon of plastic soldiers standing on parade – I offered to begin replacing the bottle caps.