Transcending Limitations

by Brian Wilkerson

  Meza backhanded her.

  The force knocked her delicate body to the ground. Her aura briefly diminished and then flared again. Her immediate area was starting to wear thin. This freaked out everyone except Eric, who could only see that someone had raised their hand in anger against his girlfriend.

  His pupils slit and his right arm transformed. He drew it back to beat the elf and Sagart’s own hand held him back. He turned his grendel eyes on her and she stared back.

  “Acolyte,” Meza said, “I insist that you cease your reckless action.”

  “Reckless? Quail sits pancake. Overnight scotch tape!” She shook her head. “I have to Zah-lin gah!” She shook her head a second time.

  She jumped up and grabbed for her bow, but Meza held it beyond her reach. Frowning, she stuck her hand into a miniature portal. When she pulled her hand out, it held a chair. One flash of chaotic light later and she was holding a copy of Deathkiller.

  Then half of her body expanded outwards, transformed in ten ways, and then snapped back. The impact made her stumble and Meza grabbed the second Deathkiller. Annala leaned forward, hands on her knees, sweating and shaking.

  “You did not save those people,” Meza said. “You killed them.”

  “The body is an illusion!” Annala declared. “Wu jeou foo…I mean...paehe ssha!”

  She shook her head repeatedly. Her legs outright disappeared and she fell face first onto the ground. Eric brushed off Sagart and rushed to her. Another chaos pulse knocked him back and transformed him as well. He managed to revert back to normal after a moment of intense focus, but Annala was not so successful.

  She lay on the ground, quivering, curled up, and resembling the HPLC monsters her mother created. She moaned as mutations continuously changed her insides. Her aura shimmered and the chaos taint spread further.

  NO! That can’t happen! I won’t let...didn’t let...am not letting...AAAAHHHH!

  The mental words resounded in the minds of everyone present.

  Yes! It will pass! The glorious truth of the First Mother will reach every corner of this world! No more confinement to three dimensions and a single solitary mind!

  This too was heard by everyone.

  Make it stop! Please...Make it st-stop...

  Eric spun to Tasio and shouted, “DO SOMETHING!”

  “I can’t,” The Trickster said.

  Eric replied with Evil Eye.

  “Seriously, I can’t. The side effects of possession by my main body aren’t something I can fix. However, I’m not sitting on my hands either.”

  “You’re knitting!” Kallen shouted.

  The king of the tricksters was holding ten spools of yarn, five boxes of ribbon, and a dozen pincushions for his sister. The knitting goddess floated next to him, working furiously on many pieces of clothing. Eight arms with ten fingers each worked fifteen sewing needles and twenty-nine more spools of yarn.

  “Regardless of how this might look,” Tasio said, “please trust me when I say we are in the middle of solving this problem.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Eric asked.

  “Or me?” Kallen added.

  “Pray for us,” Tasio said. “It’s not just moral support.”

  Only feet away from them, Annala’s suffering continued. The body parts of random creatures burst forth from random places on her own body. It shifted in size and shape and material. She curled up tighter, shut her eyes, and bit her lip. Then a thought occurred to her.

  Through the madness and confusion, one idea stood out among the others. If the body was an illusion, like she said, then so was anything held by the body. She did not need Deathkiller to save the people of Latrot. The gesture was only a formality. She could nuke a faraway town with just her mind. Better yet, she could nuke Meza with her mind.

  The thought pleased her. If he was trying to stop her from saving their fellow elves, then it followed that he did not want to truly free them. He wanted them for himself. He was an enemy. Thus, it was perfectly justifiable to melt him down to the spiritual level right here and now.

  Her aura expanded to envelop Meza and she began the process of spiritual eradication. Without his equipment, Meza had no defense against her. His body began to corrode and his spirit with it, and yet, he didn’t flinch.

  “Sagart. She’s your apprentice; talk sense into her.”

  Annala appraised her mentor like a farmer appraises a big stone in their field; is it innocuous or hiding a snake? Sagart smiled gently and clasped her hands together.

  “Although the body is indeed an illusion, it is one that has meaning. For if the body is an illusion, then all of physical reality is an illusion and, furthermore, so are the incorporeal realms such as the Abyss, the Celestial Realms, and Torment Planes. Indeed, the only things that can truly be considered ‘real’ or ‘solid’ are the Three Founding Deities. This is why insisting too hard on the illusion of physical existence is nothing more than bleak nihilism, which is not at all chaotic but orderly because it upholds that nothing can ever be changed and mortal souls do not possess individuality.”

  Annala considered this. Then a horrid hacking and vomiting issued from her mouth. Tears ran down her face. The rest of her body petrified into sandstone and her hair into fool’s gold.

  In this state, she restored Meza’s essence. Her aura dimmed, but it did not disappear and so it was still eating at the fabric of reality.

  Woe to those who lack understanding! For they are easy prey for Order!

  Sagart nodded. “Gutenotomy: 1 1-2.” She spoke with remarkable gravitas, considering her fear of Annala and of the girl’s condition. “We’re all continuously learning and so mistakes are inevitable for all of us. That includes you, Meza.”

  The folk hero stared at her.

  “Yes, you. The use of violence to force compliance and giving orders without spoken justification are the ways of Order’s Orthodoxy, not the Church of Chaos. Be careful that you do not become what you fight against.”

  “After that ‘Godmother’ stunt, you are the last person I will take such criticism from.”

  Abruptly, Annala pointed at the space behind Eric and her arm spontaneously transformed into a copy of Deathkiller. This new version glowed with a divinity that was entirely absent in the original. Even Tasio looked nervous because it resembled his “Reaper of Gods” authority.

  “Sis...is the adapter ready yet?”

  “Working on it!”

  Once again in elven form, Annala stood up and pulled back the string of her new bow. This act created an arrow out of nothing.

  “Don’t even think about it, Gruffle! I can kill you outright.”

  Eric looked over his shoulder and saw a reaper troll poking his head out of the Door of Death. He was just as surprised as Eric himself. Yet instead of withdrawing, he started clapping.

  “Congratulations, Annala,” he said. “You have truly overcome any and all fear you had of Death and come to understand his brand of mercy. I was hoping you would; that’s why I stopped by earlier. The people you killed are on their way to the Abyss right now, or to the Sea of Chaos. Either way, they will be reborn in more pleasant circumstances soon.”

  “...Point or I wiloph.” Annala shook her head. “Jill shohh.” She took deep and controlled breaths and did not try to speak again.

  Gruffle looked upon her with condescending compassion. “At least, they would be in any other circumstance. In this case, they were simply collected by the Grand Obelisk and absorbed into its bulk. Either that or transmitted to the Nulso production facility.”

  Horror dawned in Annala’s eyes.

  “Imagine Latrot’s response!” Gruffle continued. “There hasn’t been a disaster this bad since Siduban, and that was caused your own mother, The Witch of Dnnac Ledo. The nail doesn’t corrode far from the girder, now does it?”

  Tears formed in Annala’s eyes and she lost control of her breathing.

  “Next time, try to not collapse reality. There’s no coming back from
that. Sueno will be a permanent scar on this world.”

  He raised his scythe and bowed. “All hail Annala Enaz, genocidal priestess of Chaos the Destroyer! Her lack of mercy is without equal and her arrow is more deadly than any scythe!”

  Immediately, Annala started crying. The divine arrow disappeared and the divine Deathkiller turned back into her arm. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  Her adoptive sister, boyfriend, clerical sister, and familiar yearned to console her, but her chaos taint kept them all beyond arm’s length. The area around her was alarmingly thin. One could see souls moving through Noitearc.

  “Reaper, do you have a point to make?” Sagart asked.

  Gruffle shrugged. “My death made me religious and I wanted to bond with a fellow convert.” He put a rotten hand to his decayed chin. “What was that phrase? Oh yes, ‘Woe to those who lack understanding for they are easy prey for Order.’”

  He withdrew into the Door of Death and it closed behind him.

  “I’m a monster!” Annala wailed. “Worse, I’m a heretic!” Her body shimmered like a ghost. “H jquh liberator rhoer nurturer, uhtft destroyer!”

  “You mean she doesn’t care about the destroying itself?” Eagon asked.

  He and the other Ordercrafter Hunters were still shepherding elves through the portal. It was hard keeping them focused when their savior and mistress was having a physical, mental, and spiritual meltdown in full view of them.

  “Only during the Conversion War did we raze towns to the ground,” he continued, “and even when they were full of mind controlled slaves, we didn’t think we were helping them!”

  “Please show sympathy to her,” Sagart said. Her eyes and cheeks were wet. “She hosted Lady Chaos herself. It’s a miracle that she has any sanity left at all. A morality shift was inevit...” She trailed off at what she saw behind Annala.

  A Door of Death appeared in the no man’s land created by her chaos taint and Gruffle re-emerged. Annala was too distraught by his earlier words to notice him creep behind her. Only Eric realized the significance of him holding shears instead of a scythe.

  “Annala! Behind you!”

  She spun around just as Gruffle thrust towards her neck. Adjusting his angle, he snipped from the top of her head and grabbed the severed hairs. Then he hastily retreated while swinging the strands like a battle trophy.

  “I did it! I DID IT! Hahaha! Eric is as good as dead now!”

  The hairs in his hand blinked rapidly. Gruffle clenched them and flew into the Door of Death. Then a back blast of chaotic flames roared through the Door, accompanied by Gruffle’s terrified screams. The door closed.

  “Gruffle wanted to steal Annala’s hair in order to kill me?” Eric asked. “Did I hear him right?”

  “Now that I think about it,” Kallen said, “her hair would make a potent energy source for a weapon. Why he would need such a thing when he has a reaper scythe is beyond me.”

  “Finished!”

  Belldandy soared to Annala with her tailoring and shrouded her with a tarp that she pulled out of nowhere. Just as quickly, the two emerged and Annala was wearing a new outfit.

  This habit was more fashionably cut than her previous one and added decorative touches like a layered skirt, scalloped sleeves, ribbons at the chest, and embroidered hemlines. There were also new shoes with high heels. The new veil shimmered with silver and was crowned by emerald green. Her arms were covered in opera gloves that had pink frills at the shoulders, some lace at the wrist, and a green vine pattern that spiraled between them.

  Tasio looked over the decorations and remarked, “Were those really necessary?”

  Belldandy crossed her arms and scoffed, “Of course they’re necessary!”

  The unnecessarily fancy articles of clothing glowed faintly with ethereally inscribed runes. These were so complicated that neither Sagart nor Meza could comprehend them. They whirled as they began their work. A sphere of green-grey light encompassed Annala and then compressed within her. Annala’s aura vanished and she appraised her new adornments.

  “These are cute,” she said. “I like the lace and... my voice!” She bowed to Belldandy. “Thank you very much!”

  The goddess nodded. “This is a rush job, so I’m glad you like them.”

  Annala reached under her veil to tug her ear. “Does...this mean I won’t hurt anyone?”

  Belldandy shook her head. “That’s up to you, as it always is. In fact, you’ll still have easy access to your new power and abilities. What my adapters do is help you manage them. You will see more clearly, act with greater delicacy, and otherwise better avoid breaking reality.”

  “How do they work?” Annala asked.

  “The gloves will regulate your power by restricting and/or directing its flow. It’s similar to a garden hose. The habit creates a feedback loop within your body to prevent the chaotic pulses and also store the chaos-tainted parts of your spirit in rotating dimensions. As a result, you will be pulled into those dimensions at random times.”

  “Random world jumping?!” Annala exclaimed.

  Belldandy shrugged. “Think of it as a surprise mystery vacation.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The new veil filters out most of what you can sense so you can focus on the here and now. It will also keep your voice at a mortal tone, your skin porcelain, and your hair free of dust.”

  Annala examined the gloves again; beautiful and practical. She felt more in control of her power without the clamps and pain caused by the Subjugation Collar. She grabbed the top of the left glove with her right hand and pulled it off completely. It was quick and effortless. It also made her left side glow and shake, so she put it back on.

  Then her whole body started shimmering. Perrault did as well. Both became transparent, starting with Annala’s arms. Horrified, the priestess passed one through the other.

  “Your first vacation is starting now,” Belldandy said.

  “I can’t leave yet!”

  Annala screwed her eyes shut and furrowed her brow. Her body became more solid, but the surrounding area became correspondingly thinner. The gasps of everyone around her broke her focus and she became transparent again. Belldandy stuck two sheets of paper between her neck and the scarf around it.

  “When you arrive, you can make alterations if you want.”

  Annala found the eyes of her boyfriend. His face betrayed even more fear for her than she felt for herself. Her adoptive sister was forcing a smile.

  “Don’t forget to write,” Kallen said.

  Annala nodded and wiped her eyes. “Right.”

  She snapped her fingers and the portal to Light of Avalon Monastery closed immediately. The elf about to cross over pulled his foot back just in time to save it. The rest of them looked at her in confusion.

  “Sorry! Change of plans!” She patted the sheets Belldandy gave her, checked for her paidrin and her quiver, and then Meza handed her Deathkiller. She smiled at him. “Thanks. That should be...no! One more thing!”

  She tried to hug Kallen but stumbled through her instead. Regardless, she pounced on Eric next and kissed him. By this point, she was little more than a faint image. Then she stepped back and said to them both, “Don’t worry. I’ll be back. You better not die while I’m gone.”

  “I’ll wait for you until the heat death of the universe and longer if I need to,” Eric said. “Donangelo has just the place.”

  “I’ll keep Eric safe from other girls while you’re gone,” Kallen said.

  Annala rolled her eyes. “Right. See yo—”

  “WAIT!”

  Cinder sprang on Annala and grabbed her scarf. Through it, Annala’s shimmer flowed into Cinder and she became transparent too. The priestess only had time for a look of shock before she disappeared with her familiar and follower.

  “Move out!” Meza ordered. “Without that portal, we will resume our original plan of leaving on foot. Form columns of five and march, now!”

  It was surprisingly ea
sy, Eric thought, to leave Latrot. The oppressive atmosphere of the Grand Obelisk was much diminished and any minions of Order that came after them were small in number. Far from slowing them down, the time taken to fight them off actually helped them escape faster; defeating their former masters gave the escaping slaves greater confidence. They walked faster and with greater purpose. Then the Orderly Reality Vice came into view and they faltered.

  The zone was more violent than before and its spirits more agitated. Neither Meza nor Sagart could convince them to enter it. The former considered forcing the issue when Priestess and her familiar emerged from it. For some reason, she gripped her staff in both hands tight enough to make the tension audible.

  “Huddle up and stay close.”

  The former slaves immediately obeyed. The wolf circled them to push in stragglers and then heeled by her mistress. Priestess tapped the ground with the butt of her staff and enveloped the group in a golden bubble.

  “Priestess, thank you for coming,” Sagart said.

  “I’m sorry for not arriving earlier. I had to save ten towns from a misguided and much younger cleric with a twisted sense of compassion.”

  Within the wandering cleric’s bubble, the raiding part was safe from the Orderly Reality Vice. They emerged on its far side without trouble. Once there, Priestess struck Eric’s butt with her staff.

  “You broke your promise to me!”

  Eric grimaced and rubbed the spot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about the Orderly Reality Vice.”

  She turned her back on him and crossed her arms. “Because I can’t trust you, I’ll have to escort you back to Dnnac Ledo.”

  Eric frowned. “Trust? You don’t let anyone see your face!”

  The wolf barked at him.

  “Hush,” Priestess said to her. “I can’t show my face.” She pulled her hood lower. “If I could explain why, you’d agree, but I can’t do that either.”

  It was a long journey to Mithra’s interior, so the Ordercrafter Hunters filled the silence with talk pleasing to their charges. None of them spoke of anything other than Annala, her miraculous performance, and sudden exit.