I nodded. “What does—”
“And that it repeated?”
“Yes.”
“I think you have the order wrong.” He grinned at me. “No offense meant.”
I shook my head, confused.
Althyof smiled and nodded. “Not ansuz laguz uruz kaunan! Laguz uruz kaunan ansuz!”
“So: ‘knowledge truth fantasy wisdom.’ How does that help?” Jane looked from Althyof to Yowtgayrr to me. “How?”
I glanced at the proo to gauge the reaction of the Great Old Ones. After a momentary frenzy, they settled and flashed the same runes again, but this time the runes were all in reverse. “That’s strange. They’re showing me the same runes, but they are backward.”
Yowtgayrr nodded. “That only confirms my thought. There is no ambiguity.”
“No,” said Althyof. “In this case, the runes mean: ‘Chaos—’”
“Or perhaps: ‘madness, obsession.’”
“No, Hank. As I said, in this case, the meaning is clear. ‘Chaos, untamed potential, fire of transformation, and power.’”
Jane shook her head and opened her mouth, but Yowtgayrr put his hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t speak.
“When their runes are written backward—as if viewed in a mirror—laguz uruz kaunan ansuz mean ‘Madness, obsession, instability, manipulation.’ With both sets of meanings in hand, the particular significance, in this case, becomes clear.”
“Or in this case, who they mean,” said Yowtgayrr.
I smacked myself in the forehead. “Of course! Using the runes as letters, it spells L-U-K-A. Luka!”
Yowtgayrr grimaced and nodded.
Realization dawned on Jane’s face. “So, this is it? This is the one?”
“That would be my guess,” I said. “But could Luka have manipulated the Great Old Ones somehow? Used them to trick us?”
Althyof shook his head. “No one knows anything about these Great Old Ones you keep blathering on about.”
I glanced at Yowtgayrr, and he nodded. “No?”
“No,” said Althyof. “But, we still have a choice to make. This proo which the Great Old Ones label ‘Luka’ or the last one which they called ‘Travel Isir.’ Either one seems just as likely to me.”
Jane scoffed. “They as much as said this proo leads to Luka.”
Althyof grinned. “Did they? I thought they said Luka manipulated this proo.”
“The only thing we can agree on is that Yowtgayrr’s proo is bad news.” Jane shook her head. “Some superpower this turns out to be, Hank.”
Something tickled the back of my mind, a vague memory of events barely remembered. “Superpower,” I muttered. I pursued the thought, trying to force my mind to produce the information, but the more I did that, the farther away it seemed. I shook my head and shrugged. “So how do we decide? Should I send a raven through again?”
Jane scoffed and threw up her hands. “Ask your invisible friends in the proo.”
“I don’t know how to ask them anything. They do the rune dance when they want to—at least so far. Plus, we don’t even know what these things are.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” murmured Jane. She brushed past me, and, before I could stop her, reached out and touched the proo. The tendrils waving around the edge snapped around her hand and disappeared.
“Hank, sometimes your wife is—”
“Awesome,” I said and touched the proo.
As though traveling as my animus—or perhaps the dream about Kuhntul chiseling away at my brain—had unlocked something within me, moving through the proo wasn’t instantaneous, and this time, I could see inside the proo. It was as if I were falling, but forward instead of down. Wisps of light-infused dust surrounded me, streaking by out to the side, and behind them, huge, shadowy shapes writhed and braided, one with another. The Great Old Ones.
One of them twisted toward me, like a vast, blind worm, and I slowed to a stop, hanging in the middle of whatever made up the space between the proo’s ends. After a moment, others joined the first, until I floated in the center of a ring of the colossal juggernauts.
A booming, oscillating shiver raced across my skin, leaving goose-flesh in its wake. It reminded me of how the sea dragon had assaulted us with those booming clicks, but without the auditory component, whether because of the nature of the proo or the nature of the Great Old Ones, I didn’t know.
I opened my mouth to draw enough air into my lungs to speak, but there was no air to breathe, only a strange nothingness that wasn’t the vacuum I’d expected. I shrugged and looked at the first Great Old One, motioning in the direction in which I had been traveling before it stopped me.
It shook its massive head and coated me in vibrations yet again. When I shrugged, it extruded a part of itself—a pseudopod of shadows—and stretched toward me. The memory of the tendril from the side of the proo touching the Great Old One and blackening and dying raced through me and I tried to lurch away. The Great Old One’s advance was relentless, and I couldn’t escape its touch.
Thoughts, images, ideas, and memories exploded through my mind, too fast for me to make any sense of them. The contact struck me as similar to a physical assault, like having my head shoved inside one of the massive horns of a concert sound system and cranking up the volume. I shuddered and writhed, but I couldn’t pull away. The vibrations on my skin came again, burning me like flames. Had there been air, I would have been screaming, but things as they were reduced me to suffering in silence. One of my favorite songs in the world was “One” by the heavy-metal behemoth, Metallica, and my predicament reminded me forcefully of that song and its music video of the wounded soldier thrashing in his bed, spelling out “kill me” in Morse code.
The barrage continued, images I couldn’t understand slamming through me, and the vibrations continued to wash over me, to burn me the way cinnamon oil splashed over my skin would. The pseudopod morphed and stretched, moving with me as I thrashed around, protracting to encase the top of my head.
As its limb covered my eye, the swarm of thoughts and images congealed into coherence. The process reminded me of tuning in an AM station on an old radio, and as I tuned in, the pain fell away.
SMALL ONE, HEAR THIS ONE. TIME GROWS SHORT.
The words rang at the center of my mind, but they weren’t words, that was how my mind interpreted what the Great Old One communicated to me. Who are you? I thought at it.
MEANINGLESS NON SEQUITUR. ATTEND! THIS ONE HAS MESSAGES TO IMPART. THIS ONE REQUIRES CONTACT FOR COMMUNION.
Well, you’ve got that already, don’t you?
CEASE. CEASE. CEASE. YIELD TO THIS ONE.
I shook my head within its leathery grasp, the skin of my forehead rasping across the inner surface of its pseudopod. Rough bumps pebbled the membrane, as dry as desert sand. I don’t know what you are asking me to do.
CEASE. YIELD. These last thoughts came with increasing pressure, increasing psionic emphasis. TIME SHORTENS, AND THE NEXUS LOOMS. THIS ONE DESIRES YOU TAKE ACTION. THE DESIRE FOR ACTION APPROACHES THE IMPERATIVE. YIELD UNTO THIS ONE.
I did not understand what it was going on about. We didn’t appear to be moving within the space between the proo; instead we seemed mired in the nothingness that surrounded us.
IRRELEVANT. YOU HAVE BEEN MARKED BY THE AGENT, THE SELECTION HAS BEEN MADE. YOUR ACTION IS REQUIRED. YOUR ACTION IS INTEGRAL TO THE NEW PLAN.
New plan? What is this plan?
CEASE. BIFURCATED COMMUNICATION IS EXTRANEOUS, UNDESIRABLE…FRACTIOUS. ATTEND. UNDERSTAND. OBEY. YIELD TO THIS ONE.
Irrational anger seeped into my veins. Sorry, chummy. I don’t work that way, and to be frank, I’m full to the point of puking of this idea that I need to do what someone tells me without explanation, without my agreement. I’ve got news for you, big guy: I don’t work that way. There was a moment of silence before the cacophonous flood of images, thoughts, random words, and mental static began again, growing in volume until I wanted to scream, to gouge out whatever organ all
owed me to hear these things. After what I experienced as an eternity, it stopped.
CEASE. YIELD.
The psychic pressure of his communication grew, and I hung there, not thinking, not looking, not curious about anything, just trying to recover from the onslaught.
YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE GIFTS. YOU BEAR THE MARK. CHOICE IS INSIGNIFICANT. PREFERENCE IS INSIGNIFICANT. YOUR LACK OF ACTION VERGES ON PEEVISHNESS. THIS ONE GROWS WEARY OF THE EFFORT. COMPULSION IS SATISFACTORY.
Something tickled the inside of my skull—ants crawling across its inner surface. One by one, parts of my mind that I’d never noticed before felt numb, as if disconnected from the whole. Ragged hallucinations plagued me—visions of depravity from my time as a cop who investigated gruesome crimes for the state of New York on Mithgarthr. Sounds that I couldn’t actually hear assaulted my mind—screams, cries of pain and grief—the sickening symphony of psychic surgery. I struggled against it, but I was powerless in the face of the Great Old One’s power.
After another eternity, the misplaced parts of my mind reconnected.
CULMINATION. CONSUMMATION OF PURPOSE. TERMINOUS AD QUEM. HIGHEST LEVEL OF SUCCESS ACHIEVED.
If you say so, I thought, my mind still a-reel.
Without another thought, the pseudopod disengaged, snapping away from me with a ripping, tearing pop. For half a heartbeat, those terrible vibrations drummed around me, and then I was out of the proo, staggering to keep my balance.
Fifteen
I fought for balance in the hot sand that appeared beneath my feet. I sucked in a lungful of too-humid, too-hot afternoon air. Sweat prickled across my scalp in an instant, and I glanced up at the angry afternoon sun.
“Where have you been?” demanded Jane.
“I…uh…” I shook my head, my thoughts scattering. “I came through the proo the same as you. You traveled through a few seconds before I followed you.”
“That was twenty minutes ago!”
“It seems longer,” I muttered. “The Great Old Ones stopped me inside.”
“What?” she asked.
The world tilted to the side, and I staggered a step or two, balance suddenly unreliable and hard to find.
Jane grabbed my arm to steady me, concern etched on her face. “What happened in there, Hank?”
“Travel across this proo wasn’t instant as it always has been, similar to what happened when I went through with my animus. This time, I perceived the Great Old Ones floating around outside the path of the proo, and this time, they surrounded me, stopped me dead and…and talked to me, I guess.”
“They talked to you?”
“More like talked at me. They weren’t very interested in my side of the conversation.”
“What did they say?” asked Jane.
“A lot of things such as: ‘Cease. Obey. Yield.’ Stuff in that vein. And it was only one of them. It grew an arm to grab my head and—”
“Grew an arm?”
“Yeah. They are like…I don’t know, big amorphous slugs or something such as that. I guess it needed physical contact to make me understand it. Before it touched me, it reminded me of that sea dragon’s clicks.”
“The noise?”
“No, the feeling of it, the vibrations running through your body. It touched me, and my brain couldn’t keep up with the thoughts. Eventually, the Great Old One got it right and told me that time was short, it required action, etc. It wouldn’t give me any details, so I told it to go to hell, and it said it didn’t have a problem forcing me to do what it wanted, and it did something to me.”
“Alien examinations? Tickled your feet? What?” demanded Jane.
“I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d say psychic surgery of some kind.”
“Awesome,” Jane spat. “Why do all these so-called ‘gods’ think you are their plaything?”
“If I had the answer to that question, they’d be abusing Althyof instead of me.” That earned a small, short-lived grin from my wife. “There’s not much I can do to stop any of them.”
“Evidently.”
I nodded. “Where are the others?
Jane shrugged and waved her hand at the maritime forest behind her. “I told them to go explore so I could kick your ass in private.”
I smelled salt on the air and peered over my shoulder. Behind me was the proo, and behind it was a small expanse of sea water and another long, sheltering island. “Where do you suppose we are?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t bring any sunblock, so wherever we are, I’m going to lobster.”
“Let’s get up by those trees and out of the sun.”
We walked across the small shingle of sand, but before we reached the trees, Krowkr emerged and waved at us. “Come quick, Isir,” he said. “We found a village like none other I’ve ever seen, but no people.”
Jane and I followed him down an overgrown path, and as we walked, it dawned on me that there were tracks everywhere. Thousands upon thousands of glowing trails dotted the forest. “Do you see all the tracks?”
Jane looked at me sharply and shook her head.
“Strange,” I said.
We emerged into a clearing, and into the remains of what looked to be an abandoned colonial village. More tracks—or maybe paths is a better description—saturated the walking spaces, leading from one door to another, or to the forest. The buildings were in the process of being reclaimed by the maritime forest that surrounded the place.
“Hank!” called Yowtgayrr. “We’ve found something over here.”
In what had been the village square, the villagers had sunk a large post into the earth. Manacles hung from its top, and fire had charred its base. The tracks showed me where dozens of people had stood in a circle around the post, watching a spectacle. Lying a few feet from the stake were the skeletal remains of a man, bones charred by extreme heat, the ground beneath him blackened and seared into a hardened mass of ugly glass.
I could see things about the man. Perhaps ‘see’ wasn’t precisely what was happening, but I had no better word.
I cleared my throat. “This man was named Jack Martin. Captain Martin, of the local militia. The villagers liked and respected…until… No, that’s not right. Everyone liked and respected him but one couple—a woman he accused of witchcraft and her husband.” I shook my head, images from the man’s life flooding into my mind.
“How do you know?” asked Althyof.
“I…” I shook my head. “I can’t explain it, but I can sense it.”
“Sense it?” asked Yowtgayrr.
“Yes. It’s as if…as if the information is tucked behind him, but it’s not actually behind him… Oh, this is impossible to describe.” I glanced back at the blackened skeleton. “He died in terror and in great pain. Burned to death, but the fire…”
“Yes, Hank?”
I jerked and took a step back, eyes scanning the woods and buildings around us.
“What is it?” asked Yowtgayrr, hands on his weapons.
“The fire…the fire was green.”
“What else do you perceive?” asked Althyof.
I glanced around. “There was a gathering. Martin had shackled a woman to this post, but—”
“Burned at the stake,” Jane murmured.
“What did she say?” asked Althyof.
“Burned at the stake,” she repeated, louder. “It was the punishment for witchcraft in the good old days.”
“Yes,” I said. “There was a witch trial in that…church.” I pointed at what remained of a building that had burned to the ground. “More green fire.”
Althyof nodded. “The people of Mithgarthr have no access to the strings.”
I shrugged. “It seems some do.”
“Yes, but your blood is Isir. Most of the mundane people here can no more vefa than I can speak with modesty.”
“I guess.”
“The person convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to burn at the stake? This woman…she was Hel?”
With a sigh, I nodded and
said, “The green fire gives it away, doesn’t it?”
“Do you have any idea how long ago this was? Was Luka with her?”
“There is something strange here…” I walked around the square, paying close attention to the footprints that originated in the forest. “This…this happened three years ago.” I waved my arm to encompass the entire town.
“Oh my God, Hank,” said Jane, pointing at something on the opposite side of the stake.
I walked around it and looked where she was pointing. There was a single word carved into the post. “Croatoan,” I said. “Well, at least now we know where we are.”
“From that nonsense word?” scoffed Althyof.
“No, from history. There was a colony—we called it the Lost Colony—as Europeans first settled in the New World. It’s famous because the colonists all disappeared without a trace, and the only clue was the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a post.”
“Does this information help us?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. But now I understand what happened to the colonists. Hel and Luka happened to them.”
“You don’t think they ate the entire colony, do you?” asked Jane.
“From my experience with them, I do. Remember that cave where the Bristol Butchers laid out their victims like a vast smorgasbord for cannibals?”
Jane shuddered. “I’ll never forget that place.”
“A number of those bodies there were hundreds of years old. Some of them probably lived here before Hel and Luka took them.”
“But…how? Why?”
I looked around, reading the signs, gathering the story. “Hel and Luka lived here. They were part of this colony. They came here from Europe, using mundane transportation instead of a proo. No idea why. They weren’t using their Isir names, of course. He used the name Loke Estridsen, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise since Loke is a younger variant of Loki. And the name she used was…”
Sixteen
Margaret Estridsen cried out as the militia pushed their way into her house. The man she called husband was away hunting, and events might have taken a different track had he been home. “Stop! You have no right to come into my home!”
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 110
