by K M McGuire
Guilt plucked his heart, driving like a spike through his lung. He had cheated himself, allowing his carnal urges to best his heart. It was she who should have known better! If he had been in a proper state, his impulses would have been subsided, and he wouldn’t have been swayed. Recollection reminded him about her hand brushing against his skin. It whispered to a part of his mind that refused to deny her. He willingly gave himself to her, and in some sense, he felt right by her, at the very least, the vain cravings justified the means. He saw her eyes, finding something like a light burning inside them, but it was only her insatiable lust for the luster of coin that reflected the light. The jingle of tokens as they beat against one another brought elation to her mind. All in due time, the pockets were filled. She cared little for the innocence she should have seen in him. It was by her, he had shamed his heart.
Again, consciousness halted his angered thoughts. He was as far to blame as she. He wished to forget himself in it, but he laid his selfishness against the altar of her body, paying whatever price it cost to share the blame with a thief. Their transaction was mutual. He should have been less ignorant, but hindsight weakens or strengthens the heart. Melancholy wrapped Voden’s cold shoulders, wishing for more wisdom, because in his thoughts, the lonely echo of questions cried out, wondering when the answers could rest his pain.
He turned from the window, unable to fully cope, and he flopped down on the feathery bed Razar gave him to sleep in. The comfort of the bed helped clear his mind. He sighed heavily, urging his thoughts away, hoping it would be enough for him to move forward. The silence was gentle to him. He enjoyed the blankness of that, which brought a warmth and peace to his spirit. He poured out the thoughts towards the heavens, whispering softly to all the pain he caused.
I’m sorry.
Voden looked at the rolling grain of the ceiling above him. Deep were the configurations, like an unknown key he swore he had been told of, cut with its own deviations, different from the next tree, whole in its singular biology. The key was Willed to craft its own beauty, to unlock that chest it had made its own, and what lay inside was a mystery left only for the tree to know. The ceiling arched around the room, rolling subtly into walls, wrapping the room with a snugness Voden felt safe in. He turned on his side to see Andar, propped up on his own bed, tucked against the opposite wall. His knees braced a small black book, quill diligently fluttering along the pages. Andar put the tip between his teeth for a thoughtful moment and continued with the idea he had started on the page. Voden watched, wondering what he had been writing, but felt too tired to ask. Andar rubbed the quill’s feathers against his face, trying to stroke a thought from his mind, his brow grinding into a deep furrow. His face popped with brightness, hand quivering quickly along the page to capture the sudden inspiration.
“What are you writing?” Voden asked finally, amused at Andar’s whimsy. At least some friendly conversation before bed was enough to distract him.
“Just a journal,” Andar responded, glancing kindly at his friend.
The candle on his nightstand flickered, encasing his face in an enchanted glow. Orange spun around Andar’s face, like the mane of a lion whisked by the wind. The flames echoed in his eyes, filling the white pupils with the sun, floating towards the center of space, the center that seemed to give more than what Voden was prepared for. Andar place the book next to the candle and set the quill back in the inkwell.
“Mother told me to write when I was young. ‘Keep record of your thoughts as you go through life.’ I haven’t done it as much as I should, but at least right now I can take my time to consider things, gain perspective on today for all the tomorrows that come. Always make better beginnings, if that makes any sense. It means the most when I feel the weight of the world against my shoulders to have a reflection that truly is reflective. A mirror cannot hide what it sees, but you can. You can see the shadows or the light, the reality or the dream. I find it gives a way to look more truly at things when you have a place to be honest. It helps bring hope when strife leaves room for none.”
“Any sound advice from your younger self?” Voden asked, sounding almost bored. He hadn’t intended to sound like that. He just felt the comfort of the bed was easing his weariness. He couldn’t remember anything so agreeable.
“It’s not quite like that,” Andar began, as if a revelation rested on his tongue. “I don’t look at it for advice. The past knows nothing of what will be done. No, I look at how I made it to where I am. They say life is about the journey, but we’re always at destinations. The journey is just the memory, but the journey reminds you when it’s hard, there are more destinations, and there is always room to start a new adventure. Use the old journeys to plan properly for the next. I guess, too, sometimes I need a reminder of what it is like to be young, so I can learn to be old. I need to remember how to hold courage as I go on, because getting old brings more excuses to lose the vigor stored in youth. It wants to slip from me at times, but when I was young, I had much more of it. It felt like there was more to explore, with little failure to question it. I don’t want to lose that.”
“Time seems to move too quickly to reflect like that,” Voden muttered, pressing his arm to his eyes. He wanted to sleep.
Andar sighed thoughtfully. Voden knew he was missing the point. Andar was silent a moment and finally picked up his book and quill, scratching dully for a time.
“I wish I could explain it to you,” Andar said, knowing Voden was no longer looking at him. “Maybe I don’t understand it either. I think one day I will. I don’t think we are entitled for much more. I suppose we are only entitled to our decisions, good or bad. How we rationalize them isn’t relevant, it’s how we come out of them to form ourselves better. The one’s who give up searching are knocking at the gates of death and void. What bell can toll honor there?”
Voden let the words echo through his head, as his fears, dreams, and emotions swished together, drifting deeply into the tight grip of sleep.
∞ ∞ ∞
What he saw was a sliver of a mouth, arching into a smile, and it pulsed with smoke and fire that cascaded from the lesion, revealing the hollow earth below. Voden knew he was floating far above the desolate void where the burning scents of steel flared in his nose, scorching the ozone around him. An echo beat like a heart, deep in the chest of the world, pounding the subliminal cadence of war. His eyes caught sight of a blustering flare, blazing passed his face, and he watched it jettison beyond him, disappearing into the blood-soaked sky. The clouds had no peace, formed from staccato bulges of tar as black as the pit below Voden. The sound of a pounding drum caught his attention, dragging his eyes to the barren earth, devoid of grass, and blackened dirt suddenly vanished from the flashes of yellow that shot from the pit, like shouts of blasphemy.
Something had made the crag its home, but the darkness shielded it. Only in Voden’s imagination could he see the pitch squirming as worms. The nihility came out to him. It called to Voden in throbbing drones he couldn’t shake, wishing it was his fabrication, but that bore no fruit of comfort to ease what he saw. The crag coughed a flowery cone of black smog, snatching with wispy fingers at the air inside Voden’s lungs, and he felt his feet drifting down to the abyss. He became racked with fear, but he dared not fight, watching the fissure grow until it wrapped around him. The fog within was thick, until his eyes grew accustomed to the new domain, where he saw the shadows far below come to life, flickering in violent bursts of light.
The subterranean cavity was vast; spanning further than Voden had anticipated. As he watched, the jagged pillars that hung from the earth above shook with tremors of abhorrence, spilling streams of dust to the paroxysms below. Voden saw clusters of discs traversing the floor of the underworld, clicking back and forth in sporadic jolts like the inner workings of a clock made of flames. He stared at one of the larger circles as a blur burst quickly to red. It suddenly wretched backwards, and after a moment, twisted back. All the rings moved in similar motions, and Voden
’s eyes were transfixed to the ocean of gears churning tremulous noises.
“Come,” came a trumpet-like voice next to his ear.
It struck against Voden’s consciousness, like an astute bell bringing forth the hour. It called with perfect resonance, a voice clearer than he had ever heard, and he turned to the being who spoke. All Voden could see as he covered his eyes was a golden swirl hovering next to him. If it had form, it was lost to the nebula of light pouring from the being’s atoms. He looked at the texture-less cloud, now taking the shape of a spectral arrow, and it shot quickly towards the ground. Voden tried to understand what had happened, but his body was pulled, forcefully chasing the golden mist. As suddenly as he began, his movement stopped nearly ten feet above the ground, settling near the cause of the flames which licked out of the crooked mouth of the earth.
He watched in a fearful, venerated state, as men of gigantic mass fought with tremendous swings and parries, casting fire that roared with glee as the edge of steel blades met. Thousands upon thousands of titans surrounded them, appearing like moving statues. Their armor looked like carved marble, and he could see pallid faces under the helms. The only feature that made him question what they were made of was the spiraling, bloody eyes, burning wisps into time, leaving behind slippery streams of where their heads had been. The beings waged furious war against each other, teeth set, unable to cry out, with only rage etched in their faces. Each stood as a sentinel to a ring, terrible champions unable to leave their spinning pedestal.
To Voden, they spun to and fro by the whim of their hell, doomed to kill each other until there was only one. He noticed some much tinier than the rest, while others loomed like the moon in the evening sky. There were several variations of them, some less humanoid, while others could have passed easily for people he might have met in his life. And their fighting never ceased. Blades struck deep into stony flesh, casting showers of sputtering phosphorescence, spilling the titans’ blood of fire. Molten slag bubbled from wounds, sizzling against the gears. Voden floated within the mist, passing through the skirmishes, as several warriors clattered to heaps on the ground. Their rings snapped open and melded with the victor. The corpses were lifted by the champions, as they buried their teeth into the stony flesh. It gave way with thunderous crunches, consumed by the fallen before the next battle locked them in place.
Voden and the mist made their way to the edge of the gears, staring across an infinite chasm. He could not tell where the abyss met the horizon or whether the chasm had eaten it all together. All that brought a sense of space were the mountains reversed, which Voden soon recognized as smoke. He looked down the gashed, sheer wall of the insatiable depths.
“Look deep,” the light said, brushing against Voden. He glanced feverously at it, praying for himself to trust it, even for the sake of comfort. “I won’t let you fall,” it whispered, though its voice seemed to fill the expanse. He stared at the light, recognizing the voice within, wondering if he had seen him inside the formless light. He thought Andar had become part of the being, speaking in tandem with the light, defiant to the void. He nodded with a gulp and inclined his head, looking down into the unending precipice.
Deep in the black valley fell shreds of dirt, detaching from the wall of the chasm. As they fell, they began to stretch into strands, becoming smooth and glossy, groping across the depths. Voden watched more of the tendons fall and pull along the darkness, each knowing exactly where it was to go in a strange, irregular pattern. The color of the dirt changed from sepia to raw pink, and more colors of flushed tones began dropping faster into the pit. He was now keenly aware of the muscles and skin forming in the mirk below.
“You are right,” the spectre said, confirming Voden’s thoughts. “The body is being strung together. The abomination is becoming flesh.”
“How do you mean?” Voden trembled.
“I will explain once, and in this way,” the golden form exclaimed with urgency. “Those who fight in these battles within this pit have built these idols below. They have cursed the land. The cost of their wars is devoured here. They give form to this being by sacrificing the earth and its inhabitants. When they have slain themselves and chiseled away the remainder of creation, they will be taken into the creature’s flesh, becoming the dirt they swore not to be. That is the oath they pay to fulfill here; all is at the cost of their own lies.”
“They battle for a throne that rests deep below this cavern, each knowing the others claim it for themselves. They are meant to be stone, unfettering, and need not speak or cry out their falsehoods. There is no grace here for either. Their ends are final, echoed in the victor who takes even their soul, and become the fear they had run so frantically from. They have built to be remembered, even if it is in a kingdom of unreconcilable appetite. They do not know the crown goes to the King of Ash. They became what they worshipped; they became what they feared. For idols only come from the ground. If it means in their finality they can blend with the final idol, there may be relief to claim for them after. On their jarring wheels—their pedestals that they staked everything on—they will not claim the truth of their lies, or even realize where the fault lies.”
Voden watched the ticking chorography blazing behind him. He could hear the churning black wheels snapping back and forth, noting that the warriors’ feet had never moved from the center. It then hit him. A pounding throb punched the center of his chest, as though it was the sound of the hands on a clock, booming the certainty through his bones. He felt a tingle shimmy across his skin. Voden tried to ignore it, but it hit again, in cadence with the clash of swords. It was the abrasion of the warriors, the grinding of the wheels. It almost chanted as the fanatic cheers of those who worshipped the idols of the dirt. It grew, and the clock lurched further.
The dirt shifted a bit from under his feet. He shuffled back, watching the pillar fall and morph, snapping the tissue over bones which began to weave visibly in the pit. White web blossomed to nodes and expanded to fill the gaps with ghastly yellowed marrow. The muscles adhered to the bone, and tubes of lightning-shaped veins weaseled throughout the organism forming. The stitching of the body matched with the beating seconds. The dimmest area hid a massive cavity, perplexing Voden with the sheer size of the being, shaking his knees almost to the point of losing its cartilage. Strands of matter reached across the arched ribs, filling with bubbling yellow fat clusters, and slithering, moist intestines puffed up, boiling into their shape.
The veins arched around the cavity, running towards the thicker ventricles, the ends of which were disconnected and spat liquid flames, sparking in fevered fits. The ventricles reached out towards a cancerous black lump that looked burnt and had no place there. It was shaped like a cindery, horrid flower, calling to the decrepit roots coming to plant themselves to it. Hungrily, they stretched towards the mass, and they threw thunderous shocks of light into the core of a massive hunk of coal. Flickering shadows of something sinister moved through the thin layers of tissue as they wove blackened twine towards each other. Voden could not pull his eyes from the veins as they snapped themselves where the heart echoed the connection with a dull pulse, the furnace to the blood of fire now complete.
The chambers forced the inferno through the inconsistent pumps, sputtering desperately, when it finally caught time with the warriors’ blows, as though encouraging the wars to go on. The cavity began to stitch closed, the heart still visibly beating shutters of fire, convulsing the massive body in quakes that began to shake and crumble the underworld. Dust sprayed from the dark expanse above, as if the heavens themselves were beginning to break, when Voden felt his heart match the beat of the monster’s. He turned his eyes, afraid, and saw the golden mist, hoping it had answers.
“What will you do when it comes?”
“Voden, Andar! It’s time to get up!” Razar bellowed from beyond the door of the bedroom.
His knuckles battered against the door, and Voden violently woke to the noise. His limbs flailed uncontrollably, and it
surprised him to find he had not made his way under the sheets, realizing he had fallen asleep shortly after his conversation with Andar. He rubbed the grainy sleep from his eyes and found the autumn sky bloomed with an extravagantly festive orange. The wind tapped against the window, keen on reminding Voden that Forux was soon to be upon them. The sun speckled through the trees, somehow finding breaks in the branches to crown the city and veil it with a dense mist that lofted around the heavy trunks.
“Argh,” grumbled Andar, pressing his hands against his eyes. He yanked at the sheets and turned to his side, hoping for comfort, only to find it a fruitless attempt. He begrudgingly threw the sheets aside. He sat up, elbows planted firmly on his knees with his hands covering his face.
Voden released a silent roar so his groggy mind could focus. He found his satchel and began searching for something to wear. He pulled out a shirt, and a small thud smacked the ground, causing him to stop in his tracks. He pulled the gray shirt from the floor and found the red cube, sitting shrewdly beneath it. For a second, he watched the darker octahedron trapped inside the cube spin slowly, and Voden wondered at its meaning. He felt his heart flutter as if the cube had wrapped a cord around it, trying to draw it inside. The bloodied octahedron drifted in a hypnotic circuit. It knew something he could not explain, and Voden felt his heart pressing back in his chest. He suddenly remembered a cloud, staring deeply into him. He shuddered and snatched it from the ground, concerned Andar had noticed, but he had hardly moved. Voden quickly shoved it back into his bag and gracefully pulled out a wool shirt.
“I had some thoughts last night,” called Razar, trying to make conversation. He seemed to respect them enough to not barge in. “I may have some questions about this journey of yours, but at the very least, I can prepare you for the worst. Bring any weapons you may have.”
