A Shrouded World | Book 8 | Asgard

by Tufo, Mark

  I’m not overly interested in the inner workings of the whistlers. It’s just a way to spend the time as I search for the landmark. After another hour of maneuvering through the valleys, I catch sight of the top of the vast black tower of stone. I’m coming at it from the opposite direction than the last time, which means those upside-down pyramids must occupy a lot more of the planet’s surface than I realized. The whistlers must be more numerous than I’d imagined. There were thousands upon thousands of the aliens at just the one pyramid I was at. That means the number of aliens being brought in have to number in the millions. If there was a way to organize and arm them, we could probably take over the planet. However, the planning around that would be immense; the helmets, for starters, would have to be removed from each and every one of them, and that task alone is tiring to even ponder.

  With the black mountain in sight, I at least have my bearings and should be able to make my way back to the pyramid where I last saw Mike, even though the tower is a prominent landmark and therefore something to be avoided. If I’m drawn to it, then it’s likely others are as well. However, it’s been a long day, to say the least, and I’ll park near it to get a little rest. I also need some time to work out a plan to enter the pyramid and begin my search for Talbot. With the size of the structure, that’s something that could actually take weeks.

  Pressing the landing button, the hovercraft’s engines quiet to a more subdued whine and it settles down to the ground, jostling slightly as the bottom edges come into contact. The rear door opens with another press of the button, and warmer air floods into the cooler interior chamber. Grabbing my carbine, I head for the door. I plan to stroll around the massive black tower and attempt to work out some plan of action.

  I don’t really remember much from my previous sojourn here. The hunger and thirst really took its toll. I do remember Trip telling me to find Mike to help him take out the whistlers. Or something like that. The memory is still kind of fuzzy. I may well have imagined Trip appearing and then fading back out. Hard as I try, I can’t bring the encounter into clear focus. Perhaps with all of the resets and changes, memories of events which have been negated or reversed fade—just like the event itself.

  I do, however, remember meeting with Mike and relating the tunnel sequences. I hope he was lucid enough to remember it. I also clearly remember the interior of the pyramid up to the furthest point I reached. I figure at best I saw five percent of the massive structure and haven’t the slightest clue where they might hold their prisoners. It would have been nice had the whistler portal on Valhalla led directly to Mike. But no, it seems we have to go the long way around each and every time.

  As I’m shifting through various scenarios to gain entry and perform the subsequent search, a crackling and sizzling noise interrupts my thoughts. It sounds like bacon being fried in a skillet that had a little water left in it. I drop and spin toward the sound, bringing the carbine to my shoulder. Against the dark stone of the tower, a bluish-white swirling orb forms. It’s about the size of an orange, but is growing larger by the second. It looks like a small portal, and I don’t know if I should remain or get the fuck out of Dodge. The portals I’ve run into in the past have been two-edged swords. Although they’ve led to places which have increased my knowledge, it wasn’t without its dangers.

  I back away as the portal grows. It’s still just a bunch of wildly arcing energy without any defined passage like the others have shown. The crazy energy suddenly snaps to the sides, a passage showing between the arcing energy of the perimeter, the portal becoming clear. My heart clenches in fear and a feeling of hopelessness as I stare through the opening.

  On the other side is Mike. He’s being held by some enormous tentacle and by the expression on his face, he’s being crushed. In one hand, holding it aloft, he’s got some amber orb. Dropping my weapon to dangle on its lanyard, I rush toward the opening and shove my arm through without regard to what might happen.

  Mike is beyond reach, but I have to try something. I stretch for all I’m worth, but don’t come close to being able to grab his hand. I wonder where he is. The land doesn’t look like anything I saw within the pyramid. It looks like another world, the surface like bluish glass. Lying nearby is a smaller form of the monster than has Mike in its grasp with several others of the giant creatures approaching rapidly.

  What in the hell did he get hmself into?

  Our eyes meet. Pain is etched deeply. In that moment, I know that there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to help. I scramble to bring my carbine to bear, but Mike’s expression tells me not to worry about that. He brings his hand back and lobs the large amber orb in his hand toward me. I reach down and manage to snag it in mid-air. It’s a little disorienting, looking down through a portal that’s plastered on the side of a cliff. From my perspective, there are two downs. There’s the one where my feet are and the other is me looking down on Mike.

  Expecting the orb to be heavy, I nearly drop it due to it being so light. The portal I have my arm through begins shrinking with a sharp crackling. Small bolts of electricity start arcing into the opening. I have no choice but to withdraw my arm, bringing the orb with it.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Mike, but I’m not sure he hears me through the closing of the portal and the obvious pain he’s in.

  “Don’t let that portal close,” I hear a voice shout from behind.

  Turning, I see Trip and BT. The crazed hippie is running toward me, holding the relic out. I dart to the side as a bolt of energy flows from the relic and slams into the side of the cliff. The portal that had formed winks out with a loud pop. The white beam from the relic also vanishes.

  “Damn. I was too late,” Trip says, his head drooping as he lowers the relic.

  12

  Jack Walker — Chapter Six

  “Open a portal back to that place,” I tell Trip after briskly striding over.

  “I…I can’t open one there,” he replies, seeming more lucid than normal.

  “You have to be able to do something. Mike needs our help…and now rather than later,” I tell Trip, leaning forward and jabbing a finger into his chest.

  “Jack, if I could, I would. But one does not merely open a portal there.”

  “Why not? What is that place?” I inquire, my heart sinking, knowing the predicament I saw Mike in.

  “That’s the gate to Asgard…where the Creators live. I don’t know how Mike got there, but it’s not good that he’s there. Those creatures are the gate guardians,” Trip answers.

  “Gate guardians? Maybe this will help,” I say, holding forth the amber orb Mike threw.

  Trip just stares at the orb for a few moments and then shakes his head. “He had a key and yet was still attacked. That’s not good at all.”

  “A key? Like, to the gate?”

  Trip nods. “The fact that the guardians still attacked when he had one tells me that the rumors are true. The Creators are gone. They would never have allowed that to happen. The guardians would have stopped once he obtained the key, if the Creators were still around.”

  “Will this help?” I ask again, this time more adamantly.

  “Once we get there, yes, but not to open a way there,” Trips says.

  “Well, how do we get there?”

  “We have to find out how Ponch was able to get there.”

  “I’m guessing there’s no need to head to the pyramids anymore.”

  Trip shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. We have to head somewhere far worse.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “To where the custodians reside.”

  “Okay, who the hell are the custodians? I don’t remember reading about them back at the waystation.”

  “They were just rumors…whispers out of the shadows. They supposedly came into being when the Creators built the universes…the opposite species of what the Creators are…or were. That must be why the Creators are gone, and the custodians are running things from the background. There are some who say the Creat
ors are seeking the downfall of all creation, but they’d never do that. It has to be the custodians’ doing,” Trip says.

  His expression then turns sad. “They have to be the ones who destroyed Vanaheim.”

  “Is that the barren world where I found you?”

  The old hippie can only nod, tears running down his cheeks to bury themselves in his thick beard.

  “I take it that was your world. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve tried to make things right, but it seems that events keep outpacing me. You and Mike were to get the key and open the gate. You two were supposed to stay together, but I just couldn’t make that happen,” Trip says.

  “I’m sorry,” he adds, offering those words to the air.

  This has to come close to the most information he has ever shared, and it’s rather nice to have a lucid Trip to answer questions. However, as the pain returns to his mien, the lucidity fades from his eyes. They dim into the ruddiness that I’m used to seeing with Trip, and along with it, his ability to be clearheaded.

  I place my hand on his shoulder in sympathy. But, we don’t have time to sit in grief, as we need to get to Mike as soon as possible. I already have a feeling that I’m too late, considering the state he was in. Trip had said we need to head to where these custodians reside. Looking up, I see the streaks of light. Those ships have to be coming and going from somewhere large, so it might make sense that it would be a city of these other alien creatures…ones that Trip inferred took down the Creators. I’m not so sure I want to meet anyone or anything who might be capable of that.

  With BT and Trip inside the hovercraft, I fire it up and we’re soon floating on cushions of air. Gazing up at the ships flying overhead once again, I set a course for wherever their destination might be.

  As we follow the flight path of the objects overhead, I wonder if they were there when I last visited the towering mountain. I don’t remember seeing them, but then, I was also kind of out of it. I think I was mostly staring at the ground by the time I had arrived, ready to collapse.

  The image of Mike keeps floating to the surface and I push the craft for everything it can give. It looks like it will take some time to get wherever we’re going, and Mike needs help now. Trip has sunk back into his druggie self and is dozing along one of the walls. Press as I might, he remained adamant that there was no way to create a portal between here and the supposed gate to Asgard. I can only hope that he finds a way free of his predicament, although the odds didn’t look good.

  I feel like there’s something I should have done differently to help, but it happened so quickly. The amber orb is resting in my pack. Trip said it was some kind of gate key but then went on to mention that it didn’t appear as if it was working correctly. Or at least, that’s what I gleaned from his lucid moment. If that’s the case, how can I expect it to be any different, should we find a way into that realm? And if we do and it works, what in the hell am I supposed to do with it? Hopefully Trip will give his usual vague hint as to its use.

  Except for an initial greeting, BT has been remarkably silent. I wonder what happened to him and Trip when they fled through the portal. With Trip snoring against one wall, I call BT over and ask him that very question. At first, he’s hesitant to say anything but then starts stringing words together, often looking back toward Trip.

  “Honestly, there’s not much to tell. After leaving you guys, we went to one of those places in space. From there, we bounced back and forth between different worlds. I think he was looking for something in particular, but he never said what. He mumbled a lot. He did keep mentioning that we had to hurry because Ponch needed his help, but we just kept on going from place to place. We’d stay in one place for a while as he wandered about, but then he’d decide that what he was looking for wasn’t there and we’d go someplace else.”

  “I wonder why he took you?”

  “I more get the impression it was to keep me out of the way. You know…safe. I haven’t heard what you guys went through, but Trip would mutter something about you two from time to time, and it didn’t sound like fun carnival rides.”

  “No, it wasn’t the best of times. Mike and I were split up right after you two departed, so I can’t speak for him. But you saw.”

  BT hangs his head. “Yeah, I saw.”

  “So what about that world where I found you? It didn’t look like he was searching for much of anything there.”

  “I think that’s what he was looking for. Or, maybe the people who had once inhabited that world. That’s the impression I got. Once we got there, he said that it was all gone and collapsed to the ground. He stirred only to draw food and water from somewhere. Other than that, we sat for a long-ass time. You showed up, and I doubt he even knew you were there. And then all of a sudden, he jumped up and said something about Mike being in trouble. He seemed kind of panicked…and the next thing I knew, we were here.”

  Trip leans back against the wall of the hovercraft and slides down to a seated position. He knows that he’s slid back into his fuddled state of mind. Sometimes he’s still able to think clearly, but isn’t able to convey those bits of knowledge nor share thoughts and feelings. There are the rare times when he comes out of his muddled state and can communicate well with the outside world, but those moments are rare, ever since the experiment.

  With his eyes closed and knowing he’s unable to truly interact clearly with those around him, he ponders the current situation. He thought he had the entire thing well thought out and had planned for contingencies. After running so many simulations, he had pulled the two who had the best chance at success. If truth be known, he had ripped them from their existence, and felt bad about that deep down. But, the entire creation was at risk, and, therefore, those actions were justified.

  Weren’t they?

  All those plans, all of the pieces put into place, and here he was yet again failing. He had put safety measures in place in Atlantis, and in spite of all his careful planning, that world had been lost to the void. Mike and Jack had done their best, but the end was still the loss of a world…the loss of so many lives. The melanforms were truly a cancer that needed eradicating.

  And the same thing is happening with Valhalla. The overseers are conducting experiments with the life forms, and now the planet is failing…as are many others throughout the universes. And the situation with Mike and Jack is taking a nasty downward course. They were both to locate and recover a gate key. Then they could enter Asgard to locate and free the Creators, who would then be able to take back control and right the wrongs. Now he wonders if the Creators can even be found. Trip doubts the custodians could dispose of the Creators entirely, but they seem to have placed them so securely locked away somewhere that they might as well be lost forever.

  He left Mike and Jack in a hurry once their capture was inevitable. The relic couldn’t be risked. It couldn’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Besides, he had to search out his own kind—if there were any remaining. If he could free them, like he was able to do with his experimentation, then they might be a balancing force, like they had been.

  Memories of the experiment surface. That had worked for the most part, and Trip had been able to free himself from the prison the overseers erected. But it had come at a cost, and that was his mind. He’d struggled against the tight bonds the overseers had placed on him and he was finally able to slip through. However, that cost him the ability to think clearly. At first, the lucid moments were frequent, but over time, those instances became more rare.

  He searched and searched for any sign of his brothers and sisters, finally finding a path back to his home world. Finding the world barren like it had been was a blow he had trouble recovering from. Everything he had known, had grown up with, had been obliterated. He knew then that all was lost and fell into despair. He vaguely remembers Jack showing up and telling him that the relic was actually a form of his friend, and possibly the only other remaining Traveler. Angered at the interruption into his g
rief, he barely remembers casting Jack away.

  And then came the revelation that Mike was in terrible danger. Trip had been wallowing for too long in despair, and events had started truly spiraling out of control. He came back to find Mike had already found a way to the lands before Asgard and was tossing the gate key to Jack. The portal had closed before he could do anything. Now, Mike is in terrible trouble even though Jack now has the key. But how to find a way to the gate in short order?

  Trip feels deep down that Mike has done his part, and that retaining him in this current reality might do irreparable harm…as in Mike’s permanent death. In the greater scheme of things, one more death isn’t going to alter the balance, but after being ripped from his family, the man doesn’t deserve that end. If he’s to do anything, he has to do it now before it’s too late.

  Trip focuses on the relic inside his jacket. He feels the rising heat starting to emanate from the artifact. With a flash of focused thought, Trip pours energy into the relic. The device responds with a flash of its own heat and then cools. Satisfied, Trip pulls two pills from one of his inner pockets and downs them, relaxing into a deep, drug-induced slumber. That’s really the only way to keep the pain of grief at bay.

  The day passes, the land dimming as one of the suns vanishes below the horizon. Trip is still sleeping off his latest drug of choice, and BT is staring out of the window, watching the rolling landscape pass by. So far, the hovercraft appears to be powered on something other than fuel, as we haven’t faltered. Nor have I caught sight of other whistler vessels.

  My gut is roiling with concern for Mike. At this stage, I don’t feel there’s any way we’re going to get there in time. He looked near the end as it was, using the last of his strength to throw the amber orb my way. Deep down, I know I’m thinking of him in terms of his great sacrifice rather than being alive and us meeting again. After all we’ve been through, that’s a tough one to think about. It’s the loss of a great warrior and friend. And, frankly, it pisses me off that we probably aren’t going to be able to finish this thing together.