The Word of the Void

In the inky blackness of space, there are more things than you'd expect.  Don't get me wrong, there's a whole lotta nothing.  More nothing than the average human mind is capable of comprehending, for sure. But... inside that nothing... there's more than you'd think.

I'm not talking about neutrinos, or extrasolar radiation, or particles or whatever. Obviously they exist, and permeate the black. But still... you can travel a fair distance without seeing one of them.

No, the thing you have to watch out for is the nothing. Inside the nothing. Inside you. Being surrounded by that much darkness...mankind wasn't meant for that. We're creatures of the light, social things.

Dipping a mind into the black for so long, so deeply... there's a reaction. A chemical reaction. The mind corrodes, and the Word of the Void slips inside the cracks and lodges in the dangerous places in the brain. And once that happens... there is no going back.  No ammount of light, no ammount of love will knock it loose. The Darkness is inside you, and you are Darkness. You are the Nothing.  And you will heed its words.

There's a reason children are scared of the dark, and in the space between systems, you can see it.

Tea

How is your tea?  Hot enough?  Would you like some sugar?  No?  Very well.  About your question.

You think you have power, and you do. But no more than any other of your species.

You are touched by magiks, indeed.  You can conjure flames and create arcs of electricity with which to destroy your enemies.  But a simple sword will do the same, a simple club.  Those who would do you harm are as vulnerable to a heavy stick as they are to your arcane ways.  And so this is not power.

So, apprentice, you come to me seeking power but do not even realize what it is.  How can I give you something you do not understand?  Do you know?  Neither do I.

No, that does not mean I will not teach you. It means that I cannot teach you what you seek, until you learn what it is that you ask for.  And rest assured, that is the harder task.  So, shall we begin?

Let us go outside. Bring your tea.

Alright.  Yes it's cold.  Stop complaining and listen.  The world that you see around you, out here, is full of potential. Full of power.  Every decision everything makes creates new decisions, new opportunities. Each of these leaving irreparable scars on history.  Now, pour your tea on the gravel.  You weren't drinking it anyway.  Good.  Now tell me, what did you just do?

Indeed. You did what I told you to do, and you destroyed a perfectly good cup of tea. And it was very easy to do so, yes?  A tip of the hand, and some of the finest tea this side of the Keremon mountains is now gone.

Next task: Put the tea back in the cup.  Don't make new tea, don't pour a new glass, that same tea you just poured out into the ground.  That tea.  Put that tea back in the cup.

The power to create, the power to undo your mistakes... that is true power.

Lementhuvan

"No no no... it's not... you..." The master rubbed the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, grimacing.  "You are wielding a sword, child. Think about that."

"Think about what?  It's just a sword."

"Indeed." The master rolled his eyes and sighed.  He stepped forward, and pointed to the student's feet. "It is just a sword. A simple piece of edged steel.  So, tell me, what makes it victorious in a fight?"

"Uhm... being... sharp? Sharper than the other guy's?"

"The wielder, idiot.  The one who bears it is what makes a blade powerful. By being observant, by being intuitive, by being practiced... and also, by being stable." The student cocked his head at the confusing statement, before realizing the master was pointing at his feet.  Before he could shift his footing the master moved with the speed of a whip, gently pressing against the student's chest and toppling him like a sack of potatoes.

"Ow."

"Oh please.  If you wish to learn how to use that thing, then you'll suffer worse than a few falls.  Now get on your feet so I can knock you down again, and again, and again until I don't.  We have plenty of daylight left, so you'll have plenty of time to learn."

"Oh, joy..." The student bemoaned, as he hefted himself to his feet, using the legendary blade he was bound to as leverage. "Another day of strange bruises."

Where Indeed

It's just a knife.

Okay, it's not just a knife. It's a symbol of identity, it's a tool of survival, it's a focus and a question and an answer.

But it's still just a knife. I mean... it's not a special knife. Except that it's special to me, I suppose. I skinned a bear with that knife. I used that knife to cut my way out of a silverweb nest. That was the knife I had when the Sparrowhawks won the pennant. But it's not...

It's not made of anything special, I guess, is what I'm saying.  It's a simple, boring, metal knife.  It has a sharp side, and a dull side.  It has a worn-out rope grip. it has a scratch down the side from an Ahamkara tooth. Some fool was wearing it on a necklace.  Didn't do him much good, but it wasn't great for the knife.

But I digress. It's not an iridium blade, or an arc-charged stunner or a high-frequency vibro-blade.  It's just... a knife. It's my knife.  My trusty, old, rusty knife.

And it cuts through the enemies of Earth as though they are butter. So my question is this, Warlock... where is your knife?

It's Not The Streets

It is not the streets which make the city. Nor the buildings, nor the shops, nor the people though you'd find argument there from plenty of them. But it is not any physical construct that makes the city.

It's the smell.

Does the smell manifest as a result of the people, and the buildings, and the sewers and the rats and all the things which infest the city's walls like canned fish? Perhaps. But it isn't the objects that make it a city.

A city is, after all, just a big, crowded, dangerous town. And you've been to towns before. They're nice. A little big, a little roomy, but nice. And they always have that sense of freshness to them.

Have you been to the town of Nvuiche? It's nice. Beautiful architecture. Lovely people. Smells like an autumn meadow. Did you know it has more people, in less space, than this lovely city here?  Yeah, I know.  And when you went, you never once thought to call it a city. Even after taking a ride on their public transportation.

I'm telling you, it's the smell.

So take a big whiff, and fill your lungs with that fetid, corrosive, wonderful odour friends. Because now, you've made it.  Now, you're at the big time.  Now... you're in the city.

Hunter/Hunted

     Andrew sat motionless in the tree he had chosen, watching the huge bird thrash about in the snare he had placed six hours ago.  It was only a matter of time now. Thank god, his legs thought angrily.  The creature continued to thrash. It wasn’t giving up without a fight, but Andrew knew it was pointless.  The snare had cinched tight around its throat, so even if it snapped the line keeping the trap in place the thing would die before long.  Part of him wanted to climb down and put the bird out of its misery with his knife, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.  Not here. 

     It didn’t help that the bird was almost five feet long, and he was pretty sure the things beak would tear through his ribcage like tissue paper.  Not to mention the claws. So he waited.  His eyes scanned the shore, checking to see if anything was noticing the commotion, anything looking to steal his kill.  So far the thrashing bird hadn’t attracted any undue attention.  He was glad the thing couldn’t squawk. The scavengers here were fierce and outclassed him in pretty much every respect save intelligence.  When the bastards figure out how to make traps he would be well and truly doomed, he thought.

     The bird looked like a sort of cross between a giant heron and a penguin, if he had to guess.  It was flopping on its side now, passing out.  Andrew started climbing out of the tree, his legs shooting pins and needles angrily into his brain.  By the time he reached the bird the only thing twitching was the tiny excuse for a wing sticking out of its side, no bigger than a baby’s hand.  The creature was pitiable, reclined in unconsciousness before him, unlucky enough to have been caught in his trap.  Andrew knelt before it, and paused.  He ran a hand gingerly along its head, down its neck and back, tenderly.  He whispered something to the creature.

     Then he plunged his knife into its neck, severing its spine and killing it instantly. 

     He breathed deeply, wiping his face with the back of his knife hand.  He scanned the area quickly as he sliced through the snare, freeing the corpse of the bird.  Still nothing coming. 

     He grunted as he hefted the creature onto his shoulders, the damn thing must weigh a hundred and fifty pounds.  His legs were even less pleased with him now.  The others would be ecstatic when they saw it he knew, but Andrew would just be happy to see a bed again.  He’d been hunting for three days now, and he had yet to discover a comfortable tree. He began trudging his way back to camp.

Imagining the faces of the group all lit up with joy, sitting around the fire eating until they get too full to move, laughing and relaxed... Andrew was lost in the daydream he’d conjured to forget about the mile hike back to camp carrying a giant dead bird.  Suddenly he froze in his tracks.

     It was the smell.  An unforgettable, piercing aroma.  The reek of death and decay mixed with power and fear.  He knelt close to the ground, and let the bird slide off his back silently onto the forest floor.  Please don’t let it be them. His hand slipped the knife out of its sheath, and he gripped it tight as he knelt.  He tried to make himself as small as possible, as slowly as possible. They were close.  Too close.  He should have been more careful.  Please let it be something else.

     His mind was racing. He was kneeling in the middle of a small clearing, no tree to hide behind, no bush to slide under.  Just the foot-high underbrush to provide cover, and not much at that.  Just him, his head and torso completely exposed, and the bird.  Not a bad meal. 

     His eyes slowly scanned the area around him, trying to be as still as possible.  He watched the undergrowth sway in the light breeze, and he tried to match it gingerly.  Anything to not stand out.  Then he saw them. 

     They could be damned quiet when they wanted to be.  They walked toe-first, slowly rolling their immense weight backwards on their foot.  It was slow, but it was quiet.  He guessed they were headed to the lake for a drink and a snack.  Something on the edge of the water was about to have a really, really bad day.

     Andrew hoped it wasn’t going to be him. 

     There were three, an adult and two juveniles about the same size.  Andrew stopped breathing.  Partly to hide, partly to avoid the smell.  Black gunk dripped from the mouth of one of the juveniles.  He didn’t want to think about what that would do to you if that got into you.

     They were passing close to him now, as close as they would get if they were headed for the lake.  They were just on the other side of the small trees in front of him, no more than three metres ahead.  His knuckles were white on the knife, not that it would do him any good if they noticed him.  The big one passed beyond him, then the first juvenile.  The second stopped.

     So did Andrew’s heart.

     It put its foot down, and turned its head to face the tiny clearing Andrew was in.  It sniffed quietly.  It sniffed again. 

     There was a low, quiet rumble from the adult.  Andrew didn’t dare turn his head to see how far it had gone in the eternity since it passed.  The juvenile sniffed again, impudently, but moved on. 

     Andrew closed his eyes, and breathed again.  He could wait a few minutes, and then get on the move again.

     He turned to watch the T-rex family slide through the forest.  He hated them.  He hated them so, so much.

Saturday Nights

“Star Wars?”

“Watched it two weeks ago.”

“Right.  Toy Story 3?” John pulled the DVD off the shelf.  The box was well worn. 

“Ugh, no thank you.” Denise replied, rolling her eyes.  “If I want to cry because of toys I’ll go step on some Legos. “

“It’s Lego.”

“Yeah, Legos. The sharp things brothers leave out to torture older sisters who want a glass of water at night.”

“No, Lego.” He stated firmly as he returned the DVD to its place of honour on the shelf.  “It’s already plural.  The plural of Lego is Lego, not Legos.” He made air quotes for emphasis as he said ‘Legos’, affecting his most refined idiot accent.

“Oh, I know.  I just call them that to annoy you.” She beamed at him. 

He scowled back.

She continued to beam.

 He continued to scowl.

This went on for some time.

“Shrek.” He said, still scowling. 

“Too kiddie.”

“King Kong”

“Too old. You’ve Got Mail.”

“Too mushy. Star Trek?”

“Too lens-flarey.  Aladdin?”

“Too Disney.  Ghostbusters?”

“Too scary.” John’s scowl screwed up into a look of quizzical confusion when she said that. “How about...”

“Hold on, wait... Ghostbusters is too scary?” He looked back and forth between her and the DVD collection.  “This is the Bill Murray movie we’re talking about, right?”

“Yeah.  What?  Bill Murray has a very unsettling forehead.”  She replied earnestly as she shrugged.

“You are so weird.”

“That’s why you love me.”

“It’s true.”

There was a pause, where they both smiled at each other.  Suddenly a look of realization flashes onto both of their faces.

“Weird Science!” They shout in unison.

“I’ll get a blanket.”

“I’ll make popcorn.” John slipped the disk out of its case and into the player before heading to the kitchen to make popcorn.  When he returned, Denise had encased herself in the blanket, taking up most of the couch and looking like some giant blanket wurm.  He hit play on the remote.

“Abah-ah-ah.  No popcorn until I get a seat.  I know how this works.” He held the bowl out of arms reach. 

She scooted almost two whole inches over, and scowled.  He cocked his head.

Sighing dramatically, she made room on the couch and he flopped down.  She immediately dove into the popcorn. 

“This movie is terrible. ” He said.

“Itf awfil.”  She replied through a mouthful of kernels. The opening credits were playing, and she nuzzled her fully-cocooned body into his.

Contentment.  A smile settled on his face.  He took a minute to simply drink in the joy of sitting on the couch, watching a movie with the woman he loved. It was a perfect moment.  He reached for a handful of popcorn.

The bowl was empty. 

Denise was licking her fingers, cleaning the butter off of them.  She saw him staring. She stopped.

He looked from her face to the empty bowl, and back again.

She looked around shiftily.  Looked at the bowl, then at John.

“Would you believe... goblins?”

John sighed, and got up to make more popcorn.  Denise immediately took his couch space, grinning.  It’s true, the movie was awful.  They both hated it. Or so they assumed.  Six viewings in, and honestly neither of them had seen it.

The Waiting Game

The beast was running hot, hotter than she normally ran.  Everything had gone to hell in a hand basket, and Shaunessey was stuck sitting in an overheated mech waiting to die. 

Shaunessey hated waiting. 

Computer said it would be another thirty seconds to operational.  The heatsinks were white hot out the window, desperately trying to soak up the overload from the last strike.  The cannons were beautiful, big, devastating, and hot.  Too damn hot.  Shaunessey wiped the sweat out of her eyes and hit the override button again.

“System Error.” said a pleasant voice while blocky text flashed the same message across the canopy.  Shaunessey slammed her hands down on the non-operational controls, furious.  She checked the time remaining. 

27 seconds.

Outside she could see her doom crouched in the tropical early morning light.  The rising sun glinted off the canopy, a nearly blinding little star that seared its way into Shaunessey’s scowling eyes.  She was a light mech, a scout.  Had almost gone out in one shot, and would be strewn all across the beach right this second if Shaunessey’s piece-of-shit, played out, ancient goddamn mech hadn’t overheated in this ridiculous tropical weather. 

Well, and because she’d been riding the jumpjets ever since she booked it out of Korio.  And because she’d fired all her weapons simultaneously in an attempt to cream this prick all at once.

And possibly because she’d removed a heat sink to fit one last extra teensy weensy little cannon on her mech. 

But screw that, she was going to blame the weather.  Stupid, muggy, soup-air weather.

Twenty seconds. 

She could see the auto repair finishing up on the pissant little scout.  Any second now it was going to power up and blow her to smithereens while she could do nothing but watch.  Son of a bitch was probably laughing in his cockpit. 

Jerk.

She reached up and switched off the audio warning.  For some reason it had become an unintelligible suh-suh-suh-suh repeated over and over again.  Awesome.  Last thing I’m going to hear before I die is my mech having a nervous breakdown.  Fantastic. 

No, that’s not true.  The last thing I’ll hear is the short range missile exploding on the canopy, shattering my pretty face with hot metal and glass. Sigh.

Twelve seconds.

Shaunessey put her fist under her chin, and rested her elbow on the side of the cockpit.  This was practically boring now.  Just a matter of time. 

She wished the little shit would just get it over with.  She let her eyes play over the control panel for the thousandth time, and was surprised to see her hand absent mindedly mashing the Heat Override button over and over again, a half dozen times per second. 

Well that’s good.  At least the audio isn’t broken, she thought.

Sigh.

Eight seconds.  The scouts exterior lights came on.  The hydraulics started to pop. This was it.  Shaunessey wiped an ocean of sweat off her face, and wished she could have died somewhere less tropical.  She had to crane her neck around the new words flashing on the canopy to see the little scout prick that was about to murder her. 

Suddenly she realized what the canopy said, and she flicked the audio back on.

“Override Engaged.  Have a nice day.”

Huh.

Shaunnesy gripped the throttle and stick, grinned, and thought hell... I just might.

The Signal

It was nearly midnight at the observatory, and Percy was getting restless.

Private First-Class Percival Shetland was assigned to keep an eye on the observatory's radio and its operator, Professor Hugo.  The Observatory made a fantastic listening post, and the two of them had intercepted a half dozen secret German communiques in just the last week.  They couldn't break the code, but the information they relayed to Allied Command was vital, they were sure.

It had to be.  The transmission they were intercepting were coming from some undetectable base, a closely guarded Nazi secret. Anything let slip from such a place was surely crucial to cracking its nefarious secrets.

This was all a great comfort to Percy as he whiled away the hours, far from the front lines that could make him a hero.  A great comfort, but little entertainment he thought as he dealt out his sixth game of solitaire this evening.

He ran his eyes over the dials and tubes of the silent radio, ensuring it was on and ready to receive whatever stray signals eked their way to the observatory.  He sighed.

The hours passed slowly, and the darkness weighed heavily on his eyelids.  The cards were against him this night.  He kept getting stymied by a particularly troublesome Jack.  He found himself staring resentfully at the problem card, willing it to leave him alone.

It was so quiet when it started, he almost missed it.  The faint beep-beep-pause-beep-beeeeep-beep-beeeeeep-pause of the morse code wafted into his mind.  The game of Solitaire exploded as he leapt to his feet, shouting.

"Doc!  DOC! Another one!" He yelled down the hall, scrambling to turn on the recorder tapes and snatching up a pencil.  He cranked the volume (why the hell was it low?) as he slid into the chair, and started marking down the dots and dashes on a pad of paper in front of the machine.

"Doc are you coming?" He focused intently, terrified of marking something wrong.  One wrong dash and the codebreakers would be set back weeks.  He was so engulfed in his task that he didn't consciously notice anything at first.  The beep-beeeeep-beep-beep-beep-pause-beeeeeep-beep-beep-pause echoed about the room, the simple sounds distorted by the old wood and the cavernous space.  But even before that, before the natural decay of sound got into it, there was something wrong with the signal.  Percy was starting to feel sick as he worked.

The tones carried on, the beeps perfect and unmistakable and somehow eldritch in their perfection.  They wormed their way inside the young private's mind and took root.  Beep-beeep-beep-beeeeeeep-pause-beeep-beep-pause. Percy's organs rebelled at the sound, heaving inside him, twisting like a terrified animal trying to escape its collar, but he persisted.  What's wrong with me, he wondered.  Beep-beep-beep-pause-beeeep-beep-beep-pause.

No... not me... his insides coiled as the realisation dawned on him.  He had to shut his eyes, the pencil falling from his still hand as the room started to swim before him.  Beep-beeeeep-pause.  It's the signal.  It's the sound.  There's something inside it, something rich and ancient and unearthly.  Something... wrong.

His fingers felt like boiling water, his brain was dribbling out his ears, his whole self was some distorted monster that the beeeep-beep-pause-beep-beeeep-beeep-pause was making.  He dared not open his eyes as he fiddled for the volume dial.  He couldn't find it.  He stood shakily, knocking the chair back, and groped with both flopping, nigh-uncontrollable hands, found the knob.  He twisted as hard as he could, nearly tearing the skin from his fingers.

He managed to turn the knob almost to the minimum.  beep.  beep.

The sound was so quiet.  Almost gone.  Almost.  He could feel his body returning to normal.  His humanity reasserting itself.  He dared to open his eyes.

It took herculean effort, but he managed it.  To his enormous relief, his body was still there.  At some point he didn't recall, he had fallen to the ground.  The beep-beeeep-pause was so quiet now, so distant. The world was normal again.  But the sound still writhed within him.

He couldn't move.

He wanted to shout for Professor Hugo, but found his throat took orders from him no more.  It was in league with something older.

His fears were assuaged when he saw Hugo walk through the door casually.  Percy tried to raise his hand at least, to show he needed help, but even his fingers would not obey him.  They were slaves to the beeeep-beep-beep-pause.  He was trapped in his own body.  But Hugo bent over him, looked him in the eyes, he would see what had happened. He would help.

"Beautiful, isn't it, Private Shetland?" Hugo asked, his face inches away from Percy.  The professor pulled away, and lifted him up to a sitting position, before dragging him to lean against the wall.  "I have a confession to make, my friend." The professor propped Percy up, slapping him playfully on the cheek as though joking.  Percy's eyes could not even relay the terror he was feeling, they were focused on the radio set.  Trying to absorb the beeeep-beep-pause.  His body hungered for the arcane sounds even as his mind raced to escape it.

"We've not been listening for secret Nazi communications."  Hugo stood, and walked to the radio.  He placed his hand on the volume knob, and turned to face Percy.  "No, something much older than the fool Party.  Something a great deal more powerful.  There are things in this universe, my friend, that would make even the christian god  tremble." He turned the volume up, slowly.  Percy wanted to scream.  Every fibre of his essence quaked with terrible knowledge.  Primal knowings.

"We've been listening for this, Percy.  Taking notes, making preparations. The Elders are awakening, my friend.  This is their song.  What do you think, friend?  What does your mind say to the perfect pitch of the beeps and the utter emptiness of the pause?  Does it know?  Does it understand?" Hugo was almost frenzied with excitement, wanting to share his elation with the paralyzed soldier in the corner, even though he knew what had become of the poor man already.  He cranked the volume to its highest setting, shouting to be heard over the wall-shaking beep-pause-beeeep-beeep-beep-pause.

"Are you ready, friend? This is the song that ends the world!" He shouted, his body a torrent of fanatical energy.  Percy's lips parted, and spoke his response to the Professor.

"Beeeeeep-beep."

The Eyes Have It: A Superman Tale

            It was always the eyes, the way they held that look of pure disappointment.  Without a word, their eyes would tell me everything I needed to know.  I had failed them. Again.  I had tried my best, and just as every, single, time it was insufficient. 

            Their words never matched their eyes, of course.  Soothing, palliative words for the failure. The adopted son that could never please his parents.  They always spoke of how wonderful it was that I’d managed to save almost everyone. How I’d almost managed to stop all the robbers.  They would have sounded so genuine, if it weren’t for those eyes punctuating every word.  Filling each sentence with a silent sigh of disapproval.  I could see the smallest microbe, gaze upon a crossword a mile away, and melt things simply by concentrating, but nothing I could do compared with the power of their stare.

            So I trained.  I practiced, every day.  I could run as fast as a train, soon I would be faster than a speeding bullet.  I could lift a tractor, soon I would be more powerful than even a locomotive.  I could leap tall buildings in one jump, maybe someday I wouldn’t have to come back down.  Then, then I couldn’t fail.  I would mold myself into the son they could be proud of.

            They would love me then.

            It was slow going.  I toiled every spare moment in the hot Kansas sun working the fields, and training.  Always training. Sometimes, I would look to the house, and with my incredible vision I could occasionally see them on the porch. They stood staring out at the fields, at me.  And their eyes were filled with sadness.  The disappointment at my unfulfilled potential.  So I worked harder.

            I struggled in that little town until I could take it no more.  Until I could feel their eyes on me even through the walls, lying sleepless at night. So I packed my meager things, and I moved to a bustling metropolis.

            I saved lives. I wrote reports.  I fell in love.  I made friends. I made enemies.  But whenever I would look west, I could feel it.  I had to do more.  Do better.

            So I expanded.  No longer would I protect just one city, but a state.  When the whole state was safe, I could relax.  It wasn’t easy, pacifying an entire state.  I became fast. Faster than I’d ever been.  And I made more enemies.  Even some friends, those who weren’t strong enough, became enemies.  But it didn’t matter.  Soon, soon I would be a saviour to an entire state. 

            But it wasn’t enough.  I went home, to see the pride on their faces at what their adopted son had accomplished, and was met with only the weary sadness of age.  They hugged me close, told me they missed me.  Ma said I needed to get some sleep, that I looked so tired.  Even then, her eyes could not let me find peace.  Their words mocked me with every syllable, each word a dagger plunged into my chest.

            So I left once more. 

            I didn’t return until the whole world was safe.  Until I had brought all the nations to heel, stopped the fighting and the wars, pacified an entire globe. 

            I changed the very nature of humanity, and I would be loved for it. 

            But when I landed on the porch, the eyes were there, and they had grown in my absence.  I couldn’t see their faces for the eyes, staring into me with disappointment, and something new. Fear. 

            Fear of my power.  And disappointment in its use.

            They said... things.  I can never quite remember the words.  Sometimes, in my dreams, I hear Pa say that he was always upset that I’d never learned to relax.  That I didn’t have to save everyone.  That I could just be their son.  And it feels so sweet.  But then I awake and I remember the mocking tone of their gaze and I know it could never have been.

            I know now that I’ll never escape those eyes, not so long as I live.  And who knows how long I will live?  They will haunt me forever, perhaps.  They will follow me wherever I go.

            Even now, holding them in my hands, the four old eyes mock me.  So I fly away.  I leave the corpses I made and never return, but the words they never spoke echo in my mind.

How could we ever love you, you monster. 

            You murderer.

           

You alien.

Not the Last

My tripmines are placed on the corners, waiting for the vanguard to set them off and start everything. My finger is on the trigger, my rifle's scope pressed up against my good optical sensor.  I take a deep breath.

Any moment now, a stream of angry Fallen are going to make their way down that hall. They're going to scream and shout and try to take my head off. My face itches under the helmet.  I actuate the servos on my head to try to scratch it against the helmet.  It doesn't help.

I know there's at least one Captain coming. I saw his furious impotent arms waving as I sailed over his head after Ghost got the data we came for.  So, safe to assume he's still mad. He'll probably kill me. I do a visual check on the mines again. Still good.

One more deep breath, and the Fallen appear.  The first Dreg has just enough time to shout to his comrades before I detonate his head. The rest of them swarm around the corner, right into my mines. But there are more.  There's always more.  I squeeze the trigger, feeling the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the auto rifle punching into my shoulder while I pour a stream of ammunition down the hallway.

It's a crashing wave of violent death, a slow tide of explosions and steel working its way down the hallway for me. My auto rifle runs dry, and I switch to my sidearm.

I can see the captain now, striding through the carnage for me.  Two of his arms bring his shrapnel launcher to bear, and annihilate my shields.  He charges me, and I think to myself... don't let this death be the last.

Fields of Ashes

MusicBot Demands Tunes!

In heat unholy,
In flames of hate,
A village burning,
An hour turned late.

On fields of ashes,
The Ruin will wait.
For the children,
Now trapped by fate.

Inside their hearts,
A terrible weight.
A twisted thirst,
No drink can sate.

The Siren's Call

"Alas, for mine mind has been tainted by the song of the Sirens!  You must tie me to this post, before it is too late... My desires already verge upon madness!"

"I'm not doing that."

"But you must!  Lest I be overwhelmed, and lead us all to ruin, dashing us upon the rocks of cruel fate!"

"I'm not tying you to a post, Chad."

"Fool!  Can you not see that our lives are in danger, from this inexorable temptation?!"  Chad pointed a trembling finger indicating something behind his companion, who turned to see what had consumed him.

"It's Lego Chad, you have lots."

"But this is Star Wars lego, from the new film! Verily our bank account will be like a fool's mind- present, but empty. Why do you run such risk!"

"Because we're in a toy store, and I'm not tying you to a pole across from some Lego.  Let's go." And he began to walk away.

"Okay but if you come home tomorrow and the house is full of Lego I'm not responsible." Chad said, following his compatriot out the door.

"Forsooth!  Cinnabon!" He shouted and ran off into the mall.

Even More Items

the Points of Order

Leap high, and leap long, oh bearer of my majesty!  Let us bring the Law of the Forest to the stone and the fence, and laugh as they crumble.

 Elekoth's Grimoire

"You've opened it, so it is already too late for you. I would pity you, but the book has taken even that from me." - Scrawled across the first page, in... red.







Elekoth's Bane

A wand is just an outlet, a convenient point for magic to leave the body.  And so there are many designs, all equally valid and equally efficient.  They are more a matter of personal style than utility. However, style is a path fraught with its own dangers, as the dread necromancer Elekoth came to know.

Paperwork After All

"Oh!  Oh!  And, uhh.. in... I want to say third grade?  I'm pretty sure it was third grade.  I gave Bruce Wilkins my pudding because he didn't have a lunch.  So... you know... that's pretty good.  Of me.  That makes me a pretty good person, right?  I mean, with all the other stuff?" The banker sputtered, clutching at verbal straws.  He sat in an uncomfortable, government issue plastic chair wearing an increasingly sweaty suit with his tie hanging loose around his neck.  In front of him was a desk, across which sat the main reason for his growing fear and discomfort.

In the much more comfortable chair across the desk sat the ibis-headed ancient Egyptian god Thoth.  He was wearing a crisp white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and had a nice silver tie on.  Nothing ostentatious, just... nice.  He was rifling through a set of papers in a drawer, not really listening to the man before him.

"Mmmhmm, yes, yes... that's nice." He muttered.  "Ah!  Here we go." He pulled a form out of his desk, and handed it across to the nervous banker. "Can you fill that out for me while I take care of the measuring?  That'd be great."

"Um.  Uhm" The banker shakily took the forms from Thoth, not taking his eyes off the bird-head that was busily ignoring him in turn.  "Do you have a.., a pen I could use?"

"Hmm?  Oh, a pen.  Yes of course." Thoth indicated to his arms, as a magician would to indicate there was nothing up their sleeves.  He then turned his hand upside down, and when he brought it upside right once more there was a pen in his palm.  He offered it to the banker absent-mindedly.

"Thank you..." He took the pen out of the god's hand, and examined it carefully.  It seemed like a normal, cheap Bic pen.  He frowned at it, and drew a line.  All normal.  He looked at Thoth once more, and shivered slightly.  Thoth was bent over behind the desk, apparently untangling something.

The banker flipped the forms over, and frowned.  "Hmm." He intoned.

Thoth looked up from behind the desk.  His body was bent fully over, but his birdlike neck stretched up without trouble, bringing his whole head above the line of the desk. "What?"

The banker held up the forms to show the god.  The ancient deity looked at the forms, then back at the banker.  "What?"

"It's in hieroglyphics."

"Yes, it's a 637-B form."

"I can't read hieroglyphics."

"You didn't say you were illiterate when I asked you at the beginning of the interview."

"I'm not illiterate!" The banker replied, ruffled.  "I can read and write english perfectly well, thank you.  Nobody uses hieroglyphs anymore!  Not for... thousands of years!"

Thoth sighed.  Humans.

"Oh yes, because that language lasts so long..." He muttered under his breath, which due to his long bird-beak was quite apparent.  "Here you go, I've switched it out for the 637-BeS, the simplified english form.  Just in case."

The banker looked at the forms again, and they were indeed english.  And... written in crayon.  He frowned at the bird-headed god again.

The questions were all about what kind of person he thought he had been in life, who he had wronged, what kind of conquering he had done, what he would likely have been buried with.  All very unsettling, but the cold, emotionless governmental style way in which everything was written really took the soul out of it all and he found he had little problem filling everything out.  When he looked up from the form after double checking all of his answers, he saw Thoth looking at him, and a small set of golden scales on the desk.  The kind you see on courthouses, or more commonly on shitty lawyer office ads.

"All done?  Great!  I'll take that." Thoth placed the form in the 'out' box on his desk. "You like the scales?  They're antique.  Won them in a bet with Justice.  For a blind lady, she's usually better at cards."

The banker just nodded slowly.  He was trying to figure out what they were for.  The last time he'd seen a pair was when he went to visit his dealer in person, up in the Hamptons... But Thoth didn't seem the type, somehow.

"Alright, now that the paperwork is out of the way, we can get to the important stuff. I know, it's a little unsettling. Don't worry, happens to everyone. A little anxiety before the big moment.  Judgement... scary stuff!  But don't let it get to you.  Everyone goes through here, or somewhere like here."

"Uhhhhh..."

"Tell you what, maybe I can help you calm down.  You like magic tricks?  Everyone likes magic.  So... tell me...." Thoth waved his hands in the air, fingers splayed out, and then clasped them together, as though around a ball.  "Is this your heart?" and he opened them, to reveal a beating, bloody, human heart.

The banker went white, and clutched at his chest.  He felt... an emptyness.  But what was more unsettling was what he didn't feel.  His heartbeat.

"Haha, don't panic!" Thoth said. "You want to hold it for a minute?  It's pretty strange, I know."

The banker shook his head vigorously, eyes like dinner plates.  He continued to clutch at his chest, expecting at any moment to keel over.

"Oh come now, calm down. Don't forget, you're already dead." And Thoth gave what the banker assumed was a smile, although beaks don't lend themselves to the motion.  "That's not the worrisome part, trust me..." And he placed the heart on one of the scales, watching it tip back and forth.

"This is."