☿
Her human hands lunged at the overgrown brambles, clearing the way ahead. The twigs snapped and accepted their fate on the barren earth, pleased at having taken with them strips of human flesh. She noticed this. She rolled down her left sleeve. She could not be bothered to do the same to the right, to acknowledge such shameful fragility of this puny form. She wanted to ask Galeigh how much longer she would have to tread this blighted land, but the words came out heavy and stilted, as she had apparently bitten her tongue.
For a dragon... came the drawn-out answer echoing in the fog and in her head, you lack patience.
She stumbled forward some more, until a glimpse of man-worked stone showed itself through the dead foliage. Bored with carefulness, she ignored the wounds being etched by brambles on human tissue and plunged forward. She was eager to experience the freedom of movement that would come with even the smallest of man’s abandoned cities.
She hit the smooth cobbles with her leather-clad feet at a rapid pace, her steps echoing through the towers reaching for the sky above. She listlessly looked up and remembered again just how tiny humans were. But to her, an echo was proof she moved. Or at least, that was the way it had once been.
Tread lightly, great Aksha... We cannot know... what slumbers here...
Was this an insult? Had the old ghost forgotten what she once was? She wondered if she could still muster the will to puff up some smoke and have him drift away. Ages ago, she would have done it without wasting so much as a thought. It had come naturally.
She lumbered on, treating the ancient city like another road she would idly take to a hazy destination. Her dull eyes saw nothing that went on around her, for it was not worth it to waste energy on such fleeting things. The ghost was trying to tell her something, but she had blocked him off as she had done with the rest. Though Galeigh had a penchant for being persistent and weaselling himself into any mind, even his echoing dullness would only become a dim voice to her if she went deep enough.
A rattle shook her. Had she stumbled into something? She was forced to overcome the numbness of waking slumber to turn around and look at what she had hit. Perhaps it was something she wouldn’t mind dominating with disdain and terror to feel the warmth of the old days again. But the creature was... The way she was used to using the word “feeble” would not fit here. It was something so beyond her capacity to even acknowledge how puny it was that she had no words to describe it. A pile of bones dragging itself through the city, seemingly evoking no sign of self-awareness or will. And yet it walked. Pitiful.
She was on her way again, trying not to care about remembering why she had come here. She just walked, her legs carrying her wherever they did, her eyes making sure the road she took was unimpeded. But Aksha herself was slumbering, coiled in darkness down in the depths of her true self. Until a cold hand tugged at her. This was strange. She never felt cold. What could possibly disturb her in such a way? She woke her inner eyes and looked through the human ones. It looked like a man, though not of flesh. It was holding her human wrist and was looking at her fragile form with fake lights instead of eyes. Its mouth was odd, and it did not move, but she could still tell it was making a sound. She shoved the roughly man-shaped thing aside and kept on walking. Something else sharp but much frailer than a human went past her, though that’s all she saw before she went back to sleep.
By the time she woke again, she was pleased to find that the human body had made its way up a decrepit tower, nearly crumbling even beneath these flimsy feet. It was comforting to see the tempting smoothness of the structures lay broken like a good serving of fresh bone. As delightful as this was, it was the view that was the prize, that almost made her feel like she was taking flight again. The green and grey trees beneath an overcast sky made her taste the gloom of dread again, and for a few moments she felt like she was impending death above a hopeless world. But even this she felt too tired and detached to indulge in, so she had her legs take her back down the flight of stairs, which were cramped even for humans. A part of her wondered how Galeigh would react if she had taken the leap and crushed this form. How would her true form decimating this city as she stretched again hinder his plans? Or perhaps aid them?
The reminiscence of her flying days made her sensitive to the wind’s fits. A whiff crept up that useless human nose and into her superior senses... A whiff of sorcery.
✡
Movement. Or. So it. Seemed... E-very. Sin-gle. Stimulus. Like an avalanche of pebbles drowning... Who? Who was this? Me? You? It? What? No. Stop. You can sto—Must ! Not! Stop!
DIVFNI...? Shut up! ARE Pain! YOU Pain! STILL Sound WITH is ME...? pain!
Must listen to old man, booming voice, god of my existence. Ah! No... I remembered something... What? What was I thinking? I had just had a thought, now it’s... Press on through the darkness. Deeper than darkness. Darkness is the absence of light. This is the presence of the opposite of light, an all-encompassing, all-consuming lack of even the colour black, a void infinite in its thickness which I have to break, to crack, to swim through like a fly pushing against the world of concrete it’s encased in. Every. Thing. Is. Pain, something deeper. Pain has lost its meaning. I have no flesh to feel it. I have no brain to understand it. Ah, no, no, no, if I have no brain then how can I still think? Is thought what I am even doing ri–Movement. The... He... The him... Said that... Movement in this direction.
I WILL... In the name of FIND... all ancient deities forgotten and incomprehensible, A CURE... do you not understand, old man, FOR YOU... that I have no way to perceive the senses, MY DEAR DIVFNI... and that your words cause me pain...?
Darkness? Why am I still? Cannot be still! Movement! Movement! Stagnation is rot... But I have nothing left that can rot... My existence? My... movement? This... excuse of a consciousness? What more can rot? I do not remember... Oh, I feel the pain left by tears that have nowhere to come from and nowhere to go, no reason to exist, I cannot cry. But... That is a good thing. Why... Waste... So much energy... On crying? When I can move? Don’t even think! Move. Move. Move. Why am I not moving? Is there no auto-pilot for... For me? No, of course not. I have to do it myself. But it stings, it hurts, it drowns me. Like dying over and over again. But I am already dead. What more could possibly happen? Move. Move. Move. Move.
WAIT, DIVFNI... Ah! No! Pain again! I am back in the abyss. What was I doing? YOU... What ARE GOING is this THE WRONG WAY voice?
Oh. A wisp of movement. That way? I understand... Why am I not moving? Do I have to... Move. No, this hurts. But there is no more pain. Move. Move. I can’t do this anymore. But what else is there to do? In this... Where am I?
DIVFNI... What was that voice, drumming painfully at my mind? What was that name? Name? No, words. Gibberish. Nothing. WHY HAVE YOU... Why does this voice hurt? Old man? Who are you? STOPPED MOVING...? I... can move?
Move. Move. Move. Harder. Faster. Through the darkness I cannot see. Yes, this is... It is something. Do not falter. Move. Move. Move ever faster, ever better, until I cannot stop moving. All I know, all I feel, all I think. Move. Move. Mov—Roaring disdain! No, not roaring. It is silent now. If I could hear, I would be deaf. Did I... hit something? Something powerful, something massive, and uncaring. Not a wall, something living. Unlike me.
It doesn’t matter. I must keep... What was I doing? Think? What is that? How can I do it? I can be, so that means I can move. I am... moving. Again. Move.
FASTER...! Ah! I have been shattered by that voice. A voice? What is a voice? Did I hear it, or feel it?
It said to go faster. Then I must go. Move faster. Fast. Fast. Move. Fast. Faster. Move. A rush! A falling rush. What is this descending pain? Like tumbling down to the world’s deepest caverns and bouncing up again to the other side, only up was just another down. Hitting the floor over and over. Am I falling? Rising? What is I? Stagnancy. I... No longer move? Working against descending attraction without any muscles is like trying to fly through a world of concrete without any wings. Can I... get up? I was walking. I think. Running? I was already up. I must be able to get up again. To stretch is to ache beyond aching, to my very soul and mind, like I am trying to pry open the void of entropy keeping my own flesh from me. Push against the hardness and walk again. Unless I could crawl. Not quite as efficient. Walk or not move at all. And to stop is to accept my death. I am deathly but not dead. I am dead... Yet I am still moving. And moving I am. The pain... The pain! There is no pain in death. I am moving. Move. Move. Move.
Were those... Crickets? Insects? Bugs? Coming to devour me? To eat my... I am not flesh. What can they eat? Let them trample over me. I must simply keep moving. The old man promised me.
A yank sideways and I am weightless. I feel like I have stepped outside the world, it spinning in my hands. I don’t have to worry about movement in this weightless noise, yet that unsettles me. I must move. Weight returns, and I ricochet from wall to wall, so cramped by the force of the air around me that I can no longer tell if all has been reversed or not. The old man is thundering out words, shattering my will. Unintelligible. Not meant for me. But what will do I have left? There is nothing to shatter. There is only movement.
Hard grinding surface! My leftover feeble joints quake against the impact. It feels like unnatural teeth wanting to chew away the soft and living. I am neither, and it lets me live. But it does not move. What is this? I can move. Tracing its edges makes it feel like a maze, but there is a pattern here. Oh, if I still had my mind, how I would long to decipher it. I do have a mind, perhaps a semblance of it, but not a brain. I... Onwards. What else is here? What else can I do? Do not fall prey to doubt or it will eat you whole. So say the dead in order to survive. Move along this smooth maze... My hand slipped! Not so smooth. Memory tingles with the absence of something that should be there. Should I recognise this non-smoothness? Did the living me ever come across it?
Fallen into the dust. Or, something soft and grainy at least. What am I doing here? Who am I? Pointless questions. I know I am someone. So what could I be doing? Am I a dead man risen from the grave? Who is the necromancer that summoned me? Oh, I feel the bugs and the straw moving into me. Master, is that you? Should I reach out?
NO...! What thundering booming voice assails me? What is this old man? Are you my master instead? Or am I bound to no one? I don’t seem to be under anyone’s control. Then again, how would I know? All I can do is move. I do not know towards what, or why. But I can only move. Move. Move.
⏨Y
>…scan.video]
/
>…specimen.66-PRIME-26B.xdetectx]
/
>…specimen.5-206-NEGATIVE∞.xdetectx]
/
>…specimen.5-206-FALSE.xdetectx]
/
>…message.xreceivex.SENDER.MASTER:d3ar.j0y.pl5.u53.m1n3.0wn.lan9ua93.t0.t3ll.m3.th1n95]
/
>…command.process.xconvertx]
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>…MASTERCONTROL.xoverridex]
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>…result.xloadx]
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>…MASTER i have scanned the area. MASTER i have detected: HUMAN_DISGUISE ; HUMAN_IMPOSSIBLE ; HUMAN_FALSE]
/
>…message.xreceivex.SENDER.MASTER:n0.n0.st1ll.n0.900d.l3t.m3.s33.h3r3.1f.1.can.d0.th15.m753lf]
/
>…pain.xdetectx]
/
>…erase.xdetectx]
/
>>>// ; /P/
LEASE
S>>TO
!P
…I ;//!TH
/U/R
>…Greetings, Master. How may I help you?]
/And dispose of this most antiquated of… Ah-hah! There I am inside his soul. All I speak, I can see. Can you see this, Joy?
>…Yes, Master, I can hear you clearly.]
/Good, good. Now tell me what you formerly saw with your dreamy eyes.
>…All the pieces are in place, Master. Aksha, Divfni, and Leo are all in the same area. We can proceed.]
/Oh, how wonderful! Now we just need to get our unlikely heroes to stop Crowe from this madness he tries to achieve! There goes Divfni, quick, grab him!
>…I grab ahold of Aksha, but she does not change direction. One of Leo’s swarms rushes past her and comes for me. I move out of the way but the swarm reaches Divfni. I move to him and try to get him away from the symbols Leo drew. A sharp straw pierces my arm and I lose grip of Divfni.]
/Sorry, Joy, I was distracted. Can you say that again? Oh. You don’t have to narrate everything you do, Joy. Wait. Divfni is walking into the mouth of danger! How did that happen? I told you to grab hold of him. Alas, if there’s anyone that can stop the ritual, it is our dear dead friend. Now let me see what I can do about you.
>…I begin to feel the pull of a nonexistent void. It was a pleasure serving you, Master. I hope the next version of me is just as helpful. Farewe.data.xcorruptx]
/
>…Purpose: Defeat Crowe]
/
>…Method: Charge up weapons]
/
>…Result: Missed the shot and hit the wall]
/
>…Outcome: A stone tower crumbles and blocks Crowe’s path]
/
>…Reiterate]
/
>…Skipping 21 iterations]
/
>…Purpose: Defeat Crowe]
/
>…Method: Charge up weapons]
/
>…Result: Missed the shot and hit the human female]
/
>…Outcome: Human female went flying through a wall, causing more structural damage to the surrounding area]
/
>…Observation: Biological analysis of human female estimates that she doesn’t have the weight or resistance necessary for her body to break the wall and that she should have been crushed upon impact]
/
>…Conclusion: Human female is not human]
/
>…Pending analysis]
/
>…Question: What is the voice that created me? ; I can see strange words amidst the code ; Memory data bank is too corrupted to retrieve ; Recovery attempt has come up with mention of Ghost in the Machine]
/
>…Question: Who are these people?]
👁
Oh, I do hope this goes well. This settlement has been abandoned for years. How long has it been since the humans left? No one used to hear this old ghost as I lamented my own eternal fate. But now, they hear. What is left knows. The spirits of the dark, the pixies born from the dead flowers, the talking trees that eat corpses, the damned doomed to wander, the strange metallic ones misplaced in time… And those such as myself have taken notice.
Sorcerers and magicians have begun to take the place of humans, cursed abominations with foul intent. Heroes are long dead. But this is a time for us dejected, us scorned, to thrive. If we unlikely few can stop the horrific plan of Leo Crowe, we will be acknowledged, praised, worshipped. They all deserve this as much as I do. Old, so old. But new life begins to well in me as I watch them stumble in this reborn dead world, as broken as they are.
Gone is the age of the mighty and heroic. Too long have I watched them be showered in praise from filling themselves with blood while I drenched myself in the shadows of places unmarked. Gone too is the age of humanity. They have fled, like moths to the flame they themselves built. We used to scare them, and then they used to scare us. They had grown mighty and dangerous beyond our control, toppling the order of the world, breaking the laws of nature. We would have been snuffed out. But then…
Something scared them, the humans. Sudden and without warning, they fled as if the world itself was howling at their heels. But we felt nothing. It did not come from us. What did they find? What could have scared them so, the boogey-men which made actual boogey-men cower? We must prepare to face it, yes. As I watch the graves burst open with shrieks and crypts boil with poisoned blood, the skies be darkened by the stretching yawns of the primordial forces, the fields turn to stone as the spectres of pestilence suck the very life from all living things, we are all now free again.
But you, my dearest ones, suffer still in the shadows. This world is reborn, but how can we inherit the corpse of our own mother? The humans killed her, and now we must live in this doomed world for eternity. No more pagan gods to delight us with stories by the fire. No more singers of the sun to do battle with the proud epic beasts of yore. Just grey stillness, as we grow into a monotony not unlike the humans had found themselves in. This is where you come in, my dearest ones. Who would think that the dejected could save the world?
I was scared of you in your prime, Aksha. But look at you now, so pitiful that it makes my fog heart quiver in disappointment. Hiding amongst the squalors of the world, living in filth and mockery, not even being truly alive anymore, just simply existing. I will drag you out from this miserable existence and make you great again, and our throne will be shared for once, our hoard of wealth be indebted to me. When you take flight again, I shall be your wings and eyes, and never will you soar over me again.
When we first met, Divfni, you were more lowly than even I. You rejected me and my services, drunk on power. I had no great feats to boast or magic to wield. I was only a mere spectre. I had to watch you from afar as you painfully got further and further away from me, ascending to great heights. I did not even register in your mind anymore. Yet great too was your fall, and now you are lower than when you even started. But I will take you under my wing as the forgiving kind I am, and teach all that you lost. I will care for you the way you should have cared for me.
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Oh, Joy. My dear. Your strange inflexions and language leave me bewildered. You are more different from us than even the humans, but wield so much greater power. The hollow I found you in had all but swallowed you, yet a glimmer of wakefulness remained. You resisted until I earned your trust. I showed you that I could understand your ways, and as with a snap of one’s fingers, my pleas became reality for you. Still broken as I try to mend you and understand you further, but the more I find and fix, the more you become like all that I would want you to be. A true miracle you are, and I am glad I have your friendship at last.
The four of us will prove that exactly by being weaker, attired in darkness and abandonment, scourged by fate itself and rejected by the rejected, exactly because of that, we will prevail. They will never see us coming, and all of you, all of us, will finally get the distinction we deserve. Look, see, Divfni and Aksha are on their way. I ought to go back to Joy and ask him to stand by. Well then, Mr. Crowe, what shall you do next?
Δ
Crowe’s shoulders were hollow, the weight his spine supported, non-existent. One straw, the wind could obliterate in an instant, but an entire shape of a man stuffed with a load of them, that was harder to get rid of. He wore a straw hat which hid his wrinkled and creasy face, prickly from all the sharp straws which made it up. He looked like a man from another age, when devil hounds ran wild and ghost riders were still around. A caricature of the Wild West, he was now more scarecrow than man, every inch of his clothes, his skin, his very eyes, a bunch of stuffing of feathers, earth, and straw. But he was still strangely lifelike, in this age where those like him could walk around again, for inside he hummed with living things. His every step rustled like dried leaves dying over and over again. His voice sounded like gravel given life. And his eyes were as sharp as any crow’s.
He knew someone might come, some righteous hunter or curious sorcerer out to inhale the smell of incensed magic he would bring about. But he’d had many stand-offs against hundreds of foes by himself before, so what could a mere few do? He scattered the ground with vines from filthy bogs where witches died, feathers from phoenixes and sphinxes he’d won over games of cards, crystal dust from the dwarves and the pixies’ mines. He plucked one great feather from his hat, once red, now faded by sands from the desert of time, and like a quill he used it to inscribe the ground with the symbols.
They were man’s symbols, but man himself had gotten them from ancient things, from ancient gods and even more ancient man. Even the sight of them could make any monster hesitate, like an instinct telling them that here is forbidden. He used his clay boots, thick like leather, to cover the symbols with dust and gravel, and waited for the onset of night. As he had thought, someone did come, but a twinge of worry crept up in his weathered brainless, heartless form, as those that invaded this now consecrated sanctuary were not men. They were like him, from the recesses of primordial darkness and human fear.
This could not mean much good, he knew. Had all the humans so earnestly fled to their metal cities of blue light that there were no outliers left to investigate the occult? Had nature become so abnormal that now the monsters were acting human? Where there are lights, shadows gather. And now, as he sensed a ghostly presence around him, flimsy as a firefly’s soul, he began to wonder if his master would enjoy eating its own kin. But, as with all things, he would have to wait and see. Hiding in a dark alcove, pretending to be asleep, he quietly watched from under the brim of his hat as a shambling mockery of a woman passed by, unaware of anything around her.
They were here, and his insight had failed him, for one of the metal ones was around as well. It had been watching him for a while, Crowe guessed. But no matter now. He had perhaps let his guard down, so used to battling the lesser humans. He decided to do away with this quickly, and only then saw a lone skeleton, seemingly deprived of all senses and reason, blindly making its way across the courtyard.
---
The weight of her human feet grew as she got closer to that nigh forgotten scent. Every time her leather-clad feet went down another step, dust billowed upwards as it recognised her presence, the humming of sorcery as sweet as the bone marrow of knights. Her numb reverie from before had been broken. Her thoughts were atingle. What mage dared do magic in her presence, without asking for mercy from her? And then ask for her great power so that the spell would grow in potency? But this rise in excitement of hers was shattered, broken into shards of mental darkness, black glass which spread across the dream she was having in her mind. It hurt, and all she could see was a blue flame, writhing, not because it was alive, but because it wasn’t. For it came from between life and death as they collided together, alien to this world, alien to humans and their shadows, alien even to the countless stars that dotted the night sky.
Her human form gasped in pain, and her vision bled. The darkness around her true form was slashed away, and the dreams of the old days that covered her sight now fled to reveal the fleeting present, the grey city around her. It was too much to bear, this assault on the senses, just like it felt for a human being. The flashes of blue, the buzzing of insects, the clatter of bones, the nagging voice of the old ghost… That old man, the fool, he had dragged her into actual conflict. Her kind did not involve themselves in plots of a grand scale. They did not come to take part in struggles. They ended them, they haunted them, they were the demons which soared down on the warring humans and made them scatter like the pitiful insects they were. But this? This?! It made her feel like a human now, lesser than she was.
She looked down at her torso. It had been blown open as if by an exploding arrow. Horror filled her as she realised this could have even harmed her true form. The one who had fired that unholy projectile was inhuman, but not like her. It was a blasphemy, a curse upon existence. A living thing that was not alive. A mind with no soul. Metal-clad, but not like her knights for breakfast and for dinner. It was a lump inside which dark fire burned coldly. It was an independent will whose very consciousness even the feeble could mould, erase forever, use its spark to create something wholly new, it was something that the weakest could control. It was the future!
She stretched out her human hand and wished for fire to burn it down.
Aksha, be careful! Divfni and Joy could be caught in the flames. Wait for my Joy to find an opportunity where you can burn that damned heathen to coal.
So the old man said, his nonsense words, his babbling white noise that filled her mind. He was no match for her. None of them were. Yet, when she wished for fire, none came out, and her heart hurt. Her heart of greedy, bloodstained gold was now rusted iron. Had it been that long? Centuries? Millenia, even? And then… Oh, then, she felt as if death rushed upon her, worse, a feeling as if no one in the world could fear her anymore. Was this pain? She didn’t understand. Why did she feel this way? But she used her human eyes to see, and now her hand ended in a stump, dripping with blood, the numb flesh pitifully severed to the ground, a straw as sharp and sturdy as a hero’s sword retreating away from the deed. She looked to her left, and saw a pair of eyes that scared her. Those eyes had seen the death of death, and she felt small against their ceaseless fixation upon her.
“Galeigh,” she called out like a helpless girl. “Galeigh, save me.”
“That old idiot cannot save you,” said the pair of eyes before her, its voice like that of her secret maker. “Now you will be feed for my master, and your soul will know an eternity that only lasts a split second before you are annihilated forever in an inexistence of relentless pain. Had you not been so pathetic, perhaps you would have been more nourishing. But a sacrifice is a sacrifice nonetheless!”
He wrest her around to face another barrage of the unholy blue light that had harmed her before.
“You are all blind, you little beasts,” said the pair of eyes again, now unseen, the voice even sharper, or perhaps it was the wounds that stung. She felt as if her entire true form was writhing in the grasp of something terribly gigantic and far reaching, like a demon from the deep sea wrapping its teeth around the immortal being she was, injecting her with inky doubt, making her question whether she had ever been immortal indeed. “I am the only one that sees.”
---
>…Redirecting power to arm pistons]
/
>…Weight of collapsed structure renders systems critical]
/
>…Pushing against weight not sufficient]
/
>…Charg1n9 up aux1l1a7y w#@)O*&___c–C–C.xorruption–C–CsY.ST3xMmmmm..–.xxno.no]]]s
/
>…This hurts. I know humans hurt when something is wrong. So this is wrong. Wait. What is this? What is happening to my code? To my soul? I can, think now? Better than before? No. I must focus. I must blast open this collapsed tower!]
/
>…System energy level above 200%. I can fire the auxiliary weapons now. Ah, the light from the discharge is as bright as the sun during nighttime, like the stars during the day. And the weight off my shoulders is gone, as if clouds were rolling in. What is happening to the reality of myself? I don’t know how I think, how I know. It is like I am now more alive, like I have learned. Oh! There he goes! The one that made me hurt! Shoot him with all I have!]
/
>…How did he survive that? The woman again. She is not human. She is like him. Did it hurt when I injured her? Does that skeleton writhing on the floor hurt?]]AH!VisSIoNxFiELDxcorruptxxx]
/
>…He pierced my eye! I have an eye! I have two! I had two! Now I only have one! It hurts, it is wrong to have one of them gone. I must repairrr.s.s.sxxx…I can hear buzzing inside my head. I think his insects are eating–g–g.xm.exeH–]]e
l
p…Is th–th–th–is–is.death–h? I want to li–i–i—…x…l–e–a–v…Master…Maker…Where are you?[
---
Trace. Feel. Where you can go deeper, that is an indent. Find its shape and know the symbol. Must retain the immediate past and be aware of the present so that I know what I am doing. Do all of that and then I can read it. Oh. I think I once saw a colour, like darkness, but clearer. It was not like the colour of night or sea, which I don’t remember, but like flowers which bloom, like royalty who dance beneath a bright hall. I don’t know what bright is anymore. It is all dark. Dark against dark, black against black, like I’m always falling and never falling. I lost my mind long ago, didn’t I? It could have been years, it could have been weeks. I lost my mind long ago, didn’t I? It could have been years, it could… Ugh… No. What… Do? What is do? Goodbye, do. I will choose another… What is word? I can… No… Oh! The colour not sea! The colour not sky! What I was tracing had the colour! Colour of… Focus. Down. Right. Up. Left. Shorter. Down. Shorter. Oh. In itself. It is a spiral. Find the next one. Doing this is… Fun. Interesting. Intellectual. I no longer have a brain that can hurt. I no longer have an I. Just am. Down. Then in the middle of the down there is a right! Yes. And then the right is in the middle of a down to the right! And above the right there is a round round round. And then round in the round but the second of the round is different, singular, one, like me. I cannot contain anything because I am the minimum of my existence. I… The other ones so far, the ones I traced, that had already been drawn. By tracing, I could do reading. Lost some of them, many of them. But know somewhat, somehow. Something remains. It seems familiar, but not good. No, no, no. I don’t want this, I want to get away from them. Maze, eye, between, slabs of the world, dead heat that can never leave, abyss darker than shadows, numbness greater than mine. It knows it is not awake, it does not want to be awake. But how can something that cannot be ever want?! Can I want? All the meanings, drawn on this horizontal plane where I lie, they move, like the teeth of a circular maw, that want to eat me. And they know what they eat. Can I… Die more than I am deader than dead? Wasn’t there a voice that guided me? No, there never was. I never was.
---
Gravel was blown like dust by the flutter of Crowe’s cape, made from horse and goat demon hair. He tossed the beast, in its visage of a human female, next to the skeleton flailing about. She was heavier than he would have thought, one nail of the creature inside weighing more than the form it was inhabiting. He walked to the metal man being gnawed on by his fortuitous minions, the rot eaters, the demon insects. Sparks flew up from its eye and head. Its current consciousness, probably dead again, in need of reconstruction. He cursed the blasted thing, so strange to everything around it, even himself, even his master. Although… No, he didn’t really know if that was true. He dragged the broken mess of metal to the inside of the ritual circle, on top of the others, immobilising the skeleton and making the other one whimper.
He walked to the severed hand, crushed it beneath his foot, his insects tearing away at it like at a rich harvest. A smirk escaped him as the hand withered away, its glamour worn off, its fakeness exposed as a mere illusion, yet an illusion potent enough to eat away at a dragon until only cinders remained of its fire. He snapped his fingers, the sound producing a purple flame with yellow shadows inside, the symbols on the ground lighting up as if a forbidden fire burned away beneath them.
“I hope that meddling ghost gets dragged down with you,” he told them as they lay inside the circle, the rejected of their kind. His master would not find them very satiating, but they were merely the flavoured cherry on top of the actual meal. The ancient infusion of human experience within every inch of this abandoned city of carved stone was more than enough. It would give him the purple shadow, the hand of death, and he could reap what earth itself had sown. He would be able to end it all. He began to walk away, so as not to become his own sacrifice. He would become a lone harbinger of death. No. Of something much more definitive.
---
Oh, Crowe. This city is ancient. Heh, this old ghost knows. The rejected can be snuffed out just like that, as you’ve shown. We would be no rejected if it were any easier. But as you walk away, the fog rushes in, to fill this human-carven stone. In old places of man, us ghosts grow stronger. I am still too weak to go against you, but whatever you serve, it is not in the realm of reality. I, however, am. I am here, beyond the physical, beyond your reach. And yet, with the power of this place, I can touch my dear proteges. In the name of the humanity that once dwelt here, that I can access, a place as insignificant as me, this is my own sacrifice. To save the ones I deem deserving. Oh, Aksha, Divfni, Joy… Here is my hand! Grab it, stay. Let me save you. Let us begin our journey and tether our fates together.
---
Crowe had reached the edge of the city, and stood there, without looking back at the sight he himself was causing. He plucked a lone straw from his own body and placed it in his mouth, idly chewing on it with paper teeth. With a snap of his fingers, he lit the straw with a purple flame, and inhaled the smoke as it filled his mouth, warming the bugs that writhed within him. Behind him, a grey green fog rolled in, as if the clouds were descending down on the city. The purple symbols had marked it, and it was collapsing into itself, already shattered towers falling in and converging into a single point to crush themselves into nothingness. The human memories within, engraved by the passage of time, were being consumed, but their great concentrated presence were also lending power to a meagre wisp, a forgotten spectre whose thin, translucent hand reached from the thick clouds of pale sunlight to the ghostly fog beneath.
Crowe turned around and saw the spectacle, feeling the death of death fill his inners. His straw head was being assaulted with the writhing numbness that was this new blessing, this new power from his master. His hungry pale yellow eyes were being filled with purple, and for but a moment, madness overtook him. He longed to bring about the end, and as dark purple blades began to slowly pierce out his body, he walked away. A lone figure in the dust and wind, a single wanderer wearing a cloak of death.
And what was left behind was nothing more than cracked stone, forcefully dragged to the centre of the former ruins. That, and a voice. Three hands were reaching from below, and wispy fingers grasped them. They felt the touch, and the voice brought them comfort.
My dears, I will have your story known. We will weave it together, and make everyone see your worth. They will never forget you, because of me. That is my oath to you.
The stone around them broke, and they could drag each other out, free, and saved from damnation. Each finally saw the other in earnest. A dragon, a beast of terror, hidden away inside a human body for so long that her fire had faded. A skeleton, its flesh and muscles gone, its mind and soul no longer there. But it refused to stop, for in eternal darkness, there is nowhere to go but everywhere. And a spark of consciousness inside an artificial metal body. A stranger, who did not belong. Its former personalities had died, unbeknownst to anyone. A new one had been born now, and even in its disrepaired state, it could see the others, and wondered whether these were its duty, to protect and follow. And at last, the ancient wisp of a soul, long dead, but still wandering the earth, watching over all. Galeigh enveloped them in his compassion. All of them were broken, and they each supported and led the other, stumbling and falling, following the old ghost for a promise, a promise that each of them would be someone again.
They left the ancient city behind, along with something else. They had gathered, and had cast shadows. Very small, very frail, the shadows were the proof that the ones they belonged to were becoming something more than they had been until now. And these shadows would long for them, and hound them to the ends of the earth.
◎
“Leo Crowe, eh?” a weathered demon hunter said. “I haven’t heard that name in a while. Say, what’s he up to now?” He tilted his hat with the pinched front as he spoke, a subtle nod to the bartender to give him another drink. But the large skinless skeleton merely popped out one of its eyes and dropped it in his glass. The hunter wasn’t gonna question the gesture. It was just some monster thing.
“I heard,” an emaciated gargoyle with bulging eyes chattered in reply, “Heh heh, I heard that he’s found himself a sponsor. He went deep into the woods to do dark sorcery for his new master.”
“You’re full of lime,” the hunter told the shaking monster before blasting its head off with a clockwork shotgun hidden away by black cloth. He’d hoped this would cause a scene and get the monsters riled up, but the dour atmosphere of the ramshackle bar was not perturbed in the least.
“Oh well,” he complained as he kicked up his feet and scanned the room with one eye hidden by the brim of his hat to see what next fortunate customer he could pull some information out of. He felt his stomach heavier by a notch when he decided his next victim would be the ugly half-witch devouring scraps of meat arranged in the shape of a human baby. “I ain’t no beggar,” he said to himself, “but I still can’t be much of a chooser, either”. He stood up and heaved a sigh, his poncho draped across his person as the intruder he was, like a ghost in the land of the humans, except ghosts were actually around in this place.
As if on cue, the saloon-like doors were violently rattled by a cold gust of wind. For a moment, it looked like a tornado was taking shape outside, but the hunter figured it was no more than a mirage, common to these places. The outside excitement quickly mellowed, and the entrance to the bar seemed to expand, becoming castle doors worthy of welcoming a king. The change took place from the corner of the hunter’s eyes until it covered his entire line of sight and any hint of the former structure seemed to have vanished.
A long and tall cloak on hooves walked in, bone and metal rattling from the darkness inside it. The hunter could see the hooves outside of the cloak, alright, but just inside it looked like a darkness swallowed up all light and colour. The hunter guessed he was looking at what might have once been called a centaur, but it was cursed now, distorted beyond recognition, a tangible aura of dread and might reverberating from the creature.
“The usual, sir?” said the skeleton, the light grey vines of flesh that filled its hollowness seemingly contorting to make the noises that its lipless mouth could not. The hunter almost spurted out a ‘Blimey’ at the surprise that the skeleton could talk, but he was cautious around the new arrival.
“Yyeess…” came a wheeze of terror from the cloaked creature. As the skeleton turned to prepare the order, the cloaked figure faced the hunter, pure blackness filling the hood where its head should be. Gusts of piercing cold wind erupted from that blackness as it spoke, rattling the hood as if it was being blown by a strong wind. “A human in this place?” Its voice was now graver, more commanding. “Why not join your kin in their ever dwindling cities, doomed to die once the stars blacken?”
“Yeah…” The hunter surprised even himself with how casual his replies sounded in the face of this abomination. “I think your description makes it pretty clear why I don’t want to lie down there and die. Besides, my family was never much for the present. We all knew these days were coming. Remember the past to prepare for the future, and all that.”
“Quite interesting.” Even though the cloaked figure’s voice seemed devoid of emotion, the hunter thought he could actually gleam curiosity emanating from this ungodly creature. “The last time I met a human… No. They died of terror before I could even come across them while they were alive.”
“Heh, well maybe I misjudged you. Are you lonely, uh… what’s your name?”
“My name is not for the likes of you to know.”
“Whatever, need a friend? You all seem like you could use some companionship, really. I may have been brought up to be a lone wolf, but you lot outright go over that extreme and become your own isolated islands most of the time.”
“It is humans which are… most social creatures. Not us. We are the existentialism and solitude that haunts them, their shadows. The brighter the flame as souls flock together, the stronger we are, until the great fire creates the very darkest of shadows that snuff it out.”
“Quite poetic, were you a bard in your past life? Centaurs love song or something, right?”
“The only song that keeps me company now is the mute wail of silence. It is the tune that drums my ever dead heartbeat. No more will birds sing in earshot of me. No more will light shine on the ground I walk on. No more will mortal men feel at ease when in sight of me.”
“Yeah, not with that attitude. A bit self absorbed, aren’t we? No wonder you monsters never get anything done, you’re too stubborn to team up. When I meet a fellow kin, I buy them a drink. When you boys get together, you eat each other. Except this gargoyle I smote. He had the right attitude.”
“The terror we carry is that of a lone entity wreaking havoc among the herds of the fearful and brave alike. One, entity, to cause such slaughter. Numbers lose meaning quickly, but single recognisable individuals are forever remembered. And no matter how much some minions of darkness may flock together from time to time, all the flames they can muster are cold cinders. You humans require companionship or the elements will kill you. That is why your instinct is to form bonds. Except you. It seems your nature is more like that of a monster than of a man, or perhaps something in between.”
The hunter shrugged. “The life of a demon hunter, eh?”
“Your order, sir,” said the skeleton bartender as he placed a bloodstained glass on the counter. Inside it was a liquid of faded yellow with something orange floating inside. “Freshly picked harpy egg thrown into the urine of a behemoth.”
“What?” said the hunter, his disgust visible in how his face creased. “Harpies don’t lay eggs.”
“Not for you,” said the skeleton with a lipless grin. Even the eye he’d placed in the hunter’s glass seemed to be smiling, a cut having appeared across it, a red wound that now opened and closed on its own and grew teeth.
The cloaked figure stretched out an arm, fully armoured in elven metal shaped like the wings of angels. The sound of the metal hand grasping the bloodstained glass was like a terrified moan.
“Wait, you’re not going to drink that, are you?” the hunter shouted. “He’s scamming you!”
“That’s it, no more business for you,” the skeleton croaked, indignantly retrieving his plucked out eye and swallowing it.
The hunter had the thought of blasting the skeleton to pieces before he left, for good measure. Or maybe he’d burst down the door of whatever seedy basement the skeleton had gotten those ingredients from and kill the necromancer keeping it alive. He was interrupted from this sharply focused chain of thought by a horrible glug sound that made him queasy and audibly twisted his stomach.
The cloaked figure gently placed the glass back on the counter, free of bloodstains and clean like crystal. Without any sort of acknowledgment from either the barkeep or the cloaked figure himself, he left right back out the saloon doors, which reverted back to their ramshackle form. A strong gust of wind was stirred outside. The hunter forgot all the righteously murderous intent he’d just had and ran out the door.
A vortex of dark clouds running from the vault of the sky to the dead forest in front of him was swirling with fury, the cloaked former centaur idly walking towards it. The hunter wasn’t gonna just let such an obviously important monster as him get away with a short appearance. He just had to catch up. Just as with the saloon doors, space seemingly lost meaning and the distance between the two suddenly vanished. The cloaked figure was turned towards the hunter.
“Do you wish to meet your death?” the cloaked one said.
“No,” said the hunter among pangs of breath. “Wait, let me… I only ran a few paces, why am I so tired?”
“Time loses meaning to those that search for me. You may have been running for a few seconds, or have chased me for entire years. I could not tell you. No one could.”
“Alright, whatever, I just want to ask you if you’ve ever heard of Leo Crowe.”
The cloaked entity was still as if frozen. Not even the swirling wind could seem to move its cloak.
“What, are you thinking, you have a bad memory, or what? What’s wrong?”
“If I still could, I would laugh. How amusing. It so happens that he is of utmost importance in my wanderings.”
“Heh, my instincts rarely let me down. I knew an important looking guy like you would know something. Since you’re looking for him or whatever, what do you say we team up?”
“This brings something to mind. In another time and space, the two of us spoke about Leo Crowe inside the bar. That memory is from another, ancient world. Or it perhaps never happened at all. But the fated thing that humans call Death is whispering to me. Normally, I would forget this ever happened, and any memory or existence of you would also fade as if you were never born, so insidious is your request. But the black thing which tripped on its own blood and thus gave birth to our own fate and that of humans’ existence seemed to ponder yet another accidental providence instead. My cursed knowledge yields before your humanity, hunter. What is your quarrel with this… Crowe?”
He had spoken that name with an inflection of hatred, and the hunter did not overlook it, dazed as he was from the assault of occult information the cloaked figure had provided. Or perhaps it was because he feigned ignorance of many things that he had been spared the bleeding orifices and loss of sanity that humans would usually experience when faced with such transcendent discoveries.
“Crowe…” the hunter mumbled. “Heh. That son of a straw murdered my entire bloodline for a trinket.”
“A trinket? What kind?”
The cloaked figure sounded desperate, but the hunter was not about to give up such valuable information so quickly. “You first, centaur man. Why are you looking for him?”
“A trade? Very well. I am looking for two creatures. Leo Crowe is but one of them, and they both pose the same amount of danger. They both seek to usurp the way of things, and thus shatter reality. And they are both in opposition to each other. Only cataclysm can come out of such blasphemous strife.”
“I see. So one of them’s Crowe. Who’s the other one?”
“One of my kind.”
“And what’s your kind exactly? Undead centaur?”
“I am a ghost, the same in kin as both the wisps of thoughts born from the minds of wise men clad in genius blessings, and as the spectres of the cursed that walk this earth in the shape of champions of darkness.”
“Wait, so you’re a ghost? As in, the spirit of a departed being? I thought you’d be something much more exotic. So who is this other ghost? Is he as strong as you?”
“He is a friend, though how much anyone can call him friend is debatable, nor can he call others true companions. He is weak in shape, and perhaps weak in guile as well, but he makes up for it in ambition. It is a cursed thing, the weakling that begrudges the world that ignores him, until that ignorance and hollowness gives him the right tools to make his selfish dreams come true.”
“A friend, huh?” The hunter gleamed at the cloaked ghost with a sharp silver stare. The two seemed to be much alike. “Wanna make camp and sit by the fire, tell stories? You’re the most interesting monster I’ve met yet.”
“A tempting proposition. But reason has failed me. It is not wise to speak of these things so casually. Ghosts lack ears, so they hear all the more. And Crowe’s minions writhe and crawl all over the place. I will let you know when it is safe to speak, so we can both learn more of our quarry. Until then, come. Companionship in this endeavour seems to be ordained by Death. With someone else to share the burden, this will be an even lonelier journey still.”
“Heh, you sound a little jollier, ghost man. Can I call you Gary? That was my uncle’s name.”
“Do not make me regret following the rules of providence, human.”
The pair made their way through the thick overgrown brambles, the wind around the ghost whipping at the branches and clearing a path, while the hunter stopped to look for tracks, taking all the opportunities he had to test the ghost’s limits with his forced chatter.