Ch: 130 Let The Sun Shine In

In a mossy little glade not too far from the cozy inn, a young man bustled about, enjoying the pearly light of early dawn among the redwoods and fog.

He whistled a gay tune as he worked, setting out the tools for his morning labor with eager excitement.

It had been a few days since the last time. Too long, since last time. Gary staked out his little ritual circle in spidersilk and ribbons with trembling hands. He felt the same anxiety every time, the sense of impending violence and his own blood boiling eagerly for the fight.

The brief flash of pain from the bronze razor flicking against his inner arm jolted him even higher. Everything beyond his thick clay disc of elaborately inscribed filth faded into soft focus, as he brushed the Jukid rune in the gap between Thre’ik and Huriil.

A single thread of his blood linked each character, drawing the obscene thing into this world. It writhed in distress, tugging at his life force, feeding on a trickle of energy he allowed to slip through his aura.

“Hello again… You feel the difference in me don’t you? I’ve had a taste of something not unlike you… Now I know what you really look like.” His cheerful tone was drenched in fury and coldly eager.

“We have no face to show you…” Its oily, filthy voice whispered in the hushed clearing, off in the woods.

“No, you don’t, that’s why you hide behind all of these stolen souls. But you have something in there, something that is not stolen, that was always yours.”

He reached into the slowly spinning entity, deep among the swirling deathmasks and veins of clotted, dusty blood and soil. As if in distress, more masks appeared crowding together.

More and more entered the swirling mass until they began to shrink, each one fading into the distance, within the horrible tile’s noxious field.

Shoulder deep in its unwholesome form, he fumbled about. He had his face pressed up against the edge of the thing, reaching ever deeper. With a look of sublime concentration he worked; his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth absurdly, as he fished about in the slimy, rancid mess.

His whole body went rigid in exultation and disgust as his hand clenched around what he sought.

“Gotcha!”

There was a low, groaning, sucking sound as he slowly pulled on his prize. With the sound of all the legs in creation being slowly pulled from all the noisome, horrid bogs that could ever be, something slid into the morning sunlight.

It was long and dark, slimy and smooth, entirely featureless until it terminated at one end with a grasping tangle of rootlike tentacles, or worse, nerves.

The other end was a pair of goggling, frantic eyes. Just eyes, the thing’s body bifurcated, becoming two long reddish black stalks with a lidless, bulbous humanoid eye on each. Gary had the pair of optic nerves in an iron grip, with his left hand wrapped tightly around the squirming root end.

He looked into the still swirling faces, now flocking in miniature. A cloud of bronze, single winged butterflies came to mind, swirling up from the tile in almost endless numbers.

“The rest of you…come on home into my shadow.” He said softly, while holding his loathsome prey in a punishing grip.

With the sound of an excited crowd filing into an auditorium for ‘The Big Show’, the legion of fluttering masks vanished into his hazy, fog drenched shadow, disappearing even as the fog began to burn away.

“Oh, that feels niiiice! I can’t wait to catch another one of you shits.” He growled at the nightmare, weakly thrashing in the sun. At his words, it began to thrash its splayed and grasping nerves, trying to take root in anything it could find.

“Nope, not today, fuckstain.”

With brutal efficiency, he reached down and stomped on the ocular nerves, just behind the glaring eyeballs. With both hands free, he savagely braided and knotted the thing’s appendages together into a thick, tangled dreadlock.

He reached into his magic backside and pulled out a long bronze darning needle, strung with a length of spidersilk. “Good thing I was sewing earlier…”

Gary went back to his cheerful whistling as he worked, sewing the dreadlock of nerve fibers to its own long axion with sure and steady jabs of his enormous needle.

“Bitch to somebody who cares, asshole. I got nothing for you but a clenched fist.” He told his captive cheerfully, while he stowed the needle.

“The sewing was not just to be cruel… well mostly. I also had to stitch you into this realm, in order to make you mortal. A single poke would have done it… but you really suck, so the rest was just for me.”

He pinned the thing under his boot again while he collected his little circle of silken cords and baubles. Of the thick, red brown tile, nothing remained but a slick of noxious clay. It reeked of blood and decay, but swiftly vanished into the mosses and herbs growing on the forest floor.

He giggled just a little on the walk back with his new buddy. “You guys really bring out the worst in me, I should feel bad, but man… it just feels so good to fuck your shit up.”

“I know you can hear me, even though this one is all eyeballs and asshole.” He looked down and caught one of the eyes trying to slip from his grasp. Its partner had swollen up, while the other had dwindled into a slender cord, in order to try and slip free.

“Nice try, here lemme help you with that.” With a quick, brutal move, he knotted the thing’s eyestalks in a tight square hitch. “Try again, we’ll use a surgeon’s knot, then I get creative.” It was a bit of a walk back to the inn, so he cooled down a little on the way, working through some feelings with his new friend.

“I know, it sucks being in someone else’s power, especially if they don’t care how much or how long you suffer. I really need to work on this side of me, but man… I love giving you a hard time.” He sighed and took a firmer grip on his bedraggled prey.

“You’re lucky my kids are here, otherwise I’d peel you all the way to the core and read your shredded, still living form, like tea leaves.”

Gary plastered on a fake grin and waved at the gang. “I gotta finish this minor monster off real quick… gimme a minute.” He squatted down in a shady corner, just inside his sphere of influence and control. He waved to his friends on the porch and brought his contract weapon out, in the shape of a heavy bronze kitchen cleaver.

“A monster? Let me see…” Liam began heading over, interested in whatever the mad boy had found.

With a quickly drawn and empowered circle in the soil of his garden bed and a bright flash of a cleaver in the sun, it was over.

“Sorry Liam… already done.” He tossed the ragged corpse into the overflow stream and watched it vanish in a foaming mess of reeking bubbles.

“So what was that? Some slug monster?” Liam asked, while Gary washed up.

“Nope, that was the Hollow One. I just butchered that pig, felt great. Now I gotta wait till noon, I have a ton of ghosts inside me. Im’a need a whole shadow for this one… I might be kinda done for the day afterwards, it’s a lot.”

His brother’s frenetic speech and evershifting grin was enough for the sensible young warrior, he leaned towards his own lapel and spoke: “We’re staying put, at least til afternoon. I’d say get comfortable, but… Yeah.”

His announcement went throughout the house, everywhere one of Gary’s instruments was hanging. So, everywhere. Liam bustled off to find Shai and was deeply pleased to find her already informed.

“Aye, He did say that he might slay it today, an did beg privacy fer the act. He dinnae like how he do feel when facing summat like that.” She said softly.

“Such creatures do enrage him and he do feel shame fer that. I dinnae ken this thing.” She shrugged helplessly.

“He did tell me of the two wee murdered bairns, used tae summon that slug… I should hae been filled wi righteous fury as well.”

“He looks happy… not as happy as while he was slaughtering that thing… Why did he draw a circle before slaying it?” Liam asked, now that he could relax, the danger had passed.

“HE DID WHAT?” She did not scream, nor shout, didn’t even raise her voice. She was heard everywhere, with perfect clarity and absolute fidelity, all over the house garden and extended forest zone. Despite her lack of a magical silver button, no one could ignore that summons.

“Drew a simple circle in the dirt, before he took it with his Contract weapon.” Liam’s voice was small and quiet, in the suddenly silent inn.

“GARY NOMIDDLENAME WARD, REPORT FOR PUNISHMENT TAE YER SWEET, LOVING SHAI, ERE I COME FIND THEE.” She said calmly and with utter composure.

Surprisingly, he appeared promptly, strolling into the workshop with a smile. Shai was leaning on her murdershovel and looking pretty upset. Liam was pale and shaky, for some reason and Tallum was pretending he was somewhere else.

“Hey love, I did that thing. I confess, I might have been rougher than strictly needed…” He shook himself all over, blithely happy with the whole world. “I have so many ghosts inside me right now… it’s crazy.”

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“Gary,” She started over, getting him focused. “...Liam says ye did draw a circle round the thing, ‘ere ye dispatched it. What are ye on about?” She was calm, firm and direct, aggressively so.

“It wasn’t a demon at all. It was a construct, never born in mortal flesh, but made of something like it. ‘Lab Grown’ I think is the essence of it.” He said with an oblivious grin.

“It was immortal by design, when I took that away, it became a simple homunculus… monmunculus? Cause it’s a mini monster made of meat?”

Gary shook his head, clearly tripping on ectoplasm overdose. His shadow was dribbling and swirling all over the floor, not in a hungry way, more like a hive of busy and active bees. Shai could almost hear them buzzing, or was it the quiet roar of a distant, cheering crowd?

“Brother, Shai wants to know why you drew a circle, she’s worried you might be… up to something unnatural.” Liam said in as reasonable a way as such things can be said.

“Ohhh, yeah, I’m really overghosted right now… I sacrificed that thing in a circle to take its soul, temporarily. Now that it’s a proper ghost we can talk.” He patted his breast pocket, where a dark silk hankie was poking out.

“I’ma make the next one into a necktie.”

#

The small man used his gift to steal the woman’s shovel away before anything drastic happened, that relieved Xyll greatly. She was volatile, his woman. So filled with fire and light, no accounting for taste.

The manwholovestrees calmed her skillfully, while Shadeorchard slumped in a chair. She fluttered down to sing her song in his ear, soothing the many spirits hiding in his shadow.

Bats, as a rule, enjoy a nice tight crowd. Warm and bustling, his shadow was more homey now than ever before, even if they were humans and humanoids. She had no idea what the humans were saying, their voices too low for her to register, beyond the vibration in her wings.

The thing in his pocket however… “Unclean and unwholesome, beware its noxious influence.” She sang into the tiny part of his primitive perceptions that was able to receive her words.

“Whoah, my third eye just opened… Xyll? Way cool!” He sat in a stupor for some few minutes, while Liam counseled Shai to patience.

“He’s been pushing his cultivation really hard, that puts a lot of stress on the body and mind… you know how he is.” Liam whispered.

“Let’s wait till full sun, prop him up and see what his shadow does, before we start digging holes in the garden beds. My early tomatoes just flowered.”

#

Gary was floating, blissed out in the grotto about an hour later. With a sudden grunt of delight he jumped up and scooted out the door and into the garden, bare ass naked.

“Sun’s out, buns out.” He said calmly, as he took the very undignified pose Khan had instructed him in.

Julius was enjoying tea with Tawny and Bannock in the garden, discussing matters that the others would find tedious. He was startled when his very good friend walked by, completely naked.

Things failed to improve when his buddy sprawled out in a highly unusual position on the lawn.

“Gary?” Julius asked, peering over his teacup at his mad new acquaintance, who now had his bare behind aimed at the mid day sun.

“Becky composed this lovely cured monster salmon rosette… now I am quite put off.” The Duke said to the odd fellow, they had only just met, after all.

#

Gary held his highly unconventional pose for five solid minutes, before beginning a more ‘normal’ sunbathing routine. It was like watching a bug, struggling, trapped in liquid amber, he would roll into a strange pose, hold it, then move to another.

Luna and Khan arrived shortly afterward, supervising his antics with serious expressions on their faces.

“When the third eye opens, it’s time to add in physical cues as well, which stimulates mana, qi and blood flow.” Luna said, matter of fact as always. “He’s also stuffed to the ears with haunts, shades and spooks. More sun on his skin, less damage to his Ka’ when they exit.”

Julius gave a low whistle of admiration. “Let me guess… everything is cultivation? Gods, I respect you hardcore cultivators. Any tips to help me finally crack iron rank?” The duke failed to notice the evil glint in her one eye.

“Tallum, set up the ‘Gyro-Pope’, we have a volunteer. Waterfall training.” Luna shouted, while her hand fell on the young duke’s collar. “Cultivation is training your body and mind, driving them to the limit and then breaking those limits, usually with great suffering. Very great suffering.”

Gary’s mad cackling laugh, as he was taken away, would haunt the young lord’s nightmares for days after.

Those dreadful, harrowing hours beneath the waterfall lasted an eternity. Julius only remembered being strapped into a disorienting, madman’s hellcage of torment, before the world became utter chaos.

Revolving and spinning under the hot waterfall for an endless time in that enchanted grotto, he went on a vision quest. He fell into the deepest recesses of his own mind, mulling the resentment he held for his parents and their cold, distant ways.

Lost in deep reflection, the young lord’s mind unspooled, thinking on recent days and lessons learned from friends new and old. Those thoughts glowed warm and comfortable, like stepping into the sun, from a chilly, shaded path.

He took in the warmth and care he felt from his friends, new and old and beloved kin. Like Phillip, so warm, under his dour facade.

It was enough. He pulled the release cord, sending him spilling bonelessly across the floor in a loose pile of awkward, nerveless limbs. It took a good long while to pull himself into something roughly human shaped after that dizzying, whirling torture.

Slowly he emerged from his self inflicted isolation and stepped out into the light of day, after so terribly long, alone in that cave. “My friends… how long has it been?” He gasped, clutching onto Dannyl, the first familiar face he saw.

“We strapped you in, maybe thirty minutes ago Julius. Gary is still sunbathing.” He said dryly. “That thing can really mess with your mind.”

The young lord straightened his clothes, he was still uncertain and hesitant when dressing himself. “Well, in that case, let’s go see if he has burned himself, he’s rather pale.” The duke draped an arm over the smaller man with comradely affection. “This ‘Rock-n-roll’ thing, which you play so thunderously, will you consent to instruct me in it? I find bass… compelling.”

“Ohh, keep hanging out with Gary, you’ll get it. He says I need to learn a piece called ‘Thunderstruck’ next… I’m kinda having trouble with it myself.” Dannyl scooped up Rio as they walked, while Amy and Wilford scurried up the duke’s lanky form, like squirrels up a nut tree.

“You need help tio Dannyl? Angus’ been watching you practice… he says you’re close…” Rio’s natural shyness dissolved as he began tapping his drum softly. “We call him for you? Es facile… easy…”

Dannyl reached out and gently stilled the lad’s hands, while cradling him close. “Later little brother, we gotta go see what Gary is up to.”

“Si, la mariposas no hay…” He flushed a deeper brown in embarrassment when Dannyl looked confused. With a deep breath and a cheery nod from Amy, he tried again. “Gary’s full of bugs of the dead, they must… Fly away! Yes, fly away.” He seemed quite pleased with himself.

“You are doing very well, Rio. I only just learned there were other languages.” Dannyl gave his little brother a squeeze.

#

Gary was still standing in the early afternoon sun, soaking it up, but he was wearing clothes now. He had his guitar out, strumming and swaying to something loose and unstructured. He was just wandering up and down the scale, in a simple improvised melody.

When the little ones and the two men joined Shai Becky and Tawny at a garden table nearby Gary winked at them.

“It’s almost ready, kids… gather round.” He called with glee. “You guys too, get over here, get close…” He jabbered, slowly spinning in place as he picked Up the tempo and got more expressive with his instrument.

Rio and Wilford started drumming together, on the ever present bongos, while Amy trilled sweet nonsense from her throat. They jammed in a tight knot, following his swift but very precise and exuberant notes, spinning together in place.

Gary’s flying fingers gave the key of D a very thorough going over, flicking up and down the fretboard releasing joyous, tinkling sounds into the sunny, afternoon sky.

At his and the children’s urging, the adults drew closer, until they were among the spinning, dancing kids. With a sigh, Shai and Becky produced their instruments and joined his melee.

“I like this music… Dannyl plays something like this sometimes.” Becky sang over the intricate piece.

“Spanish guitar, it’s a classical musical form with deep roots.” He sang happily, with a mad giggle at the end. “This one is perfect for today, it’s called ‘La Mariposa’, or, ‘The Flight Of The Butterflies’.

As his last word fell silent, a sparkling bronze shape flittered out, gleaming with brazen, lacy wings, a small, metallic butterfly flitted up in a gentle spiral and headed for the slowly setting sun. Another followed, then another, soon a swarm of the things were glittering around the laughing musician as he played.

“Ok! Everybody’s out! Ready to get it started?” Gary pulled his recorder from his sleeve and tossed his teleblaster to Dannyl, who caught it with a smile and slid into the mix.

He set into a sweet, airy flute piece, a distant and remote feeling. His shadow split off, carrying a tenor recorder, he continued dividing himself into shadows, until the music became a soaring eager melody, filled with hope.

Poor Amy had been chomping at the bit, waiting for her cue, the sweet patient diva.

When the moon, is in the seventh house…

And Jupiter, aligns with Mars…

The glittering, sparkling bugs swirled in a dense, shimmering cloud, with a faint metallic chiming of their multitudinous wings singing against each other. They flew in a wild, exuberant mass. Higher and higher into the sky, in a long shining strand they flew off for the first blush of sunset.

Harmony and understanding

Sympathy and trust abounding

No more falsehoods or derisions

Golden living dreams of visions…

Their wings stroked and tickled the little group as they mingled and swarmed, alighting for a moment here and there, then flitting away with a musical chime. One perched on Becky’s nose for a few seconds, letting her get a good look at… Her.

She was a tiny, fully formed human, a shiny bronze figurine of a woman, with lacy metal butterfly wings inscribed and pierced with elaborate and beautiful arabesques and swirls. Clinging with her bare hands and feet to the very tip of Becky’s nose, she leaned close, and kissed her nasal perch, then flitted off singing a tiny song of joy.

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

The Age of Aquarius

Aquarius! Aquarius!

“Tickles, donit!” Amy gasped, while the boys took the outro singing with all they had, while literally cloaked in the miniscule spirits. The kids and their deranged parents were spinning and twirling among the flying souls, laughing with wild abandon, savoring the rich, sweet essence of Joy’s gaze on the little garden party.

“Ooh, I’m a little woozy now...” Gary mumbled, as the last flying jewel flittered off into the sunset. He sat down at the abandoned garden table, still scattering music into the golden, early afternoon light. “That’s a wild feeling… you guys ok?”

The rest were in a jumble, lying on the grass in the sun, giggling and gasping for breath. “Oh gods, what was that? Some spell to entrance and amuse? How delightfully frivolous!” Julius gasped, sitting up from somewhere in the tangle.

“Nuh uhh!” Amy popped up right beside him and kissed the duke’s cheek with a laugh. “That wasn’t furvulus! It was a funeral, silly!” She climbed up and sat on his broad shoulder, clinging to the lord’s neck. “They were here too long, now they are going home! I’m hungry, can we have cake for dinner?”

“Naughty child, even Gary is nae so weak minded as tae give in tae…” Shai laughed, as she collected her wayward child, until she looked over at the table, where her man was no longer playing his instrument, but had a knife out. “Gary ye put that cake away! Ye would hae them sick tae the tummy! Dinner first, beloved fool of mine.”

“So strict…” He muttered saucily as he tucked his slightly uneven and crudely frosted chocolate cake away. “Maybe you should take me to task, upstairs…” He asked, while making his eyebrows do that thing she liked.

“Becky, Dannyl, kin ye mind these young villains, whilst I scold this silly man, in private…?” Shai asked sweetly, while sending obviously fake ‘furious glares’ at Gary.

“Ugh… You two are gross. Come on kids, Gary and Shai are arguing.” Rio almost believed that, for a moment, no one else was fooled.

#

In the other place, Thirp was pretty excited and concerned at once. “I sense that obscenity you have tucked away, it is still trying to slip its tendrils into your soul Gary.” She said, as they came downstairs, still flushed and giddy.

“Beware, hate and anger can provide inroads into your soul as easily as love and affection can. That thing is mindless, but desperate.”

“Thanks, Buzz KIllington, I have it sewn up pretty tight and sealed in a steel barrel in the workshop. You’re right though, it’s slippery and absolutely amoral. I’m gonna squeeze everything it knows out and then send it to the Devourer. Whatever comes of it after that is up to the universe.”

Marduk leaned over from the fireside and laughed at the blushing pair. “You came to bed early, my friends. I sense the children still up and about.” He stretched languidly and smiled. “Were you exhausted by some physical trial?”

“We’re only here for a few minutes, it’s naptime.” Gary said with a very obvious hitch in his voice, in addition to the interesting shade of red on his face.

“Boy, I am significantly older than your species, I know what you kids get up to. Your pathetic excuses only draw attention to such activities.” He chided gently, with a divine giggle. “I must say, that was a delightful little display you and that flock of lost souls put on, I shall cherish that memory.”

“Man, you immortals are always looking back, even when the good stuff is still in front of you.” He sighed happily. “Carpe diem, bro!”

“What, no salty homilies about ballsacks, snippets of stolen poetry, or quotes from notable wits, long dead? You must be tired.” He said with a laugh. “Shai, please take better care of your pet.”

#