Chapter Seventeen: Touched the Sound of Silence

Oscar continued his morning stroll through the lands around King's Sanctuary. Well, strolled about as much as was humanly possible on such ground, anyway. For the inordinate amount of volcanic and tectonic activity tended to create less than flat terrain, and kept in motion what otherwise would have remained a lifeless ice-world badly situated from Erenduis B. And the Osnach mountain range was glacier country.

He now found himself crossing one such glacier, a rough, dirty, blackened thing filling up a huge ravine the depths of which Oscar could only guess. If he really paid attention he could feel it moving beneath his feet: an impossibly slow crawl of something larger than life, on the dimmest fringe of his perception, yet all the more terrifyingly real because of it. Countless millennia of rock lay buried in that ice, trapped in an ceaseless flow, going ever so very, very, slowly... until... until hundreds of miles down that frozen plastic path, centuries from the point where Oscar stood, it - ended - and fell, down into that shallow, briny sea, into that gentle warmth that preceded the destroying fire beyond where all came to its end. And fell into the current, melding into the molten stone, to one day start again.

He could see it from here. Down countless miles of winding glacier, brown and gold of autumn leaves speckled in white, over that steep misty cliff where the water ate away at the rock below. That intoxicatingly warm volcanic sea, resplendent in purest sky-blue, so many miles below it lay to swallow its frozen, stony tributaries - so wholly alien, this soft, pale, scintillating sea, to the vast cold darkness of the oceans back home. Even where she lay hidden in the shadow of the mountains one could still see that pale blue almost glowing against that unyielding shade. All around that sea grew lush, dark greenery: from here it reminded Oscar of an neglected tank in a grimy old pet store, long devoid of fish, the filter clogged up and useless, where the green muck lay clinging to the glass as the water evaporated below. A paler green formed a hazy ring towards the water's midst, as sky blue gave way to a golden sunny yellow where the great volcano flowed forth in his power. Though full of razor-sharp stones, teeming with life, the place suddenly struck Oscar as being very, very old.

A young woman accosted him, her golden headband gently complementing her deep blue hair.

- Hiya Osc. She still hadn't told him why she had kept him from attending the coronation ceremony.

- Hey. It certainly wasn't anything personal; she'd made thie quite clear since then, and he'd insisted every time that he took no offense.

- What's up? Nonetheless, Wyn - Her Majesty Queen Ellamina II, he corrected himself - had been going out of her way to make up for it in every way the entire month that they'd been at King's Sanc.

- Oh, you know, just admiring the scenery. She mostly helped him with little things - VIP quarters, special privileges, higher clearance levels,... things that, as a foreigner, he probably shouldn't have received, even as a personal friend of the Queen's.

- Yeah. Beautiful, isn't it? Despite all her efforts at secrecy, however, Oscar had eventually learned about what was going on.

- So how are things? I haven't been up to much myself, just killing some time learning about this planet and whatnot. He acquired the information from one of the generals, a gentlemanly old veteran with an easy smile and reserved demeanor.

- This place wasn't settled by my people until only two hundred years ago, but it's always held a special place in our minds. He too was absent during Ellamina II's coronation: having lost his wife from kuru during a sacrifice ten years before, he had sworn never to taste human flesh again.

- Creation and destruction, high and low, hot and cold,... hm. I personally have had enough binary contrast myself. Of course, he never counted on there being another coronation in his lifetime. Naturally he regretted missing the ceremony, but he was bound by his word.

- Oh, really? But doesn't everyone like to think like that every so often? ...oh, you mean-- Oddly enough, the details hadn't horrified Oscar half as much as he would have figured such information ought to.

- Yeah. The old gentleman had described everything so plainly, with such earnest reverence for all the rituals concerned, that even though intellectually Oscar felt something inherently wrong, he couldn't bring himself to explicitly condemn the practice, even in his own mind.

- Don't worry, Osc, once we win this war we'll catch him for ya.

He sighed. That's the part I don't get - what would I do with him to end it? To kill him, just like that, is it--it just feels wrong.

- But what would you do with him? Do you still think he can be somehow... redeemed?

- Well... no--I mean, yes! ...do I? He sighed and turned towards the sea.

She put a hand on his shoulder. You know him best, Oscar, I trust your judgement. When we have to deal with it again, your word is law. Just remember, though... nothing waits forever.

He sighed again. Of course. Everything has to... ...

- Die and waste away, be burned and destroyed, so that new creation can rise again. Pick a bowel, friend, you're on the Wheel of Dharma! A lithe figure rappeled down an icy slope. Your Majesty! It's not good to run off like that without letting the guards know you're escaping their humble notice first! He skidded to a halt, took his hat off and bowed with the momentum of his descent.

- Wha--oh. Uh, hey Aris. For the rest of his life Oscar would never find out just what strings had been pulled, that a SURTR officer was assigned to be one of the new Queen's bodyguards.

- Were you listening to our conversation all this time!?

- N--I mean, Of course! Expect no less from our top-notch surveillance, your Majesty! He paused and sniffed. Er... no offense, but--

- Yes, I know. And all thanks to your top-notch surveillance that I haven't had the privacy to shower all week!

- Oh, was that why. Come on, Your Majesty, we all saw you naked that--At this point she hit him. Hard. Which made it fortunate that Shadowscorcher Delapore was a hardy fellow, considering his wiry frame.

- Are you all right?

The afflicted sprang to his feet. Of course! What is a royal guard who is not also a reliable punching bag? Windsong shook her head, halfheartedly failing to resist a smile. Come now, your Majesty, unless you wish a little more alone time then let us escort you all back to base. - Well, I think it's time to head back anyway. Osc?

- Sure, why not.

- Excellent choice, friends! And with this they were surrounded by fiendish black skeletons, armed to the teeth, laughing and chattering and all in all seeming to be having a good time. Skysong, who rode on the shoulders of a particularly large specimen of the undead, was in similarly high spirits.

Oscar and Windsong looked at each other and shrugged.

They merrily marched back to base, child, skeletons and wiry man bellowing out a song, though utterly unfitting for something as formal as a royal guard, took the form of a music that would inspire untold millions to fight and die for king and country.

To Anacreon in heaven where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
Voice, fiddle aud flute, no longer be mute,
I'll lend you my name and inspire you to boot!
And besides I'll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus and Bacchus's vine....

* * *

- But how do they move?

- Well, first Klot has to burn them, then... uh... stuff happens, and--

- Nonono, I didn't mean that, you've told me that already! I remember in perfect detail?

- Really?

- Yup! She did that fake-deep-voice thing children and women often did when mocking grown men. First Klot jumps on them and then uh like does the funky burninate thing and uh like uh stuff happens and and yeah then uh then they get up! I have a eye-clectic memory!

- Very good, Skai I'm sure you'll make a wonderful royal bard.

- But how do they move?

- Er... the fire provides, like, power and stuff. Yeah.

- But how do they move?

- Skai, you're going to have to learn to ask your questions better.

- Like in the form of answer?

- ...yeah.

- So, like they have bones, but no muscles, so how do they--uh, I mean, they don't have the moving stuff, so they move because... uh...

- Remember the letter-counting they taught you in kindergarten!

- Because Ex!

- There ya go! Ah, I see your question now. Of course, well... uh... they move by magic, I guess.

- Copout answer! Copout copout cop-out!

- Well, then, missy, do you have a better one?

- Why, yes I do! Of course!

- Where is it then?

- It's... uh... I left it in the skeleton! She pulled one of the undead warriors over and sat it on the stool next to her.

- Guess we'll have to flush it back out. Janus, my good man! Three Gargulean Barrel Rollers, please! Meanwhile, the skeleton rattled wordlessly.

- Yeah, coming right up. And what in God's name are you doing bringing skeletons and a little kid into a bar, anyway? He didn't look up at them.

- Hey, watch it man, she's royalty, she can go wherever the fuck she wants!

- Right, 'Rizzy, like they'd actually let--holy fuck! I mean, er, Your Highness.

- Heehee. You said a bad word.

Some time later they decided to pick up her sister.

* * *

But what, indeed, moved them?

Klot sighed, glancing over at the princess and her supposed bodyguard, that... creature... who would in one breath address royalty, a military bartender and a scarcely-sentient piece of charred cannon fodder as if all were his equals. A creature... something quite... less than a man. A man knew his place, the codes of where he dwelt, and the respect with which he paid his superiors - and proper contempt for inferiors. But this aberration seemed utterly loose with such things, and where he imitated them it was for merely his own amusement, dancing like an ape to be gawked and laughed at, gawking and laughing at himself all the same.

Klot smiled grimly. He'd noticed this with others, not merely Aris but a good number of these beast-men he tentatively called his allies for the moment. The irony did not escape him: this was the product of civilization, that miserable struggle for perfect, rational linear structure to man, ever doomed, ever failing, ever struggling to survive and consume. Damn them, damn them and their stinking towers, Procrustean crystals that twisted men's souls to their own warped reflection, so-called equality in the name of the mindless cube-line - survive, consume, dissolve. Hierarchy collapsing into itself as it consumes its own foundations - the Technocracy. the Swarm.

Of course it had to fall out. These creatures didn't even know themselves anymore. Caring for nothing, knowing nothing, seeking Nothing to fill their pathetic little voids. Dissolution. The Void. Entropy.

He must find his daughter. Somehow, somewhere. But soon.

The light may penetrate and vanquish, but in the end darkness always wins.

* * *

She kept drifting in and out of sleep. Every so often, that veil between the two realities tickled her. It gently brushed against her face, moving down her body, lingering deliciously on her thighs... his touch. That scent. Him. God, she missed him so much. Could she see him? No, it is but the impression of seeing... or was it hearing? He spoke, but not in words; again that touch. Where was he now? But that didn't matter, because he was right in front of her. And she reached out, and felt she could touch him; and she fell. Deeper, deeper through that velvet void, into his embrace, his touch, his breath, his dark, terrible being conquering all. She felt his essence penetrate hers, relishing in every pore of her body. She let herself go in the paroxysms of ecstasy, flying through the darkness, where she felt she glimpsed the universe, the endless spiral of life... and death.

And she fell on discord. The darkness she lost herself in was not the one she knew before. The same essence, but polluted somehow. No light, but neon darkness visible. A positive quality of That Which Was Not. A paradox. Fragmented, her mind wavered, stretching out for something - anything - nothing. Silence. She panicked, curling into an infinitesimal point as the darkness about her shattered, and became abominable mockeries of her treasured - withered forms, withering all that beheld it. If it had existed at all. The discord tore into her. The spiral ended.

When she noticed that her eyes were open, she couldn't bring herself to scream. She lay there, motionless, for a long time. Eventually, however, she decided to get up and close the window, where a draft was making her uncomfortably cold.

She felt very cold... and hollow.

She went back to bed.

* * *

- It is done. He stood up from where he had bent over the unconscious form.

His accomplice sighed. Well, good to get it over with. At least the other could continue the line, though, once our purpose is served.

- May I remind you of our purpose. The line need not continue.

- But of course.

- I do not like this any more than you do.

- We'll both need a great deal of penance time for breaching a young girl's trust like this.

- Remember to let no one else know until it's too late.

His accomplice glared. It's not just about getting caught, he muttered through clenched teeth.

- Nontheless.

- Anyway, why is it that some keep their eyes while you do not?

- Some other time, Delapore.

And they left.

* * *

The klaxons, the klaxons! War, war it rang, Fell war is upon us! Take to the steeds, valiant keepers of the True Line, fight and die, fight for your noble cause, that it may survive! War, war it rang. Fell war is upon us!

And lo, there rose the great black ships, each with forty fighters and forty again, tearing through the veil of space, thirsting for violence. And Coyote came, and blessed them, even as that stalwart vessel filled the void with particle and plasma into the swarm of enemies beyond.

But lo, there, beyond the black cloud of terrible foes, valiant fighters all, thirsting for violence, tearing through the veil of space, a great behemoth came, and none could withstand her. Of perfect prow, unsullied hull, the great monster waded into the dogfight, and the noble Wendauer race quailed in her wake. But as all things were, for as Fate wills all things, she was weak of one spot.

- That is insane, Shadowscorcher Delapore!

- It must be done! There's no other way to destroy it.

- He's right, man. That thing's gonna keep everything short of the Almighty's hand out, but it's not designed to keep much in.

- But how? I don't think any of our remaining fighters in the region have wormhole capability!

- Yes we do!

- That can fly through all ten rows of turrets?

- And be large enough to transport--

- An entire fucking squad--

- Through its own micro-wormhole--

- Who'd then take out the entire crew from within!?

- Reasonable.

- The fuck, Angsty...

Then the Wendauers fell into near-total panic when they saw that Her Majesty's own vessel had somehow wandered out of the main defense perimeter.

* * *

- Where'd she go?

- Just follow the path of destruction and we'll be fine.

- Well, okay, but--

- D'oh! Stupid panicked mobs of Adamites killing each other trying to get to the escape pods!

Baz and Glipfronzel backtracked for that other path of destruction that surely led to their queen.

* * *

Oscar had no idea what he was doing now. He just ran after Wyn, trying to do... something... contain the chaos somehow. Something that was getting harder to do every day. Surely there was some way to avoid such excessive--ugh, he got brains all over his sleeve--bloodshed? Surely? But it seemed that Wyn found it more than necessary, as she formed an incomprehensible mess of lightning, blades, fire, tiny warped spaces and Lord knew what other strange magickal effects that bulldozed a path that left none alive in her wake. Just had to keep moving, gotta catch up... somehow..

* * *

The fleet was pretty badly mauled - the number people gave something along the lines of twenty per cent of the fighters had to be returned by the salvage guys, not including those several hundred ships that were simply unaccounted for or were destroyed beyond identification. The newly acquired fleetship - an Irrumator-class carrier according to the remains of the onboard databanks, Lord knew what people were in charge of Adamus's fleet engineering - suffered massive damage from within; Overcaptain Anxarcule said he thought the deck looked like something he chewed up and spat out back in the old country. He also finally told the klaxon to shut up now that the battle was over.

* * *

Aris arrived at the table, tray laden with some dry but surprisingly flavorful meat. An ambush on a Gamezohan deep-space freighter convoy a few days ago proved particularly successful, and among the spoils was enough real food to last the Coyote legion almost a week. He hadn't eaten this well since the coronation ceremony a month ago.

- Hey, you didn't get any meat. Indeed, Dave did have some sashimi and sardines on the side, as well as a couple skewers of glistening honey-roasted locusts - who knew when the Gamezohans started considering such exotic fare edible - but aside from that he was eating nought but beans, potatoes, carrots, bok choi, fried onions and six different kinds of rice.

- Oh, and now the biowizard tells me that fish are plants, and locusts are space fungi?

- Want a steak? I got extra. He knew the inevitable answer, of course - the question was merely ritual.

- Dude, I'm not touching that shit with a stick. It's still gooey with blood - Dave made a face - and Lord knows what - or who - that meat was cut out of. At any rate you again fail to produce any means to cleanse the palate afterwards.

- Well. Aris sat and glanced at the meat. I thought they'd drained it all first. He turned the tray around and picked up a gelatinous brown cube of boiled blood, relishing in the peculiar oxidized savor and the way the grain broke along curious angles on his tongue. Delicious.

Then they ate without saying anything. While they'd only met upon joining the same SURTR outfit, the two had gotten along quickly, their friendship having already reached the point where one no longer felt any dire need to break the silence with extraneous words. This time, however, some words were eventually deemed necessary.

- There has been something I've wanted to ask for some time now.

- I've nothing to hide amongst comrades who cannot incriminate me.

- You've mentioned before - or at least I've gotten the impression - you strike me as a man of God.

- As do you me. Very few atheists have the guts to try to destroy the universe and themselves with it.

- But naturally. What I mean, however, is that you seem aligned to a certain - linearity, for lack of a better term? - that reflects neither anything apparent about what we're doing here, nor your own personal aura.

- That much I confirm, if that be your question. Or do you actually mean to ask me something?

- Well... yes. Yes, I do mean to ask you about it. I mean... I shall be frank. Dave, you worship the same god as that who commands most of our enemies - be they enemies only in the most purely strategic sense - and apparently that god of many of those poor dupes whom our fine organization has calculatedly fooled into working for us.

- Again I'll confirm, as you yet again refuse to phrase your question as such.

- I ask, naturally, how do you reconcile your long-sworn allegiance to one of the static gods even as you work to overthrow Its creation and reduce all to primeval Chaos?

Dave laughed. Of all the people in this building as we speak, you find it necessary to ask me? Why me in particular, rather than any of those other fanatical degenerates on the premises who also claim to follow some generic white-light god of Order?

- I think you know, you yourself have kept saying how such degenerates have hijacked your people's religion and turned it into a force of destruction and terror and eschatological mayhem...

- Ah, yes, I see your point. The apocalypse had been imminent with their bunch for... how long now, more centuries than years I've been alive? - certainly a core belief that could never be shaken off.

- And which coincides with ours now, and perhaps with our mycelious friends as they've been for longer than all humanity's been around. But again this illustrates my point - why do you work with people with whom you seem to have such a fundamental conflict?

- Simple, Aris. I believe that we both share a strong belief that they have, but unlike them, guys like you and me know when it's appropriate. These wackos have been raving about the end of the world since she was bor--since it was created, damn you Delapore I'm starting to talk like you - to no discernible effect whatsoever save for a few millennia of misery and lies. But now - now is different.

- You seem very certain of yourself.

- If we be right, then we help usher in the new age of the Messiah, proving ourselves the Lord's tool for the world's ascension.

- And if we be wrong?

- Then we admit that we've made a hasty decision. Perhaps as we are riddled with bullets on some remote border world surrounded by enemies. Oh yes, it'll be a glorious death, you and I and all our comrades in arms...

- We're no less likely to rot ignominously in a dark little cell, possibly under water.

- Then we go out in a blaze of glory destroying everything trying to break out. It is just as good.

- But we'd still be wrong.

- I've been many things before, Aris, and the worst of them is afraid of being wrong.

About then Gunther finally showed up, trays full of steaks and potatoes stacked into haphazard pyramids. He wasn't exactly a large fellow, and Aris briefly wondered where all that food went inside of him.

- Hey, whatcha guys talkin' about?

- Oh, not much, just why we're here, 'tis all.

- Oh, you mean more of that philosophy shit. Dang, thought you were up to something interesting.

- No, nononono, not like that at all. More like why we're here, in SURTR and all.

- Ah, now there's a topic worth talking about! Say, I don't think I have heard you two's stories before. How'd you get into all this?

* * *

Aris was just another hired gun, working for the Gamezohans in the name of unity and victory and all that horsecrap, which mostly involved shooting poor backwater religious wackos in the head for chump change, doing all sorts of nasty shit their precious military didn't want to dirty their hands in. Never liked the Empire then, sure as shit don't like it now. But what the hell, it put food on the table, taught him a few things about taking things apart and putting them back together, all while said thing's writhing and screaming for mercy, heh. Of course, he eventually learned to use painkillers too, but that's another story.

Then one day he was sent to scope out some terrorist splinter cell that turned out to be about a lot more than just blowing people up and screaming God is Great, Bow You Infidels! like an idiot. This group actually stood for something. SURTR.

They captured him, locked him in a box for a few days, and he suddenly saw the light - the darkness visible, perhaps. It all made sense now - the dwindling of the human spirit under the Empire's bureaucracy, the cold exploitation matched by the destructive "political intrigue" that ever ate away at man's freedom, all that miserable entropy of it all... it meant something now. Of course it was doomed to fall apart - to collapse, and die, to have its dried remains burnt down and back into the soil, just like at the farms back in the old country. Reforged, even, speaking of home, growing up in the biggest smithy in Moboz Province. Ah, those were nice, simple times--anyway, long story short, he reacted like anyone who saw a gruesome disease and was offered the cure: he took it.

* * *

Dave was nearing the end of his apprenticeship. The grand old master, John Theodore Roach, one of only two people in the universe who understood the art of killing while maintaining the Balance in his own soul, was standing on the ledge, basking in the rays of the twilit sea. He walked up to him, asking why he had summoned him at such an odd time. Dave, look out there, he told him. What do you see? The horizon. And? Twilight - the middle. Yes. Then he waited for a while, and it became dark. What do you see now, Dave? Darkness. You don't see the horizon? No, I can't see it at all. You've lost sight of it, then. As I have... and now I can no longer focus on the balance between the two. You cannot see it, you mean. Of course, it can be felt, but a blind wise man is still missing his sight. So find it, find the balance, and my point of all this, my chaotic apprentice. What, that I should retreat while I still can?

No, you nincompoop. Try something more obvious.

Obvious?

What happens tomorrow?

The sun rises, and--I should continue until I find it on the other side.

Your apprenticeship is concluded. Good luck, old friend.

* * *

Jurgen Gunther Kriegor was nearing the end of his rope. The new Administration's "Tax Goodness Initiative" program had resulted in Linea Aerospace, Inc. making massive cuts in all departments, and he was one of the unlucky ones. Not the ones fired, mind, but ones who were now told to work twice as much for the same pay to make up for the lack of employees. At that rate he could no longer take care of the family, as the wife had her own job for them to make ends meet, and they couldn't afford to have anyone look after the kid. Naturally, for want of a raise he quit; just as naturally, for want of any income on his part she left him and took the baby with her.

Within a week they both died from drinking poisoned water. They built the new factories just a tiny bit too close to the resevoir, it seems, and the compensation money was never given to Gunther nor any of the other surviving family members, and the whole thing was swept under that great rug of history.

And now, as he sat on the corner, mercy to the wind and rain and the helpless, silent apathy of those who couldn't bear to spare him a quarter - or at least look him in the face as they hastily dropped one without stopping - someone gave him something new. Like the other, this stranger also quickly left the scene, ducking into a nearby alley, but from that point on Gunther would recognize that ridiculous hat anywhere. He picked up the tract and read it.

SOMEONE CARES ABOUT YOU

It contained mostly pictures, with bold, easily read words pointing out the less easily illustrated parts of its message. In the brief space of a little comic book it told a tale with a bard's tongue: it spoke to Gunther of the birth of the world, as it rose from that unknowable primeval darkness, where the first binary met, and clashed, and brought forth creation; it continued, down through the formation of the universe, the great shaping from the original light and dark, ever changing, ever dying, ever being reborn. Empires, races, realities grew, and lived, and died to live again, and died once more - but death, as always, was only the beginning. The great Serpent sanctified the dynamic pattern, held it true and good. Ourobouros.

But then the cycle began to wane. What was once a circle became a line, as realities began to settle, crystallizing into lifeless fossils embalmed by the insidious venom, the blasphemous cup held by the damned whore, Reason. There lay the suffering, the loss of the spirit as the neon god's light conquered all, where virtue and tragedy were plucked away and cast into the landfill, their hallowed seats filled by bureaucratic Administration, flanked by a myriad clever wits, all trying to trivialize the very essence of humanity more than their predecessors, having lost all love for words or things or people, and only the squalid seemed strong. The movement, that beautiful eternity of joy and sorrow, was about to come to an end.

Or was it? Perhaps this was not the end, but merely the pangs of greater, vaster, more terrifying Death, so pure in its glory that it encompassed the entire world. For it was written, that before this fell fate, the world would descend into stagnation and cold - the Fimbulwinter. This was but a precursor to something greater, where the crystal silence would be shattered by a new death, a singular, unstoppable force that would tear through the veil of reality, thirsting for violence. For it was violence itself, the reflection of the primodial Clash by which the world first came to be, that would mark this world's end. Death will sweep across the universe, as the raging flames of Surtr cleanse the material world of all existence, plunging it all into that nothing-dark primodial sea.

And life will rise again.

Gunther found himself standing up and retracing what steps he had seen the man make as he hurried away. He found him still standing there, just around the corner, grinning under that ridiculous hat.

* * *

Story- and lunch-time was over. The three men returned to their posts, their morales restored by the fine meal and the reminder of why they were there. Dave was assigned for a patrol, and decided to drag Gunther along as copilot. Aris vaguely recalled having to help Klot with something, and departed his way.

Sometimes the most ruthless killers are precisely those who love life most.

* * *

A cloaked old man appeared before the group.

- Moebius. Aris tipped his hat. Klot scowled.

- Your part of the deal, in exchange for Damocles's cooperation and my destroying your organization last?

- Of course. Provide the materials and I shall set to work.

Moebius conjured something out of somewhere. Baz motioned to two spare repair droids who moved Katje's stiff, pale, somewhat putrid remains into the scout vessel's walk-in refrigerator. Domo arigatou, Misuta Roboto.

Pawn takes pawn. Pawn taken by pawn. The board catches fire and the players are reduced to gibbering monstrosities for no reason at all.

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