| The Seventh
Son
by Strixus Ookami Ryuu <strixus@earthlink.net> Act One Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi O' Fortuna:Act Two In TabernaPart 1 - On a Bright and Distant StarFortune plango vulnera: Estuans interius:Act Three: Blanziflor Et Helena, Fortuna Imperatrix MundiPart One - A Messenger of the DevilCignus ustus cantat: Ave formosissima - The Birth of DevotionAct Four: Libri Fatali Libri Fatali Part One - The Children of Fate |
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Act One: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi O' Fortuna: Part 1 - On a Bright and Distant Star O Fortuna /O Fortune,The planet was small, little more than a pebble in the blackness of the backwater of space its sun inhabited. It was smallest of all of the planets in its system, alternately baked by blasting solar winds from the tiny, white-hot star and frozen by the blistering cold of space that touched its unprotected skin of stone. The small world was a doomed one, cursed to the death of any planet too close to its parent star: the slow, lazy death spiral into the gravity well of the star. It was to be torn to shreds and vaporized by the gravity and heat of the very sun that it had been born along side. The edge of a solar flare rose from the blinding light of the star, its lazy arc throwing slowly cooling plasma thousands of miles into space. The small planet shuttered. Incongruitous with this small cosmic tragedy was a seemingly human figure standing on a small ridge on the planet's surface. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest that spoke clearly of great skill and strength with the long, broad sword that was slung in a scabbard across his broad back. The sword was well used, battered and scratched, its hilt bound with faded leather wearing thin in places, and a red spotted white sack hung from around it, odd shapes forming bulges in its cloth sides. The figure watched the solar plasma of the flare evaporate in the coldness of space, warm, emerald green eyes reflecting the white glare of energy with a sparkle of laughter. His face showed the stubble of a thick, red beard that matched the loose spray of long, strait red hair that cascaded freely down his back. He was Destruction, middle child of the Endless, the eternal spirit of the annihilative forces of the universe. But despite his eternal nature, the universe needed his presence no longer to control the destruction of the old to make way for the creation of the new. He had fled the company of the other Endless for the solitary far reaches of the universe where creation was still new. Yet the universe would not let go of him, for he still always heard the distant call of his duties, the distant tug of wars and stellar death, of the collapse of galactic cores and growing singularities. But above all, the call of war was strongest. Across the universe a great war was being fought around the tiny, blue green water world that was the focus now of most attention in the universe and all its many dimensions, planes and spheres. The call of war was all but overpowering on such a scale even to the will of the Endless. With a thought, the figure vanished, leaving the small ridge empty once more, and leaving no observer to the next great plume of plasma that melted the skin from the planet. With a final shutter under the press of gravity, the planet cracked like an egg and its slowly fragmenting form began to distend, falling towards the sun. 515 O' Fortuna: Part 2 - The Awakening Sors immanis Fate - monstrousImagine the universe as a chain, each link a level of existence, a contained dimension of life and time, linked to the others above and below it. The top of the chain is the upper plane; the highest dimension where the Endless inhabit. The bottom of the chain is the lowest plane, the plane of darkness, where the oldest, dark forces of chaos still reside. And between these two points are all the dimensions of life, strung along this chain like pearls on a string, from Hell, low on the chain, to the mortal world, the middle of the chain, and the Realm of the Fair Folk, and Heaven, and all places above. And between the most high dimensions, the realms of order, and the low dimensions of chaos a war is constantly fought, for the beings of chaos are creatures of hate and destruction. In a dimension just above those of the darkest chaos are imprisoned the eldest demons of chaos, the warriors of the great Chaos Lords who dwell in the deepest realms. In this dimension they sleep, until they are needed by their Lords for battle, imprisoned there by those same Lords, for fear of their wild power. But sometimes, only rarely, one awakens prematurely, and rises to the mortal realms to the call of great wars; for all of the elder demons, no matter of what element they are born, are warriors in their blood. And in this realm, one of the great warlords of chaos has awoken, feeling the call of war vibrating through its being. It is a sweet song, intoxicating and overwhelming, as irresistible as a feast to a starving man. And while its brothers and sisters but stir in their sleep of centuries, it stretches great wings of flame and bone, and yawns both pairs of razor filled jaws, its blood again heated by that song of mortal war. Hundreds of eyes flashed with the color of old blood, the color of livid bruises, their facets gleaming like the facets of rubies and sapphires as it focused their lidless lenses, casting off the veils of sleep. Bones moved, skinless muscles and tendons stretched, its scales and plates of bone sweating blood from under them. It's name is a scream of terror, the cry of those dying from plagues of flesh, the boiling sound of blood, but it is known by a name of mortal tongues as well. It was the Light Bringer, it was the Morning Star, before the usurper who wore its names ruled Hell. And on wings of glowing blue flame, with a lash of its bone and plasma tail, it rose and moved up the dimensional chain, its wake felt but unseen by all but the most powerful of beings. The war was calling, and it felt the call of other demons at war, and heard their songs. And in a voice of shattering bone and dragon's roars it joined its battle song into the chorus of voices. I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Devil of the Fire, Bringer of the Madness, Rider of the Waves of Time. I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Wind of Delusion, the Prophet of Destruction, the Killer of Dreams. I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Slayer of Dawn. 551 O' Fortuna: Part 3 - A Puzzle in Captivity Sors salutis Fate is against meIn the void of sensory information, the first crack in the darkness was sound. Not chaotic sound, not natural sound, but the slow rise of music from some undeterminable source. What began as a ripple became a tsunami of sound, voices rising in a torrent to flood out the darkness. And as it subsided into a dull roar of voices the darkness passed, rising into the gloom of flickering gas light, and with the light came the awakening of all of the other senses. The library was small, smelling of the musk of old book leather, the bitter bite of gas flames, and under both of those, the heady smell of roses. Thick carpet covered the floor to a foot away from the wall, revealing cool, dark hardwood boards under the enveloping plush of the carpet pile. The walls, where they showed between deep set book cases of old, well loved wood and wall hangings of the same thick pile as the carpet, were some dark color, half between dried blood and the heart of a ripe peach, the deep rose of late summer. The air was the heat of blood heat, hot to the skin but comfortable to the deep body, wrapping around the body like a thick blanket, cozy and suffocating at the same time. The room was bereft of furniture out side of a handful of globes, and a single, dark wood desk. And it was at that desk that the room's sole inhabitant sat, a tall figure in the small room, yet blending into its darkness and gloom in both his posture and expression. His head down turned towards the desk, resting on the tips of long, noble fingers pressed into the forehead, his eyes were closed, his eyes were closed in an expression of deep frustration and pain, sorrow creeping around the edges of his eyes, causing twitches of the delicately groomed, forked eyebrows that rested like feathers on his brow. Treize Kushrednada was troubled. The day had put an end to a stage in his life, forced him to disassociate himself with Romafeller in such a violent way that he knew it had ended his career. But that did not matter. What mattered was that Zechs had escaped his unjust fate, and Treize had seen the new future Romafeller wanted: a future of useless wars, fought not by men, but by machines without minds. It could not happen, he knew, so long as he or any noble solder still lived. But that would be the problem, he knew. In this war, this horrible war that had begun so nobly, the honor of the solder was being lost. Soon, all that would be left would be Zechs, himself, and - Treize stopped his line of thought on those words, eyes coming open, gleaming: the Gundam pilots. The Gundams seemed to be the greatest weapons of all of history, piloted by young men of noble spirit, or at least with a potential of noble spirit. That was the answer he knew, the Gundam's were the only vestige of nobility left in the war. But why? No one knew what made them so powerful, despite constant study of their design. There was something more to them than gundanium, hydraulics, and computer systems, something that almost felt alive. And he knew who could find out what this thing was. Moving his free hand over the desk, he tapped a spot on the desk, which seemed nothing more than wood before a flat screen appeared. Manicured fingertips tapped out commands, bringing up the address of a member of his staff. Christopher Armando DeWitt, a professor at a near by college, was by Treize's opinion, the most knowledgeable person about the true workings of the world. If anyone could find the true workings of the Gundams, it was DeWitt. The panel dialed the number for the professor, and it rang once. "Good evening, Chris." Treize paused, and exchanged pleasantries with the warm, scholarly voice. "Chris, I need a favor of you, and I need to see you in person to discuss it." Another pause, another exchange. "Yes, yes that's fine. As soon as possible. Thank you, Chris. My house staff will be expecting you then." A click, and the voice phone ended the call. The smile that curved across the pale, noble face was as close to joy as it showed, a delicate curve of fine, soft lips. He would learn the source of the power of the Gundams and he would learn to control it himself. 756 Fortune plango vulnera: Part 1 - Death During the Lunch Hour Fortune plango vulnera I bemoan the wounds of Fortune
Fortune plango vulnera: Part 2 - A Dream of Future Destinies In Fortune solio On Fortune's throneZechs Marquise was dreaming, and in his dream, he was still Milliardo Peacecraft, a name he had not worn for many years. But in his dream, as it had been in many dreams before, he was still that noble young man he had been in times past. That name had meant much to him in those days, far more perhaps than it should. That name had been integral into that past, as essential as thread in cloth. But now it was disassociated from who he was, was all but a separate person. A person that had died along with the kingdom it had been a prince of. Zechs Marquise dreamed of his father's court, as it had been in its glory days before the fall of the kingdom to its enemies. He stood in the grand hall of the palace of the Sanq Kingdom, surrounded by the shimmer and glimmer of guild and marble. The hall's old baroque beauty, stone and gold and brass and velvet, wrapped around him like a second skin, as natural to him as the flesh on his bones and born on to him just as much as that flesh. Smooth columns carved from single trees, leading up to a ceiling of painted vaults and gingerbread molding, with heavy red and gold carpet in the pattern of Autumn leaves laying up to the marble roots of the pillars. And the annulets of these pillars were crowned with capitals of gold and silver wreaths of oak and holly leaves, dangling with crystal clusters of holy berries and acorns defusing and scattering the light of the hall into rainbows. And what light! Grand windows lined the hall, like those of a cathedral, their Romanesque arches open and lazy, filled will great panes of glass. And beyond them the landscape of the Sanq Kingdom, beautiful and green. But even at night, as it was now in the dream, the hall was lit as brilliantly as day, with thousands of candles. Great chandeliers of crystal and silver hung from the vaults above, while candelabras of brass and gold stood in clusters between every pillar. It was beautiful, a sparkle of light like the flare of a star, glowing and glittering, alone in the night surrounding it. And there was life in this place, this dream of a place that now stood in ruin, alone and abandoned. It was filled with the people of the type that filled the court: nobles, dreamers, madmen, and women. Those women he remembered well, and they filled his dream hall with their pale faces and heady perfumes, the swish of their gowns like the sound of birds moving in their roosts. Those women, all flirtation and swoons, all after the favor of the man who would be the next Peacecraft king, after some hold on him. But he had played them well, using their ambitions to gain what he wanted from them and leaving them to argue over whom he favored more, and none could claim hold over the prince of the Sanq kingdom. He had been foolish then, he knew, foolish to indulge as he had, playing a game too dangerous to loose, but not realizing since he had always won. It was a game he would never play again. He passed through the Great Hall, through the grand doors of oak and silver that stood at the end of the hall, and into the throne room of the palace. More grand than the Great Hall, more lavish by a thousand times, the room surrounding the great black and white marble dais that was the ceremonial seat of the rulers of the Sanq kingdom. Velvet draperies, dark as the wines from the hills surrounding the capital, hung from the span of ever vault, embroidered in silver and gold, riddled with gems that flashed like trapped hummingbirds in the light. The room was exactly as he remembered it, immaculate to the last detail, and then, the room changed. Red light, the heat of flames, filled the room, yet there was no fire. Dark shapes moved behind the draperies, dancing like warped reflections of the dancers in the Great Hall, and voices singing some mad chant, a gruesome parity of choral music, filled his ears. And then his eyes locked on the dais. Seated on the throne, his father's throne, was a figure out of nightmare. Multifaceted eyes were scattered across what should have been the things face, a grotesque of fangs, horns and tusks and exposed muscle and plates of bone, and each tracked onto Milliardo like a hunting hawk tracking a pigeon. Wings of blue flame and bone spread behind the bulk of the thing obscuring the velvet curtains behind it, its long tail spilled in a cascade of interlocking bone spikes down the marble stairs. Its jaws opened, bones clicking and sliding past each other like a badly made clockwork, and he felt his mind filled with its voice. "Lightning Baron...." The voice was like thousands of screams, the crackle of flames, the crumbling of battlements. The creature extended one of its many arms out towards him, a hand with too many bones and fingers reaching forward. "Come to me..." The claw beckoned for him. "I am your Destiny..." And in the night, Zechs Marquise awoke with only the memory of a dream of the past, and only the thought that a nightmare had awoken him, but no memory of what it had been. 911 Fortune plango vulnera: Part 3 - Parallel Courses Fortune rota volvitur: The wheel of Fortune turns;Destruction had returned home. The tiny Greek island had changed little in his long absence, perhaps a bit more wild, perhaps a bit less beautiful, but it still echoed with the power of his continued habitation on the island so many human lifetimes ago. The grass still grew green, the trees still whispered with tiny fair folk, the flowers still bloomed as though cared for by some fastidious gardener. The wind blew perhaps a bit colder, but nothing beyond that had changed much. The house still stood, though in disrepair, wisteria and ivy crawling it sides and roof like a medusa mass of snakes. Destruction smiled, and the wisteria bloomed into a shower of white and purple flowers, months out of season. He was home. Floating in raw vacuum, thousands of miles beyond the orbit of the moon,
Epyon watched with its thousands of eyes the battle that raged surrounding
the tiny blue green gem of a world. It was such a beautiful place, even
to its dark eyes, glowing and luminous. How it longed to be in such a place
as that. But it had been bared from that world, and could draw no closer
than this without being summoned by a powerful mortal. The denial of this
war, of this beautiful world that lingered just out of its reach, enraged
the Chaos demon.
Treize Kushrednada was preparing himself for his dinner with Chris DeWitt,
reading and researching while simultaneously ordering his house staff to
prepare the dinner and clean the estate. He had become convinced that the
power of the Gundams was unworldly, an idea that had crept into his skull
only recently but had taken firm hold the more he had read.
Duo sat alone in the hangar bay, working through log files downloaded
from the battle system of the Shinigami. He had never been very
good with such things, but now he at least found them tolerable with the
help of Shinigami. He plodded through them, trying to finish before
it got to late.
End of Act One
Estuans interius, Part One - A Messenger of the Devil Estuans interius Burning insideDestruction knew before the messenger came to him that there was something else interested and drawn to earth by this war, and had known it even before he had set foot upon the soil or breath in the air. He had spent a few hours cleaning the house, extracting it from the leafy embrace of the wisteria, finding the salvageable furniture and dishes and such. The place had been well preserved for only a few hundred years having passed, and would have been beyond saving to mortal hands. But Destruction had rebuilt it in those few hours to near immaculate conditions. And now he sat in his sun room overlooking the cliffs of the island, looking out into the blue Mediterranean's expanse that vanished into the curvature of the earth, the wave caps frosted silver in the light of a now full moon. The messenger appeared on his thresh hold in a whisper of hot winds, a bent and shabby creature of too many limbs and joints and eyes, grasping at the door frame with claws that grated on the woodwork. Brown, coarse cloth draped its form, ragged and torn, stained by substances beyond identification: the cloth was an attempt to hide its form, to cover the majority of its ugliness, failing miserably. Eyes of chipped emerald and gold, like the wings of beetles, stared out from under the hood, focusing on to Destruction's broad back. Destruction did not need to turn to know his visitor's presence, nor did he need it to speak to announce its purpose or its master. "Great Lord," its voice was like the grating of broken glass and bone, "I bring you greetings from my master." Destruction did not turn, did not rise from his chair, and did not even twitch the hand that held the glass of dark red wine. He knew this creature, and knew its master, and knew its tricks and whiles better than it did perhaps. "Great Lord," it began again, and then stopped. Destruction had raised a thick arm suddenly, cutting it off. "Alixon, aren't you? Its been a while since I've seen your sort stalking the mortal realm." The creature gurgled through needle teeth. "Your master is still the same master you've always born. He wants the same as he always wants. He-" The creature suddenly began a burst of flurried speech. "No, no! Master Epyon, he wants not that, not his always prize, stolen from him. He wants your permission, your allowance, to enter this world, to walk once more on its green grass, to fly its blue skies..." "Bah. Your master wants the same as I. He came to the call of war. He's as helpless to it as I." The Alixon blubbered, its many arms twitching like a dying millipede. Then, his eyes narrowing but still not turned to look at the Alixon, "And why come to me. Surly your master has not slept so long to know that I have no more power in this world. I have forsaken my duties, dismantled my gallery. Humanity, and the universe along with it, has outgrown its need for me. It manages well enough on its own. What then does your master want with me?" The Alixon's voice was sly, careful. "You are kindred spirits, he has said." Destruction was silent, pondering the night sea, the glitter of stars, the too bright moon. "That may be," he said quietly, then louder, "Tell your master I will consider it. If he offers a high enough boon, perhaps I might. Tell your master that." The Alixon vanished, blown away on hot winds like grains of sand stacked in a dune, leaving Destruction alone once more to the sea and the wine and the stars and the too bright moon. Destruction rose from his seat and walked towards the full windows of the wall, grasping the glass of wine in his hand like a drowning man clings to a life buoy. He would not bargain with this devil, the eldest devil, though he would play its game for a while before he tired of it. And yet, its offers could tempt him, for he had no responsibility to this world or any other. It was a most dangerous game. Estuans interius, Part Two - Waiting for a Guest Cum sit enim proprium If it is the wayIt was late in the Luxembourg evening, the sun casting the last of a day's worth of light in a golden desperation across the rooftops of the city. The Pétrusse and Alzette became great golden serpents, whose coils rolled through the streets, wrapping around the buildings, listless and seemingly asleep. The rest of the city seemed asleep as well, though it was early still for Treize Kushrednada, who had risen late this day, finding sleep more necessary than any other preparation for his dinner guest whom would be arriving shortly. Dr. Christopher Armando DeWitt, known more casually as Chris, was a professor of Philosophy from the notable but relatively unknown North American University, Miskatonic. But it was Dr. DeWitt's hobby outside of his more mundane academic pursuits that made his experience invaluable to Treize. Following in a tradition that seemed unique to Misatonic's faculty and staff, he was an expert in, for lack of a better term, the otherworldly. DeWitt had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of forces unexplained and unknown to modern science, and access to volumes more beyond what he was familiar with off the cuff. Treize knew that if anyone could solve the mysteries of the Gundam's seemingly supernatural power, it would be Chris. All this ran through Treize's mind as he dressed, choosing something notably less formal than his usual modern adaptations of the 17th century French styles he was fond of. The Japanese yukata was an unusual item of clothing in Treize's wardrobe, one he was fond of for such informal yet important meetings. The fabric was light, a watered silk that was unique in its texture and quality, made from silkworms that had lived their lives and died in vats completely in the near weightlessness of space. Its blue was a dark, near indigo colour, with a strange rippling of silver overtone that appeared in certain lighting, and it hung in strait, even pleats from the wide, white silk belt at his waist to a hem that was even with his ankles. Looking in a mahogany framed mirror, he ran a bare hand through ginger hair still wet from his bath earlier in the evening, and sighed pensively. Padding out of his rather large closet, into the hallway of the house that served as his prison, Treize felt very much like a silk clad bear in a house filled with the delicate remains of the Victorian era that had spawned Romafeller and its ilk. He wanted badly to escape this silk and stone prison, to shake loose bonds made of power and money. The house staff was abuzz around him as he walked down to the first level of the house, to the library. A room dark and removed from the rest of the house, it was the one place Treize felt even passably relaxed in the house. Surrounded by books, as seemingly archaic a thing as a warrior such as himself, he felt somewhat at peace. And it was here, in this room filled with the moldering volumes of some lost owner, Treize would wait for Chris DeWitt. He did not have to wait long. 521 Estuans interius, Part Three - Death Comes in the Night Feror ego veluti I am carried alongDuo Maxwell awoke with a start, sitting up in bed suddenly, sheets falling off him into a jumble around his hips. His breathing was rapid, his heart felt as though it were trying to jackhammer it's way through his rib cage. For a moment, his mind was a blur of half awake thoughts and half dreaming motion, and all he could feel clearly was the coldness of the golden chain around his neck, and the golden cross that hung from it. Instinctively, blindly, his hand went to it, finding comfort in its familiar, smooth shape. What had he been dreaming? He remembered little, remembered the tattered bits of what felt like a familiar nightmare. The fires at the orphanage, the acrid smoke hanging in the air, screams of terror, confusion. But there had been something more than this horror of past memory, something that had invaded this dream he had almost grown familiar with, that dream of terrors from his past. Something huge, with fangs and claws, and too many limbs and eyes, something with wings that had blackened the sky worse than smoke. He remembered those wings, more than anything. Wings the colour of madness, he though, but did not really understand what made him think that. It had been calling him, calling out his name over and over again, in a tongueless voice that sounded like pain given words. Duo shivered, feeling the cool air settle against the dampness of sweat on his skin. The dreams were getting worse, he thought, worse since Quatre had seemingly gone mad in the belly of that horrible new Gundam he had built. That suit, Death had said, had a Chaos demon in its belly, a creature of war and destruction. But she hadn't seemed scared of it. That was comforting, in a strange way, but then again, what would Death be scared of? His breathing had slowed, his heart had stopped pounding against his ribs so hard that it hurt, and he felt himself calming down, sliding back into that restful mode that came right before sleep. It had been a bad dream, that was all, he comforted himself, telling himself it was nothing more than his fears and worries intruding into old terrors. If there were anything really wrong, anything that would endanger him, She would tell him, he told himself. Mamma will tell me, he though, curling back into the sheets, pulling the blanket over him to ward off the chill, closing violet eyes to find sleep again. Mamma will tell me. And the sound of gentile wings filled the darkened room, and she was there, sitting on the foot of the bed, dark eyes full of pain and hurt, sadness touching the eyes of Death like nothing else could. Her clothing was as black as always, velvet cloak invisible against the darkness of the windowless room, hood pulled up so that only her pale face showed. She sat silently for a moment, hand resting on Duo's left foot that stuck out from under the sheets. It was small, pale, and delicately boned, but lined with scars and calluses. "Oh my little Yasuo, little peaceful child, always the good son. You wonder what could make your Mamma afraid." She hesitates, her voice soft, like feathers on a brooding mother bird's belly. "Afraid of what's coming, of what has to be. Your Mamma's afraid of that. Afraid when you fight Zephiruxs it will be that golden haired angle in its belly and not the one it should be, afraid of Epyon, who is lurking in the shadows, afraid that you will turn away from me. Most afraid of that." She looked down across the sleeping form, and smiled softly. "Mamma will keep you as safe as she can, little one. But even I can't protect you from Epyon." The room was filled again with the sound of wings, quiet and distant, and she was gone, without a ripple in the darkness. The pale, small foot that lay exposed was now smooth, unblemished, like that of a newborn child. Estuans interius, Part Four - An Introduction Mihi cordis gravitas The heaviness of my heartThe man who entered the library was tall, toping out at a gangly two meters of brown tweed, orange and blue argyle and tan suede. His skin was pale, almost waxy looking, with a spattering of bleached looking freckles. Hair that would have almost been the same ginger brown as Treize's own was slicked back heavily, immobile under its casing of hair gel. A smile filled his face, rendering out any semblance of cruelty his hawkish nose would have given it otherwise, and his hazel eyes were alight with some inner amusement, as though the whole world were telling jokes that only he could hear. Absent were the small, round spectacles Treize remembered from the familiar face, but beyond that, it was as though Chris DeWitt had not changed at all since he had made his study abroad years ago to Miskatonic University in the wilds of New England. "Chris," Treize said, standing and extending his hand in greeting, "It's so good to see you again." Chris took the offered hand, smiling still. "Yes, very. Though why a dinner date should be so important to fly me here all the way from the hindquarters of the earth is beyond me. Or did you simply miss me that much?" Treize could not help but laugh. "That's conversation for later, my friend. For now, let's talk less serious talk on empty stomachs. What have you been up to since you last wrote?" Taking a seat in an overstuffed library chair opposite the one Treize had claimed, DeWitt settled in to answer the question. "Fairing better than you seem to be, my friend. Miskatonic has been treating me well, as always, though I wish I could say the same for the chair of the department. An absolute terror she is! Convinced of all sorts of strange notions concerning theology. But I won't bore you with departmental politics." He flipped a hand dismissive. "I've been teaching, what else? Damned boring work at a university that small, especially teaching intro classes to students who have absolutely no conception of what thinking is, let alone any idea of how to do it. The students seem to get less bright every semester." Chris stopped, and in the pause, Treize took a chance to ask a question. "What happened to your glasses?" Chris laughed, "Surgery. Finally, I got the treacherous little windows to the soul fixed so that I could see the world beyond my nose. I didn't mention it in my letters because it wasn't that important. But gods and beings beyond, I'd almost forgotten you knew me when I had them. It has been a long while since our years at Miskatonic together." "Yes, that it has. You've gone and gotten your doctorate, I've gained a good amount of rank and clout..." Treize paused, then laughed a bit at himself. "And made some brilliant career moves." He shrugged, and DeWitt laughed softly. "Ah, could be worse, as you're so damned fond of saying." At that moment, a light rap on the door was followed by the voice of the butler, whom announced that dinner was ready to be served. Silently, both men rose from their chairs, and left the library, following the elderly butler to the dinning room. The dinning room was the smaller of the two main rooms of the ground floor, designed for meals with less than twenty guests, and absolutely cavernous feeling for only two people. It was far better, Treize considered, than only one. Both allowed themselves to be seated, facing each other across the narrow span of the six person table. Soup was already on the table, a rich venison stew made from a red doe Treize himself had shot earlier in the week in the Romafeller hunting park. In silence, they both ate the first course. It was only two courses latter, during the serving of the deserts, that either one spoke again. Estuans interius, Part Five - In The Dreaming Via lata gradior I travel the broad pathIn the palace that lies at the center of the Dreaming there are more rooms than there are stars in the sky, but there are only seven hallways. Each hall leads, more or less, from the throne room at the center of the Dreaming to a gateway at the farthest border of the Dreaming. They are arrayed in a roughly starfish pattern, though they meander much through the ever shifting landscape. Only one, the Great Hall, has any static path, and it is at the end of this Hall, and later path through the Dreaming that the great gates of the Dreaming are found, the Gates of Horn and Ivory. Dream is standing at these gates, as he has a habit of doing, dark eyes following the great flow of false dreams through the gates of Ivory. And Dream was, as he had a habit of doing as well, brooding. Something had passed through the Gates of Horn, the gates of true dreams and nightmares, without his permission. Something had entered the Dreaming, and found its way into the dreams of mortals and gods. What concerned him more, however, was that none of the sentries of the Dreaming had alerted to an intruder, which meant that what had entered his realm was something very powerful, something perhaps as old as the Dreaming itself. He had suspected perhaps an old god, or one of the giants from the Before time, whose ilk had died to create these very gates, but now, standing here, Dream knew such was not the case. Dream frowned. He knew what it was, knew what had walked brazenly through the Gates of Horn, and was concerned by the prospect. Third eldest of the Endless he may be, but only one Endless had ever battled this beast and lived, and that had been Destruction, who now wandered the universe without ties to his station or duty. Dream had fought his share of gods and demons, even challenged the wits of Lucifer himself, but this - Epyon had been the Devil of the early universe, a creature of raw Chaos and hate, master of legions of the dark and unseemly creatures of the dark days before order had been wrought from Chaos. Dream knew that even the darkest creature had its place in the order of existence, but Epyon defied that order through his very existence. Epyon and its brother, Zephiruxs, had been born from the very stuff of creation, that primal substance from which all substance had sprung. They were almost as old Death, slightly older than Destiny, and far older than he, who had only come into being with the first want. Dream knew that Epyon had already left the Dreaming, for its foul taint was already lessening, already being lost under the spore of other dreams. He pondered, wondering the implications of Epyon's freedom. If Epyon wandered free, then so did its brother, Zephiruxs. No two beasts made from the same substance were ever so different as Zephiruxs and Epyon. Zephiruxs, who had sided with the Endless in the first wars of Creation, and Epyon, who had transcended time itself to find vengeance on his brother for that betrayal. Dream looked about, knowing what he had to do, but yet still hesitating. With a reluctant shrug, he passed back through the Gates of Horn, swinging them closed behind him. They shut with a hollow clang, a sound like metal teeth clicking. Dream secured the lock, and then spoke the words that sealed the gates of the passage of true dreams. None would enter; none would leave, until this trouble had passed. Cignus ustus cantat - The Roast Swan Cignus ustus cantat, Part One - In the Dawn Hours Olim lacus colueram, Once I lived on lakes,Destruction had one more caller that night, one he did not expect; though in retrospect he realized he should have. She came in the dawn hours, as the moon was setting into the waters of the Mediterranean, and the stars were just beginning to be washed out on the far edge of the sky. Youngest of the endless, and dearest of his siblings to his heart, poor Delirium had come searching once more to his old island home. She came, but it was not her he felt first: it was Barnabas. He had been lost in thought, lost in watching the far distant battles play across the heavens in streaks of emerald and blooms of red, the tale tell marks of oxygen flame, when he had felt a warm and furry presence under his dangling right hand. At first, he thought it only the sensation of memory, brought on by this familiar place and a lonely heart. Barnabas, his long time companion, whom he had given up when leaving this world to wander the distant reaches of creation, had always done that when missing his attention. But a warm tongue and cold nose had brushed across his fingers, and a plaintive whine that only Barnabas's human voice could produce had brought him into reality. Barnabas stood where he had stood so many times before, directly beside this chair that overlooked the sea. His coat was a bit worse for wear, and he seemed more jumpy and edgy than he had before, but beyond those, he seemed the same brown and white dog he had been so many years before. Destruction stood, and knelt at dog level, embracing Barnabas around the neck and asking, rhetorically, "Barnabas, is that really you?" "I should hope so, though I'd be inclined to ask the same of you." Barnabas said in his usual, overly curt manner. "I should have thought that you'd come find me -" "I didn't come find you, She" Barnabas looked over his shoulder, back towards the door, " came and found you." Standing in the door, leaning against the doorframe, was Delirium, much the same as she had been when he had left, if just a little more mature looking. Her shirt was cut short, torn and stained, mostly hidden by a very baggy flight jacket, its leather faded and wool mangy seeming, below which a pair of red denim pants, saggy and shredded, covered her skinny legs. She wore no shoes, and her toenails, as were her fingernails, were painted a bright, unnatural colour green. Her hair was blond, streaked in purple, and pulled back in a matted ponytail, off to one side of her head. "Brother? Is that really you? I mean, it seems to be you, but is it really really you? The you that left, that is, is it that you? Or is it some other you?" He cut her off before she managed to even confuse him. "It's really me, Del. It's good to see you, and Barnabas, again. Did you really come looking for me?" She nodded quietly, flyaway strands of purple and blond hair bouncing in loose curls. "Is there something wrong, Del?" She hesitated, then nodded again. "What is it?" She looked around, almost a little panicky. "Things have been going all weird. And I don't mean weird normal like they do around me, but weird very weird, with the whole world, and even out beyond the world, out with those cute little space stations they build that look like toys except Barnabas says I shouldn't play with them." "What do you mean, Del? You mean the war?" She nodded, but not as definitely as the last two times. "I made a friend, a pretty blond boy who plays violin and piano, and sings so pretty, but something happened to him, something bad. Out in space, something got him, something big and strange and ugly. Not like the big old one living in that funny metal suit of his wasn't ugly enough, but something got a hold of him." "Is your friend fighting in the war? Is he one of the pilots?" Destruction was becoming curious. He wondered if this had anything to do with Epyon. "Yes. He's so sweet and so nice, so hard to believe he could kill people, but he does. But oh! That new metal suit, that new thing of his, that he built, it's got something bad feeling in it. That big, white demon, with the feathered wings, who speaks in all those voices at once. It is in the suit! Oh..." Her voice trailed off. "It's hurting him, brother, it's hurting him bad." Delirium's voice was quiet. So that was it. That was what Epyon was really after: its brother demon, which had betrayed the legions of Chaos during the wars of first Creation. That was what had awoken it, and called it here. Someone had imprisoned Zephiruxs into a mobile suit, and now Epyon sought it to find vengeance. He walked over to Del, Barnabas at his heels, and embraced her, nearly smothering her in a great, brotherly bear hug. She was crying, silver tears falling from eyes both green and blue, the blue one streaked with silver. "Don't worry, little one, I'll protect your friend." I came to fight in this war, he added to himself; the least I can do is fight for something worth fighting for. 904 Cignus ustus cantat, Part Two - After Dinner (Tenor)The library was dark now, a cavern of bookshelves and wood paneling, echoing with the sounds of the brightly crackling fire and the soft treble of an indiscernible aria. Treize again sat beside his guest, both relaxing before the fire, indulging in after dinner brandies. Not a word had passed between the two men throughout dinner, and even now Treize was reluctant to bring up the business that he had invited Chris here to discuss. But Treize found that his guest was far more eager to discuss the matter than he was. "So," Chris began, leaning forwards towards the fire, "What puzzle has you so thought bound that you called me here all the way from Miskatonic, yet you haven't said a word since we started dinner?" "When I tell you, you're going to think its either the greatest puzzle of all time, or you're going to think I've gone raving mad, Chris." Treize took another sip of his brandy and looked towards the fire. "I have never known you to be the sort to go raving mad without notice," Chris laughed. "Seriously, how off the wall can this idea be if you think a professor from Miskatonic University is going to laugh at it?" "These Gundams I've mentioned to you in our correspondence, that have made matters so complicated and have so frustrated my plans, have me at my wit's ends, Chris. Oz has had the opportunity to study one in detail, and yet the source of their incredible power remains a mystery to us. Our engineers are at a loss to explain what they see from the battle footage we have, because the systems of these mobile suits should not be capable of what has been observed." He paused, suddenly lost in thought. The fire crackled softly, casting a strange light into Treize's half closed eyes. Chris suddenly saw the changes that time had wrought on his friend disturbing. There was a darkness there that had not been there those years ago. Still looking into the fire, Treize continued. "I would be tempted to write it off to their pilots, but, though incredible as those boys might be, they are only that, human boys. So that leads me to conclude that there is something about the Gundams that our engineers and scientists have missed, something beyond their comprehension or skills to detect." "You suspect something super or preternatural, then?" Chris interrupted. "Yes. I suspect just that," Treize said, "That's why I turned to you for help. If I can find out what is it that gives the Gundams their incredible power, then perhaps it can either be harnessed by OZ, or turned against the Gundams." Chris could not help but laugh. "I never thought I was in danger of becoming a military researcher. But what the hell, this sounds fascinating. Do you have any suspicions as to what sort of force we might be dealing with?" His brows furrowed in thought, coming to a point over the hawkish nose. Treize shrugged. " I couldn't begin to tell you, Chris. I just don't know about such things." He finished off the brandy in a final sip. "I'll make available to you all the information we have about the Gundams, even the samples left from the one we captured for a while. I want this mystery solved." Floating beyond the orbit of the moon, closer now than it had been able
to come in millennia, Epyon floated in the comforting bite of raw vacuum,
wings folded around its body, cold and dark, except for the burning of
the sapphire chip eyes invisible against the blackness of space. Its attention
was far off, listening to the conversations of a powerful mortal who had
drawn its ear. Epyon knew the secret the man sought, for it could hear
the voices of its distant relatives calling in the old tongues to it now.
Shinigami still sang in the voice of shadows, Haeypabbyissealis still called
out its challenges into the night, Agni still blazed like a beacon across
space, and most seductive of all was the song of the White Demon. Epyon
could hear its brother's song calling out so tantalizingly close, and hungered
now for revenge.
Cignus ustus cantat, Part Three - A Delay and Distraction (Tenor)Duo Maxwell found himself walking down the streets of the lower level of the colony city space, an area known as the Down Below, as the evening set in. He had awoken that morning after his luncheon with Death feeling better than he had in years, rested in ways he hadn't felt in ages, if ever. But as the day progressed, he had felt confined by his flat, and by Hilde's continued presence in it, and had set out an hour ago to cross the city to the Down Below. Now he was walking the maze like streets of the shantytown beneath the carefully crafted city above, looking for the familiar green and red neon sign of a bar. He had found it once many weeks ago, and had shortly become a regular there. He had originally gone there searching for companionship and bar friends: tonight he went there simply looking for a good drink. The Lucky Dragon was on a central square of sorts, at the intersection of several winding corridors, built against the wall of what had once been a service corridor from scrap metal scavenged or bought from salvage yards. Its great green and red dragon sign was a mystery to most colony dwellers; none could begin to guess how it had made its way into space, let alone come to adorn such a small place as The Lucky Dragon. All around the square, Duo saw the people of the Down Below, walking to shops, bartering for their daily means, or looking for an easy mark. Prostitutes and thieves intermixed with the crowd, each attempting to make their living in their own way. That was what this was about, really, making a living - or more aptly, staying alive. A female prostitute was leaning on the outside of the Lucky Dragon, dressed in a long black fishnet dress, showing off far more than Duo was interested in seeing. "You're turning tricks in the wrong place, little girl." Duo said as he stepped close to the door. Little girl was right, she could be no older than himself, he realized, looking at her pale face with short cropped hair and ring pierced nose. She smiled at him, and laughed, saying, "Sometimes the door swings both ways here, friend. Sometimes I catch them on the rebound." Duo laughed with her, and shook her hand, passing her a few credit coins in his palm as he walked through the door. The prostitute's laugh was lost in the sudden mellow blare of a low blues guitar that was singing in instrumental ecstasy under the talented manipulations of Louie, the owner of the Lucky Dragon, who was playing on stage. A mutt of Asian and African, Louie was a century old if he was a day, but his cat green eyes cut like a knife across the room of the bar, watching the entire room as he played. It was his way of overseeing the bar, Duo knew, and he provided free entertainment in the process. Sliding through the crowd like a cat, Duo made his way to the bar and found a free stool at the far end. The man seated next to him was obviously already started on a good night's binge, perhaps coming on the coattails the tail end of a good day's binge judging by the fact he was completely drunk. Duo frowned at the man, and adjusted the faux clerical collar at his throat, looking for the bartender to place his first order for the evening. After a few moments, the bartender at last came back down to Duo's end of the bar. "What will it be?" Duo found himself looking into a pair of eyes identical to Louie's, but three fourths of a century younger: cat green, sharp and alert, turned with the slight Asian slant that gave Louie's eyes wisdom. Set now into the youthful face in front of him, they were exotic, especially paired with the shock of waist long blond hair. Duo swallowed hard, and found his voice again. "The house ale." Duo said, and then watched, transfixed, as the young man retreated to the bar taps to draw his order of the Lucky Dragon's home brewed ale. It was the first time Duo had ever seen another man with hair as long as his own, and in the almost white blond color, the effect was startling. Duo was brought back to reality by the thunk of a full glass of ale in front of him. "That will be one twenty five." Duo passed him a credit card, and told him to start a tab for him. As the barkeeper returned the card, Duo final got up the guts to say what he was thinking. The man smiled a bright, effeminate smile at Duo, and thanked him for the complement. The complement tuned out to start a running conversation that continued for most of the night. It ended simply, five hours later, as the barkeep set down yet another glass of the Lucky Dragon ale. "I get off in another hour and a half, want to go to my place afterward? I'll cook us dinner." The blond man asked, putting a hand on Duo's that sat on the bar. "I'd love to." Duo answered. As the night crew swept out the floor of the Lucky Dragon, none noticed
a pair of figures seated at a stage front table. One appeared to be a young
woman, dressed entirely in black, with incredibly pale skin. The other
was ageless, sexless, with short-cropped hair and painfully yellow eyes,
dressed in a white suit with a black tie.
Ego sum abbas (I am the abbot) - An Interlude with Destiny Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis I am the abbot of CockaigneDestiny stood in the center of his Garden of Forking Ways, brown robes blowing in the ever-present wind of that place. In the wind rode the small, glowing beings that filled the inner sanctum of the second eldest of the endless, the spirits of mujo, the personifications of the bitter sweet impermanence of the world, and they settled around Destiny like flakes of glowing snow. The wind was blowing strong, in sharp gusts that tugged at the pages of the Great Book, and pulled at Destiny's very being. A confluence of events of great importance was coming, and his whole realm echoed with its portents. Destiny found himself unable to support the weight of the Book and still read into its pages. In the last few centuries, the burden of the Book was beginning to take its toll, even on his immortal form. He was not the first to hold his position, nor would he be the last. He counted steps to the podium of the dais, and lay the Book carefully onto its polished surface, careful to adjust the chain that shackled him to the Book's spine so to allow free movement of his arm. Smoothing the pages against the ever-pressing gusts of wind, Destiny turned his blind eyes once more to the pages of the Great Book, and watched the actors of this new play act out their parts. He watched as the sun rose over the island of Destruction, not surprised by his brother's return, nor by either of the two visitors whom had come in the night. Destruction had been expected to return in the wake of this war, a war so massive that it had called forth the war demons of the dark times. Destruction now stood on the balcony of his house, watching the sun, still drinking wine. He was considering the stakes of the game he played with his most dangerous of foes. With both the White Demon, Zephiruxs, and the Chaos Lord, Epyon, here, this had the makings of a war beyond wars. Zephiruxs, imprisoned and confined within the bonds of a war machine, was an easy target for Epyon's wrath. Destruction owed Zephiruxs much for his help against Epyon in many battles before, and now saw a way to pay back a few of those debts. But with Epyon free, it would soon find a way to be summoned in its full power into the sphere of Earth, and would easily be able to destroy Zephiruxs in his imprisoned state. Destiny watched as the beginnings of a plan formed in Destruction's mind, a plan that would cripple Epyon's chance for vengeance. The smile on Destiny's face was bitter, for he remembered dealing with Zephiruxs, the White Demon who had betrayed his kind to side with the Endless in the first wars. The demon was a great beast, with six pairs of white-feathered wings; each pair arrayed with eyes of six different colors, and spoke with six different voices simultaneously. Zephiruxs was an awesome sight to behold, even for Destiny. Shaking his head, Destiny turned the page of the Great Book, watching yet another parallel line of the story begin to unfold. Bracing the pages again against the wind, Destiny watched as the boy who had built the prison that now held Zephiruxs was forced to confront his once comrades in a battle of madness. Caught between worlds, and fighting madness as well as friends who might be forced to kill if given no other choice, the boy whom had befriended the youngest and most fickle of the Endless battled for his life. Watching with the blind eyes of Destiny, his curse and gift, he watched the full ramifications of the battle unfold. He saw Delirium perched on the shoulder of the war machine that enclosed Zephiruxs, her miss-matched eyes gleaming with ice crystal tears. And he saw the White Demon lash out in a final blow against its attackers, beyond the intentions of its vision maddened pilot, and partially destroy one of the attackers. Grief stricken, the boy surrendered himself and the white suit to the opposition. From this one event, ripples spread through the pages of the Great Book, creating eddies in the winds of the garden. From this one event, the course of the war would change, and along with it all fates connected to the war. Most importantly, it effected Epyon, who waited just beyond the orbit of the moon, in the darkness of interplanetary space. More than ever, Epyon had reason to reach out to strike at its wayward brother, and was become more desperate to strike soon. But with that desperation, Destiny saw, Epyon would begin making mistakes it could not afford to make. But most importantly, Destiny saw that Death's gambit with her scion had paid off, and had saved the young man's life. Instead of dying as the final sacrifice of Zephiruxs in the battle to capture it, he was safe. Destiny found himself watching as Duo found himself waking in a strange bed, curled next to someone he found himself having difficulty remembering, with a splitting headache. Death had called in an owed favor owed to her by Desire, one gained when their androgynous sibling had gambled its people against Death in a wager, and had lost, and begged and scraped to save them. Death could have asked much more from Desire than what she had, Destiny knew, but saw now the reasoning in her actions. She had played her hand well, and gained much for herself and her scion in her action. The gusts of winds were settling now, for the confluence had been delayed again, but again it was still coming. Something that would possibly lead to the greatest battle of all time, the dual between the brother demons that had been coming since the betrayal of the White Demon at the dawn of time. The out come of that battle rested in the unlikely hands of a pair of mortals who sought, though unknowingly, to imprison an elder demon, very well Epyon itself. Destiny had hope that the mortal scholar who now studied the remains of the prison that had housed a demon who had been known as Tauluypeas the Club Footed, who had worn the body known as the Talgese to the mortals. Destiny believed the young man could unravel the mystery, and knew already that Destruction was planning his own ways to imprison Epyon. A great battle was coming, Destiny knew, but knew that the battle of wits that was beginning before it was far more important than the final battle that would be fought in the upper atmosphere of Earth months later. It would be the end of this battle that decided the war, not the actions on the field of glory. Such was the nature of Destiny. In taberna quando sumus Part One - When we are in the tavern In taberna quando sumus Part One - A Gamble With the DevilDestruction stood once more on the balcony of his old house, overlooking the sapphire spread of the eastern Mediterranean with eyes that simultaneously saw the entire vista, yet shut it out completely from the mind. Destruction was calculating a risk: a decision that could either save the existence of a valuable ally, or unleash a creature beyond the worst terrors of mankind on the world. Epyon must be stopped, this he knew, above all else. But better he humiliate the beast than attempt to destroy it, for his last attempt had nearly killed him along with a host of allies. Thus, it became necessary to find a way to imprison Epyon, a more permanent and lasting prison than the sleep from which it had most recently arisen. And in order to imprison the beast, Epyon must be ensnared, and tricked into believing its own schemes were coming to pass. All of this left Destruction back at where he had begun: he must now face Epyon and lure it into complacency without falling prey to its schemes himself. The words of a demon could be seductive, Destruction knew, and they had put the seal of death onto other Endless in the past. Destruction could not afford such a thing. Destruction looked up into the blue of the daytime sky, seeing the washed out shadow of the moon hanging above the water, and knew that any further delay would only complicate matters. Epyon waited for him just beyond that pale orb, in the coldness of the in between of space. There they would meet on equal terms, and parlay for Epyon's passage to earth. Destruction knew if he played his cards right, he could actually win against the beast. With less than a thought, passing in a blink of an eye, Destruction was no longer standing above the blue of the Mediterranean, but now stood improbably in the emptiness of trans lunar space, face to face with a thing from the nightmares of gods. Epyon's double set of hinged jaws opened in what could have been a grin in the mind of a mad man, its long, serrated tongue lolling from the black, spine lined cavern at the base of its throat, dropped by the spreading jaws. Its entire head seemed made of eyes and nostrils and fangs, each eye a facet of sapphire and ruby chip, focusing independent of all others around it. As Destruction stepped forward, every horrible eye focused on him, and Epyon shifted its weight forward in its weightless state, extending its neck forward from the fetal ball of wings and arms and legs bound by the spines of its bony tail. "Welcome, Brother." Its voice was filled with screams and the sound of flame, echoing emptily in the soundless vacuum. Its wings spread, coming alight with blue flame, and it extended a four jointed arm with two hands, one almost human looking but for the unusual amount of fingers, and the other a mass of claws, towards Destruction in a mock of welcome. Destruction sneered. "You mock me, Epyon. Not a wise thing to do to someone who you court favors from. And you scare no one with that form, least of all me." Epyon closed its wings, and seemed to fold in on its self until a form of almost human proportion reduced from the mass. Dressed in gray and burgundy, skin almost a translucent white, with a shock of silver hair that cascaded over the narrow shoulders, the form Epyon now took was almost normal by comparison to its true form. All that remained the same were the eyes, sapphire blue and burring with an unquenchable fire. "I meant no disrespect, Destruction, if anything I meant just the opposite in greeting you so. Forgive me if I have let our meeting get off to a bad start." There was laughter in the voice, cruel and bighting, hidden behind a veil of coldness. "Cut the chatter, Epyon. What is it you want from me, really?" Blue eyes narrowed beneath silver brows. "I seek unrestricted entrance to the sphere of Earth. I thought my messenger had been clear on that point." Epyon sat down against empty space, crossing its legs primly. "Hardly. What brings you here now, after you have slept so long?" Destruction folded his arms across his broad chest, impatient. "You know that well, Destruction. I have heard that seductive call of war, and worse, I have heard my brother singing his battle cries. My very being vibrates with the need to battle, and to avenge myself against him. You of all should know this." "You know the limitations on such things. You must be summoned into the sphere, and you must be summoned willingly. I can not coerce any human into summoning you -" "Yes, but you can suggest such things to one of the factions. I'm sure that androgynous sibling of yours -" The fire in Epyon's eyes changed for a moment, and it licked its narrow, colorless lips - "could suggest a suitable person." "In exchange for what boon?" Destruction pretended to be disinterested. "Ah, yes. Always the business man, Destruction." Epyon rose from its invisible seat, and walked closer to Destruction, beginning a lazy orbit of him as it spoke in its silken voice. "As you might know, this is a very valuable favor I ask, and I ask it out of desperation. Thus, you could very well ask any price you wanted, and I would grant it through every means necessary." Epyon's pace slowed, coming to a stop almost directly behind Destruction. "Once they worshiped you as a god, Destruction." Its voice was a near whisper. "It could be that way again. It could be greater than it ever was, with even greater power." "Hardly, Epyon. The mortals no longer need what I am, here. Were I to want such things, all I would have to do is find a primitive world without Gods yet blighting its surface. You offer me nothing yet I want, Epyon. I hope you have better offers." "I was only beginning, Brother, I can offer you far more than a godhead." Destruction felt Epyon's leather gloved hand on his shoulder, and it took his entire force of will not to shudder at the touch of such evil. 1051 In taberna quando sumus Part Two - In the Heat of Hell, In the Cold of Night Quidam ludunt, quidam bibunt, Some gamble, some drink,Destruction pulled himself away from Epyon's gloved hand and turned, eyes burning, ready to strike at the demon in human form. Epyon backed away swiftly, avoiding any blow that might have come in a motion so fluid it baffled the eye. "Speak what you intend, demon, else I'll take your tongue and be done with it." Destruction growled. "My apologies, though I thought we were beyond such labels of language, brother." Epyon again seated its self in the blackness of the vacuum, calmly spreading its gray and burgundy coat about it. "So what is it that you want? I must puzzle this out on my own it seems. Not power, no. What am I, a simple servant of Chaos, to offer power to one of the Endless?" "Your prattle is beginning to annoy me, demon." Epyon's flawless face formed itself into a lineless frown around the thin, bloodless lips. "If not power, perhaps companionship? Surely it is lonely in your distant wanderings, without the friendship of another immortal being. I could create a companion for you, to your exact specifications of course, and tailor make it for you myself." Epyon reclined back, its eyes half closing, face softening. "Something tall, nicely built, with a good mind - " Destruction's frown deepened with every comment. "You mistake me for Desire, Epyon. My exile is self imposed, and I would rather it be solitary than be with any creature of your creation." "There are other things that I could offer in a similar vein, Destruction. Keep your mind open to such things. Simply because you are Endless does not mean forsaking the pleasures of the flesh, as both your elder brother Dream and both of that pair of horrid twins realize and remember." Epyon's pose had gone more fluid, more relaxed, and its eyes were nearly closed completely as it spoke. "Are you so short on boons to offer that you whore yourself out like this? I thought better of you, Epyon." Thus far, Destruction had found none of the baits even partly tempting to take. He could not very well take a less than grandiose boon from the demon, even as bait. "Very difficult, you are, Destruction." Epyon rose again, and faced Destruction across the void, regarding him with those fiery, lifeless blue eyes. "If not for you, then perhaps something for someone close to you? Hmm, no real friends and no lovers that I know of, so who -" Epyon's eyes snapped open, coming to a hard focus on Destruction while the rest of the face softened into a sly smile. "As I recall, you were always sweet on that younger sister of yours, that poor dear Delirium. She was such a beauty when she was Delight, what a shame all of that had to happen to her." "Don't speak of things you know nothing about, beast." Destruction snapped before he thought better of it. "Ah -yes. Still a sore spot that, I see. What if I could grant you something that would benefit her?" "I'm listening, Epyon." "Something vastly valuable, that could change everything. Such a poor thing, half-mad as she is. What if I could put and end to her suffering?" With a sudden fluid motion of a hand, Epyon produced a glowing sphere of light. After balancing it delicately on its fingertips, it deftly tossed the sphere to Destruction, who caught it one handed. "See what I offer?" Destruction held the sphere close to his eyes, and stared into it. Inside its glowing surface was the image of a young woman, perhaps in her late teens it seemed, dressed in a long white robe, over which long, honey blond hair fell in a cascade. She was holding a candle in one hand, her other hand brushed the strands of hair from her silver-blue eyes. The girl was Delirium, but changed some how, different, grown into - "Devotion. Isn't she beautiful?" Epyon was now standing beside Destruction, gazing into the ball over his broad shoulder. "I could do that for her, accelerate her growth to this next stage. It would be hard, but I have the power to do such things." Its voice was silken again, seductive. "You have finally tempted me, Epyon. Grant me this, and I will secure your passage into the sphere of Earth, but not before. You must carry this out as soon as I find the mortals to summon you, and then I will contact them and grant you access to the sphere." "You are sly, Destruction. A man of brains as well as brawn; I admire that." Epyon turned on its heal in a swirl of burgundy, gray and silver. "I will wait for your word, Destruction, I am pleased you are so amiable to this deal." "Until then, Brother." Destruction left it at that, and vanished again in a thought. He reappeared in the domain of Desire, the body-temple of the spirit
of the whims and wants of the heart, in the gallery of his sibling, suddenly
swallowed by the heat of the place compared to the coldness of space.
In taberna quando sumus Part Three - An Accounting of Mysteries Primo pro nummata vini, First of all it is to the wine-merchant"Treize, either I've finally gone mad from binding glue or I've found what you were after." It was DeWitt, calling from Miskatonic. "But if I have found it, I think we may be in for an interesting time." "Chris, I worry when you say interesting. What have you found?" Treize again sat in his office, curled behind the huge mahogany desk in a dressing gown. The time difference was murder. He remembered once when Chris had offered to show him something interesting in school. It had turned out to be a minor imp he had summoned that was happily snacking on a professor's book collection in an office. "I'm not sure I could just tell you and have you think me sane." A pause, Chris was talking to someone in the same room as him. "Look, I'll be there in a few minutes, and I'm bringing a few books with me. I'll explain it then." "You'll be here in a few minutes? How?" He found himself staring at the phone like it was a mad hallucination. "I - Look, don't worry about that, just expect me in about, oh, five seconds." And DeWitt hung up the phone with a loud click. Treize sat staring at the phone, still not sure what to make of the franticly excited tone of his friend. Any further speculation on the topic was prohibited, however, by the sudden arrival of DeWitt, a large stack of very old books, and a very tall, broad shouldered man with red hair. Chris' expression was one of impossible elation, a child suddenly turned loose in a combination candy and toy store, with all the light of wonder and discovery of an abstract physicist being handed a unified field theory. By comparison, the face of the tall, mysterious man was calm, placid, and almost amused at Chris' elation. "Chris, just what is going on. And who is this?" The anger in his voice was more from shock than anything. "Oh, dear gods, where do I start." Chris looked around in a panic. "At the beginning?" Suggested the stranger. "Ah yes." Chris looked around again, more calmly, located a chair, and threw himself down into it. "The parts you sent with me were the key to it all, Treize. I ran a series of tests on them, trying to identify what sort of energies they had been exposed to. They had the usual sort of residues, minor spirits, imps, gremlins, nothing out of the ordinary, until I ran the tests on some of the computer system components and the piece of the CPU you salvaged. That was when things got interesting. The residues that exposed themselves there were like nothing I had ever seen before, at least never in an actual experiment. The results were so unusual I had to consult those." Chris gestured absently at the stack of books, looking at them fondly. "Needless to say, it took me nearly an entire night to even find them in the university libraries. No one really goes looking for the old necrological-biology texts any more, so they had been put in a storage room. And it took me another night to find what I was looking for, simply because I had to translate on the fly half of what I had to read through." Chris sprang at the stack of books and pulled the top one from the stack. It was about four inches thick, bound in red and black leather with gold leaf script across its spine. With a quick flip, he turned to a page about halfway through the book. "And this is what I found." Chris handed the open book to Treize, looking at him expectantly. Treize scanned the page, finding much of the text complete gibberish, and the illustrations horrific. The creature illustrated on the left-hand page was a multi-limbed monstrosity with two pairs of bat wings, the one on the right an equally horrific tangle of tentacles and spines. Treize got the impression that these were drawn from second hand accounts of these creatures, and poor ones at that: the images were sketchy and half finished, detailed just enough to be frightening. But he still hadn't the slightest clue what these creatures were. He handed the book back to Chris. "What the hell are those things?" "That's where things get interesting." "There's that word again." Chris frowned. "They're Elder Demons. Not demons as in the damned soul type, demons as in secondary elemental forces incarnated. These things are old, beyond imagining old, and powerful beyond our conceptions. Half the texts I found that mentioned them refused to even speculate as to what their powers are, the other half simply said not to mess with them. Though not in so many words." "What are you getting at, Chris?" "These are what give the Gundams their power. Each of the Gundams has one of these imprisoned inside them, bound to the CPU. These things are upgrades of the very conception of enchanted weaponry, Treize." "So where does your strange new friend come into this?" Treize asked, looking at the silent stranger. "Until this gentleman showed up, I didn't think the binding of an Elder Demon was possible. In fact, all my sources said it was exactly that, and fatal to try." Chris stood, and set the book back down on the stack. "This gentleman appeared in my office this evening, offering me not only the means to summon and bind an elder demon, but the name of a demon to summon!" "You still haven't introduced him." Treize chided. "Ah yes. This is the hard part." Treize's arched brows shot up another notch. " I know, I know. Treize, this is one of the Endless, one of the personifications of the Primary forces of reality. This is Destruction." Treize simply looked partially stunned, refusing to gape in either disbelief or wonder. "Ok. Chris, you're loosing me again. What are you thinking?" "The power behind the Gundams are the elder demons that each one has imprisoned within, bound into its computer system. That's why your lab data didn't match the observed performances. That's also why you could never build a system as powerful, unless you managed to summon, capture, and bind one of these increadably powerful, and very violent I might add, beings. Destruction is offering us a chance to do just that, and the means by which to imprison and bind the demon, something far beyond, or at least I thought far beyond, mortal ability." "Ok, that was easier to understand. But why is he," Treize looked at Destruction for a moment, "offering to help us?" "You are a paranoid man, Treize Kushrednada, as I was warned you were. But it has served you well, so I will not be offended. I have made a bargan with this demon, to grant him access to this world, in exchange for something valuable. However, I cannot just turn him loose on the planet, for he would destroy it eventually. Thus, I seek to imprison him by having him bound into one of these war machiens of yours." "Treize, how soon can you have a Gundam-like mobile suit built?" "There is one already finished, Chris, in the hangar out back. All it is waiting for is final weaponry and a coat of paint." Treize smirked as Chris stared slack jawed. "It will not need any aditional weaponry, for the binding will complete it." Destruction said. "However, the summoning will require much energy, as will the binding." Treize looked a question at Chris. "He means a blood sacrifice, a big one, and preferably human." Treize shrugged. "Chris, you forget, a war is on. That sort of thing is not a problem at all. A word to one of the refugee camps and I can have as many people as I wan who will never be missed." "Ok, well -" Chris simply looked pale. "It will take me about two days to get together everything we need, and to set up the summoning circle around the Gundam. It will need to be moved to the courtyard as well." "Just get it done, Chris." In taberna quando sumus Part Four - The Brother of the Devil Octies pro fratribus perversis, Eight for the errant brethren,Duo didn't understand how this had come to happen, nor did he want to think about the implications of Quatre's new Gundam in the hands of Romafeller. All he understood was that he was being forced into the belly of the beast that had near driven Quatre insane, that Death had warned him about, and that had driven its most recent pilot to threatening to destroy an entire colony. He was being forced to fight. It indeed felt like he was in the gut of some great monster, surrounded by coils of wire, pulsing lights, his body all but swallowed in the crash couch. The hum of the systems was like breathing, the thrum of the pneumatics like a heart beat. Worse, Duo could feel things moving around him, invisible even to his eyes, probing at him and touching him, trying to attach to him. He could feel the very essence of the being that inhabited this Gundam, and could feel it trying to merge with him, to posses him. "Zephiruxs." Duo said quietly, almost sub-vocalizing. "You know my name, mortal?" The voice that filled Duo's head was maddening, like a group of people all speaking at once, each voice delayed a few moments from the next. Seven voices, each different, speaking as one. "I was warned about you by my Mother." He said it slowly, vocally capitalizing the word. "Yes." A pause. "I can feel her touch on you. Powerful she is still. But you are in my grasp. She cannot protect you here." The invisible tendrils grew more forceful, forcing themselves at him, and then worse, he could feel them sliding beneath his suit and worming themselves under the skin of his arms and legs. He only began to scream when they began doing the same to his face. The universe lost its self in infinite iterations on that scream, becoming a radio receiver lost from its signal. Duo felt himself separate, becoming a duality, at once in the seat of that womb of terror, and somehow removed from it, someplace other, filled with gray light. Dual sensations, dual images, dual memories, flooded a mind unable to cope with them. Duo screamed once more, though he was unsure if he had ever stopped screaming to begin again. The separation completed its self.
In taberna quando sumus, Part Six - The Book of the Righteous Parum sexcente nummate Six hundred pennies would hardlyBeing born, Epyon decides, is a horrible thing. Like all creatures beyond the substance of the physical plain, whether below or above it, to enter the physical it must be born into it. Until it is born, it is but a ghost, a shadow, able only to weakly affect things in the physical. It has no mass, no gravity, no self of physical matter. It is simultaneously its self and nothing at all. The pain is the pain of paradox. And being born, Epyon reflects, is a pain even a being greater than a god can forget. Worse than giving birth, an act of creation that even the chaos of Epyon's being is capable of, the pain of being born is like nothing else. But even that, it knows, can be forgotten, since it has been born before many times. The pain will grow worse, it remembers. This is only the beginning, as the circles are laid for the summoning, as the alter is cleaned and prepared: it is even less formed than an embryo now. It is quite literally, a thought. Worse will be the imprisonment of the womb, and the struggle to be free, to become its physical self beyond the body of its host-mother. And the worst, Epyon knows, is the first breath. It is the actualization of the physical self, the final severing of the cord of vorporial nature. The first breath is the breath of life: the complete antitheses of its chaotic nature. Until that breath is drawn, it is immortal, inviolate, beyond the touch of anything physical. After it, it is as mortal as a god. And as Epyon full well knows, gods can die very easily. So wrapped up in its pain, it barely feels the first twinges of the spasms that will soon rock reality. It knows full well what will result from its gift to Destruction, from the change of one of the very primal essences of the Universe its self, and knows that such a change will leave ripples in the pond. More aptly, it will leave Tsunamis in the ocean that is creation. And, in the wake and ebb of those great waves of change, eddies of chaos will thrive. Epyon would laugh were it not for the feeling of simultaneously having its insides on the inside and outside. As its being compacted in onto its self out of the weight of paradox, into the idea that would soon be embryo that would soon be life, Epyon exerted its will a final time before surrendering its self. It forced its jaws and throat into being, and sang in a voice of the madness of the gods. "Come now, opener of the way. Come now, ease the path for me. I am the birth, the death of life. Winds of madness again bear me alight..." The old hymn died as the very form of Epyon vanished into thought and potential. Birth was, as Epyon had remembered, a very painful thing. End Act Two Act Three: Blanziflor Et Helena, Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi Ave formosissima - The Birth of Devotion Ave formosissima, Hail, most beautiful one,The shift out of the gray was as unnoticeable as the break of dawn on a fog choked day. Duo noticed the gray had become flecked with more frequent spots of color, and as soon as he noticed it, the color threatened to overwhelm him. It was like being drowned in a bag of brightly colored plastic flakes. Death remained beside him, her hand on his arm a guiding beacon against the torrent of sensation. "Where are we?" He asked. "Delirium's realm, her world. Stay close, or you will be lost in it." Death's voice was serious, concerned, and different from how Duo had ever head it. Duo simply nodded. He was lost completely, he felt, completely beyond his understanding of the situation. He was dead, he was in a world of madness, and he was facing forces beyond his understanding. The shock and confusion was enough to keep him silent, and to keep his usual anger at the unknown in check. Hours could have passed, or only minutes, or perhaps it was years: Duo had no way of knowing, no sense of the passage of time. He had no sense of fatigue, no idea of the distance they traveled. There were no landmarks, no features of any sort - only the shifting seas of color and light. Distance was meaningless here, Duo realized, as he head the sound of a dog barking from a great deal away. There was no single solid plain, no real laws of physics, not even a general suggestion of such things. The dog was running across what seemed empty space, across the perspective-less space of shifting color, a white dot that was simultaneously miles away and within a stones throw. The dog, as it became apparent a few timeless moments later, was calling out to them in a panicked voice. "She's by the Sun Dial! Something is happening to her, she needs your help!" Death stopped short, and bent down to the dog. "Barnabas, its ok. We're here now. Del will be fine, just take us to her." Nervously, the dog looked up and sniffed Duo's naked foot with a cold nose. "Its dead," the dog said, looking up with amber eyes. "You're no beauty champion yourself, dog." Duo snapped back. "Barnabas, please, take us to Del." With a nod, the dog turned, and began loping across the empty space, muttering to its self about how much it hated a place where the laws of physics were only a suggestion. Duo and Death followed, close behind, until in the strange lack of perspective way, a sundial appeared. The sundial was white marble, its surface stained and cracked, pitted with age, its brass dial green with oxidation. Curled at its base was a bedraggled figure, a young teenaged girl in battered clothing, her knees drawn up to her chest with her head resting on her knees. She looked up at the approaching trio with disturbing, mismatched green and blue eyes. The eyes moved across them emptily, falling finally on Barnabas, who sat down beside her. "Good doggy," the girl said quietly. Death got down on her knees next to the young girl, putting her hand on the shoulder of the battered leather jacket. "Del, its ok. I'm here now. Everything will be fine now." Death glanced up at Duo, and then looked back at Delirium. "Del, I brought a friend with me to stay with you. He and I are going to stay here with you for a while." Delirium looked up at Duo with the mismatched eyes, focusing on him for a moment before her gaze lost its force again. "Pretty wings," she said, and a lock of hair near her forehead became a butterfly with bat wings. Barnabas whined, and looked forlorn as the strange creature landed on his ear. "Del, you know what's going on?" Death motioned Duo to come sit beside her. Duo sat, folding himself against the invisible ground. "Del?" Death squeezed her shoulder. "Hu? Oh, yeah. I'm growing again, aren't I?" She stared off into space, talking to nothing. "This is like last time, but backwards. I'm coming back together, aren't I?" "Yes, Del, you're growing up." Death's voice was calm. "That's what I thought." Delirium smiled emptily, closed her eyes, and laid down her head on her knees. The ground under Duo's bare legs was suddenly cold, distracting him. Where once there had been empty space, filled with colors, there was now a polished stone floor. The floor was flowing outward from the sundial, across the empty plain. The colors were fading, their ever shifting patterns smoothing out, and shapes were beginning to extrude themselves from the formlessness. The world was changing, and so was Delirium. The wild shock of brightly colored hair was smoothing, growing, and turning a uniform shade of platinum blond as it grew. The skin and bones frame of her body was maturing, the death pale skin smoothing and gaining a healthy glow, and her ragged clothes turning colorless and formless. Delirium gave a small whimper, her whole body flinching suddenly as though in great pain, accompanied by a spasm of white throughout the slowing swirl of color. Death looked at Duo, her eyes filled with inexpressible worry. Duo, more out of a lack of anything else to do to help, reached out a hand and put it on the trembling small hand that death griped the knee beneath it. The skin was cold and clammy to the touch, but a burning fever seemed to rage beneath the surface. Delirium whimpered again, and in her flinch, and with crushing force her small hand wrapped its self around Duo's, and Duo gasped in pain. Delirium turned her head up to look at him, and... There was no sound, no light, no color, but nor was there the absence of any of those things. All that existed was a silent, formless joy that filled the heart to bursting. And in that shapeless no-place, a conversation beyond words took place. ("I went walking in the night place. And I wasn't looking for anything, but I found things. I found a blue pebble, and some fox fur, and a lost star....") <"What else did you find?"> ("I found a word, a very special word. I found a word that means that sort of feeling you get when you want to walk fast, and dance, and sing, but have to keep walking slow.") /silence/ ("See?") ...both of her eyes were blue, flecked with moving shards of silver. Her face was now framed with the smooth, platinum tresses of hair that had been growing before, a serene smile gracing her face. The skin of her hand was now smooth and warm to the touch, and her fingers were loosely intertwined with Duo's hand. "Duo?" The voice was soft, soothing, almost lyrical. The girl - no woman - who had been Delirium, was now on her knees, still holding Duo's hand. "Duo, thank you. I found myself in you." She rose from her knees effortlessly, her white dress unfolding elegantly, leading Duo to his feet. Death was gone, no where to be found in the transformed landscape. "I am Devotion," She said, turning from him, "and I will bring a new age into the universe." Where there had been the absence of perspective or shape, form and shape now existed in profusion. Gothic stone pillars rose from the stone tile floor like roots of great trees. It was only on looking up that the stone pillars revealed themselves to be that exact thing: from the cold stone roots to midway up the trunk, the trees were carved stone, above that, they were living trees. Sunlight shone down through the branches, casting elegant shadows onto the floor, mixing with the colored light that filtered through the stained glass windows that filled the walls. The only thing that remained from before was the sun dial, still pitted and cracked, just in front of where the high alter rose from the floor. "Duo, thank you, you have done what needed to be done. But you have to go now - someone needs you." Duo nodded, and turned to walk down the long isle of was resolving its self into a surrealistic cathedral. His bare feet barely made a sound on the cold stone floor as he walked, and the distance from the altar to the far door was unnoticeable. At the end of the isle, in the shadows of the doorway, Death was waiting for him. "Go, Duo. I've kept you long enough. You will have to fight to retake your body from Zephiruxs, so be prepared. But I think there will be someone to guide your way." And with that she was gone, vanished back into the shadows. Duo walked towards the door, putting his hand on the smooth, dark wood to push it open. Beyond the door there was... Duo screamed, the touch of the ethereal tentacles throughout his body threatening to drive him mad, and he saw the double barreled beam cannon of the Zero discharge into the body of the colony, shattering the fragile bubble of life. The cold claws of vacuum began ripping the bulkheads asunder with the rush of air, and his mind filled with a scream not his own. Hilde's voice, screaming. And the image was gone, the touch of the tentacles gone, all that was left was the rubble of a dozen mobile dolls, and the observation ship. "You are stronger than you look." The multi-voice of Zephiruxs said softly into Duo's ear. "It is too bad you are not who I was meant for. You have a date with a different destiny." Duo shivered. "I already knew that, demon," he said softly, then closed his eyes, and passed out cold. O Fortuna - Reprise O Fortuna - Part One - To Summon the Dragon O Fortuna, O Fortune,It had taken less than the two days DeWitt had predicted to convert the courtyard space of the house to its new purpose. Three concentric circles of head high iron candlesticks were set up around the unpainted mettle hulk of the Gundam, which sat behind a makeshift altar. The altar was, in fact, the table from the great hall, covered in one of the blood red velvet curtians from the room, overlain with a white silk bed sheet so that the red velvet spilled from under the white silk in great folds and rolls onto the ground. Chris was standing beside the table, fussing with a series of objects laid out on the white silk, when Treize walked up behind him. "Chris?" Treize put his hand on the tweed-coated shoulder of his old college friend. Chris jumped. "Don't sneak up on me like that." Chris said, turning around. Clutched in his left hand was a thick book bound in red leather, book marked in various places throughout its thickness. "What is it?" "Our guests are being showered and groomed as we speak. How soon can this begin?" Treize was dressed in a long, black velvet sir-coat trimmed in sliver with matching pants, a while linen shit contrasting sharply under the night black collar of the coat. "Nice outfit." Treize smirked at Chris. "We can't start till sunset. We got lucky though, being this close to the full moon, else we would have to wait for moonrise. So long as we have everything in order, we can start at sunset." Chris suddenly looked over his glasses at Treize. "You did say everything was in order?" "If it was on the list you gave me two days ago, I've got it." Treize fished out a very battered page from a legal pad from a deep pocket and unfolded it, then scanned it over. "Though why on earth we need these last three items on your list I can't figure out. They aren't in any of the books you gave me to read." "Oh, the raven feathers, vellum, and blood ink? Those are for me. I'm writing a book, you see." Sunset came with the speed of a hound on the hunt, overtaking the day
like a fox. Treize oversaw the transfer of the four guests to one of the
lower floor rooms, well aware that the three young men and the young woman
had been hopeless refugees in one of the camps of what was left of eastern
Europe less than 48 hours ago. It was a shame, Treize thought, that the
young woman had to remain untouched for the summoning, and a waste of fine
flesh that she would not live through the night.
O Fortuna - Part Two - The Beast Arisen Sors immanis Fate - monstrous(Warmth.... Darkness.... Bliss.... Peace) Awareness of the rhythm came before anything else, a distant, regular thunder heard through ears that could only sense the vibration, not the sound. The rhythm soothed him, comforted him, and eased the searing pain that had been the entirety of existence for him until only moments ago. Where had he been then? He did not remember. All there was now was the rhythm, and the darkness, and the peace of nothingness. (I am Epyon.... Born soon.... Mother?) Memory returned in a flood, filling a mind of flesh and blood, rather than ether substance. He was Epyon, made flesh again, made strong again, in this forge that was a human body. Mother, maker, forge, sacrifice to him, this woman who would bring him into the world. Her flesh surrounded him, full of life, the rhythm of her heart like a tribal drum that summoned him to dance. He could feel her, feel her fear and panic, her struggles rocked him like a child in a cradle of flesh. He would be born soon. (Mother... can you feel me? Mother...you must feed me, feed me to make me strong....) Epyon could hear her voice now, screaming in her mind, though she had no more strength left to scream with. Such a beautiful voice, my mother, he thought, how strong she will make me. In his liquid world he turned, blindly seeking sustenance, and finding a spot he joined himself to the wall of his small world inside her, and began to feed. Oh how strong he would be when he was born. (Oh mother, how strong I will be, when I am born to this world.... Feed me mother....) Epyon grew quickly, feeding on the blood and flesh around him. He worked slowly, carefully, so as not to kill his mother too soon, else he would die trapped within her, small and weak. His liquid world grew smaller it seemed, and he found himself unable to turn around or even stretch, but that did not matter. What mattered was the flesh, the strength he gained from it. But it was not enough! More than flesh and blood he needed to grow strong. (Why... oh why do they not sing for my coming, mother? Why is it so silent?) But there, he heard them, quietly at first, voices summoning him, chanting softly. They were human voices - mortal tongues - that spoke the language of darkness in a chant to him. His name, he heard his name, over and over, the only word he knew it seemed. And there - there was more he knew there must be more. His hunger for that voice grew more than the hunger for the flesh. (Sing for me! Tell them to sing for me! For my glory, for my power! Epyon, the Dawn Killer!) Within his tight prison he thrashed, screaming liquid screams of hunger. He rent at the flesh around him, not caring now how much he tore free at a time, drinking the blood and swallowing the flesh as he worked his way towards the voice. Clearer he could hear it, calling him, praising him, worshiping him. Yes, he was all those things and even more, now made flesh to have his way with the world. All realms would tremble before him, Epyon the Devil of the Fire, born again! He was Bringer of the Madness, Wind of Delusion, come again, flesh again. Only he was the Prophet of Destruction, the Killer of Dreams, the names the voice called. (I am born again, born again, born again to the flesh...I am Epyon, it sang, I am the Slayer of Dawn.) Screaming in triumph, he felt the rush of outwards pressure as he tore through the last layers of flesh. Air filled his new lungs with fire, light blinded his hundred eyes, and he screamed at the agony of living, and the triumph of being born. His body expanded outwards, exploding with freedom, filling out its true size in a matter of seconds. It was only when he turned to devour the remains of the woman that had born him that he found he was bound to the spot he stood. O Fortuna - Part Three - Enslaved to the Machine Sors salutis Fate is against me"We've got it!" Chris yelled from his place outside the third circle. The monster, and that was the only real word for it, Treize realized, screamed an unearthly scream and continued to thrash against the invisible barrier that bound it less than two meters away from his nose. Far too many limbs, each with one, two, or even three hands, thrashed against the barrier, mime like in their motions, as great wings of blue flame beat wildly like a bird in too small a cage. Treize wanted to take a step back, better, to run screaming, but he stood his ground, eyes locked on the thing. Screaming again, the thing turned its head and met his gaze with a hundred or more gem faceted eyes, each focusing on him. So this was Epyon, Treize thought, the monster that would give him the power of the Gundams. "Chris! How long should this binding hold?" Treize called to his friend. He did not relish the thing suddenly breaking loose and venting all of that anger and frustration on him first. "Another hour at the most." Chris said, and then looked at the tall, red haired man standing in the first circle. "More than long enough for Destruction to bind it to the Gundam." "More than enough time." Destruction said coldly, his eyes fixed on Epyon. Destruction knelt in the sandy soil of the courtyard, drawing his sword as he went down in one fluid motion. Lacing his fingers around the hilt, he brought the blade up, its sharp point facing the sky like a beacon, and he rested his head on the cold surface of the flat of the blade. Eyes half open, he could still see the writhing form of Epyon, imprisoned before him. He would only have one shot at this, as the binding would break all three circles when he set it loose. Epyon ignored Destruction, though inwardly his mind seethed with anger at the betrayal. Never again would he trust the Endless, even in such circumstances. Screaming, he lashed out a clawed double hand at the warding around him, raking at its surface uselessly. Freedom was just beyond his reach, and this whole world his to plunder and destroy. All because of this human in front of him who had tricked him! Treize watched the beast as it slowed its frantic motions. Whatever it was, demon, god, or whatever, it was smart enough to know when struggle was useless. Still, its long whip of a tail thrashed violently, a chain of razor edged bone that burned the ground where it touched. Its double jaws hung open, fangs as long as Treize's arm filling the mandibles, its long rasp of a tongue hung limp from the gaping wound like hole on its neck that must be its real mouth. Its legs had too many joints, each that seemed to move the wrong way, as did its wings and arms. Such a creature should be clumsy, jerky, and unable to move with any real determination, Treize thought; yet it moved like a wild cat, fluidly and gracefully. Such a thing should never exist, he thought, yet here it was before him. Destruction's eyes were fully closed now, his jaw clenched in concentration. His sword, his symbol, the vessel of his power as one of the Endless, was clenched tightly in his hands so as not to slip from its position. The blade, pressed against his forehead, was glowing an unearthly blue white, nearly blinding. Red flames licked along the edge of the blue white glow, racing up the length of the blade, curling like claws. "Slayer of Dawn!" He called, his voice deep with the strain of the concentration. Epyon turned slowly, its head moving a near impossible rotation to look at him. "Slayer of Dawn, Epyon, Chaos Lord - hear me!" Epyon made an evil hiss of anger, its jaws dripping some vile fluid that hissed and smoked when it struck the ground. "Destruction, why have you betrayed me? Why would you trap me in this ward?" "Chaos will never rule, Epyon. The time of the Elder Gods and their madness is long gone. Order must be made from the Chaos. That is the rule of the Endless." Epyon screamed, and tried to throw its self through the ward at Destruction, but stumbled over its own body in the tight space. "I bind you now, demon, I bind you to this machine of war. Forever will you be bound to it, until the hands of an Immortal unmake it. You are slave to its will, to its order. Be bound with in its shell, within its wires, within its core. Its body is your body, its heart is your heart." Destruction leveled his sword at Epyon, blade flat horizontal to the earth. "Be bound!" The blue white light vanished, and the air filled with the taste of thunder and the sound of screams, blinding green light flashed, filling the column of the ward with green fire. Epyon cried out, over and over, screaming his betrayal. "I will not be bound! No! Not to this, not to this!" His final words echoed emptily into the night. Standing where the unpainted hulk of a Gundam had been stood something neither Treize nor Chris had been expecting. It was an evil reddish pink color, almost like dried blood, its form somehow hulking yet trim and fluid. It was a Gundam; no doubt, it radiated power like no other machine of war could, and not even those damned mobile dolls. "Epyon..." Treize said softly, and his mind filled with a roar of impotent furry. End of Act Three Libri Fatali - Part One - The Children of Fate Excitate vow e somno, liberi mei. Kindle a vow from dreams, my children,The small room was dark, with no windows to let light in from the artificial sun of the colony, and the lights off, it might as well been the deepest cave on earth for all the light in it. Cramped into the small room was a folding chair, on which lay a duffle of rumpled clothing, and a very small bed, little more than a cot. Duo Maxwell lay curled in the bed, under a thin white sheet, his eyes and jaw clenched closed. Duo was asleep, lost in a world that seemed made of nightmares. He could feel the tendrils of Zephiruxs still, touching him all over, penetrating his skin. Even in the nightmare, he could smell the awful smell of the Wing Zero's command center, a sick smell like madness and death. The final tentacles were working their way towards his face, reaching for him, ready to dig into his eyes, his nose and mouth. Not again, not again, he screamed, mother, protect me please, not again! And even as that dream shattered, his mind filled with a scream that threatened to break his mind. A woman, screaming in pain beyond anything he thought possible, something working its way out of her grossly swollen belly, a nightmare within a nightmare being born as no natural thing was ever born. Her eyes begged the mercy of death, empty green eyes framed in a wild spray of blood soaked blond hair, and Duo reached out for her in the dream, looking for that fragile silver thread that he could break and release her. But there was no thread, not even a filament, as though her soul were already gone. And then he saw, though he wished not to see, the silver thread that had been pulled from her body - no ripped from her body - attached to the nightmare thing that had pushed forth from her womb. Duo screamed, knowing somewhere in his mind that this was the same sort of thing as Zephiruxs, knowing that this thing was far worse than the White Demon ever could be. Soul Killer, his mind screamed at the beast, and for a moment he swore he saw its eyes focus on him. But then the monster was gone, lost in a swirl of gray. He heard the laughing of children, then a moan of pain and loss, and felt emptiness close in around him, a sucking vacuum of non-existence. Despair filled him, and in his sleep he wailed at the shear nothingness that filled him in this dream that was not dreaming. There was no hope, (oh mother, protect me) no chance, no peace ever to be found for him, or for anyone. He was lost, his soul lost, gone. And a worse despair filled him, an angry rage of self-destruction, pure in its hopelessness and hate. So much destruction, so many deaths: they were not souls whose time had come, not at all. So much life they had, so much freedom. And they screamed, railed against those who had stolen life from them so early. His heart clenched in his chest, as though unable to beat for his sobs. Children, only children, that's all we are, he cried in his sleep. But the souls screamed at him, damning him, hating him, seeking to (oh mother, protect me) tear him apart, and teach him their suffering. Oh if only it were than easy... And then there was gray, empty gray, filled with laughing children lost in the fog that was everywhere. And she was there, dark eyes filled with tears, her arms open, enfolding him (enfolding him in great wings) and comforting him. Her skin was cold, her flesh not flesh, but she was more comforting than any human could be. Oh mother, oh mother, what have we done? He cried to her, tears flowing. This is fate, this is life, this is death, she sang, this is the way of the world, the way of being, and not being. All things die, all things fall apart. But they cry so, they scream so, they hate so. As they did in life, they do in death, in Death our realm, all as is it was in life. This is the way? Always? Always. When do I die, mother? When all things die, when all things die - when their time comes. And the world filled with the sound of wings, and the dream shattered to nothingness. Duo opened his eyes, but did not move. She was with him still, but far
away. He dared not move, else she fall to dust.
Libri Fatali - Part Two - The Man Without A Future Ardente veritate With flaming truth"So this is what a true Gundam is like." Treize mused to himself. The interior was dark, cramped, and smelled of something strangely unplesent yet appealing. He sat in the crash couch of the Gundam, a dark leather ordeal with space harness and ground harness mixed into one unit. All around him, the displays of the Gundam's systems blinked, and the external displays showed him the hangar the Epyon had been moved to. Its mechanical systems thrummed around him, the deep pulse of its hydraulic and pneumatic pumps seemed almost like heart beat and breathing. "In the belly of the beast." He said, to no one in particular, not even himself. Resting on his leg was a helmet, black like the shell of some predatory beetle, glistening in the dark half light of the cockpit. Picking it up in his gloved hands, Treize ran his fingers over it, almost a caress of affection, and then slid it over his head. The visor was blacked out, in the ready state of the Zero system, waiting for input to begin being fed to the main battle processor of the Gundam. Treize could hear nothing but his own breathing. "Treize." The voice whispered softly in his ear, reptilian and seductive at the same time. "Treize, I will give you power if you use me right. Seek what I seek, and you will rule the world with me." "What? What is this?" He almost pulled the helmet off, but the first battle data was beginning to be displayed. He reacted, trying to keep the voice out of his mind. "Let me show you, Lord Treize, let me show you, my master." It whispered softly. "Let me show you what future we have together." Treize followed the battle data, but suddenly it was different, real data, not simulations. It was a real battle, hundreds of forces around him, all his, all at his command. Conquest of the colonies, conquest of all of Earth, to be his to rule as he chose. He would have the power, with this suit, he saw. He could lead thousands of troops into battle, all willing to die for him "No," he said through clenched teeth, "There is no honor in this." "Have it your way, human." The voice hissed in his ear, as the vision vanished. "Mortal you are, mortal you will always be, and death is all that awaits you." The sound that followed was almost laughter. "Sooner than you think." And the battle returned, but this time he was loosing, trapped in a foundering Taulgeese, battling a Gundam he did not recognize. Its wicked trident slashed at him, and he blocked, but the next hit came faster than he had thought it would. It found home in the belly of the Taulgeese, filling the compartment with fire and raw vacuum. Death was a sear of pain, and then nothingness. "See, my master, you have no fate. Give me to someone who destiny has smiled on, give me to a child of peace." The whispering voice hissed at him. Treize realized that the voice was right. And he knew the right child. Heero. The End |
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