A Tear in the Universe (Mythklok, Chapter 22)
Title: A Tear in the Universe (Mythklok, Chapter 22)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A war begins
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing, smoking. Just a general FYI, these next few chapters are going to be kinda dark.
Notes: This is part 2 of a 6 chapter sequence I’m calling the Volcano Arc. More notes after the jump.
Cross-posted to capslokdethklok.
I guess I owe everyone a Toki!hug after that last one, huh? Sahry. Ah, well, more angst here too.
Mythklok is a Metalocalypse AU. If you're behind and for some strange reason wanna catch up, the best place is my fic journal, tikific, where you are welcome to come poke it with a pointed stick. I've also written a general introduction in case you wanna jump in the middle of things, or have forgotten all this stuff due to Real Life.
A quick recap: Wotan and Raziel got married, which pissed of the angels and got a lot of people drunk and badly hung over. Nathan Explosion can read Raziel’s Book of Secrets and Mysteries, even though it’s written in High Angelic, which supposedly only Seraphim and New Ones and the Creator himself can speak. Construction began on Mordland’s new volcano. Oh, and somebody was killed, but I think you know that.
Somewhere far away....
The universe had a tear.
You could compare it to an open wound. The analogy would capture some of the poetry, but none of the reality. This angry sore would not heal. Instead, it was fated to extend, and grow, and fester, and finally, take the whole of the universe along with it.
The place was dying.
The Archangel Phanuel and his men stood guard. This was his duty. From ancient times. It was he who would cut off this universe, who would amputate this world from Creation before the infection could spread.
He led a goodly portion of the Legion. The sky was resplendent with flocks of angels.
Phanuel was a Grey. A true Grey: not weird and silvery like Sariel, his wings were rather a burnished, deep grey. It gave him a martial appearance. He had his wings fully unfurled at present, as he was on duty.
But he was interrupted.
"Honored Brother."
It was Raphael.
Phanuel bowed, deeply and formally. "Venerated Brother," he greeted Raphael. At one time, so many years ago, they had been equivalent in rank. But Phanuel had tuned from that path.
"You are needed."
"I am always needed. Now, more than ever," Phanuel replied.
"Back on earth."
"That is not my place. Not anymore."
"You. Your company. The need is great."
"The need is great here. If Creation is to be spared."
"Honored Brother, this request comes directly from the top."
"From Him?" Phanuel asked, knowing full well the answer.
"From Michael," Raphael corrected, much annoyed at the subtle insubordination.
Phanuel looked out across the universe and the great number of Seraphim warriors at his command.
"I cannot waste my day in debate," Raphael sniffed. "As you know, my time here is limited."
“We will finish out our campaign here," Phanuel told him. "And following that and my men will hasten to earth.”
“Thank you, Honored Brother.” Raphael bowed stiffly, and then departed.
Phanuel frowned. Long ago, he had been one of the four Cardinals. But not any more. He had left earth to his Brothers. And they could have it, for all the good it did them.
He sighted a disturbance. He moved himself to the place. His men stood, barring a small party of refugees. They huddled together, amazed and terrified at the splendid angels arrayed before them.
“Our world is collapsing,” the person who appeared to be the leader was saying. “We must leave, or be consumed.” Their eyes, full of hope, found Phanuel.
“You are of this world?” the archangel inquired.
“Yes.”
Phanuel nodded. “Then you shall not pass.”
“But… If we do not escape…”
“If you do escape, it may mean at cost of all of Creation. This we cannot risk. Carry on!” he shouted at his men. “Any who try to pass, let them not survive.”
His troops set their swords alight. The man who was the leader cried out and flung himself after Phanuel, as they inevitably did. He was efficiently cut down in seconds. It was a kindness, Phanuel thought, glancing back at the remainder of the refugees. They were standing back, desperately hugging each other, awaiting the slow, cruel death of their universe.
In the Dreamtime....
Pickles collapsed into one of the golden airship's deck chairs.
"So you didn't find them? The Heffalumps?" Aaron, beside him, worried.
"Naw, dood, I didn't," Pickles whispered. The Heffalumps - whatever they were - had already been and gone. He looked over to the boy. Pickles' eyes were still streaked with tears. What he had just seen.... He could not tell Aaron. He would never tell the boy.
Aaron sat down his bowl of ice cream. He sniffled. "They did bad things, didn't they?"
"Yeh, dood, dey did a bad t'ing." It was bad beyond words. He ruffed Aaron's hair. He had thought the boy was playing one of his tricks. Thought it was just a childish fantasy. Idiot. What an idiot.
"I'm scared."
"Dood! Yoo don't gotta be scared! I'm here. I won't let nothin' ever happen t' yoo." Never. And he meant it.
"You won't let the angels find me?"
"Never. Hey." Pickles held out his pinkie finger. "Dis is a legally bindin' contract in 57 countries! Lady Raz tol' me!"
Aaron hooked pinkies with Pickles. "I'll keep yoo safe. Ferever."
Back on earth....
Lord Wotan stood, awaiting his son.
Lady Raziel was suddenly there, appearing, her hand entwined with that of Skwisgaar.
It was good, the god reflected, that they were getting on. That they were trying, at least. That was good.
He seized Skwisgaar by both shoulders. “Son. I need you to go over this residence. The entire thing. Anything, everything you see, let me know, even if you think it is no matter. Go over it twice, three times. This is important. This is so very important.”
Skwisgaar nodded. He fixed his look to one of determination. And then he turned and strode into Lord Ganesh’s former residence. Queen Raziel stood with the king and watched him walk.
“Did you see him there?” Wotan asked her quietly.
She shook her head. “No. No. But we will see him.” She looked up to the king. “Where is Lord Shiva?”
“Shiva and Parvati both await at Shiva’s palace. I told them I would be there soon. As soon as I had something to report.”
Raziel nodded. And waited. She didn't have to wait long.
He was there, and immediately found himself encircled by her powerful grasp.
"Let me see him, Raziel." His voice was ragged.
"It's not him. It's not him."
"Let me go."
"Please. Don't do this to yourself" Her heels had dug into the tile work in front of Lord Ganesh's residence. But Sariel had pushed her now a good five or six feet, and the graceful tiles were now cracked beneath her, leaving two trails under her feet.
"Let me go, Raziel," he whispered, all intent.
"Don't," was all she had left to say, her arms tightening.
He True Formed, and was torn away from her in a breath, disappearing into the residence in a blur of silver feathers. Wotan thought he espied Sariel rushing out the other side, escaping through a door, a window, or bursting through a wall, who knew.
"I think I know.... I think I know where he went," Raziel quietly told her husband. "I'll get him." Wotan gripped her shoulder.
Lord Ganesh's estate lay in the shadow of a Himalayan peak.
He was very easy to spot, a silvery angel sitting on an outcropping, wings extended and twitching. The rest of his body was quite still. He held across his lap the body of Lord Ganesh, and he was quiet over it, only swaying very slowly, as would a mother holding a child for comfort.
His silvery eyes were closed, and he did not turn, so he could not have seen the dark-winged angel alight on a rock just above and behind him. Rather, he felt the draft from her wings, and heard the soft beat of them.
She crouched and remained silent, studying him with her dark eyes.
At length, he said, "I am going to take him home with me. To.... To my home. I don't care what his family says..... I don't care."
She ruffled her wings. "I don't know their traditions. What is proper. I will find out from my husband."
They were silent for a moment. He put his hand to the middle of Ganesh's chest, where so recently, a heart had beaten.
"What will we do?" he said at last.
"What we always do. We will have our vengeance."
"I don't-" he stammered.
"He is at peace. We have a duty. Remember this."
Finally, he opened his odd silvery eyes, and looked over his shoulder, back into her very dark eyes. They shared a glance that was beyond human understanding.
"Go," said the angel Raziel, "and attend to him. I shall to Lord Wotan."
“It was the angels.”
Lord Shiva stood with his back turned to Wotan, two sets of arms crossed, all controlled fury. Lady Parvati, eyes deep and dark, attempted to place a gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder, but he shook from her grasp.
“My dear friend, we don’t know that," Wotan said gently.
“You know this is true!” Shiva told him.
"I suspect this is true, Shiva. But suspicion is not evidence. It's not conclusive."
"I cannot wait! My son's spirit will not rest! Thanks to your sentimentality, I do not even have a body to burn!"
"Shiva, Sariel was...."
"Do not repeat that angel's name ever again in my house! I have done everything in my power to prevent my son from interacting with his poisonous influence! I have threatened, persuaded, appealed to his sense of duty...."
"He has been prevented now, husband," Parvati sighed. "Your work has been done for you.". She slumped down into a chair. Shiva turned, and went to stand beside her.
"This must be answered," Shiva vowed.
"Yes, but answered to whom? We know there's some kind of internal struggle within the Legion leadership now. We have no idea, even if it was the Host, which ones were involved. We don't know if we have the power to stand up against 'em yet. Asgard is safe, but my Queen, strong as she is, can't defend he whole earth by herself."
"You have had no problems in your last few encounters with the mighty Legion."
"That's what I've been trying to tell ye, Shiva! What Raziel has been trying to tell ye, if ye'd just listen to her. This ain't the Legion! This is a few bodyguards Michael has kept in this corner of the universe to keep a watch. As best we know, the Legion proper is out pluggin ' holes in the universe. That's the last my Raziel heard about it."
"There is no gossip less worthy than the gossip of angels," Shiva said, repeating the old saw.
"But gossip is all we got. Shiva, I've got my boy trackin' it down, right now. You've never seen such as he follow a trail of magic before."
"Your boy, the musician?" Clearly, it was another name Shiva now refused to have uttered on the premises.
"Shiva, for the last time, strike now, and you'll only hurt yourself and your kingdom. And, it won't being your boy back. Think of what Ganesh would want you to do! I've been here, Shiva. I know. It's something you never recover."
"We have waited too long. We must bring the fight to them now, else we will all meet my beloved son's fate."
Skwisgaar Skwigelf had always seen the magic. He just didn't know that's what it was. Not until recently.
He saw and loved the magic of women. The maid, the matron, the crone. They were all of them aspects of the same thing. They were all manifestations of the goddess. Why didn't other men see this? It was confounding. But, he had never been able to express himself terribly well, not in words. Not even in his own Swedish. That is why he contented himself with music. The women loved him. And he drank in their magic.
Now, the traces of magical beings, this was something new. He reckoned he'd been able to see it all along, that it had been there, right in front of him, but he simply did not know, or had not been taught, what he was looking at.
Angels: they left blinding traces. Their magic was intense and all-consuming, like a nuclear blast. When he first entered Ganesh's residence, literally all he could see was the remaining radiation of Charles's magic. Probably why he had never bothered with such things at Mordhaus: even for an angel, Charles seemed to bear a particularly wild and blinding version of the magic.
But this was all right. One had only to be patient. Let one's eyes adjust, and pick up the interesting stuff that was bound to lurk in the background. How many times, how many days, had he come back here, back to Lord Ganesh's residence, waiting for what was irrelevant to finally fade into the background, waiting for it to start to make sense? It must be at least a week. Or possibly many. He was inside a splendid bubble of magic. It was like his own personal dreamtime. He had lost all sense of time, or the real world.
Lord Ganesh had possessed a rather refined style of magic. It was elegantly arrayed in each and every room, imbuing every pore of the structure. Had the place been build with magic? He wasn't entirely certain. But it was another layer to acknowledge so one could disregard it. That had taken some more days to discover. But that was fine.
Here was an odd thing: his father and everyone obviously suspected angels in the crime, but he saw very little evidence of that. Lady Raziel's presence was evident, but there was absolutely no trace of the big angels who had kidnapped Aaron. Instead, Ganesh's wardrobe held the signature of some very strange beings. They were not human, but not unlike humans. They were not the odd New World gods like Eototo. And they were not demon, though he smelled Hell upon them.
He tried to show the traces to his father; tried to describe them. Wotan listened and considered, but could not come up with a solution.
And then there was that other matter. Another trail: this one, someone he didn't think should have so much magic. Someone who had traces of Dreamtime upon him, but should not have been able to travel there. It took him many days to uncover that trail, for the magic was very subtle compared to the other beings.
But then he felt troubled. Here was the important thing: Skwisgaar had now gotten a feel not just for magic forms, but for the latency. He could feel how long ago a trace had been laid down.
This odd trace? It dated from, more or less, the time Lord Gaesh was murdered.
Sometimes, it was good to be him. It was good to be Charles Foster Ofdensen.
He had flown back to his home, in the shape of a half mad angel, and demanded his underlings take care of the dead body of a god. And they shut up and fucking did as they were told, creating a quiet graveyard in an isolated area or Mordland.
And then he donned a grey suit.
And returned to work.
His hair did not return to its Court Form brown, but he found he didn't much care.
Neither did his eyes. So he ordered a pair of tinted eyeglasses, and told people the sunlight hurt his eyes. Which was true.
This state of affairs appeared to offend Pickles, who showed up one day, unannounced, in his office. Pickles was everything, every emotion, and bright red hair. He was motion and color, and it would have been excruciating to watch, if Charles had let himself feel that emotion any longer.
"Dood, it's no good, goin’ around like dis," the drummer fretted, throwing a mad hand to gesture at his hair.
"People go grey."
"People's eyes do not go fuckin' silver!"
"Then it's fortunate no one I work with gives shit about the color of my eyes."
The next time Pickles tried the office door, it was locked.
Nathan Explosion had never seen such a sight.
And, as a rock star who now hung out with gods and angels, Nathan had seen many things.
He had decided to spend a little of this day at his fucking awesome volcano (currently under construction). Everyone in the 'Haus was sad, since they'd all heard the news. And Nathan was very sad too. Ganesh was a cool guy. He had long hair and shit. And Charles had been acting sort of almost not like a total douche bag. For a while. It was just all bad and sucky and stuff.
So he went out to his fucking volcano, to just let the whole purple mountain majesty deal soak in.
Plus, he was doing a favor for a friend. He was checking out a goddess.
Pele was to begin brewing her special magma soon, so had her team moving equipment. And Nathan had never seen anything quite like this. Maybe, a Chippendales clown car? But no, he hated fucking clowns.
The equipment itself would have made a happy home in a mad scientist's kitchen. There were pots and pans and cauldrons and flasks and casks and barrels and kettles and several pieces Nathan didn't even know how to name. And each and every piece was carried down by one of Pele's staff, who were all tattoo-bedecked half-naked men, who all looked like they had just jumped off the treadmill at Gold's Gym to grab a kettle and descend into a volcano.
"Hey, handsome! You lost? Can I maybe help you find somethin'?". The warm, smokey voice definitely belonged to a goddess. She stood grinning at Nahtan, and he was stunned to note she was nearly as tall as he. Well, figure a volcano goddess would be big as a mountain, hey?
Nathan set his Pokemon Pinball to pause and tried to look suave. But, he would not attempt a seduction, for Surtr was a dude, and this was a matter of honor. Unless...
"Yeah, I think I'm looking for something,". Nathan rumbled. "You gotta sister?"
"Honey," said Pele, "I got seven sisters."
Whoa. Cool.
Skwisgaar walked the corridors of Mordhaus.
He carried his ever-present Gibson, and distractedly fingered some chords.
But for once, he wasn't really paying attention to his guitar practice.
He walked outside a certain room, pretending to be lost in thought, pretending to be distracted by the chords.
The footprints. Yes.
He decided to knock on the door.
"Hey, Pickle. You ams insides?" No answer. Skwisgaar looked carefully up and down the corridor, and then slipped inside.
He stood quietly for a few excruciating moments, expecting to be found out. He nervously fingered his guitar, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It seemed Charles didn't visit here very often. That was surprising, but good. That made for less distraction.
But there were traces of another being - another very powerful being. It seemed familiar. That was strange. It couldn't be. He must have been misremembering. He had only seen the Hopi boy's traces at the hospital, hadn't really followed them, as they were tracking Eototo. Still...
And then he let those traces too fall into the background, and started to sense Pickles' trail. Here it was strange as well. Footsteps that started and then disappeared. And more pathways that seemed to appear from nowhere.
Still, he reflected, he needed another piece of this. He needed somebody to help him into the Dreamtime.
He carefully slipped out of the room. He didn't quit walking until he reached his own room. He pulled out his cell phone.
Sariel the angel had been enchanted with human movies long before he walked the earth as Charles Ofdensen: from the moment he set his eyes on the first silent film.
It wasn’t so much the fact of the film, or the clumsy, stilted actors, or the ridiculously over-dramatic scenes. He was fascinated by the flickering black and white imagery. It was astounding that an entire world could be boiled down to light and shadow.
His world was like that now. Not so much stripped down to black and white, though. It was more as if they were using one of those filters that were so fashionable in modern film: the kind that hued everything a different shade of dark blue. His world consisted of a medium grey, almost like the negative zone, with a few lighter and darker patches. But really, shades of nothing. Maybe a memory of sights.
He didn't mind visiting the volcano, and the darkness there. There were many things he didn't mind. There actually wasn't much at all he did mind. Not any more. As long as the dark grey figures on the light grey balance sheet matched. It was all fine.
He departed Surtr in a very deep chamber, and slowly made his way out. Somehow, probably because he didn't really care, he lost his way.
He stumbled into a larger chamber. The heat was apparent, even from the doorway.
Pele sat, surrounded by pots, cooking her magma. She was hunched over a very large cauldron, stirring.
"Sorry," Ofdensen muttered, feeling he was intruding on something. But he stood, almost against his will, and stared.
The orange of the magma. Bright fiery orange. How long in his new dreary world had it been since a color had exploded into his range of vision. He looked over his tinted glasses to be sure it wasn't some kind of perceptual trick.
"Dat color of vengeance. Dat why you see it," Pele explained, without turning her attentions from her cauldron.
"Excuse me?" Ofdensen whispered. He hadn't told anyone about the colors. Not a soul.
Pele looked up from he cooking magma. Without her customary sunglasses, her eyes held a terrifying beauty. "I seen dat look before. You get the one. The one dat took away your beautiful one."
This conversation was clearly inappropriate. But he was transfixed by the glowing lava, unable to back away.
"We can't let dat happen. We can't let dem do dat to us," Pele mused, raising a ladle. Softly glowing lava slowly dripped out and back into the pot. Her expression was measured.
"I'm an angel. You know that."
"No. You just not know it yet. Lady Raz, she one of us, and she know it. You, you don't know it yet." She looked up from the ladle, her eyes cutting through him. "But you will. You will."
"You sure he's not around?" Lady Raziel asked. They were being careful, speaking in soft Swedish.
"He isn't around much lately," Skwisgaar told her. "I think a lot of the time he's supposed to be in his room, he's actually ... somewhere else. I don't know."
They stopped in front of Pickles's door. Skwisgaar knocked and called his name, but there was no answer. They pushed inside.
"This room always gives me the creeps," Raziel admitted.
"Aw, it's just Pickles." Skwisgaar let his eyes adjust for a bit, and then crouched down. "This is the trail I wanted to check. I think it disappears into the Dreamtime, and I can't just walk in and out the way you guys do."
"Uh, Pickles shouldn't be able to do that either," Raziel said. Skwisgaar gave her an odd look. She grabbed his upper arm. "Well, let's give this a try then." And with that, Skwisgaar found himself yanked into a dream. He stood for a bit, disoriented, and then let his eyes adjust. They were in some kind of corridor. There were a lot of doors. And, yes, here was Pickles' trail, going very clearly to one of the doors. He looked down at Raziel, who still gripped his arm. She shrugged. He grabbed the doorknob, and they stepped through.
The pace was very familiar. To both of them. Just down the hallway, quite recently, a murder had occurred.
"Pickles was able to walk to Gamesh's place?" Raziel asked.
"He was. And...." He stopped.
"And what?"
"Maybe I'm wrong. I'm really new at this fucking magic shit."
"Skwisgaar? What?"
"I think this trail is from the night of the murder."
There were two angel sentries posted just outside Shiva's Imperial city.
They had been there forever, it seemed. Or at least since the last war. The same two guys.
It was supposed to be a big secret, but there had been peace for so long, they seemed more like part of the neighborhood, really, than enemy soldiers. They would usually sit, playing chess, and they would even wave at such of Shiva's men who passed by and had gotten to know them. They may have even played an occasional match with some of the soldiers.
So, the angels didn't think much of it when a small coterie of Imperial soldiers rode up. They looked up from their chess board, and they may have even nodded their heads at guys they knew.
They may have even smiled.
Before Shiva's soldiers slit the angels' throats.
And left them dead by the side of the road.
Surtr always carried the delicious scent of barbecue. But today he was actually standing at the grill, atop the mountain that would be a volcano. Their volcano.
She had expected he would want to invite their respective crews, but he told her, no, just you and I and our lovely creation. What a sweet idea. Pele was a bit lonely, to be honest. Once her noisy crew had gotten her set up, there were many days of just her, alone, cooking, down in that dark room. But up here, atop the mountain, a nice breeze, Surtr feeding her tender bits of demon, just off the grill. A man who could cook! Damn!
He sat down with her at the table, and poured a bit more wine into her glass.
"To you, a mossssst delicate blossssssssom!" he said, raising a glass.
Pele leaned over and smiled. "You know, you kinda cute. Like my fourth husband!"
She had insisted on meeting at this place.
He had arrived in his True Form. It just made sense, as he could huddle inside his wings against the biting cold.
Raziel alit. You could not call her True Formed, exactly. It was the odd small angel Form that she had discovered, down in Hell. Wotan had implied it had something to do with earth magic. Sariel didn't understand. If she had earth magic, wouldn't she be bigger in the new Form, rather than tiny? He probably needed to talk to Wotan. But, he hadn't been in the mood for such matters. They seemed strange and remote, as if someone else, not him, had once cared about them.
Without a word, both angels stood on the edge of the mountain outcropping, gazing down on Ganesh's residence, now darkened, its owner departed.
Raziel turned to him. She bowed formally, and brought out something. A sword. She presented it to him.
Then she hopped up on a rock and crouched there, turning her head like a raven, watching him.
He took the sword and flourished it. He sighted the blade. A sword from Vulcan. It looked and felt marvelous, like an extension of his arm.
He studied the hilt. He remembered, once, long ago, he had laughingly requested her to etch a dollar sign there. But the writing was a script. He ran his fingers over the delicate markings.
"Hindi?" he asked, knowing the answer.
"Vighnesha, Vighneshvara. It's your sword. But also his."
He nodded. That was good. He stood and concentrated. A red flame erupted from the blade, then it licked to orangey, bright yellow, and finally, white hot. He saw the colors, every single one of them. Many colors of vengeance.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A war begins
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing, smoking. Just a general FYI, these next few chapters are going to be kinda dark.
Notes: This is part 2 of a 6 chapter sequence I’m calling the Volcano Arc. More notes after the jump.
Cross-posted to capslokdethklok.
I guess I owe everyone a Toki!hug after that last one, huh? Sahry. Ah, well, more angst here too.
Mythklok is a Metalocalypse AU. If you're behind and for some strange reason wanna catch up, the best place is my fic journal, tikific, where you are welcome to come poke it with a pointed stick. I've also written a general introduction in case you wanna jump in the middle of things, or have forgotten all this stuff due to Real Life.
A quick recap: Wotan and Raziel got married, which pissed of the angels and got a lot of people drunk and badly hung over. Nathan Explosion can read Raziel’s Book of Secrets and Mysteries, even though it’s written in High Angelic, which supposedly only Seraphim and New Ones and the Creator himself can speak. Construction began on Mordland’s new volcano. Oh, and somebody was killed, but I think you know that.
Somewhere far away....
The universe had a tear.
You could compare it to an open wound. The analogy would capture some of the poetry, but none of the reality. This angry sore would not heal. Instead, it was fated to extend, and grow, and fester, and finally, take the whole of the universe along with it.
The place was dying.
The Archangel Phanuel and his men stood guard. This was his duty. From ancient times. It was he who would cut off this universe, who would amputate this world from Creation before the infection could spread.
He led a goodly portion of the Legion. The sky was resplendent with flocks of angels.
Phanuel was a Grey. A true Grey: not weird and silvery like Sariel, his wings were rather a burnished, deep grey. It gave him a martial appearance. He had his wings fully unfurled at present, as he was on duty.
But he was interrupted.
"Honored Brother."
It was Raphael.
Phanuel bowed, deeply and formally. "Venerated Brother," he greeted Raphael. At one time, so many years ago, they had been equivalent in rank. But Phanuel had tuned from that path.
"You are needed."
"I am always needed. Now, more than ever," Phanuel replied.
"Back on earth."
"That is not my place. Not anymore."
"You. Your company. The need is great."
"The need is great here. If Creation is to be spared."
"Honored Brother, this request comes directly from the top."
"From Him?" Phanuel asked, knowing full well the answer.
"From Michael," Raphael corrected, much annoyed at the subtle insubordination.
Phanuel looked out across the universe and the great number of Seraphim warriors at his command.
"I cannot waste my day in debate," Raphael sniffed. "As you know, my time here is limited."
“We will finish out our campaign here," Phanuel told him. "And following that and my men will hasten to earth.”
“Thank you, Honored Brother.” Raphael bowed stiffly, and then departed.
Phanuel frowned. Long ago, he had been one of the four Cardinals. But not any more. He had left earth to his Brothers. And they could have it, for all the good it did them.
He sighted a disturbance. He moved himself to the place. His men stood, barring a small party of refugees. They huddled together, amazed and terrified at the splendid angels arrayed before them.
“Our world is collapsing,” the person who appeared to be the leader was saying. “We must leave, or be consumed.” Their eyes, full of hope, found Phanuel.
“You are of this world?” the archangel inquired.
“Yes.”
Phanuel nodded. “Then you shall not pass.”
“But… If we do not escape…”
“If you do escape, it may mean at cost of all of Creation. This we cannot risk. Carry on!” he shouted at his men. “Any who try to pass, let them not survive.”
His troops set their swords alight. The man who was the leader cried out and flung himself after Phanuel, as they inevitably did. He was efficiently cut down in seconds. It was a kindness, Phanuel thought, glancing back at the remainder of the refugees. They were standing back, desperately hugging each other, awaiting the slow, cruel death of their universe.
In the Dreamtime....
Pickles collapsed into one of the golden airship's deck chairs.
"So you didn't find them? The Heffalumps?" Aaron, beside him, worried.
"Naw, dood, I didn't," Pickles whispered. The Heffalumps - whatever they were - had already been and gone. He looked over to the boy. Pickles' eyes were still streaked with tears. What he had just seen.... He could not tell Aaron. He would never tell the boy.
Aaron sat down his bowl of ice cream. He sniffled. "They did bad things, didn't they?"
"Yeh, dood, dey did a bad t'ing." It was bad beyond words. He ruffed Aaron's hair. He had thought the boy was playing one of his tricks. Thought it was just a childish fantasy. Idiot. What an idiot.
"I'm scared."
"Dood! Yoo don't gotta be scared! I'm here. I won't let nothin' ever happen t' yoo." Never. And he meant it.
"You won't let the angels find me?"
"Never. Hey." Pickles held out his pinkie finger. "Dis is a legally bindin' contract in 57 countries! Lady Raz tol' me!"
Aaron hooked pinkies with Pickles. "I'll keep yoo safe. Ferever."
Back on earth....
Lord Wotan stood, awaiting his son.
Lady Raziel was suddenly there, appearing, her hand entwined with that of Skwisgaar.
It was good, the god reflected, that they were getting on. That they were trying, at least. That was good.
He seized Skwisgaar by both shoulders. “Son. I need you to go over this residence. The entire thing. Anything, everything you see, let me know, even if you think it is no matter. Go over it twice, three times. This is important. This is so very important.”
Skwisgaar nodded. He fixed his look to one of determination. And then he turned and strode into Lord Ganesh’s former residence. Queen Raziel stood with the king and watched him walk.
“Did you see him there?” Wotan asked her quietly.
She shook her head. “No. No. But we will see him.” She looked up to the king. “Where is Lord Shiva?”
“Shiva and Parvati both await at Shiva’s palace. I told them I would be there soon. As soon as I had something to report.”
Raziel nodded. And waited. She didn't have to wait long.
He was there, and immediately found himself encircled by her powerful grasp.
"Let me see him, Raziel." His voice was ragged.
"It's not him. It's not him."
"Let me go."
"Please. Don't do this to yourself" Her heels had dug into the tile work in front of Lord Ganesh's residence. But Sariel had pushed her now a good five or six feet, and the graceful tiles were now cracked beneath her, leaving two trails under her feet.
"Let me go, Raziel," he whispered, all intent.
"Don't," was all she had left to say, her arms tightening.
He True Formed, and was torn away from her in a breath, disappearing into the residence in a blur of silver feathers. Wotan thought he espied Sariel rushing out the other side, escaping through a door, a window, or bursting through a wall, who knew.
"I think I know.... I think I know where he went," Raziel quietly told her husband. "I'll get him." Wotan gripped her shoulder.
Lord Ganesh's estate lay in the shadow of a Himalayan peak.
He was very easy to spot, a silvery angel sitting on an outcropping, wings extended and twitching. The rest of his body was quite still. He held across his lap the body of Lord Ganesh, and he was quiet over it, only swaying very slowly, as would a mother holding a child for comfort.
His silvery eyes were closed, and he did not turn, so he could not have seen the dark-winged angel alight on a rock just above and behind him. Rather, he felt the draft from her wings, and heard the soft beat of them.
She crouched and remained silent, studying him with her dark eyes.
At length, he said, "I am going to take him home with me. To.... To my home. I don't care what his family says..... I don't care."
She ruffled her wings. "I don't know their traditions. What is proper. I will find out from my husband."
They were silent for a moment. He put his hand to the middle of Ganesh's chest, where so recently, a heart had beaten.
"What will we do?" he said at last.
"What we always do. We will have our vengeance."
"I don't-" he stammered.
"He is at peace. We have a duty. Remember this."
Finally, he opened his odd silvery eyes, and looked over his shoulder, back into her very dark eyes. They shared a glance that was beyond human understanding.
"Go," said the angel Raziel, "and attend to him. I shall to Lord Wotan."
“It was the angels.”
Lord Shiva stood with his back turned to Wotan, two sets of arms crossed, all controlled fury. Lady Parvati, eyes deep and dark, attempted to place a gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder, but he shook from her grasp.
“My dear friend, we don’t know that," Wotan said gently.
“You know this is true!” Shiva told him.
"I suspect this is true, Shiva. But suspicion is not evidence. It's not conclusive."
"I cannot wait! My son's spirit will not rest! Thanks to your sentimentality, I do not even have a body to burn!"
"Shiva, Sariel was...."
"Do not repeat that angel's name ever again in my house! I have done everything in my power to prevent my son from interacting with his poisonous influence! I have threatened, persuaded, appealed to his sense of duty...."
"He has been prevented now, husband," Parvati sighed. "Your work has been done for you.". She slumped down into a chair. Shiva turned, and went to stand beside her.
"This must be answered," Shiva vowed.
"Yes, but answered to whom? We know there's some kind of internal struggle within the Legion leadership now. We have no idea, even if it was the Host, which ones were involved. We don't know if we have the power to stand up against 'em yet. Asgard is safe, but my Queen, strong as she is, can't defend he whole earth by herself."
"You have had no problems in your last few encounters with the mighty Legion."
"That's what I've been trying to tell ye, Shiva! What Raziel has been trying to tell ye, if ye'd just listen to her. This ain't the Legion! This is a few bodyguards Michael has kept in this corner of the universe to keep a watch. As best we know, the Legion proper is out pluggin ' holes in the universe. That's the last my Raziel heard about it."
"There is no gossip less worthy than the gossip of angels," Shiva said, repeating the old saw.
"But gossip is all we got. Shiva, I've got my boy trackin' it down, right now. You've never seen such as he follow a trail of magic before."
"Your boy, the musician?" Clearly, it was another name Shiva now refused to have uttered on the premises.
"Shiva, for the last time, strike now, and you'll only hurt yourself and your kingdom. And, it won't being your boy back. Think of what Ganesh would want you to do! I've been here, Shiva. I know. It's something you never recover."
"We have waited too long. We must bring the fight to them now, else we will all meet my beloved son's fate."
Skwisgaar Skwigelf had always seen the magic. He just didn't know that's what it was. Not until recently.
He saw and loved the magic of women. The maid, the matron, the crone. They were all of them aspects of the same thing. They were all manifestations of the goddess. Why didn't other men see this? It was confounding. But, he had never been able to express himself terribly well, not in words. Not even in his own Swedish. That is why he contented himself with music. The women loved him. And he drank in their magic.
Now, the traces of magical beings, this was something new. He reckoned he'd been able to see it all along, that it had been there, right in front of him, but he simply did not know, or had not been taught, what he was looking at.
Angels: they left blinding traces. Their magic was intense and all-consuming, like a nuclear blast. When he first entered Ganesh's residence, literally all he could see was the remaining radiation of Charles's magic. Probably why he had never bothered with such things at Mordhaus: even for an angel, Charles seemed to bear a particularly wild and blinding version of the magic.
But this was all right. One had only to be patient. Let one's eyes adjust, and pick up the interesting stuff that was bound to lurk in the background. How many times, how many days, had he come back here, back to Lord Ganesh's residence, waiting for what was irrelevant to finally fade into the background, waiting for it to start to make sense? It must be at least a week. Or possibly many. He was inside a splendid bubble of magic. It was like his own personal dreamtime. He had lost all sense of time, or the real world.
Lord Ganesh had possessed a rather refined style of magic. It was elegantly arrayed in each and every room, imbuing every pore of the structure. Had the place been build with magic? He wasn't entirely certain. But it was another layer to acknowledge so one could disregard it. That had taken some more days to discover. But that was fine.
Here was an odd thing: his father and everyone obviously suspected angels in the crime, but he saw very little evidence of that. Lady Raziel's presence was evident, but there was absolutely no trace of the big angels who had kidnapped Aaron. Instead, Ganesh's wardrobe held the signature of some very strange beings. They were not human, but not unlike humans. They were not the odd New World gods like Eototo. And they were not demon, though he smelled Hell upon them.
He tried to show the traces to his father; tried to describe them. Wotan listened and considered, but could not come up with a solution.
And then there was that other matter. Another trail: this one, someone he didn't think should have so much magic. Someone who had traces of Dreamtime upon him, but should not have been able to travel there. It took him many days to uncover that trail, for the magic was very subtle compared to the other beings.
But then he felt troubled. Here was the important thing: Skwisgaar had now gotten a feel not just for magic forms, but for the latency. He could feel how long ago a trace had been laid down.
This odd trace? It dated from, more or less, the time Lord Gaesh was murdered.
Sometimes, it was good to be him. It was good to be Charles Foster Ofdensen.
He had flown back to his home, in the shape of a half mad angel, and demanded his underlings take care of the dead body of a god. And they shut up and fucking did as they were told, creating a quiet graveyard in an isolated area or Mordland.
And then he donned a grey suit.
And returned to work.
His hair did not return to its Court Form brown, but he found he didn't much care.
Neither did his eyes. So he ordered a pair of tinted eyeglasses, and told people the sunlight hurt his eyes. Which was true.
This state of affairs appeared to offend Pickles, who showed up one day, unannounced, in his office. Pickles was everything, every emotion, and bright red hair. He was motion and color, and it would have been excruciating to watch, if Charles had let himself feel that emotion any longer.
"Dood, it's no good, goin’ around like dis," the drummer fretted, throwing a mad hand to gesture at his hair.
"People go grey."
"People's eyes do not go fuckin' silver!"
"Then it's fortunate no one I work with gives shit about the color of my eyes."
The next time Pickles tried the office door, it was locked.
Nathan Explosion had never seen such a sight.
And, as a rock star who now hung out with gods and angels, Nathan had seen many things.
He had decided to spend a little of this day at his fucking awesome volcano (currently under construction). Everyone in the 'Haus was sad, since they'd all heard the news. And Nathan was very sad too. Ganesh was a cool guy. He had long hair and shit. And Charles had been acting sort of almost not like a total douche bag. For a while. It was just all bad and sucky and stuff.
So he went out to his fucking volcano, to just let the whole purple mountain majesty deal soak in.
Plus, he was doing a favor for a friend. He was checking out a goddess.
Pele was to begin brewing her special magma soon, so had her team moving equipment. And Nathan had never seen anything quite like this. Maybe, a Chippendales clown car? But no, he hated fucking clowns.
The equipment itself would have made a happy home in a mad scientist's kitchen. There were pots and pans and cauldrons and flasks and casks and barrels and kettles and several pieces Nathan didn't even know how to name. And each and every piece was carried down by one of Pele's staff, who were all tattoo-bedecked half-naked men, who all looked like they had just jumped off the treadmill at Gold's Gym to grab a kettle and descend into a volcano.
"Hey, handsome! You lost? Can I maybe help you find somethin'?". The warm, smokey voice definitely belonged to a goddess. She stood grinning at Nahtan, and he was stunned to note she was nearly as tall as he. Well, figure a volcano goddess would be big as a mountain, hey?
Nathan set his Pokemon Pinball to pause and tried to look suave. But, he would not attempt a seduction, for Surtr was a dude, and this was a matter of honor. Unless...
"Yeah, I think I'm looking for something,". Nathan rumbled. "You gotta sister?"
"Honey," said Pele, "I got seven sisters."
Whoa. Cool.
Skwisgaar walked the corridors of Mordhaus.
He carried his ever-present Gibson, and distractedly fingered some chords.
But for once, he wasn't really paying attention to his guitar practice.
He walked outside a certain room, pretending to be lost in thought, pretending to be distracted by the chords.
The footprints. Yes.
He decided to knock on the door.
"Hey, Pickle. You ams insides?" No answer. Skwisgaar looked carefully up and down the corridor, and then slipped inside.
He stood quietly for a few excruciating moments, expecting to be found out. He nervously fingered his guitar, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It seemed Charles didn't visit here very often. That was surprising, but good. That made for less distraction.
But there were traces of another being - another very powerful being. It seemed familiar. That was strange. It couldn't be. He must have been misremembering. He had only seen the Hopi boy's traces at the hospital, hadn't really followed them, as they were tracking Eototo. Still...
And then he let those traces too fall into the background, and started to sense Pickles' trail. Here it was strange as well. Footsteps that started and then disappeared. And more pathways that seemed to appear from nowhere.
Still, he reflected, he needed another piece of this. He needed somebody to help him into the Dreamtime.
He carefully slipped out of the room. He didn't quit walking until he reached his own room. He pulled out his cell phone.
Sariel the angel had been enchanted with human movies long before he walked the earth as Charles Ofdensen: from the moment he set his eyes on the first silent film.
It wasn’t so much the fact of the film, or the clumsy, stilted actors, or the ridiculously over-dramatic scenes. He was fascinated by the flickering black and white imagery. It was astounding that an entire world could be boiled down to light and shadow.
His world was like that now. Not so much stripped down to black and white, though. It was more as if they were using one of those filters that were so fashionable in modern film: the kind that hued everything a different shade of dark blue. His world consisted of a medium grey, almost like the negative zone, with a few lighter and darker patches. But really, shades of nothing. Maybe a memory of sights.
He didn't mind visiting the volcano, and the darkness there. There were many things he didn't mind. There actually wasn't much at all he did mind. Not any more. As long as the dark grey figures on the light grey balance sheet matched. It was all fine.
He departed Surtr in a very deep chamber, and slowly made his way out. Somehow, probably because he didn't really care, he lost his way.
He stumbled into a larger chamber. The heat was apparent, even from the doorway.
Pele sat, surrounded by pots, cooking her magma. She was hunched over a very large cauldron, stirring.
"Sorry," Ofdensen muttered, feeling he was intruding on something. But he stood, almost against his will, and stared.
The orange of the magma. Bright fiery orange. How long in his new dreary world had it been since a color had exploded into his range of vision. He looked over his tinted glasses to be sure it wasn't some kind of perceptual trick.
"Dat color of vengeance. Dat why you see it," Pele explained, without turning her attentions from her cauldron.
"Excuse me?" Ofdensen whispered. He hadn't told anyone about the colors. Not a soul.
Pele looked up from he cooking magma. Without her customary sunglasses, her eyes held a terrifying beauty. "I seen dat look before. You get the one. The one dat took away your beautiful one."
This conversation was clearly inappropriate. But he was transfixed by the glowing lava, unable to back away.
"We can't let dat happen. We can't let dem do dat to us," Pele mused, raising a ladle. Softly glowing lava slowly dripped out and back into the pot. Her expression was measured.
"I'm an angel. You know that."
"No. You just not know it yet. Lady Raz, she one of us, and she know it. You, you don't know it yet." She looked up from the ladle, her eyes cutting through him. "But you will. You will."
"You sure he's not around?" Lady Raziel asked. They were being careful, speaking in soft Swedish.
"He isn't around much lately," Skwisgaar told her. "I think a lot of the time he's supposed to be in his room, he's actually ... somewhere else. I don't know."
They stopped in front of Pickles's door. Skwisgaar knocked and called his name, but there was no answer. They pushed inside.
"This room always gives me the creeps," Raziel admitted.
"Aw, it's just Pickles." Skwisgaar let his eyes adjust for a bit, and then crouched down. "This is the trail I wanted to check. I think it disappears into the Dreamtime, and I can't just walk in and out the way you guys do."
"Uh, Pickles shouldn't be able to do that either," Raziel said. Skwisgaar gave her an odd look. She grabbed his upper arm. "Well, let's give this a try then." And with that, Skwisgaar found himself yanked into a dream. He stood for a bit, disoriented, and then let his eyes adjust. They were in some kind of corridor. There were a lot of doors. And, yes, here was Pickles' trail, going very clearly to one of the doors. He looked down at Raziel, who still gripped his arm. She shrugged. He grabbed the doorknob, and they stepped through.
The pace was very familiar. To both of them. Just down the hallway, quite recently, a murder had occurred.
"Pickles was able to walk to Gamesh's place?" Raziel asked.
"He was. And...." He stopped.
"And what?"
"Maybe I'm wrong. I'm really new at this fucking magic shit."
"Skwisgaar? What?"
"I think this trail is from the night of the murder."
There were two angel sentries posted just outside Shiva's Imperial city.
They had been there forever, it seemed. Or at least since the last war. The same two guys.
It was supposed to be a big secret, but there had been peace for so long, they seemed more like part of the neighborhood, really, than enemy soldiers. They would usually sit, playing chess, and they would even wave at such of Shiva's men who passed by and had gotten to know them. They may have even played an occasional match with some of the soldiers.
So, the angels didn't think much of it when a small coterie of Imperial soldiers rode up. They looked up from their chess board, and they may have even nodded their heads at guys they knew.
They may have even smiled.
Before Shiva's soldiers slit the angels' throats.
And left them dead by the side of the road.
Surtr always carried the delicious scent of barbecue. But today he was actually standing at the grill, atop the mountain that would be a volcano. Their volcano.
She had expected he would want to invite their respective crews, but he told her, no, just you and I and our lovely creation. What a sweet idea. Pele was a bit lonely, to be honest. Once her noisy crew had gotten her set up, there were many days of just her, alone, cooking, down in that dark room. But up here, atop the mountain, a nice breeze, Surtr feeding her tender bits of demon, just off the grill. A man who could cook! Damn!
He sat down with her at the table, and poured a bit more wine into her glass.
"To you, a mossssst delicate blossssssssom!" he said, raising a glass.
Pele leaned over and smiled. "You know, you kinda cute. Like my fourth husband!"
She had insisted on meeting at this place.
He had arrived in his True Form. It just made sense, as he could huddle inside his wings against the biting cold.
Raziel alit. You could not call her True Formed, exactly. It was the odd small angel Form that she had discovered, down in Hell. Wotan had implied it had something to do with earth magic. Sariel didn't understand. If she had earth magic, wouldn't she be bigger in the new Form, rather than tiny? He probably needed to talk to Wotan. But, he hadn't been in the mood for such matters. They seemed strange and remote, as if someone else, not him, had once cared about them.
Without a word, both angels stood on the edge of the mountain outcropping, gazing down on Ganesh's residence, now darkened, its owner departed.
Raziel turned to him. She bowed formally, and brought out something. A sword. She presented it to him.
Then she hopped up on a rock and crouched there, turning her head like a raven, watching him.
He took the sword and flourished it. He sighted the blade. A sword from Vulcan. It looked and felt marvelous, like an extension of his arm.
He studied the hilt. He remembered, once, long ago, he had laughingly requested her to etch a dollar sign there. But the writing was a script. He ran his fingers over the delicate markings.
"Hindi?" he asked, knowing the answer.
"Vighnesha, Vighneshvara. It's your sword. But also his."
He nodded. That was good. He stood and concentrated. A red flame erupted from the blade, then it licked to orangey, bright yellow, and finally, white hot. He saw the colors, every single one of them. Many colors of vengeance.