Halcyon's Wake: Faith
Chapter 21

Forgotten Promises

Director Salek entered Luna Base’s vast Operations Center, a purposeful gait mirroring the determined look on his oddly disproportionate face. Conviction colored his oversized turquoise eyes, emotion only partially veiled by one who existed within and beyond a realm of time full humans simply could not comprehend. Frustration was an odd emotion rarely encountered by the placid director, but tendrils of it feathered his subconscious with a disconcerting tickle. Humanity’s touch still thrummed strongly through his being, subtly tempering his convictions in spite of his expanded awareness.

The Sage-Maiden Angelicas had given him the names of the other Drakos on the Moon, and a kaleidoscope of possible outcomes streaked through his mind’s eye. If he issued a certain command, then a pattern of events would unfold. Utter another and the wheels of fate would slip into another gear entirely, with even more possibilities spiraling out madly on infinite strings. Discerning all the possible outcomes had been the hallmark of his existence, shaping and following one of many paths shaped by the Creator. He had no other choice but to tread lightly, and carry a big, cosmic stick.

Sending the advance party of Tunaki had been a rather decisive slash with that staff of possibility, and the weave of time reflected it back to him in glaring, angry tones. Warnings from the source he’d not encountered before. A brazen deviation from the path his human side wanted to back ferociously - but nevertheless a detour from what could be. There were filaments and threads shaping the possibilities that remained well beyond his scope of influence; all he could really do was sculpt as much possibility from within his own sphere - and hope for better lines of communication with those back on earth. The sky-skin continued to thwart all of the vast technological resources at his disposal, but he was not without some means of action.

The roulette wheel of possibility in his mind momentarily stopped turning, indicating a flashpoint of choice now open to his persuasion, but the possible pathways to achieve success were diminishing exponentially — and none of the paths were without immense suffering, bloodshed and loss; but none as dire if he failed to attempt anything at all - beginning now.

He spoke, weeping inwardly at a choice among none, but nevertheless must be taken if anything were to ever be right again. Deception spewed forth from his mouth as easy as if he’d been speaking it forever, but nothing could be further from the truth.

For the first and only time in an existence that defied time, Salek lied to those he was charged with protecting - defying his creator, his own sense of justice and all that was right - and the universe became a slightly darker space.

***************************

I’d been immobilized for what I guessed to be about eight hours before the world once again shifted back into motion... at least I think it was eight hours, time is hard to judge when you go from panic to freak to calm in an ongoing, vicious cycle - all while being simmered in a crockpot of demonic bouillabaisse.

I hated the immobility - always had - a cousin had tied me up in a big quilt when I was five, only time in memory I recalled being truly terrified -not at ease until Dad untied the knots and knocked cousin Brad upside the head. But Brad hadn’t plunged me into a hateful darkness - just fear.

The time shackled in Abaddon’s grip was the first time in days I’d been able to think - even amidst the maelstrom of putrid influence; I guess I owed the dark bastard a favor for that small grace. Things had started to click - in spite of the blackness, giving me the impression I might finally have a grip on what I needed to do. Tenuous, at best - but it was something.

Hiro slid ungracefully in the now fully congealed pool of Kilkenor and human blood at my knees, a stunned expression on his wizened face as he slammed into my chest, the remnants of my breakfast coating him, while the din of reality moving back into motion roared into my ears.

“What the hell?” he stammered, looking around quickly to try and spot where Beth had vanished off to, or who had blown chunks all over him.

I caught him, then began to roll stiffened neck and back muscles that felt as though I’d been lifting weights for days without rest. I flexed my jaw muscles and began hopping — just because I could.

“Abaddon’s got her, Hiro - and the bastard is long gone.” Hiro looked at me like I’d lost my last marble, and when I tried to explain what had happened, the questioning look only grew more skeptical. The lingering touch of evil probably didn’t help my case, but Hiro seemed as non-plussed as could be expected.

“I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, his stoic face a deadpan calm. “You roll out for a talking storm and now there’s Wookies riding white stallions on the front porch - kicking the shit out of monsters Wes Craven couldn’t dream up… an evil deity popping in to say ‘howdy’ and stopping time seems to fit rather nicely into this acid-trip gone waaaaay bad… you reckon we can track the sum’ bitch?”

Jacob trotted over to where Hiro and I were huddled and Hiro eyed the big Cytheran with a disbelieving gaze. “Now I know I’m tripping hard - Professor Watkins? Ain’t no way in hell…”

Jacob looked at Hiro for a long moment then clarity dawned on his face, and a bit of alarm? - and he extended a blood-caked hand to the wiry Texan. “Nice to see you with your eyes open for a change, Mr. Masamune - it’s been awhile, but I haven’t been called ‘Professor’ in a very long time - ‘Jacob’ will be sufficient, sir.” Hiro remained silently perplexed and limply shook the proffered hand with his mouth agape while Jacob focused his attention back to me.

“I saw the one you called Beth taken, along with three other young females; the remaining living Kilkenor in the cave have also gone - no doubt by some dark means Abaddon wields - but the dead remain and we can harvest their bloodstones and see what the Sage Maiden may garner before...”

“...Not all of them are gone,” I interrupted, running for the cave entrance, the others quickly following.

It was invigorating to get out from the confined space of the cave. I breathed in several welcome gasps of freer air, visibly shaking free from the taint of Abaddon’s touch, then let my gaze fall upon a series of darker shadows my senses had been drawn to - although I wasn’t exactly sure about what or how my senses were being guided.

This didn’t feel like Amalek’s or Abaddon’s touch, nor did it have the invasive feeling of ‘otherness’ about it; it seemed somehow inherent to me - perhaps my body awaking to the further changes Jacob had briefly alluded to. Could my dance with darkness have brought about some sort of transition?

There were whispers and tendrils of variegated “thingies” in my field of vision, and they didn’t seem to fade when I closed my eyes - sort of like the afterimage a rather brilliant flashbulb might leave behind, but fixed in intensity with every shadow and hue captured in crisp relief, along with something my regular eyes told me shouldn’t be there, but my liland-affected eyes seemed to soak up greedily, like welcome shade in July.

The humans, Cytheran’s and Tunaki surrounding me emitted varying levels of a muted light from the center of their foreheads that pulsed in time with their respective heartbeats. Each glow seemed to emit the signature of its bearer, a unique emission like a fingerprint or snowflake, with hue and intensity subtly delineating one from the other. The Tunaki pulsed in shades of red, the Cytheran an almost canary yellow, and the humans looked more like prism light.

I could seemingly adjust how much of this light I saw with simple concentration, but the dark void being projected from the six Kilkenor took all of my immediate attention. Brizzock, Curtz and Taka were standing in front of a massive Kilkenor, looking like linebackers waiting for a running back to bust through the line, Mouse pacing like a midget alley cat behind them, covered from head to toe in sticky blue - and all their clear blades dripping with the pungent Kilkenor blood; feral grins splayed across confident faces as they bounced lithely on ginger feet - even Mouse.

I could sense what the Kilkenor, Tunaki and Mouse were going to do three heart-beats before they did it — my confinement had brought that realization to life when I thought back to slaying the six Kilkenor before I met Abaddon — I knew what they were going to do before they did. Otherwise I would have been a smashed hamburger patty on the side of Thunder Mountain.

As one, Brizzock and Curtz leapt into the air to the right and left of the beast with an agility defying their stature, their blades a blur cleanly severing both arms off the surprised fiend, while at the same time Taka leapt straight up in the air, scissor-kicking his tree-trunk legs and bellowing a guttural roar that rang deep in my chest, Mouse shooting straight forward beneath him, deftly shoving his new blade straight up beneath the Kilkenor’s sternum all the way to the hilt, while Taka sliced it’s head off cleanly. Ballerina’s didn’t have as much grace as that unlikely quartet did - you’d think they’d been hunting Kilkenor together for years.

The remaining five beasts fell under a fusillade of other Tunaki blades, their black essences slipping into the dust like enchanted mist, and I let my gaze drift off to the south towards more pressing concerns. Abaddon had Beth - and what I guessed to be Smokey’s granddaughters - and I shuddered at what he could and would do to them - I’d only glimpsed his evil, and it had driven me close to madness. I stabbed my blade into the skull of the dead kilkenor at my feet and heard a gratifying sizzle as it boiled away to nothing - a violet hue emanating from the blade as it banished black tendrils into sulfury vapor. Part of me craved to hear that hiss again and again, and I knew I would somehow get more than I could possibly handle.

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