Wyland stumbled through the wet grass. The fresh air was a godsend after the stifling stench of the trailer. It was a good quarter mile to the main road, and Wyland's legs didn't feel right. Neither did his brain, for that matter. The events of the day were already blurring, obeying the Professors command to forget. And Wyland didn't quite understand what had possessed him to attempt to bite the "Eternal Death Bird", Alva. He must be going crazy. A wet, gurgling whisper in his head seemed to approve of the thought.
At a distance, he watched Oliver Cunninghill's death, but it didn't register what just happened. He watched Ollie disappear under the truck, and then watched the driver of the rig get out, and even this far away, Wyland could hear the noise from the driver that sounded like, well, like what? He didn't know. Disgust mixed with fear mixed with disappointment, maybe. A retched, howling "aaaugh!" emanated from the driver as he realized he had killed a man.
Wyland ignored most of this, and wandered drunkenly towards the car parked in the distance. They knew what was going on here. His muddy brain knew that. He wanted to talk to them.
After 10 minutes of walking he was finally approaching the parked car. The rig driver appeared oblivious to both Wyland and the car parked a half mile up the road. The parked car didn't appear to see Wyland, either. He had a feeling (why? He didn't know) that the inhabitants of the car would not be thrilled to see him.
There were now whispers in his left ear. Dull, angry whispers. They told him he would fail. They scolded him for walking. They told him to just lay down and die in the cool, wet peat of the fenn.
But then, behind him, he heard noises. Sirens. He turned around to see a long line of emergency vehicles coming up the road from the same direction the Rig had. A long string of shining lights in the wet darkness, flashing oranges, reds, yellows and blues. He muttered something to himself that even his own ears couldn't discern, but the emotion was one of dismissal. Where were they 20 minutes ago? Assholes. That's what he must have said.
He turned back around, refocusing on his goal, only to see the car, with it's lights still off, already turned around and driving up the road, away from all the action.
Dammit. There went his hopes. Again. Driving off in a warm car while he sat out in the cold rain. It was a sad but familiar feeling. The voices in his brain mocked him; called him a "loser".
It was cold, wasn't it? He shivered. It was wet. He wiped the rain from his brow. Where the hell am I? He thought. What the hell just happened? He pondered. He couldn't remember, exactly. He remembered a goat, and the bird. He would never forget the goddamned Eternal Death Bird. And the goat. Why a goat? He didn't know the ridiculous name of the goat, Gillard the Gallant Goat, but maybe the goat was the answer. He turned around, now close enough to the road that he just got on it and started walking.
As he was walking, two police cars drove up to him, lights still flashing. Their bright spotlights oriented on him, blinding him in the dark, moonless, starless night. They pulled to a screeching stop, and out of each car popped a second set of flashlights, and behind them, the dim outline of two cops.
"Please stay where y'are, sir. Please keep your mouth shut and your hands up! DO NOT MOVE! DO NOT SPEAK!" called the cop on the right, and Wyland could dimly see a gun in his right hand.
Wyland hazily thought that this was a bad idea, but he didn't know why. The voices were telling him to run. He felt like the car with its lights off, now surely several miles up the road, was who they wanted to talk to, not him. Still, he put his hands in the air, and opened his mouth to say OK as he took another step forward.
He saw a bright flash from the officer's gun, and felt a deep THUD in his chest, almost simultaneously. He then heard the report of the gun. "I was going to say OK", he said, frowning and coughing. He looked down. He didn't see any blood, but the pain was excruciating, and Wyland Blake fell face down in the soft wet gravel.
The two cops walked over to Wyland, one breathing a sigh of relief. They turned him over, blood now showing over his left breast. A small hole there whistled as Wyland breathed slowly. The cop who shot him pulled his wallet out, flipped it open and studied it, the other cop leaning over his shoulder to see. The second one leaned into her radio and said "Up the road. Bring a SORT and a medic. Punctured lung from a stopper."
She looked at Wyland's ID again. She leaned back into the radio. "And Get Connie. We found her rabbit."
Friday, September 26, 2014
Friday, July 11, 2014
Ch. 29: Gillard The Gallant Goat
The goat, whose name was Gillard the Gallant, (yes, his owners had named him "Gillard the Gallant Goat") absently chewed on some hay. Gillard was the control in a somewhat scientific study today, though he didn't know it. All he really knew, at the moment, was that the whole place stunk like shit, as one of the men on the floor had shit himself.
Crom didn't know he had shit himself. Didn't realize it was his last day on earth. He had no idea he was breathing his final breaths. He had been blissfully unconscious, and consciousness was now bubbling slowly up to him, a bit at a time, hitting him first with a headache. It was the hangover type of headache, a tight, throbbing band across his forehead that told him he needed more sleep, so he kept his eyes closed and tried to sleep more.
That's when the nausea hit. Now Crom was sure he had been drinking, that the whole afternoon had past, and the sight of the Professor and three gun hands at the gates of the quarry hadn't been the terrible sight he had thought it had been.
He could feel the bruised area on his right shoulder where the Yank's taser had pulled the life out of him, buzzing relentlessly, making him shit his pants. He could feel his bruised knees where he had fallen after the taser let go, after Red had round-housed the Yank right into the dirt. He remembered laughing through the dull, buzzing pain. Laughing at how Wyland had gone limp in midair and landed with a dull thump in the dirt.
He remembered the boys dragged the Yank, now bloody faced and thoroughly unconscious, into the back of the truck, and that they made him sit back there with the fecker, since his pants still full of shit and covered in piss. Blue had told him, "Neh, you'll stank up the cab, we'll getcha feckin' shytin' ass cleaned up back at the shop."
He remembered getting to the gate. The truck slowing down and stopping long before it should have. Looking up through the dirty back window, he saw a man with a long rifle, one with a pistol, another with an assault rifle, and the Professor standing, arms crossed, looking exceptionally angry. The gate was closed behind them. He hadn't really ever seen the Professor angry, and that was a very bad sign.
He remembered jumping out of the truck, feeling the shit in his pants squish around his pants disgustingly. He remembered calling to the Professor, saying something about how "we got 'em, teh dirty cunt's in deh beck uh deh lorry!"
He remembered the man with the long rifle raise his gun, and a small puff of gas pop from the barrel, there was a small click from the gun, and he felt the tiny needle of a dart puncture his chest.
By the time all this had registered, he could feel the cold of the liquid in his chest muscle. The needle was vibrating softly, and Crom could see through the small sight glass that all the liquid in the syringe had been injected. He pulled the dart out and looked back at his brother with a stupid, surprised look on his face. Ollie was still sitting in the truck. Blue was moving slowly, pulling something from his pocket. Ollie was getting out with his hands raised, and hollered to the Professor "Now, Prof, we'n teh boys aren't gonna cause no trouble."
The Professor called back "Yes, my friends, that's right. You won't be causing me any more trouble, but please do cooperate here, I beg of you." The armed men, men Crom had never seen before, began to move forward.
Crom looked back at his brother just in time to see Blue smack him in the back of the head with a blackjack. He did it swiftly, and his expert hand drove the small leather bag full of buckshot right into the base of Ollie's neck. Ollie's head snapped back, and he went out like a light. Ol' Blue, obviously sad that he has to do this particular job to an old friend, grabbed Ollie's shirt and allowed him to drop slowly out of the truck cab and onto the ground.
He remembered feeling the first wave of the puff gun's drugs hit just then, a deep, soft thrum in his brain that spread out to the rest of his body. He was already losing control, his chest was tingling and numbing, time was slowing down, his brain was expanding to fill the void of the universe..
He remembered saying something to Blue, and stumbling towards him. "Feckin' Bl-bl-blue doggie bark fart. B-b-bite brother bad k-k-kin." He remembered laughing, his face starting to go numb, and then the next wave hit him and out he went.
...
Crom now tried to rub his chest near the right shoulder, which ached from a taser and then from a tranq dart. He found that he couldn't. His hands were bound behind him. So were his feet. And in his mouth, a cloth gag.
Shit, he though. That is what happened. We're dead. Where am I?
Crom looked around. To his left, he could see the grey and white goat, Gillard, staring at him brainlessly. The strange cross shaped eyes of Gillard looked at Crom calmly.
He took a deep breath. God, he smelled terrible.
He had to roll to his right to see what else was around, and the movement and smell made him sick. He vomited, or tried to, but the gag kept it in his mouth. The sudden acrid taste of bile made his eyes water, and he tried to swallow what had just come up, but that just set him vomiting again. To his right, he heard his brother, also gagged, say "Cmmumm!"
Ollie was trying to get his hands unbound by scraping them against a small rusty spot on the trailer. He was undulating like a worm, working feverishly now that he saw the desperation in Crom's watering eyes. He never even noticed Wyland sitting nearby.
Crom managed to choke down the vileness in his mouth, but now a new sensation was emerging, a strange sensation Crom had never felt before. His brain wasn't working right. His face was numb and tingling, but it wasn't like the knock out drug he so recently felt. One side was completely gone. He tried to move his left fingers, and they worked great, but the same movement with his right fingers yielded nothing. Less that nothing. Like they weren't even there. At first he though maybe the knock out drugs and the taser combined somehow to create this effect, but then he felt a piercing pain behind his left eye. He felt the pain thicken and it felt like his head suddenly filled up with warm fluid, which is exactly what happened. Thus a brain aneurysm gave Crom Cunninghill to the great God Alva.
Ollie and Wyland watched the whole thing happen, and watched Crom go limp and stop breathing. After a few more seconds of scraping, Ollie's hands came free. He ripped his mouth gag off and screamed "Crommy! Wake up, boyo!" Crom sat still and lifeless, smelling about as horrible as a human can smell. Blood began trickling out the sides of his eyes and ears, and Crom let loose a deafening scream, all anger and sightless rage. He tore his foot bindings off and ran to Crom, shaking him, desperately wiping the blood from his eyes, crying for him to wake up. Crom refused to respond, and Ollie sat, now crying softly, holding his dead brother's head in his hands.
Just then, in the distance, through the soft patter of rain on the trailer, and through Ollie's ragged breathing and Wyland's calm mouth breathing, came the deep Glug-rum-glug sound of a big rig downshifting on one of the long shallow hills on the road outside.
Ollie looked at Wyland with that hateful stare, wiped his tears away, stood up, and gave Wyland a good running kick to the face. Wyland moved only slowly and thickly, and Ollie's boot connected with his ear and the side of his head. Wyland gave a short yelp of pain, and his head went white for a moment. Ollie decided that would have to do, because despite all he had been taught about the Alvanic chant, he had to try and save his brother.
He ran to the door and threw open the lock bolt that held the door in place. It was unlocked. The door swung open and Wyland saw that it was now mostly dark, and that yes, they were in a horse trailer in the middle of nowhere, Scotland. The road in the distance shone with that dark, wet shine, as though it's reflecting the deep, black depths of space on the other side of the low clouds. The soft, wet grass had a grey nighttime tint to it. The clouds were glowing off in the distance, reflecting the light of some town just settling in for the night. Ollie's footfalls sounded squishy in the peaty, almost subarctic soil as they got more distant.
Wyland rolled over to the sharp bit of rust, now covered in bits of Ollie's binding ropes, and began calmly sawing through his own bindings. He really wanted to get away from the foul smelling, bleeding corpse next to him, and thought, well, he was likely to die no matter where he was, so it shouldn't be right here. Maybe a satellite or a meteor would crush him out there in the wilds of Scotland. The idea seemed somehow romantic, but part of him knew that wasn't going to happen. He had scared death away. At the though of Alva, a strange whisper came to him in his mind. Like the wind was talking to him. He shook his head, and it was gone, replaced by the thick pain of his face where Red had decked him.
Wyland got his hands free, and quickly removed his mouth gag and foot bindings. It felt good to breath freely again. His broken nose was completely stuffed, and he had an idea he didn't want to breath through it right now anyway, as he could taste the foul rank odor of shit and vomit and blood, and the air must smell even worse than it tastes.
He stepped out into the cool, wet air. In the distance, perhaps a half mile up the road, he could see the outline of a car. He had some vague notion that this was a scientific endeavor, and that there sat the scientists, calmly studying their lab rats in their final moments.
Gillard the Gallant Goat bleated at Wyland, surely asking to be set free, but Wyland ignored him.
There was indeed a semi tractor-trailer coming up the road, a full 53 footer (a 16 meter lorry, out here) heavy with gravel. Oliver was running full out to get to the road and flag him down. Ollie got to the road just as the truck was passing him. He was waving his hands frantically in the air.
It took a moment, but then the driver obviously saw him, and it must have surprised the hell out of him, because he slammed on his brakes, perhaps thinking he saw a deer or something. He was not accustomed to seeing frantic men out in the fenn.
The trucks brakes locked, and there was suddenly grey smoke illuminated by red brake lights at the rear of the trailer. The back tires were not moving, locked by the brakes, and the load of heavy gravel, always obeying the laws of physics, yet somehow coaxed into fateful movement by Oliver Cunninghills now broken Wyrd, began to swerve into the soft, wet gravel of the road's shoulder where Ollie was standing. Oliver managed to give a single growl of surprise and anger, a last act of defiance, then the four foot tall set of wheels set on two giant thousand pound axles ran him over at nearly 30 miles an hour. He was instantly crushed, sparing only his left hand and foot. All the driver saw in his side mirrors was the man's hand and foot beneath his rig's formidable tires. He never drove a rig again after that night.
In the distant car, someone tapped the "lap" function of a stopwatch, and wrote down the time of Oliver Cunninghill's unwilling sacrifice to the hungry old God of Death.
Crom didn't know he had shit himself. Didn't realize it was his last day on earth. He had no idea he was breathing his final breaths. He had been blissfully unconscious, and consciousness was now bubbling slowly up to him, a bit at a time, hitting him first with a headache. It was the hangover type of headache, a tight, throbbing band across his forehead that told him he needed more sleep, so he kept his eyes closed and tried to sleep more.
That's when the nausea hit. Now Crom was sure he had been drinking, that the whole afternoon had past, and the sight of the Professor and three gun hands at the gates of the quarry hadn't been the terrible sight he had thought it had been.
He could feel the bruised area on his right shoulder where the Yank's taser had pulled the life out of him, buzzing relentlessly, making him shit his pants. He could feel his bruised knees where he had fallen after the taser let go, after Red had round-housed the Yank right into the dirt. He remembered laughing through the dull, buzzing pain. Laughing at how Wyland had gone limp in midair and landed with a dull thump in the dirt.
He remembered the boys dragged the Yank, now bloody faced and thoroughly unconscious, into the back of the truck, and that they made him sit back there with the fecker, since his pants still full of shit and covered in piss. Blue had told him, "Neh, you'll stank up the cab, we'll getcha feckin' shytin' ass cleaned up back at the shop."
He remembered getting to the gate. The truck slowing down and stopping long before it should have. Looking up through the dirty back window, he saw a man with a long rifle, one with a pistol, another with an assault rifle, and the Professor standing, arms crossed, looking exceptionally angry. The gate was closed behind them. He hadn't really ever seen the Professor angry, and that was a very bad sign.
He remembered jumping out of the truck, feeling the shit in his pants squish around his pants disgustingly. He remembered calling to the Professor, saying something about how "we got 'em, teh dirty cunt's in deh beck uh deh lorry!"
He remembered the man with the long rifle raise his gun, and a small puff of gas pop from the barrel, there was a small click from the gun, and he felt the tiny needle of a dart puncture his chest.
By the time all this had registered, he could feel the cold of the liquid in his chest muscle. The needle was vibrating softly, and Crom could see through the small sight glass that all the liquid in the syringe had been injected. He pulled the dart out and looked back at his brother with a stupid, surprised look on his face. Ollie was still sitting in the truck. Blue was moving slowly, pulling something from his pocket. Ollie was getting out with his hands raised, and hollered to the Professor "Now, Prof, we'n teh boys aren't gonna cause no trouble."
The Professor called back "Yes, my friends, that's right. You won't be causing me any more trouble, but please do cooperate here, I beg of you." The armed men, men Crom had never seen before, began to move forward.
Crom looked back at his brother just in time to see Blue smack him in the back of the head with a blackjack. He did it swiftly, and his expert hand drove the small leather bag full of buckshot right into the base of Ollie's neck. Ollie's head snapped back, and he went out like a light. Ol' Blue, obviously sad that he has to do this particular job to an old friend, grabbed Ollie's shirt and allowed him to drop slowly out of the truck cab and onto the ground.
He remembered feeling the first wave of the puff gun's drugs hit just then, a deep, soft thrum in his brain that spread out to the rest of his body. He was already losing control, his chest was tingling and numbing, time was slowing down, his brain was expanding to fill the void of the universe..
He remembered saying something to Blue, and stumbling towards him. "Feckin' Bl-bl-blue doggie bark fart. B-b-bite brother bad k-k-kin." He remembered laughing, his face starting to go numb, and then the next wave hit him and out he went.
...
Crom now tried to rub his chest near the right shoulder, which ached from a taser and then from a tranq dart. He found that he couldn't. His hands were bound behind him. So were his feet. And in his mouth, a cloth gag.
Shit, he though. That is what happened. We're dead. Where am I?
Crom looked around. To his left, he could see the grey and white goat, Gillard, staring at him brainlessly. The strange cross shaped eyes of Gillard looked at Crom calmly.
He took a deep breath. God, he smelled terrible.
He had to roll to his right to see what else was around, and the movement and smell made him sick. He vomited, or tried to, but the gag kept it in his mouth. The sudden acrid taste of bile made his eyes water, and he tried to swallow what had just come up, but that just set him vomiting again. To his right, he heard his brother, also gagged, say "Cmmumm!"
Ollie was trying to get his hands unbound by scraping them against a small rusty spot on the trailer. He was undulating like a worm, working feverishly now that he saw the desperation in Crom's watering eyes. He never even noticed Wyland sitting nearby.
Crom managed to choke down the vileness in his mouth, but now a new sensation was emerging, a strange sensation Crom had never felt before. His brain wasn't working right. His face was numb and tingling, but it wasn't like the knock out drug he so recently felt. One side was completely gone. He tried to move his left fingers, and they worked great, but the same movement with his right fingers yielded nothing. Less that nothing. Like they weren't even there. At first he though maybe the knock out drugs and the taser combined somehow to create this effect, but then he felt a piercing pain behind his left eye. He felt the pain thicken and it felt like his head suddenly filled up with warm fluid, which is exactly what happened. Thus a brain aneurysm gave Crom Cunninghill to the great God Alva.
Ollie and Wyland watched the whole thing happen, and watched Crom go limp and stop breathing. After a few more seconds of scraping, Ollie's hands came free. He ripped his mouth gag off and screamed "Crommy! Wake up, boyo!" Crom sat still and lifeless, smelling about as horrible as a human can smell. Blood began trickling out the sides of his eyes and ears, and Crom let loose a deafening scream, all anger and sightless rage. He tore his foot bindings off and ran to Crom, shaking him, desperately wiping the blood from his eyes, crying for him to wake up. Crom refused to respond, and Ollie sat, now crying softly, holding his dead brother's head in his hands.
Just then, in the distance, through the soft patter of rain on the trailer, and through Ollie's ragged breathing and Wyland's calm mouth breathing, came the deep Glug-rum-glug sound of a big rig downshifting on one of the long shallow hills on the road outside.
Ollie looked at Wyland with that hateful stare, wiped his tears away, stood up, and gave Wyland a good running kick to the face. Wyland moved only slowly and thickly, and Ollie's boot connected with his ear and the side of his head. Wyland gave a short yelp of pain, and his head went white for a moment. Ollie decided that would have to do, because despite all he had been taught about the Alvanic chant, he had to try and save his brother.
He ran to the door and threw open the lock bolt that held the door in place. It was unlocked. The door swung open and Wyland saw that it was now mostly dark, and that yes, they were in a horse trailer in the middle of nowhere, Scotland. The road in the distance shone with that dark, wet shine, as though it's reflecting the deep, black depths of space on the other side of the low clouds. The soft, wet grass had a grey nighttime tint to it. The clouds were glowing off in the distance, reflecting the light of some town just settling in for the night. Ollie's footfalls sounded squishy in the peaty, almost subarctic soil as they got more distant.
Wyland rolled over to the sharp bit of rust, now covered in bits of Ollie's binding ropes, and began calmly sawing through his own bindings. He really wanted to get away from the foul smelling, bleeding corpse next to him, and thought, well, he was likely to die no matter where he was, so it shouldn't be right here. Maybe a satellite or a meteor would crush him out there in the wilds of Scotland. The idea seemed somehow romantic, but part of him knew that wasn't going to happen. He had scared death away. At the though of Alva, a strange whisper came to him in his mind. Like the wind was talking to him. He shook his head, and it was gone, replaced by the thick pain of his face where Red had decked him.
Wyland got his hands free, and quickly removed his mouth gag and foot bindings. It felt good to breath freely again. His broken nose was completely stuffed, and he had an idea he didn't want to breath through it right now anyway, as he could taste the foul rank odor of shit and vomit and blood, and the air must smell even worse than it tastes.
He stepped out into the cool, wet air. In the distance, perhaps a half mile up the road, he could see the outline of a car. He had some vague notion that this was a scientific endeavor, and that there sat the scientists, calmly studying their lab rats in their final moments.
Gillard the Gallant Goat bleated at Wyland, surely asking to be set free, but Wyland ignored him.
There was indeed a semi tractor-trailer coming up the road, a full 53 footer (a 16 meter lorry, out here) heavy with gravel. Oliver was running full out to get to the road and flag him down. Ollie got to the road just as the truck was passing him. He was waving his hands frantically in the air.
It took a moment, but then the driver obviously saw him, and it must have surprised the hell out of him, because he slammed on his brakes, perhaps thinking he saw a deer or something. He was not accustomed to seeing frantic men out in the fenn.
The trucks brakes locked, and there was suddenly grey smoke illuminated by red brake lights at the rear of the trailer. The back tires were not moving, locked by the brakes, and the load of heavy gravel, always obeying the laws of physics, yet somehow coaxed into fateful movement by Oliver Cunninghills now broken Wyrd, began to swerve into the soft, wet gravel of the road's shoulder where Ollie was standing. Oliver managed to give a single growl of surprise and anger, a last act of defiance, then the four foot tall set of wheels set on two giant thousand pound axles ran him over at nearly 30 miles an hour. He was instantly crushed, sparing only his left hand and foot. All the driver saw in his side mirrors was the man's hand and foot beneath his rig's formidable tires. He never drove a rig again after that night.
In the distant car, someone tapped the "lap" function of a stopwatch, and wrote down the time of Oliver Cunninghill's unwilling sacrifice to the hungry old God of Death.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Ch. 28: A reasonable failure
The trailer was now silent, save for the soft patter of cool rain on the thin roof. Wyland's blood was already warming back up after his second confrontation in a day with the God of Death. "The eternal death bird", his mind was already calling it, trying to trivialize what had just happened. It was the only way, really. He would have gone completely mad if his mind didn't rework it, mold it into something that was a normal part of everyday experience. Just a goddamned bird. Yes, an massive, ancient, immortal bird with the head of some long extinct creature and the behooved legs that the Devil wore, but still, just a goddamned bird. It even acted a bit like one, shaking and preening, with it's head moving in jerking movements.
Wyland sat against the wall in the aluminum trailer, still bound hands, feet and mouth, and Oliver and Crom Cunninghill, also bound the same way, both lay prone on the floor. Ollie was in the fetal position. Crom lay unconscious.
Ollie, now truly a marked man, sacrificed, as it were, to the God of Death, let out a painful, muffled moan, through the cloth gag in his mouth. In some way, through the blindingly terrible grinding, screeching, crunching noise, he had also heard the curse. It had been refined since he had last read it, there were new elements, and a syncopated beat and rhythm to it that flowed, sounded more like a chant and less like a student nervously reading a script. The new kid, his replacement, was damn good. The research was coming along.
There was a burning feeling in his throat, and he felt nauseous. He choked this feeling down, though, vaguely aware that to vomit right now would mean his death, as he would choke on it with a gag in his mouth. The feckin' yank still sat in the corner. At least Wyland would die too, Ollie thought to himself, but he hoped that he could help the Yankee bastard suffer a bit before he got shoved off.
Looking at the Yank, yes, he was cursed too. He was breathing heavily, his face a bright red, his eyes as wide as an American double-wide trailer. He had heard the curse. Ollie couldn't know that this failure of a man, this coward, hadn't heard the curse, and had, in fact, stood up to death itself, and scared it off.
And his brother now stirred, also letting out a painful moan. Ollie now teared up a bit, realizing that the Cunninghill name would die with them, that their father had either been circumvented, been "removed from office", or perhaps he had personally approved their deaths? He doubted his father, heartless bastard though he was, would have allowed both his sons to die. Especially not Ollie, he had always been the good son. Crom, sure, he was a loose cannon, a danger to those around him (and wasn't all this his fault, anyway?). No, the good father Elliot Cunninghill would never have allowed such a thing.
Anyway, the old man never would have expected a coup d'etat from the Professor. It would have been perfectly reasonable from the Professor's viewpoint to off the father and the kids in one go. The council would have been terribly weakened, and the Professor knew the secret now, didn't he? He no longer needed the council, the truth was now out, but the council didn't know. Probably shouldn't know; should never, ever, ever know. They could curse an entire football pitch now, thousands of people, without breaking a sweat! General Pia, the deposed dictator, would have surely used the knowledge to regain control of his country, at the expense of many, many lives. No, the council must never know. The Professor could now finance his operation without the council's help, through the simple threat of a curse lobbed from a distance.
Ollie now realized his failure. He had asked the Professor about analog vs. digital. Dammit! He should'a kept his mouth shut! He was now a liability, and the more dangerous kind. The smart ones are the dangerous ones. Crom could be controlled, his anger vented in a proper manner, with fist fights and bourbon. But Ollie, if he had figured out analog recording first, well now, the whole council, including the Professor, would have been the ones who heard the curse just now! And yes, he would have killed them all (save his father), and the Cunninghills would have been planetary emperors of a new age.
But alas, no, Ollie wasn't ambitious enough to save his family's life, he had been out drinking and fucking when he should'a been studying, building, and practicing. The professor had been the one building, planning, preparing. The Professor had won, sort of. He still didn't know any blessings, that would have sealed the deal, but this was close enough. A solid and decisive win for the Professor, for the odd brand of mystic research he practiced, and a brutal and final loss for the Cunninghills.
Ollie hoped now that the whole council was dead, regardless. If the Professor won, may it be a whole victory. May he and his have been kill't by the all-time winner, the new king and emperor of planet Earth. Then his failure would be, at least a bit, noble. A reasonable failure. Who could win against such an enemy as he who conquers all? But the Emperor would still remember their names in the dark of night, and nod quietly to the deaths of his once formidable adversaries.
Wyland sat against the wall in the aluminum trailer, still bound hands, feet and mouth, and Oliver and Crom Cunninghill, also bound the same way, both lay prone on the floor. Ollie was in the fetal position. Crom lay unconscious.
Ollie, now truly a marked man, sacrificed, as it were, to the God of Death, let out a painful, muffled moan, through the cloth gag in his mouth. In some way, through the blindingly terrible grinding, screeching, crunching noise, he had also heard the curse. It had been refined since he had last read it, there were new elements, and a syncopated beat and rhythm to it that flowed, sounded more like a chant and less like a student nervously reading a script. The new kid, his replacement, was damn good. The research was coming along.
There was a burning feeling in his throat, and he felt nauseous. He choked this feeling down, though, vaguely aware that to vomit right now would mean his death, as he would choke on it with a gag in his mouth. The feckin' yank still sat in the corner. At least Wyland would die too, Ollie thought to himself, but he hoped that he could help the Yankee bastard suffer a bit before he got shoved off.
Looking at the Yank, yes, he was cursed too. He was breathing heavily, his face a bright red, his eyes as wide as an American double-wide trailer. He had heard the curse. Ollie couldn't know that this failure of a man, this coward, hadn't heard the curse, and had, in fact, stood up to death itself, and scared it off.
And his brother now stirred, also letting out a painful moan. Ollie now teared up a bit, realizing that the Cunninghill name would die with them, that their father had either been circumvented, been "removed from office", or perhaps he had personally approved their deaths? He doubted his father, heartless bastard though he was, would have allowed both his sons to die. Especially not Ollie, he had always been the good son. Crom, sure, he was a loose cannon, a danger to those around him (and wasn't all this his fault, anyway?). No, the good father Elliot Cunninghill would never have allowed such a thing.
Anyway, the old man never would have expected a coup d'etat from the Professor. It would have been perfectly reasonable from the Professor's viewpoint to off the father and the kids in one go. The council would have been terribly weakened, and the Professor knew the secret now, didn't he? He no longer needed the council, the truth was now out, but the council didn't know. Probably shouldn't know; should never, ever, ever know. They could curse an entire football pitch now, thousands of people, without breaking a sweat! General Pia, the deposed dictator, would have surely used the knowledge to regain control of his country, at the expense of many, many lives. No, the council must never know. The Professor could now finance his operation without the council's help, through the simple threat of a curse lobbed from a distance.
Ollie now realized his failure. He had asked the Professor about analog vs. digital. Dammit! He should'a kept his mouth shut! He was now a liability, and the more dangerous kind. The smart ones are the dangerous ones. Crom could be controlled, his anger vented in a proper manner, with fist fights and bourbon. But Ollie, if he had figured out analog recording first, well now, the whole council, including the Professor, would have been the ones who heard the curse just now! And yes, he would have killed them all (save his father), and the Cunninghills would have been planetary emperors of a new age.
But alas, no, Ollie wasn't ambitious enough to save his family's life, he had been out drinking and fucking when he should'a been studying, building, and practicing. The professor had been the one building, planning, preparing. The Professor had won, sort of. He still didn't know any blessings, that would have sealed the deal, but this was close enough. A solid and decisive win for the Professor, for the odd brand of mystic research he practiced, and a brutal and final loss for the Cunninghills.
Ollie hoped now that the whole council was dead, regardless. If the Professor won, may it be a whole victory. May he and his have been kill't by the all-time winner, the new king and emperor of planet Earth. Then his failure would be, at least a bit, noble. A reasonable failure. Who could win against such an enemy as he who conquers all? But the Emperor would still remember their names in the dark of night, and nod quietly to the deaths of his once formidable adversaries.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Ch. 27: Alva's song
Oliver Cunninghill, bound and gagged and lying prone across the trailer, looked at Wyland with a look of hatred that went deeper than bone. This look transcended hatred. Vile, malicious disgust emanated from that ugly Scottish face. If he weren't gagged, he would have ripped Wyland's flesh from his bones with his teeth. If he wasn't bound with thick rope, he would have strangled Wyland to death, but maybe slowly, over the next hour or so.
The anger and evil in that boy's eyes made Wyland think of Vlad the Impaler. The original Dracula. He didn't know why. It was probably the bloodlust in his eyes. The boy wished he had long fangs to slowly drain the life out of this pitiful, pale, fattening Yank. The Yank looked back at him unworried, calm, and tranquil. This further enraged Ollie.
The slow tick tac of rain began on the aluminum roof of the trailer as a low rumble of thunder rolled through the lush green hills around them.
In the corner, the goat bleated.
The two men stared at each other, one in a dumb trance, the other blind with rage, both bound and gagged. A third, Crom, also bound and gagged, breathed shallowly in the corner.
Eventually, Ollie, his hate apparently expired, began worming his way over to his brother, who appeared to be out cold, perhaps drugged. His pale white skin shone even whiter in the deepening dusk, and Wyland could tell his blood pressure wasn't right. Crom looked a bit like a dead ghost, bound in jute rope. Ollie was nudging him with his head, trying to get him to wake up, but it wasn't working. Muffled noises came from Ollie's gagged mouth. "Mmmffff! Krmmmf! Rrgggghhhh! Krmmmmmf!" he said. Crom still just sat there, blissfully sleeping away what would be his last day on Earth.
That having now failed, Ollie now looked with increasing worry at the small, strange device set near the door of the trailer. He began to worm and roll his way over to it, and Wyland looked on in a calm stupor.
The device was moving. A cylinder in the center was rotating. The cylinder had small grooves in it. It looked like the old wax cylinders that predated vinyl records. There was a horn on it, that looked a bit like a morning glory flower. There were a couple wires, tied tight and wound through a conduit, connecting the motor near the cylinder to what must be it's battery, a small, black plastic cube. Ollie knew what it was long before Wyland figured it out. It was an old-timey record player.
Oliver Cunninghill's mind raced. His eyes darted all over the strange object, as his mind revealed a deep truth to him.
He had been right. Digital doesn't work, but analog does.
This led to a deeper revelation, the last of Ollie's short life. The world was analog! Digital recordings were just poor, compressed representations of the world. On and off, one and zero, were stupid, clumsy binary settings compared to the rich swing of wholeness that the world presented to us! Whole realms of possibility opened up in his mind. Artificial intelligence required analog! Humans were analog! Life was analog, not digital! The quantum world was an analog world! Prickles of understanding ran up and down his spine as this deep truth reverberated through him.
As this ran through his brain, the recording started. "Test, check, test", it said melodramatically. He could hear popping and hissing, although the sound quality was still pretty good.
"Alvanic chant, analog test number 4. Fallah Alvic, no innotation, one ten beat. Multi-subject, un-directed, spit formed, quick mortality..." Ollie moaned dramatically as he heard this.
Ollie didn't recognize the voice, but there was a male British accent to it as the unseen student said today's date. Ollie knew it was a student; a new student who had obviously taken his own or his brother's place. The Professor never uttered curses unless absolutely necessary. The Professor said that to utter a curse tied one's Wyrd to another's, although he was at a loss to describe how that all worked. In fact, he had simply shrugged when asked.
And then, the curse began.
Parem Denan Alva. Prex Alva. Kentu Alva.
Ollie was suddenly squirming and trashing about, shaking his head, trying to scream through his gag as the terrible, crushing sound entered his mind and evaporated whatever deep beauty had just been held there. Crom lay unconscious in the back of the trailer, although Wyland now knew he was still being cursed right now; Wyland himself had been cursed in a drunken stupor. Crom was breathing faster and deeper now, air hissing out his nose.
The goat looked about with his strange four cornered, rectangular eyes, apparently unconcerned by the recording, or the human thrashing about on the other side of the trailer. His dirty grey beard shook along with the whole trailer as Ollie thrashed about.
The haze of hypnosis was now leaving Wyland, although confusion replaced it. Again he didn't hear what he expected. Again a squirming tightness bound his neck, wrists and ankles. No crunching noise, no pain, but time had slowed down and he was frozen in place. The voice of the student now had a deep, baritone character, and it was speaking words in a tongue Wyland had never heard.
To his left, he felt it coming. The creature. Death itself. A crow as black as jet, with a strange, long, scraggle-toothed skull for a head, and cloven hooves for feet set below the backwards facing legs of a goat. The air was suddenly as cold as the depths of space.
But this time, it was in the trailer with them. Impossibly tall, as large as a small planet, with feathers that were as large as Manhattan Island, the ancient Lord Alva stood somehow well within the seven foot ceiling. It's crocodilian skull head looked about with empty eye sockets that somehow held knowledge, that somehow saw all before them.
It... it was singing. That was the crunching noise that everyone heard! It was somehow singing softly through an empty skull. Wyland though the sound was somehow comforting, and not at all painful, although Crom and Ollie sure looked like it was hurting them.
It also looked as though it was dancing. Like the old Navajo fancy dancing, it spread its wings, leaned left and hopped about on one foot, then leaned right and switched to its right foot, and hopped about some more, going in strange little semi-circles with wings dipped towards the center of the circle. It was a celebratory dance.
It danced up to Crom, and leaned over him, and its huge, ridiculously huge, massive, ginormous, gargantuan jaw opened up, baring an impossibly jagged row of teeth, each the size of a skyscraper. It looked triumphant. It looked hungry. It quickly bit down on Crom's head, and Wyland thought he watched Crom's head explode, violently and messily, but as the creature stood up, Crom's head was fully intact, without even any blood. Wyland didn't understand how that was possible, given the shape of those horrid teeth. The sensation of seeing this massive thing exist in an impossibly small space was making Wyland dizzy.
It shook itself, as a bird might shake off water.
The creature then danced over to Ollie, appearing to relish in the act, taking it's time. Wyland felt as though the whole world must shake as it danced, and yet it's footfalls were silent and soft. As it approached him, the pain and anguish on Ollie's face increased. It bit Oliver the same as his brother, splattering brains and blood everywhere, but somehow leaving his head intact as it rose up.
Wyland thought of a book he had read once; The Call Of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft described how looking upon the Old Gods, or even the terrible lands where the Old Gods slept, could break a man's mind. He now understood how something could break a man's mind. Here, before him in all it's glory, was an Old God, a terrible being that Wyland somehow knew was created the same day that the ancestors of men began to have nightmares. The day mankind realized the true weight of death, they birthed this monstrosity.
He knew that a stronger man, a man confident in his worldview, confident in himself, would look upon this creature, this horrible thing, and he would break. It's very existence spoke "You are wrong about everything. You are nothing. You will die. Nothing matters. There is only darkness for you, forever. Not a cold, black unknowing darkness, but a warm, sallow, sucking, gnawing darkness." It was only the fact that Wyland already knew this feeling that kept him from breaking right then and there. Instead, a dreary calm had come over Wyland, an strange, cold anger that this thing dared show its face before him.
It danced over to Wyland, but hesitantly. As it approached, it got colder and colder, until Wyland was sure he was already dead, and this is what it felt like. He looked up at the God Alva, and the old God of death looked down at him. Whether it was across fathoms of empty space, or simply across the small trailer, Wyland couldn't tell. Somehow, it was both.
But he could tell that the Great Old God Alva knew something was off. It cocked its head sideways, as a bird might, to get a better side-wise view. Wyland's skin was crawling, and he was shivering fiercely. He was surprised he hadn't yet shit himself. The giant thing bent down as before, but stood apart from Wyland and chattered its teeth and ruffled its feathers, as though admonishing Wyland.
Wyland felt as though he were a snake, coiling to strike. His muscles were taught, shivering. His blood was cold and thick. His mouth tasted faintly of failure: of slow venom, of pneumonia, of nursing homes, of empty graveyards with no gravestones, of wilted funerary flowers. He felt the presence of Hebrix, whatever God that was, protecting him.
Then, suddenly, Wyland lunged at Lord Alva, face first as if to bite the cursed thing, and it was gone, leaving only a lingering cold.
The anger and evil in that boy's eyes made Wyland think of Vlad the Impaler. The original Dracula. He didn't know why. It was probably the bloodlust in his eyes. The boy wished he had long fangs to slowly drain the life out of this pitiful, pale, fattening Yank. The Yank looked back at him unworried, calm, and tranquil. This further enraged Ollie.
The slow tick tac of rain began on the aluminum roof of the trailer as a low rumble of thunder rolled through the lush green hills around them.
In the corner, the goat bleated.
The two men stared at each other, one in a dumb trance, the other blind with rage, both bound and gagged. A third, Crom, also bound and gagged, breathed shallowly in the corner.
Eventually, Ollie, his hate apparently expired, began worming his way over to his brother, who appeared to be out cold, perhaps drugged. His pale white skin shone even whiter in the deepening dusk, and Wyland could tell his blood pressure wasn't right. Crom looked a bit like a dead ghost, bound in jute rope. Ollie was nudging him with his head, trying to get him to wake up, but it wasn't working. Muffled noises came from Ollie's gagged mouth. "Mmmffff! Krmmmf! Rrgggghhhh! Krmmmmmf!" he said. Crom still just sat there, blissfully sleeping away what would be his last day on Earth.
That having now failed, Ollie now looked with increasing worry at the small, strange device set near the door of the trailer. He began to worm and roll his way over to it, and Wyland looked on in a calm stupor.
The device was moving. A cylinder in the center was rotating. The cylinder had small grooves in it. It looked like the old wax cylinders that predated vinyl records. There was a horn on it, that looked a bit like a morning glory flower. There were a couple wires, tied tight and wound through a conduit, connecting the motor near the cylinder to what must be it's battery, a small, black plastic cube. Ollie knew what it was long before Wyland figured it out. It was an old-timey record player.
Oliver Cunninghill's mind raced. His eyes darted all over the strange object, as his mind revealed a deep truth to him.
He had been right. Digital doesn't work, but analog does.
This led to a deeper revelation, the last of Ollie's short life. The world was analog! Digital recordings were just poor, compressed representations of the world. On and off, one and zero, were stupid, clumsy binary settings compared to the rich swing of wholeness that the world presented to us! Whole realms of possibility opened up in his mind. Artificial intelligence required analog! Humans were analog! Life was analog, not digital! The quantum world was an analog world! Prickles of understanding ran up and down his spine as this deep truth reverberated through him.
As this ran through his brain, the recording started. "Test, check, test", it said melodramatically. He could hear popping and hissing, although the sound quality was still pretty good.
"Alvanic chant, analog test number 4. Fallah Alvic, no innotation, one ten beat. Multi-subject, un-directed, spit formed, quick mortality..." Ollie moaned dramatically as he heard this.
Ollie didn't recognize the voice, but there was a male British accent to it as the unseen student said today's date. Ollie knew it was a student; a new student who had obviously taken his own or his brother's place. The Professor never uttered curses unless absolutely necessary. The Professor said that to utter a curse tied one's Wyrd to another's, although he was at a loss to describe how that all worked. In fact, he had simply shrugged when asked.
And then, the curse began.
Parem Denan Alva. Prex Alva. Kentu Alva.
Ollie was suddenly squirming and trashing about, shaking his head, trying to scream through his gag as the terrible, crushing sound entered his mind and evaporated whatever deep beauty had just been held there. Crom lay unconscious in the back of the trailer, although Wyland now knew he was still being cursed right now; Wyland himself had been cursed in a drunken stupor. Crom was breathing faster and deeper now, air hissing out his nose.
The goat looked about with his strange four cornered, rectangular eyes, apparently unconcerned by the recording, or the human thrashing about on the other side of the trailer. His dirty grey beard shook along with the whole trailer as Ollie thrashed about.
The haze of hypnosis was now leaving Wyland, although confusion replaced it. Again he didn't hear what he expected. Again a squirming tightness bound his neck, wrists and ankles. No crunching noise, no pain, but time had slowed down and he was frozen in place. The voice of the student now had a deep, baritone character, and it was speaking words in a tongue Wyland had never heard.
To his left, he felt it coming. The creature. Death itself. A crow as black as jet, with a strange, long, scraggle-toothed skull for a head, and cloven hooves for feet set below the backwards facing legs of a goat. The air was suddenly as cold as the depths of space.
But this time, it was in the trailer with them. Impossibly tall, as large as a small planet, with feathers that were as large as Manhattan Island, the ancient Lord Alva stood somehow well within the seven foot ceiling. It's crocodilian skull head looked about with empty eye sockets that somehow held knowledge, that somehow saw all before them.
It... it was singing. That was the crunching noise that everyone heard! It was somehow singing softly through an empty skull. Wyland though the sound was somehow comforting, and not at all painful, although Crom and Ollie sure looked like it was hurting them.
It also looked as though it was dancing. Like the old Navajo fancy dancing, it spread its wings, leaned left and hopped about on one foot, then leaned right and switched to its right foot, and hopped about some more, going in strange little semi-circles with wings dipped towards the center of the circle. It was a celebratory dance.
It danced up to Crom, and leaned over him, and its huge, ridiculously huge, massive, ginormous, gargantuan jaw opened up, baring an impossibly jagged row of teeth, each the size of a skyscraper. It looked triumphant. It looked hungry. It quickly bit down on Crom's head, and Wyland thought he watched Crom's head explode, violently and messily, but as the creature stood up, Crom's head was fully intact, without even any blood. Wyland didn't understand how that was possible, given the shape of those horrid teeth. The sensation of seeing this massive thing exist in an impossibly small space was making Wyland dizzy.
It shook itself, as a bird might shake off water.
The creature then danced over to Ollie, appearing to relish in the act, taking it's time. Wyland felt as though the whole world must shake as it danced, and yet it's footfalls were silent and soft. As it approached him, the pain and anguish on Ollie's face increased. It bit Oliver the same as his brother, splattering brains and blood everywhere, but somehow leaving his head intact as it rose up.
Wyland thought of a book he had read once; The Call Of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft described how looking upon the Old Gods, or even the terrible lands where the Old Gods slept, could break a man's mind. He now understood how something could break a man's mind. Here, before him in all it's glory, was an Old God, a terrible being that Wyland somehow knew was created the same day that the ancestors of men began to have nightmares. The day mankind realized the true weight of death, they birthed this monstrosity.
He knew that a stronger man, a man confident in his worldview, confident in himself, would look upon this creature, this horrible thing, and he would break. It's very existence spoke "You are wrong about everything. You are nothing. You will die. Nothing matters. There is only darkness for you, forever. Not a cold, black unknowing darkness, but a warm, sallow, sucking, gnawing darkness." It was only the fact that Wyland already knew this feeling that kept him from breaking right then and there. Instead, a dreary calm had come over Wyland, an strange, cold anger that this thing dared show its face before him.
It danced over to Wyland, but hesitantly. As it approached, it got colder and colder, until Wyland was sure he was already dead, and this is what it felt like. He looked up at the God Alva, and the old God of death looked down at him. Whether it was across fathoms of empty space, or simply across the small trailer, Wyland couldn't tell. Somehow, it was both.
But he could tell that the Great Old God Alva knew something was off. It cocked its head sideways, as a bird might, to get a better side-wise view. Wyland's skin was crawling, and he was shivering fiercely. He was surprised he hadn't yet shit himself. The giant thing bent down as before, but stood apart from Wyland and chattered its teeth and ruffled its feathers, as though admonishing Wyland.
Wyland felt as though he were a snake, coiling to strike. His muscles were taught, shivering. His blood was cold and thick. His mouth tasted faintly of failure: of slow venom, of pneumonia, of nursing homes, of empty graveyards with no gravestones, of wilted funerary flowers. He felt the presence of Hebrix, whatever God that was, protecting him.
Then, suddenly, Wyland lunged at Lord Alva, face first as if to bite the cursed thing, and it was gone, leaving only a lingering cold.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Ch. 26: Tiffany Garcia
The first thought that ran through Wyland's head was that he was face to face with a real Jedi master. A practitioner of the old arts. A warlock. He saw now that the Cunninghill boys had been mere apprentices. And it was sounding like they had flunked out.
The old man with the friendly face smiled at Wyland with gleaming eyes, but they held a deep sadness, too. Wyland thought it was just his own reflection at first, but no, he saw failure in this man's eyes. A familiar sight.
The old man who was still somehow young spoke like Santa Claus might. "I am known officially as 'The Professor.' You are Wyland Blake, of Sacramento county, California. Your parents are Trisha and William Blake. Your father has a fantastic name, named after a great poet. An Englishman, no less." A small, friendly chuckle. The radiance in his eyes now increased, reaching an almost godlike gleam.
"You have come here seeking an answer. I will give you that answer. You are here, at the end of your own little heroic journey. Bound and gagged, dragged through hell, yet here you are. A brave little soul, aren't you? And you have queried the Gods, but are you prepared for the answer? I assure you, it is not what you hope for."
The Professor swept his hand around in grand fashion. Wyland now understood the official name. He looked as though he were at university, before a apt class of pupils, expounding on theory. He didn't look like he was in a livestock trailer with three condemned men in god-knows-where Scotland.
"Before you are the gates, and the question is on your tongue. But I must warn you. You may turn around now, never speak again of this incident, or these people before you, nor of this trek you have made here, and go on living your cursed little life. If you ask, you will receive the answer, and face the consequences. Is that clear?"
Wyland cleared his throat. His phlegm tasted a bit like blood. He considered the question for only a moment.
"I have no use for my cursed little life. I must fix this or die trying. I ask you: How does one remove a curse?" Wyland looked solemnly at the Professor as he said this. His eyes were wet with pain and tears. A hint of compassion rested in The Professor's bright eyes.
The Professor's smile faded. He answered through a sigh. "There is no way that we know. You are a prisoner of the entity to which you are bound. I have spent my life asking that very question, Wyland, and I assure you, we know of no way to remove a curse. We know of no blessings that will help. Indeed, there are no blessings in The True Tongue. Only curses. This forsaken world can only magnify hatred and anger, death and failure, it cannot magnify life, or love, or caring. These things we must build, slowly, gently, but us, the world, The Gods, (all are one, so to speak) will destroy them. And they will do so quickly, effortlessly, with a word."
He spoke with his hands as he said all this, gesturing and shaking his head, and at the last statement, he clenched his fist, pantomiming the Gods crushing us all, quickly and effortlessly.
The light left the Professor's eyes, and Wyland now saw only this failure in his eyes. A long program to help mankind had yielded only poison. Like he was looking at J. Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb after the first test. The terrible power he created now held in the hands of greedy, hungry men. He birthed into the world a great evil. He was seeking only the truth of God, but in digging into the deep secrets of the world, he found only the Devil. And oh, what a Devil he had unleashed.
Wyland, his eyes still wet, spoke Oppenheimer's famous words: "Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds."
The professor gave a sad little smile as he looked at the ground."Indeed, truer words in the common tongue, I've not heard." Then he sat motionless, wearing a deep frown.
At length, he stood up and straightened his back, getting back to business. "But enough dithering. I'm sorry. But you do present an interesting research case, never-the-less. There is a name you carry. A name we do not yet know. A True Word that you've heard, and so I ask you to look at this."
He pulled out a small tablet. Racing across the screen were images stretched around a tube. Wyland's eyes were immediately transfixed. He felt like he was flying down a long hallway, like he was flying through a fractal drawing. He became immediately drowsy, and soon his mouth gaped open, with a dull cow look on his face. He was aware of this all happening, but it felt far away somehow.
The Professor spoke. "You will not remember the past two weeks upon your awakening from this trance. You will tell me the date and time that you heard the Fallah that binds your Wyrd."
Wyland answered, slowly and deliberately. "August 17th, 1990." The disconnect was strange, like he was watching himself talk, and he was amazed to hear these words come from his mouth.
"And who was it that uttered this curse, and what was their relationship to you?"
Wyland, again from far away, answered "Tiffany Garcia. She was my fiance."
"And the circumstance of your binding?"
"She had caught me in the bed of another woman at a large frat party. I was passed out drunk, and the girl had come in later, also drunk. I don't think we did anything besides sleep. She came in, and I could smell her perfume. I could hear angry muttering, and I think she was pacing around the room. Then she spoke at me, and left."
"And she had no training in the old arts?"
Wyland laughed through the trance. "No, she was a psychology major from the valley. As innocent as they come." The Professor smiled back. The Professor leaned in close now, and gave Wyland a small notebook and a pen. He said, almost whispering "Please write down the words you heard her speak to you. Do not speak them."
Wyland dutifully wrote:
Kentu Hebrix. Kentu Ba'al-alenda. Rerok Deka Morthenda. Rerok Despa. Deka Pelluda. Kentu Hebrix. Prex Hebrix.
Wyland's conscious mind tried desperately to weld those words to long term memory as the notebook was ripped from his hands. "Huh. Ba'al and Hebrix. Fascinating. Hebrix is a new entity. I'm sure he's no match for Lord Alva, although we now have a new avenue of inquiry."
The Professor nodded to Blue. Blue dragged Oliver into the trailer to join his brother, both of them bound and gagged. Blue then gagged Wyland as well. Wyland didn't fight this at all. As they left, Wyland, still calm and entranced, watched as Ol' Blue dropped a small, strange looking device into the trailer before shutting the rusty old doors.
The old man with the friendly face smiled at Wyland with gleaming eyes, but they held a deep sadness, too. Wyland thought it was just his own reflection at first, but no, he saw failure in this man's eyes. A familiar sight.
The old man who was still somehow young spoke like Santa Claus might. "I am known officially as 'The Professor.' You are Wyland Blake, of Sacramento county, California. Your parents are Trisha and William Blake. Your father has a fantastic name, named after a great poet. An Englishman, no less." A small, friendly chuckle. The radiance in his eyes now increased, reaching an almost godlike gleam.
"You have come here seeking an answer. I will give you that answer. You are here, at the end of your own little heroic journey. Bound and gagged, dragged through hell, yet here you are. A brave little soul, aren't you? And you have queried the Gods, but are you prepared for the answer? I assure you, it is not what you hope for."
The Professor swept his hand around in grand fashion. Wyland now understood the official name. He looked as though he were at university, before a apt class of pupils, expounding on theory. He didn't look like he was in a livestock trailer with three condemned men in god-knows-where Scotland.
"Before you are the gates, and the question is on your tongue. But I must warn you. You may turn around now, never speak again of this incident, or these people before you, nor of this trek you have made here, and go on living your cursed little life. If you ask, you will receive the answer, and face the consequences. Is that clear?"
Wyland cleared his throat. His phlegm tasted a bit like blood. He considered the question for only a moment.
"I have no use for my cursed little life. I must fix this or die trying. I ask you: How does one remove a curse?" Wyland looked solemnly at the Professor as he said this. His eyes were wet with pain and tears. A hint of compassion rested in The Professor's bright eyes.
The Professor's smile faded. He answered through a sigh. "There is no way that we know. You are a prisoner of the entity to which you are bound. I have spent my life asking that very question, Wyland, and I assure you, we know of no way to remove a curse. We know of no blessings that will help. Indeed, there are no blessings in The True Tongue. Only curses. This forsaken world can only magnify hatred and anger, death and failure, it cannot magnify life, or love, or caring. These things we must build, slowly, gently, but us, the world, The Gods, (all are one, so to speak) will destroy them. And they will do so quickly, effortlessly, with a word."
He spoke with his hands as he said all this, gesturing and shaking his head, and at the last statement, he clenched his fist, pantomiming the Gods crushing us all, quickly and effortlessly.
The light left the Professor's eyes, and Wyland now saw only this failure in his eyes. A long program to help mankind had yielded only poison. Like he was looking at J. Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb after the first test. The terrible power he created now held in the hands of greedy, hungry men. He birthed into the world a great evil. He was seeking only the truth of God, but in digging into the deep secrets of the world, he found only the Devil. And oh, what a Devil he had unleashed.
Wyland, his eyes still wet, spoke Oppenheimer's famous words: "Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds."
The professor gave a sad little smile as he looked at the ground."Indeed, truer words in the common tongue, I've not heard." Then he sat motionless, wearing a deep frown.
At length, he stood up and straightened his back, getting back to business. "But enough dithering. I'm sorry. But you do present an interesting research case, never-the-less. There is a name you carry. A name we do not yet know. A True Word that you've heard, and so I ask you to look at this."
He pulled out a small tablet. Racing across the screen were images stretched around a tube. Wyland's eyes were immediately transfixed. He felt like he was flying down a long hallway, like he was flying through a fractal drawing. He became immediately drowsy, and soon his mouth gaped open, with a dull cow look on his face. He was aware of this all happening, but it felt far away somehow.
The Professor spoke. "You will not remember the past two weeks upon your awakening from this trance. You will tell me the date and time that you heard the Fallah that binds your Wyrd."
Wyland answered, slowly and deliberately. "August 17th, 1990." The disconnect was strange, like he was watching himself talk, and he was amazed to hear these words come from his mouth.
"And who was it that uttered this curse, and what was their relationship to you?"
Wyland, again from far away, answered "Tiffany Garcia. She was my fiance."
"And the circumstance of your binding?"
"She had caught me in the bed of another woman at a large frat party. I was passed out drunk, and the girl had come in later, also drunk. I don't think we did anything besides sleep. She came in, and I could smell her perfume. I could hear angry muttering, and I think she was pacing around the room. Then she spoke at me, and left."
"And she had no training in the old arts?"
Wyland laughed through the trance. "No, she was a psychology major from the valley. As innocent as they come." The Professor smiled back. The Professor leaned in close now, and gave Wyland a small notebook and a pen. He said, almost whispering "Please write down the words you heard her speak to you. Do not speak them."
Wyland dutifully wrote:
Kentu Hebrix. Kentu Ba'al-alenda. Rerok Deka Morthenda. Rerok Despa. Deka Pelluda. Kentu Hebrix. Prex Hebrix.
Wyland's conscious mind tried desperately to weld those words to long term memory as the notebook was ripped from his hands. "Huh. Ba'al and Hebrix. Fascinating. Hebrix is a new entity. I'm sure he's no match for Lord Alva, although we now have a new avenue of inquiry."
The Professor nodded to Blue. Blue dragged Oliver into the trailer to join his brother, both of them bound and gagged. Blue then gagged Wyland as well. Wyland didn't fight this at all. As they left, Wyland, still calm and entranced, watched as Ol' Blue dropped a small, strange looking device into the trailer before shutting the rusty old doors.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Ch. 25: Mostly painless
Wyland awoke with a painful snort, and had to open his mouth to gasp in a breath of air. The air tasted like a barn, all hay dust and horse shit. His nose, indeed the center of his face, was thick and painful. He opened his eyes, but found it useless, there was a gauzy grey something wrapped around his head. He tried to move, but also found that useless, as his legs and hands were bound with a scratchy jute rope that dug into his flesh as he wriggled around.
He felt his heart beat rising as the events of the day came back to him. Beads of sweat formed where the head covering was bound tight against his neck and around his forehead. He had no idea how long he had been out, but it was still light enough for light to trickle through the head covering. A strange rebounded, echoing noise when he flopped around told him he was on a aluminum floor. He could hear something else nearby, breathing slowly. No, there were several other breaths nearby. Other victims. He thought of the Aushwitz gas chambers. He would be dead soon, he was sure of it. He had seen Alva.
Unsuccessful again. Another failed try for the All-Time Loser. Jethro Tull's maddening song "Locomotive Breath" crept through his head.
"In the shuffling madness,
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the All-Time Loser,
Headlong to his death."
There were more lyrics, but this small stanza now repeated endlessly in his increasingly incoherent brain, along with the deep bass line, a wavy, pulsing menace to Wyland's sanity.
Convinced now that he was completely fucked, he stopped and lay still. His breath was shallow and ragged. His eyes darted back and forth, seeing only a fuzzy light and a woven geometric pattern.
Nearby, the others' breathing was calm and deep, like they were sleeping. He was crying; from exhaustion, from desperation, from the painful thickness that was the center of his face, from the deepening sense of failure that weighed on his chest.
Occasionally, there was a strange clicking sound coming from somewhere nearby.
Suddenly, he heard shouting. Angry shouting, also nearby. Outside the thin, aluminum walls that held him, he could hear Oliver Cunninghill's nasally brogue and expertly foul tongue cursing someone. There was a stormy wind obscuring some of the words, but Wyland could hear some of it.
"...wee problem...feckin' Crommie...tried to stop him...didn'a actually voice...Alvanic curse...Red...Whoopa."
Then, a calm, low spoken voice in return. Wyland didn't recognize it, and it spoke low enough that Wyland couldn't hear anything except a murmuring. Then, Ollie again, closer now.
"Hors-shite! He's a feckin' muppet, 'e is! 'Tis you bawbags what taught 'im!" Then, a deep, unsettling "THUNK", followed shortly by the loud bang of something hitting the aluminum sheeting nearby.
Now the other voice again. Still low and calm, but near enough that Wyland could hear this time. The voice was civilized, friendly, elderly.
"You're welcome to join him, Oliver. I made very clear our needs last we met. Your brother is dangerous. The American will hear it as well. We have perfected the timing rhythm, and it will be quick, mostly painless.
"No, ya feckin' chump, Imma do ya!" and a violent rustling, then another "THUNK", this time followed by heavy, wet wheezing and a ragged cough from Oliver. The civilized, elderly voice now spoke again.
"Very well. Your family is now more a liability than an asset, although you yourself showed such promise. I'm terribly sorry for this."
More rustling. Wyland could now tell there was thick, wet grass on the other side of the aluminum wall. Several pairs of boots now worked through it. Oliver was whimpering something.
"C'mon, Blue, t'was at yur weddin'. C'mon now." More whimpering and crying, then it was muffled by something. Wyland smiled at the thought of Oliver being muzzled by old, grizzly Blue, perhaps with an old sock. Wyland smiled deeply at this thought, but then the weight of what was happening hit him. Hit him hard, brought the panic and hysteria back.
He though about what he had just heard. "The American will hear it as well... Quick, mostly painless."
Wyland began wildly shifting and wiggling, trying desperately to get through tightly bound ropes. His shoes hit the aluminum floor, hard, and a loud bang ensued.
"Ahhh, the Yank is awake!" Rusty doors opened, and Wyland could hear something brey near him.
A goat? What the fuck?
Then he realized where he was. He was inside a livestock trailer. The goat breyed curiously, obviously used to the sound of the rusty old gate opening. Wyland could hear the sound of it's hooves clicking against the metal.
Like a lamb to slaughter, he thought.
Then noise. Men walking on the trailer floor.
"Mister Blake, I assume? I would shake your hand were it not tied behind you. An impressive show, I assure you. I would applaud your journalistic instincts, were you an actual journalist." A soft laugh here. "A successful outing, all in all, for us. Not for you, mind you, but I do believe you've saved us a spot of trouble. You've likely ruined months of work for Scotland Yard."
The head covering came off, violently ripped off Wyland's head. Ol' Blue, standing over him, held what Wyland recognized as a jute potato sack.
Beside him, an old man hunkered down next to him. Old bones cracked as the man sat down aboriginal style before him. He reminded Wyland of old Ben Kanobi, even down to the fuzzy brown robe he wore, although Wyland could see a striped brown button down underneath. He wore black Converse All-stars. It gave him the look of a child, long since grown old, but never grown up. On his arm, tattooed in fine detail, was a very elaborate version of the protection rune from the Star of Solomon and the cover of Tawelu Marwolaeth.
Here was the Professor.
He felt his heart beat rising as the events of the day came back to him. Beads of sweat formed where the head covering was bound tight against his neck and around his forehead. He had no idea how long he had been out, but it was still light enough for light to trickle through the head covering. A strange rebounded, echoing noise when he flopped around told him he was on a aluminum floor. He could hear something else nearby, breathing slowly. No, there were several other breaths nearby. Other victims. He thought of the Aushwitz gas chambers. He would be dead soon, he was sure of it. He had seen Alva.
Unsuccessful again. Another failed try for the All-Time Loser. Jethro Tull's maddening song "Locomotive Breath" crept through his head.
"In the shuffling madness,
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the All-Time Loser,
Headlong to his death."
There were more lyrics, but this small stanza now repeated endlessly in his increasingly incoherent brain, along with the deep bass line, a wavy, pulsing menace to Wyland's sanity.
Convinced now that he was completely fucked, he stopped and lay still. His breath was shallow and ragged. His eyes darted back and forth, seeing only a fuzzy light and a woven geometric pattern.
Nearby, the others' breathing was calm and deep, like they were sleeping. He was crying; from exhaustion, from desperation, from the painful thickness that was the center of his face, from the deepening sense of failure that weighed on his chest.
Occasionally, there was a strange clicking sound coming from somewhere nearby.
Suddenly, he heard shouting. Angry shouting, also nearby. Outside the thin, aluminum walls that held him, he could hear Oliver Cunninghill's nasally brogue and expertly foul tongue cursing someone. There was a stormy wind obscuring some of the words, but Wyland could hear some of it.
"...wee problem...feckin' Crommie...tried to stop him...didn'a actually voice...Alvanic curse...Red...Whoopa."
Then, a calm, low spoken voice in return. Wyland didn't recognize it, and it spoke low enough that Wyland couldn't hear anything except a murmuring. Then, Ollie again, closer now.
"Hors-shite! He's a feckin' muppet, 'e is! 'Tis you bawbags what taught 'im!" Then, a deep, unsettling "THUNK", followed shortly by the loud bang of something hitting the aluminum sheeting nearby.
Now the other voice again. Still low and calm, but near enough that Wyland could hear this time. The voice was civilized, friendly, elderly.
"You're welcome to join him, Oliver. I made very clear our needs last we met. Your brother is dangerous. The American will hear it as well. We have perfected the timing rhythm, and it will be quick, mostly painless.
"No, ya feckin' chump, Imma do ya!" and a violent rustling, then another "THUNK", this time followed by heavy, wet wheezing and a ragged cough from Oliver. The civilized, elderly voice now spoke again.
"Very well. Your family is now more a liability than an asset, although you yourself showed such promise. I'm terribly sorry for this."
More rustling. Wyland could now tell there was thick, wet grass on the other side of the aluminum wall. Several pairs of boots now worked through it. Oliver was whimpering something.
"C'mon, Blue, t'was at yur weddin'. C'mon now." More whimpering and crying, then it was muffled by something. Wyland smiled at the thought of Oliver being muzzled by old, grizzly Blue, perhaps with an old sock. Wyland smiled deeply at this thought, but then the weight of what was happening hit him. Hit him hard, brought the panic and hysteria back.
He though about what he had just heard. "The American will hear it as well... Quick, mostly painless."
Wyland began wildly shifting and wiggling, trying desperately to get through tightly bound ropes. His shoes hit the aluminum floor, hard, and a loud bang ensued.
"Ahhh, the Yank is awake!" Rusty doors opened, and Wyland could hear something brey near him.
A goat? What the fuck?
Then he realized where he was. He was inside a livestock trailer. The goat breyed curiously, obviously used to the sound of the rusty old gate opening. Wyland could hear the sound of it's hooves clicking against the metal.
Like a lamb to slaughter, he thought.
Then noise. Men walking on the trailer floor.
"Mister Blake, I assume? I would shake your hand were it not tied behind you. An impressive show, I assure you. I would applaud your journalistic instincts, were you an actual journalist." A soft laugh here. "A successful outing, all in all, for us. Not for you, mind you, but I do believe you've saved us a spot of trouble. You've likely ruined months of work for Scotland Yard."
The head covering came off, violently ripped off Wyland's head. Ol' Blue, standing over him, held what Wyland recognized as a jute potato sack.
Beside him, an old man hunkered down next to him. Old bones cracked as the man sat down aboriginal style before him. He reminded Wyland of old Ben Kanobi, even down to the fuzzy brown robe he wore, although Wyland could see a striped brown button down underneath. He wore black Converse All-stars. It gave him the look of a child, long since grown old, but never grown up. On his arm, tattooed in fine detail, was a very elaborate version of the protection rune from the Star of Solomon and the cover of Tawelu Marwolaeth.
Here was the Professor.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Ch. 24: Negotiations fell apart.
The Two men shook hands for what was surely longer than comfortable. As they broke, Crom wasted no time, and got right to the point. "A'rite, candy-arse. What'cha got?"
Wyland ignored the angry face of Crom Cunninghill, and steeled his gaze at Ollie. He said "they know. They know all about you. You've been implicated in the deaths of McAlerod, Steins and Petrovik. They're coming for you, and soon."
Ollie's eyes darted back and forth, surveying Wyland's eyes. Ollie's face remained as steeled as Wyland's. It was like a duel at high noon in some hokey old western, each man waiting for the draw, a soft, dusty wind blowing between them, both men's lips a narrow thin line, both eyes narrowed to slits, and both hearts thundering in their chests.
The look on Crom's face, however, clearly showed what was going through Ollie's mind, as Crom's face fell from anger, to recognition, and then to fear.
Ollie asked "How do ya know all this?" His accent was suddenly lessened, as he spoke in a more formal business tone. "Who are ya? How did you know about us? And why do ya not tell The Council directly?"
The sudden surprise in Wyland's face told Ollie he had just fucked up. He didn't know about the council. Shit! But he knew about curses, and their father... Shit! Ollie had played a hand too early, and he could only hope Wyland didn't capitalize on it. He didn't.
Wyland smiled thinly, looked at the ground, and softly said "I've been cursed. I'm sure of it. I'm a lawyer. I've been researching a death curse back in The States. Everything fits. I've been cursed to fail. I always fail, at damn near everything I do. I don't know anything about The Council."
Ollie and Crom both breathed visible sighs of relief at Wyland's admittance of ignorance regarding The Council. His curse was still working then, he could of gotten them both murdered in no time at all, and instead said that, that beautiful admission of ignorance! Whew! Another bullet dodged for the Cunninghill boys!
Ollie knew he was back on top of the negotiations. Red and Blue, and probably Pinky and Greenie would all have to report this back to The Council. Pinky had probably already contacted his man in Edinburgh. The Professor was in Lanark this week, and might already be on his way to the quarry. Ollie figured now that Wyland didn't know about the Professor, since he hadn't shown any knowledge about the Council.
Oliver Cunninghill now engaged the politician side that he had learnt well from his father. He smiled big, and moved closer to Wyland, then, with a look of genuine concern on his face. "Aye" he started, "a curse, by the sounds of it. Nasty business, 'tis. So, who cursed ya?"
Another look of blank and innocent recognition on Wyland's face. This boy was miles out of his league here, and hadn't a clue. Wyland stammered "I... I don't know. I just know I'm cursed."
Ollie smiled even bigger now. "So, who's after us 'n all? The Brits? Scotland Yard? Is that it?"
Wyland nodded sheepishly. Ollie, serious now, followed with "How do ya know?" Wyland, the wind now completely out of his sails, thought of Connie. He was betraying her. The thought made him a little sick. Ollie watched the color drain from Wyland's face. Ollie quickly manuevered to keep Wyland here with him. "Never ya mind, then, boyo! Come on then, what's their plan?"
Wyland regained his composure, and suddenly felt like he was being railroaded. He returned with "So can you cure a curse?"
Ollie sighed, and looked at Wyland side-wise, like he would look at the sun. "I dunno, 'tis a toughie, that." He was back to a thick, northern accent. "There's quite a bit'a work we could do there. We 'ould need to know teh curse used, teh origin of teh curse, the dialect of Truespeech used, and on 'n on. Could'n take awhile."
Truespeech? Wyland had never heard of this, and filed it away in his mind.
Wyland looked back at him, also a bit sidewise, and casually asked "What about the Professor?" Ollie's face fell immediately. Blue's eyes got as large as dinnerplates. Red slapped a hand over his eyes and said "Oh, Jesus titty-fucking Christ, ya idiot." Crom who had been staring at the ground, kicking dust, now looked up, furious, and trundled towards Wyland.
"You feckin' liar!" Crom screamed. "Yeh dirty, fud fizzoged cunt sneffer!" Wyland felt that negotiations had fallen apart.
Ollie tried to calm Crom, hands outstretched, saying "No, no, no, no, no...don't go radge..." Crom shoved his elder brother, knocking him off balance, and forcing him to the ground on his ass. Crom barely even looked at his brother as he did it, his eyes were set on Wyland, covered in a blood lust that turned Wyland as cold and immobile as mountain granite in winter.
Apparently, he shouldn't have mentioned the Professor.
"Ya dirty wizened hakkit!" "Ya feckin' tube!" Crom screamed. The words, while mostly gibberish to Wyland, still scored home as to their meaning. Crom was pissed. Then, just as quickly, Crom had a sudden change in his attitude; He shut up, calmed down, and just looked at Wyland with a smile that Stephen McAlerod would have recognized all too well.
He stood only a few feet from Wyland now. He opened his mouth from that hideous smile and spoke.
"Kentu Alva"
Wyland's knew immediately what he was hearing. Before he could even think, he felt his left hand flying out of it's pocket, tightly squeezing the Taser. Time felt like it had slowed down. He could feel his finger slip the interlock back, exposing the On switch. He could see Oliver Cunninghill getting up as fast as he could, running towards his brother, a look of fear and anger on his face, and his mouth pursed in a silent "NO!"
"Rerok Morthen"
Wyland did not feel the curse sound as he thought he should, as he had read about and as he had heard Jonathan report it. He felt a tightening around his neck, ankles and wrists, like there was rope binding him in those spots. He could feel a presence to his left, like feeling the sun when your eyes are closed, except this presence felt cold, colder than anything he had ever felt. Like he was standing next to a glacier. He pictured the strange picture of Alva in the "Star of Solomon" book, a raven with cloven hooves and a skeleton for a face. But it was different than the picture. It was LARGE. Even from a distance, it felt as large as the moon. It had gravity to it. He saw it in his mind's eye, like a fever dream. Blacker than the depths of space and as cold as nothingness could be. And it had a strange head. It was still a skull, like the picture, but it looked more like an alligator skull, only meaner. He couldn't place the name (Therapsid?), but he remembered seeing the skull in the natural history museum somewhere. He thought that that giant mouth could swallow the whole earth with room to spare. But it wasn't looking at Wyland, it was looking at Crom. Wyland knew this to be true.
"Prex..."
The taser connected with Crom's right shoulder just as the first potent "Click" rushed through Wyland's arm as the On switch depressed. The electricity bound Wyland's arm to Crom's shoulder, as he watched the pulse surge through Crom's body, first bringing his arm up at a weird angle, then driving his eyes back in his skull. "Click, Click, Click" went the taser, as Crom's body responded in kind, dancing awkwardly to each "Click" demand from the Taser. Wyland felt himself smiling, watching this lunatic piece of shit get electrocuted. The sensation of the god of death sitting to his left was gone, although he wasn't sure he would ever forget that feeling.
Suddenly, there was an arm in front of Wyland's face. Bunched into a fist, swinging towards him roundhouse style, was Red's bulky, calloused fist, covered in a forest of ginger-red hair. Wyland felt like he had an eternity to move out of the way, but as he attempted to move, he suddenly felt the tightness around his wrists, ankles and neck bind up, freezing him in place. They felt odd, like they were moving, clenching and loosening as a Boa Constrictor might, advancing it's slowly tightening grip on it's prey. It was almost as though there were snakes binding him in place.
He felt a frown grow on his face as the back of Red's meaty fist closed in. He felt the Taser, still clicking its maddening clicks. He could smell that Crom has pissed and shit himself.
He felt his nose crumple and then finally, a deep and oddly satisfying Crunch as his nose gave way, then a flash of white, then nothing.
Wyland ignored the angry face of Crom Cunninghill, and steeled his gaze at Ollie. He said "they know. They know all about you. You've been implicated in the deaths of McAlerod, Steins and Petrovik. They're coming for you, and soon."
Ollie's eyes darted back and forth, surveying Wyland's eyes. Ollie's face remained as steeled as Wyland's. It was like a duel at high noon in some hokey old western, each man waiting for the draw, a soft, dusty wind blowing between them, both men's lips a narrow thin line, both eyes narrowed to slits, and both hearts thundering in their chests.
The look on Crom's face, however, clearly showed what was going through Ollie's mind, as Crom's face fell from anger, to recognition, and then to fear.
Ollie asked "How do ya know all this?" His accent was suddenly lessened, as he spoke in a more formal business tone. "Who are ya? How did you know about us? And why do ya not tell The Council directly?"
The sudden surprise in Wyland's face told Ollie he had just fucked up. He didn't know about the council. Shit! But he knew about curses, and their father... Shit! Ollie had played a hand too early, and he could only hope Wyland didn't capitalize on it. He didn't.
Wyland smiled thinly, looked at the ground, and softly said "I've been cursed. I'm sure of it. I'm a lawyer. I've been researching a death curse back in The States. Everything fits. I've been cursed to fail. I always fail, at damn near everything I do. I don't know anything about The Council."
Ollie and Crom both breathed visible sighs of relief at Wyland's admittance of ignorance regarding The Council. His curse was still working then, he could of gotten them both murdered in no time at all, and instead said that, that beautiful admission of ignorance! Whew! Another bullet dodged for the Cunninghill boys!
Ollie knew he was back on top of the negotiations. Red and Blue, and probably Pinky and Greenie would all have to report this back to The Council. Pinky had probably already contacted his man in Edinburgh. The Professor was in Lanark this week, and might already be on his way to the quarry. Ollie figured now that Wyland didn't know about the Professor, since he hadn't shown any knowledge about the Council.
Oliver Cunninghill now engaged the politician side that he had learnt well from his father. He smiled big, and moved closer to Wyland, then, with a look of genuine concern on his face. "Aye" he started, "a curse, by the sounds of it. Nasty business, 'tis. So, who cursed ya?"
Another look of blank and innocent recognition on Wyland's face. This boy was miles out of his league here, and hadn't a clue. Wyland stammered "I... I don't know. I just know I'm cursed."
Ollie smiled even bigger now. "So, who's after us 'n all? The Brits? Scotland Yard? Is that it?"
Wyland nodded sheepishly. Ollie, serious now, followed with "How do ya know?" Wyland, the wind now completely out of his sails, thought of Connie. He was betraying her. The thought made him a little sick. Ollie watched the color drain from Wyland's face. Ollie quickly manuevered to keep Wyland here with him. "Never ya mind, then, boyo! Come on then, what's their plan?"
Wyland regained his composure, and suddenly felt like he was being railroaded. He returned with "So can you cure a curse?"
Ollie sighed, and looked at Wyland side-wise, like he would look at the sun. "I dunno, 'tis a toughie, that." He was back to a thick, northern accent. "There's quite a bit'a work we could do there. We 'ould need to know teh curse used, teh origin of teh curse, the dialect of Truespeech used, and on 'n on. Could'n take awhile."
Truespeech? Wyland had never heard of this, and filed it away in his mind.
Wyland looked back at him, also a bit sidewise, and casually asked "What about the Professor?" Ollie's face fell immediately. Blue's eyes got as large as dinnerplates. Red slapped a hand over his eyes and said "Oh, Jesus titty-fucking Christ, ya idiot." Crom who had been staring at the ground, kicking dust, now looked up, furious, and trundled towards Wyland.
"You feckin' liar!" Crom screamed. "Yeh dirty, fud fizzoged cunt sneffer!" Wyland felt that negotiations had fallen apart.
Ollie tried to calm Crom, hands outstretched, saying "No, no, no, no, no...don't go radge..." Crom shoved his elder brother, knocking him off balance, and forcing him to the ground on his ass. Crom barely even looked at his brother as he did it, his eyes were set on Wyland, covered in a blood lust that turned Wyland as cold and immobile as mountain granite in winter.
Apparently, he shouldn't have mentioned the Professor.
"Ya dirty wizened hakkit!" "Ya feckin' tube!" Crom screamed. The words, while mostly gibberish to Wyland, still scored home as to their meaning. Crom was pissed. Then, just as quickly, Crom had a sudden change in his attitude; He shut up, calmed down, and just looked at Wyland with a smile that Stephen McAlerod would have recognized all too well.
He stood only a few feet from Wyland now. He opened his mouth from that hideous smile and spoke.
"Kentu Alva"
Wyland's knew immediately what he was hearing. Before he could even think, he felt his left hand flying out of it's pocket, tightly squeezing the Taser. Time felt like it had slowed down. He could feel his finger slip the interlock back, exposing the On switch. He could see Oliver Cunninghill getting up as fast as he could, running towards his brother, a look of fear and anger on his face, and his mouth pursed in a silent "NO!"
"Rerok Morthen"
Wyland did not feel the curse sound as he thought he should, as he had read about and as he had heard Jonathan report it. He felt a tightening around his neck, ankles and wrists, like there was rope binding him in those spots. He could feel a presence to his left, like feeling the sun when your eyes are closed, except this presence felt cold, colder than anything he had ever felt. Like he was standing next to a glacier. He pictured the strange picture of Alva in the "Star of Solomon" book, a raven with cloven hooves and a skeleton for a face. But it was different than the picture. It was LARGE. Even from a distance, it felt as large as the moon. It had gravity to it. He saw it in his mind's eye, like a fever dream. Blacker than the depths of space and as cold as nothingness could be. And it had a strange head. It was still a skull, like the picture, but it looked more like an alligator skull, only meaner. He couldn't place the name (Therapsid?), but he remembered seeing the skull in the natural history museum somewhere. He thought that that giant mouth could swallow the whole earth with room to spare. But it wasn't looking at Wyland, it was looking at Crom. Wyland knew this to be true.
"Prex..."
The taser connected with Crom's right shoulder just as the first potent "Click" rushed through Wyland's arm as the On switch depressed. The electricity bound Wyland's arm to Crom's shoulder, as he watched the pulse surge through Crom's body, first bringing his arm up at a weird angle, then driving his eyes back in his skull. "Click, Click, Click" went the taser, as Crom's body responded in kind, dancing awkwardly to each "Click" demand from the Taser. Wyland felt himself smiling, watching this lunatic piece of shit get electrocuted. The sensation of the god of death sitting to his left was gone, although he wasn't sure he would ever forget that feeling.
Suddenly, there was an arm in front of Wyland's face. Bunched into a fist, swinging towards him roundhouse style, was Red's bulky, calloused fist, covered in a forest of ginger-red hair. Wyland felt like he had an eternity to move out of the way, but as he attempted to move, he suddenly felt the tightness around his wrists, ankles and neck bind up, freezing him in place. They felt odd, like they were moving, clenching and loosening as a Boa Constrictor might, advancing it's slowly tightening grip on it's prey. It was almost as though there were snakes binding him in place.
He felt a frown grow on his face as the back of Red's meaty fist closed in. He felt the Taser, still clicking its maddening clicks. He could smell that Crom has pissed and shit himself.
He felt his nose crumple and then finally, a deep and oddly satisfying Crunch as his nose gave way, then a flash of white, then nothing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)