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.
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