Chapter 7
"Life clings to the barest patches of the universe. With the faintest rains, deserts flower. From primordial soups, proteins chain. It's said that energy itself cannot be created or dispelled, only converted. At least, that is our current reality." Susan Rainsford, Foundations of Creation
Michael had to step over their bodies to follow Morrigan. Gerde still stared sightlessly at Nakimura and Knight, her left hand more supporting her opened throat than trying to hopelessly stem the flow of life, and Michael closed her sky-colored eyes as he passed over her. He did the same for Grace and Gabriel, their traumatic deaths giving them no peace in their final moments. Now they only look like they are sleeping through all this, Rainsford thought to himself, though it would make no difference. Could any of them actually do anything to prevent this? He still desperately wanted these strangers with him. Maybe it was better for them if they weren't.
Beithir was truly waking, the ground trembling with its yawns, cracking in tune with the slight shakes of its sleepy head. She held the last Shattenjager's heart out to him, a final, dripping morsel, over the blinded Well. It was the last claim, the final proof.
He peered into the structure. There was not a single image left in the cleared waters, except a newly formed, soullessly bruised eye looking back at him from deep below.
"Beithir is no longer blind, no longer a mere 'dreamer.' In my world, my beloved will have a new name, a new form, and a new purpose."
Rainsford thought about the black eye that looked hungrily at him, and shuddered.
"Make no mistake, for Beithir is all soul. Just not of a nature you recognize."
"Will there be anything I will recognize in your new world, Madame?"
"I would like you to see it, and judge, but unlike the Shattenjager, you do not have the ability to survive the sight."
Michael saw vague, new images forming in the Well beneath him. Beithir opened its gullet wide, and he saw thin tendrils of blood mixing into the waters, and larvae creatures writhing in the Worm's belly. New nations were forming from the violated blood of old ones, and within this broken sea would come the children of madness.
"Beithir will give birth to all. Nothing will be lost. If you could survive my new Eden, you would meet with old friends once again..."
"In the same nature that Grace was in, for example?"
She misunderstood Rainsford. "Yes, they would belong to me. Each of them, and I will not abandon and confuse my own."
"And what will you teach them?"
"I would let them know my desires, unlike your Gods, who seem to want nothing, but a blind, vague, unknowing worship. I would not do this to my children. They will have purpose. They will understand their meaning. They will understand me. They..."
"They will have no choice."
"And you thought you had one? I will always be with them. Can your Gods say as much? They will have much more than you."
Morrigan grew tired of her righteous argument, and more blood entered the waters as the maggot made ready Its birth. The foundations of the earth shivered as Beithir flicked the very tip of its tail in anticipation.
Random thoughts sped through Rainford's mind as time slowed to the second. What was the purpose of Farral Beithir? To end the world because... because.. What is the Betrayal of Man to deserve such an ending? Brother against brother, blood against blood, jealousy and greed back to the first murder of Abel by Cain. "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground..."
Does even Heaven cry out for vengeance?
Morrigan still held the heart out to her children, waiting. To Michael's fevered eyes, it still seemed to pulse slowly.
Betrayed blood. Sacrificial blood. Proof of needed destruction. Proof of earned existence.
What is the salvation of Man?
Michael had picked up Gerde's pouch from her belt as he passed over her body. He did not pick up her knife, could not touch the thing that was covered in her own blood and conspired with Morrigan to take her life. He believed that anything in her pouch would be useless, but it made him feel better as he attached it onto his own band. He then threw himself over the lip of the Well.
Morrigan shouted, horrified, and dropped the heart.
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Rainsford held his breath, but the way to the maggot was too far. He wondered if a drowned sacrifice would make any difference, and took his first convulsive breath of water.
He couldn't drown.
At first his body reacted as it would to any liquid that entered his lungs, closing before it and choking, but then it recognized the life in it, as his lungs had in the womb, and let more enter as poisonous carbon dioxide built up within. Like a deep-sea diver breathing liquid oxygen, he gulped the fluid using delicate muscles unused to such heavy exertion, slowed his "breathing" so he only needed a few lung fulls a minute, and dove deeper toward the beast.
Beithir, its mouth gaping, did not see Rainsford approaching from above. Michael detached the pouch and opened it. Inside were relics most historians only dream about. They were all in pieces, some very small, for he had always believed such sacred things would be broken up so that no one person or group would have such responsibility, or power. He only barely recognized (or is it theorized) some of them, and had always wondered what would happen if they were united, and was sorry he would never see such a day. Even now, he wanted to take them all back to the university to study them, to announce their reality or fraudulence, but his historical life was over. Wasn't he a part of a history now that he could never tell? Who would believe his story? He closed the pouch and reattached it to his belt.
The Worm felt the foreign thing inside it before it could release Morrigan's children. Beithir tried to expel the intruder, but the second the mortal touched its flesh, its jaws locked shut, and nothing in any universe could open it. This was not supposed to happen. Nothing mortal, nothing belonging to, and especially nothing with the thinking and philosophies from the old existence was meant to be brought into the new. But this human, having ingested the Waters of Life and still ingesting it inside Beithir well, there was no way now to kill it and prevent it from entering the new Eden, unless the thing was cut out from the Worm, and Its flesh was not easily damaged. Farral Beithir felt itself sinking back into its deep slumber, its purpose halted, its children compromised. This tainted meal it was never meant to consume, and even the Worm would not have thought it still possible. Perhaps it was not the time, and there was still something left in the mortal world. Beithir was not worried, for it knew a certain time would come and wake it. It entered into its dream filled sleep, and wondered if the creature would share its dreams, or make his own.
Before insensibility, Beithir felt a very small thing bumped its snout. It smelled the luscious blood, but could do nothing about that. Such concerns meant nothing now, and perhaps, in the near future, it would have a different feast. The Worm slept as it had before, as the Waters became transparent again, and awaited Morrigan's arrival.
Morrigan screamed so even the Heavens cringed. She could not believe all her efforts (her waiting, her longing) were so easily frustrated. Leaning far over the Well, she had seen through the pinkish waters Michael enter the beast, swim through the red sea inside its gullet, and touch the pouch to one side of its throat. Beithir snapped its jaws shut, locked to further interference. Not even the angels could have defeated the Worm in this way. It was an act of pure, mortal faith, and sacrifice. So simple. So foolish. So unpredictable. So human.
Human.
There was nothing but bodies around her now, and even the Hosts had departed. No images filled the Well, and now was a time between the possibilities. The earth settled, but she had not finished with it.
Beithir she could not reawaken, that power was beyond her, but the other three at her feet... Had they arrived at their just rewards, or were they in limbo about her? Morrigan commanded many souls, for this was the Labyrinth, and many wandered lost in it. She still sensed some of them around her, like those she sent to corrupt Schloss Ritter, and beguile Gerde, and idly decided to send one simple one down to fetch the Shattenjager's misbegotten heart. It came back wet and filled with the unending waters, quick and lively in her grasp, and she nested it into the cavity that she had hollowed in the Shadow Hunter's chest. It leapt like a lost spider finding its home, grasping and knitting onto the web of arteries that poorly traffic mortal life. Flesh grew as his heart filled emptied veins, and even Morrigan wondered what sort of creature would arise from this. She felt souls gather around her, envious of the resurrection, and pondered which would dare enter this waiting body. Gabriel's body shifted, choked, then vomited up pinkish fluid that was more clear than human blood. He looked at her, veiled hatred in his eyes.
"What about those two?" he said in a rasping, long forgotten voice.
"I will raise them when my sisters are ready."
"It seems such a waste. Why should they wait?"
"My sisters are sometimes... competitive, and foolish. I want to give them something tangible, not just a few moments of physical existence. Are you not happy to serve me again?"
"I thank you for this life, goddess. What would you have me do?"
Morrigan walked to Gerde's outstretched hand. She was glad that the renegade had not taken the blade, for it was a very ancient and powerful device, and pointed it out to the creature before her.
"Take that, and use it on Beithir. I cannot touch it. Use it to cut out the mortal inside my beloved, and then bring this mortal back to me."
"Use it on Beithir?" The creature looked horrified, if horror was still surprising to one so well acquainted.
"Do it! I would not ask if I thought you could harm my beloved. It would not even feel your cuts, and is still immersed in the healing waters."
The creature hesitated, but took the knife, freeing it from a pool of congealed blood and dirt. He grasped it between his fingers, climbed on top of the edge of the well, looked back at Morrigan contemplatively, and dove.
The goddess, still close to Gerde, reached down and smoothed her golden hair. She looked at her sweet face, and thought it almost too good for either of them. She began singing, calling to her sisters.
"Sisters, I have prepared fine homes for you. Rejoice, and be with me."
Morrigan did not even bother with the Waters, for the power of her sisters would renew such simple flesh.
They did not stir. Perhaps the time had been too long? She went to them and imbued a little of her own life into each.
"Sisters, they are living flesh," she sang, "I would not deceive you. They are admirable, and ready for your gifts."
Each began to stir a little, but did not move with the graceful fluidity of her kin. She wondered what was wrong, why her sisters were so slow and hesitant, and touched them.
Grace turned, hair still besotted with blood and clinging to her face. But there was now a tint to her skin that implied solid life. She sipped a measure of air, and whispered...
"Gabriel?"
Morrigan stepped back. The other was also rising, arms and knees pushing herself up to look around her.
"Grace?" Gerde asked.
Their souls had still been in the Labyrinth, and had forced their way back to her.
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The creature stood before Beithir. He had never thought he would have the honor, despite all the promises the priestesses had made to their disciples. He also never believed they would ever enter her heralded Eden, and after thousands of years of thought, wondered why he had held onto such a foolish, mortal conviction. To his misfortune, this follower had discovered that the goddesses were real, and he had been commanded by them for eons. Yet, here was Farral Beithir, and this meant many, many things.
He made the first cut on the left side (as Morrigan had instructed him) of the Worm's neck, behind his immense jaws. It was as she had said, for the wound bled very little. Beithir's life had so slowed in sleep that the flesh seemed barely living, and the creature that was Gabriel sank the knife deeper and longer, until he could walk through the thick, white flesh. He had to keep cutting in front of him, and panicked as flesh closed upon itself behind, and he was encased within the maggot's skin. He was like a parasite now inside the great Beast, tunneling through It as he pulled himself along innards, handfuls of slippery flesh easily eluding his grasp. He wondered if he had trapped himself for eternity inside the decay of the Worm. The creature had seen many horrors, and caused many more, and thought if this was the justice for his deeds.
He pushed his hand once more through the wound, and felt another grasp it. The other pulled at him, and he pushed away from the pulp, helping his savior as best he could expel him from Beithir's flesh.
The creature's anomalous eyes could see in the complete dark, for it was the soul they sought, not the meat. Oddly, the mortal before him also looked straight at him, for Rainsford now shared part of the Worm's consciousness, its dreams, and perhaps sights even the creature did not envy.
He made ready his weapon.
"What are you going to do with that? Though this place stinks of blood, I know the waters still heal." Michael crossed his arms, in mock waiting. He knew who this was, or at least the creed, and was not afraid.
"Maybe if I cut you into small enough pieces, you won't be much of an influence, especially when I carry you out of Beithir in my belly," Gabriel's appearance hissed.
"Hmmm, I think that would be an impossibility. Somebody didn't teach you enough about mass and surface area, boy."
"I am no boy!" The creature leapt at Rainsford, pushing him over onto the slippery, lying surface of the maggot's tongue. They struggled, Michael barely avoiding the demon's lunges for his throat and head. As they fought, pushing themselves nearer the worm's downward pointing gorge, other, partly-formed creatures raised half digested limbs to pull at them from below, wanting to claim them both down into their deeper existence. Both he and the creature kicked at them, and their delicate, incomplete forms collapsed under their combined assault. Distracted, Michael managed to push the imp away, struggling to his feet and retreating to better advantage.
"What's wrong?" Michael taunted. "Not used to having a mortal body after all this time? You can't even defeat an old man? What use has Morrigan of you in her army?"
Without a word, Knight's image flew at him, and sank his cross into Michael's belly.
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Above, Grace began violently cursing Morrigan, which almost shocked Gerde more than her own resurrection. She was further stunned when the goddess actually began backing away from Grace, who continued to badger the demigod.
"So, I was one of your own, huh? And this is what you do to your own? You said to Gabriel that you never lied. Never lied!" The goddess still gaped at Grace without acting. "What, you're afraid that someone actually sees your lies, and has told all the souls trapped in the Labyrinth about them? Your followers, can't you feel them? They know now. Oh yes, they understand."
The air around Morrigan began howling. Unlike angels, the souls in the Labyrinth were not so forgiving, or dispassionate.
"How many hundreds were in here, Morrigan? How many did you mutilate? How many false promises did you make?"
The trapped souls clawed at the goddess. They pulled at her hair, her clothes, her skin. They dragged her into the air, and then threw her back down in an almost visible current of hatred.
"How many, false goddess? How long were they to wait?"
Gerde saw Morrigan drop the amulet, and she took this profound opportunity to stagger over to it (her body responded so slowly) and fetch it from beside the Well. When the goddess was violently pulled to her feet again by the spirits, she threw the chain over Morrigan's throat, and began garroting her with it. The amulet's force held her ethereal being, giving Gerde purchase somehow. She pulled down, dragging the bewildered goddess over the lip of the Well, where she tottered, forgotten fear welling in her surprised eyes. The weight of the amulet held her, like so many heavy stones, and when Gerde let go of it over the waters, the golden crest fell, and took the goddess down to her beloved's waiting crypt.
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Michael couldn't completely avoid the thrust, receiving 4 inches of the dagger into his stomach, but he was quick, sidestepping, and did manage to save his innards from the next slicing blow. He grabbed Gabriel's wrist, pulling towards him, in a direction not anticipated by his attacker. The unexpected movement put the creature off balance, his knife still partly trapped in Rainford's flesh, and turned him, so that Michael managed to circle an arm around his neck and hold him fairly steadily. He then was finally able to pull the knife out of himself. He felt the cut heavily, despite the adrenaline, but it began healing instantly.
"You are a boy," Michael said. "All of Morrigan's sacrifices were children. How many millennia have you been bound to her? How old were you when you died?"
"I have done her work for a thousand lifetimes. I have seen more than your life."
"Only sadder for you, child."
They both heard a deep howling from above and Michael, through the Worm's borrowed eyes, knew what it was.
"There! Those are her disciples, and I think they no longer care for her commands. Are you the only true follower left?"
"She would not betray me. I will not her!"
"That is truly a child's faith. I envy that. But you have seen too much to still believe it."
The boy stopped struggling, his religion compromised.
"This is your chance, child. I believe you may be able to leave this place. The bonds are weakening. We are in a time between the worlds. A time that exists in neither, or both."
The boy turned his head and looked at him.
"Go with them," Michael said.
The cross dropped out of his hand as Gabriel's body slumped. He picked it up, as well as Gabriel, and went to the entrance the boy had made. It still had not healed, the Worm's bodily processes were so slowed. He knew what to do, but time was short. Fortunately, he believed he would have help.
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"Morrigan, come back to us..." her sisters sang to her from deep within Farral Beithir's unseen coils, mounted inside the earth. "It is not time, but soon... Soon."
She could feel her grasp on this world slip, the powers of the waters and of the amulet working upon her, and she would join her beloved again, but not as she had envisioned, had hoped.
"Do not envy such a small time, Morrigan. Let us watch together, and we shall all three join when the time is perfected...."
Under the increasing, choking weight of the amulet, Morrigan's spirit dispelled, and she went to her sisters, following the paths and doorways of the secret Labyrinth by heart.
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The angels flew between the Waters and Heaven, appearing and disappearing in so rapid succession that no mortal could take in what they saw. That would have been true even if the breathtaking hosts had stood perfectly still before them. The images of the Promise had been restored, and the Heaven's rejoiced in its renewed telling. People went about their lives unmindful of the night's events, though some had been awakened by slight disturbances. Still, sleep was much more important than minor tremors in people's busy lives, and many half-formed thoughts about banning heavy trucks from residential streets at night, and returned to their slumbers.
"Gabriel?"
Gabriel looked around him. He stood before a mountain, in a small, open place, and remembered hiking with someone through an area much like this recently. Usually, Knight abhorred camping, but this morning seemed pleasant enough that he didn't grumpily reply to the speaker.
"I think you dropped this, Gabriel."
It was hard for Knight to recognize the person before him. He seemed to know him, but then something kept changing about his appearance. Such confusion would normally frighten him, unless he could remember a particularly awesome party of a few hours earlier, but since he didn't have a raging headache at the moment, he couldn't seem to worry about it properly.
"Wolfgang?" He seemed to remember that name from some existence.
"Well, not quite, but I have spoken to him, and he is a very enlightening fellow. He did want me to give you a couple of things." He handed Gabriel a silvered heart.
"That's Gerde's, not mine." He remembered how much she cherished that heart, and was sad for some reason.
"No, Gabriel, it's yours. And so is this." Gabriel did recognize the Knight Crest. It seemed more beautiful than it had been before, but he did not want it back.
"I didn't think I needed this anymore. Are you sure I'm suppose to have it?"
"I'm sure, but it's up to you. It has always been. And even though you may not feel it, there are many people who trust it much more with you than anyone else in the world. And that surprises even me." "Michael?" Knight only vaguely remembered him, but it felt almost like meeting family again. "What am I going to tell Gracie?"
"You won't have to, boy." Michael laughed heartily. "But it is strange. Being in the world, and not in it. Seeming to be able to effect some things in it, and then not. I think I'm only watching, or maybe dreaming, but then again, I do seem to be talking to you, or I think I am, aren't I?"
"Michael..."
"Wolfgang wanted me to tell you a few things. It was hard for me to comprehend, but what I could, I put into your heart. It seemed the right thing to do, though I think I'm very new to this."
Knight looked around, and felt very lonely. "What about the others? What did you mean I wouldn't have to tell Gracie? Do you mean..."
"No. You'll see. And, well, for some strange reason, though sometimes the heavens seem very dispassionate, and distant, they are not. I couldn't see them when I first went in. I guess I would have been shocked to death by it. Don't believe Morrigan. Truth is perspective. Her truth is possible. So is yours."
"Michael, is there any way I can help you...."
"Take the amulet back, Knight."
Gabriel took it, and his heart started beating again.
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"Gabriel! Did you fall off that dang mountain, or what? What the heck have you been doing?"
Gabriel was lying on his back, with a raving headache, staring up at a mountainside with the high sun beating off it and making his headache worse.
"Have you been trying to climb up that thing? Where did you get all this gear from? This is turning out to be some vacation! And why did you drag Gerde way out here? Did you think I couldn't handle being in a foreign country, an English speaking country which is probably something you didn't realize, all alone?"
Both Grace and Gerde were staring at him lying on the ground. He did feel a little beat up and bruised, and could almost imagine that he fell off a mountainside. Grace looked up again at the various hooks and rope that scaled the cliff side, seeming to go off into a little crevice. "What do you think is up there, Knight? Blondes? Boy, are you stupid."
Gabriel sat up slowly, aching. "Well, what are you doing out here, Gracie? I don't remember you mentioning anything about camping."
"I Was enjoying myself, until you stumbled along. One of my professors mentioned the countryside in his letter, though he couldn't come out here himself today. He's exploring some site, I think. And it's only a day trip. Looks like you guys got lost out here, judging by how grubby you both look. And no packs! That must have been your idea, genius."
"We were worried about you. We couldn't seem to contact you, and you were supposed to drop by, or at least Gerde thought you were going to."
"What, I'm a little late, and so you guys buy plane tickets and actually come out here to get me? Oh boy, I thought I only had one set of parents. What's wrong with both of you? And when did you take up mountain climbing? Did you think I was Up There?"
"Um, well, it's not our equipment. Someone must be up there."
"It looks old to me. And don't mountain climbers just leave their gear behind and buy new stuff? I mean, how expensive can rope and hooks be? Sheesh! I think you both have sunstroke, and probably exposure, since neither one of you thought to bring packs or provisions or anything!"
"Well, you don't have one either, Grace," Knight observed, hoping to make sense of his muddled thinking.
"That's because I was only planning a day trip! Duh! Okay, enough wasting of hot air. I have to get you both back to town. You two look homeless. It's a good thing that town is full of really nice people, used to seeing stupid Americans lost in the woods. And the friends they drag along with them, right Gerde?" Grace paused slightly in her scolding, and almost remembered something. "Were you two trying to help look for those kids? It is terrible. Um, okay, it's good to see you both. Well, especially Gerde. And I'm glad you're alright, Gabriel." She looked up the mountainside again. "Unbelievable."
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Grace was right. The town treated all three of them exceptionally well when they returned from the mountain, almost as if they knew them, as if they were heroes of some sort, returning from some war. It was very odd, but no one really questioned it, and put it down to small town hospitality toward befuddled foreigners. They also realized the town was still recovering from great sadness and loss, and perhaps this generosity stemmed from this, returning hopeful good for destructive evil. They all said it was something Michael would have wanted, that the wise and generous professor was very important to them all, and their children, and that he wished he could see them, but wouldn't return in time. Some of them even opened their homes to them, and they were all too strangely exhausted to argue. In the end, they decided to return to Schloss Ritter, where Grace renewed some old acquaintances in town, and complained about the food, but did enjoy seeing the old architecture and museums again. Gabriel thought she had a little crush on that young, thin, anemic looking museum/conductor person with the earring and toothy smile. Schizophrenic, artsy-fartsy people would be Grace's downfall, he scolded. Gerde was glad to have a little positive company around once more, though she also enjoyed the energy level that barometered whenever the two talked about what each was doing with their lives. Gerde did notice a strange, very light scar about her neck, as if some necklace of hers must have scratched her without notice. Both Grace and Gabriel also complained about strange aches and pains for the first few nights, but Gerde didn't want to bring up the suggestion of alien abductions and experiments (she had enough refereeing to do most nights without that). And she didn't want to deal with the resulting shouting matches if she suggested the wear and tear of plain aging. No, she really didn't want that. Gerde at times rethought the wisdom of her family's inheritance, assisting the destiny of Shattenjagers, and their friends. Sigh, When was her next (if ever) vacation due?
THE END