Orphan At The Edge Of The World

A shrill screech reminiscent of every fingernail on every chalk board of the world being dragged at once reverberated across the air. Every head present turned towards them. Faintly, Orison could feel the mostly still asleep moon sized planet killer above them draw its attention down too.

A portal opened and a figure stepped through that looked similar to what Orison did when he pulled his s.p.a.ce over himself, save for a pair of electric blue eyes. The young mage immediately knew who, more accurately, what it/they was/were. Those in the know called him/it Gnarly. The suicidally inclined named the creature Nyarlathotep, drawing its gaze to themselves.

For whatever reason, an ent.i.ty whose mere projection was tier five and "real" enough to invalidate reality around it, chose to mark a lower dimensional world for oblivion in such a roundabout way. The churning of reality around itself caused all else to slow, as if teetering on the edge of an event horizon. However, it had not come to interfere, only to watch.

A feather light touch to the ground and its presence faded from perception. Orison took advantage of the distraction the demented spectator had caused, slipping into his own version of becoming a cardboard cutout hole of a person. Eating a chunk out of the steps beneath him, the young mage nudged Zeke into the hole before dropping after.

The inside of the pyramid was a nightmare of epic proportions. Sense of direction was pointless. Even spirit sight was no help at all. Only the Find Object ability at the core of what feeble psionic ability he possessed, offered any guidance. Following that guidance was its own h.e.l.lish struggle and every moment spent saw corruption filled and inert essence clogging and choking up the pure dot of irradiating light at the center of his s.p.a.ce.

As Orison made his way through the folds and creases of s.p.a.cial origami, he"d occasionally cease using Find Objective to apply his weak psionics to catalyze magic into telekinetic force, dragging and sliding Zeke around like a rag doll. Only the most senior members of their pursuers could follow but Orison couldn"t stop using his s.p.a.ce to move or they"d get stuck like flies in amber at one point or another. The cost kept piling and the young mage despaired that he"d turn to dust as Zora had, long before they reached their goal.

In a partially delusional state, Orison heard the sounds of a girl"s soft laughter and the chiming of cheap bells. No, not bells, keys. It was a ring of keys striking each other with each step of the one holding them. Immeasurably far away, yet just within reach, orison saw a fetus growing within a womb. If he was willing to reach of the essence that lied within it, he could easily make his destination but the unborn child would die.

Had it been some random child, he might have been able to balance all that was at stake against it. He would feel monstrous but maybe one day he would be able to forgive himself or make up in some way what he had done. But it wasn"t just any child. It was Keita. It was the woman who had planned her own suicide to spare him, burned a ma.s.sive amount of potential and power to reinvent herself rather than betray him. Even in his current situation, it was as if her soul was forgiving him in advance rather than grudging the possibility of its life ending before it had a chance to taste it fully.

He couldn"t do it. A pa.s.sing thought of suggested emotional weakness warred with the idea that success at such a cost was beyond Pyrrhic victory, it was the loss of a much different kind of war, possibly a more important one. It no longer mattered. The decision was made and there was no second chance as the connection faded away.

Trudging along, Orison could feel cellular death affecting the extremities of his body. With calculated precision and disconnected ambivalence, the young mage redirected his remaining life essence and the judiciously applied drop of vital water until his plane was no longer accessible. Riddled with necrosis and cancer, Orison crawled for each precious inch.

At some point, he realized his forward movement wasn"t caused by himself. He"d stopped being a cutout person and someone was carrying him. Sharp retorts of gun fire rang miles away, near his barely functioning ears. A strained voice yelling at a vocal cord breaking volume was the slightest imaginary whisper, telling Orison that a locked door barred their way.

A girl"s voice that was perhaps imaginary, sounded like thunder. "You don"t need all the keys, only one. The right one."

From condensed concept, a sprinkle of dust particle chrism flung throughout his s.p.a.ce and the vague remnants of the original Danann Key that had been destroyed to save him during his botch of a ritual, Orison made a key. It only had one purpose and one use, unlocking the obstacle in front of him.

For a moment he felt weightless. That feeling turned into a scattering of barely felt pain as chalk-like bones shattered throughout his body. He didn"t know if he was alive or dead. He didn"t know if they reached their goal. Orison just reached out with as much push as he could and directed whatever sentient life might be there to take hold of the device a order it to take the person back, back as far as they could go.

Mindless, meaningless time pa.s.sed. Particle after particle of conscious soul drifted off Orison"s core like sparks off of a slow motion burning of iron filings on a sparkler. It wasn"t thought but more of a primal understanding that he"d drift until there was nothing left, maybe burn up like an asteroid entering an atmosphere but at least there was a chance. In some when and where, he might live again in a form he"d likely not recognize, in a life that wouldn"t technically be his anymore. Only the vaguest of impressions would be left, buried deep inside the soul core.

A core drifted nearby. It was once unnaturally fused with his own, unable to fully join due to greater laws of reality but unable to part without destroying a life it was unwilling to harm. Here, the laws were different. It was outside of the laws.

The remaining emotional impetus of that core burned itself brightly. Giving itself to the core who primally perceived but didn"t understand. Particles that were drifting away began coming back. The energetic kick of the second core sent the first back into a field of some kind, one that reversed what happened to it.

The second core was caught in the effect as well but it was pulled in a few particles at a time, becoming a part of the first in a way reality would never have allowed. By the point that the spiritual existence was fully encapsulated by structured reality once more, the two cores were only one and that one was accepted. The laws didn"t reject is re-entrance any longer.

Dust, spirit essence and structure returned. Following that were more complex and then corporeal elements of existence. Unmaking reversed, then death unbecame. A living being was cut and then spliced from one still frame in the stack of s.p.a.ces known as time and then spliced into another, replacing what had once stood in its place.

Orison came to in a fight for his life with a black silk purse trying to devour him as he slid painfully back into a reality he"d wished he"d never encountered. During the fight, the capsule floating along with a handful of other items in a s.p.a.ce without a plane, opened with a hissing crack. From out of it flew a case containing three black pearls.

From each of the pearls flew a scroll in some foreign language accompanied by a message. "Paradox protocol activated. Warranty voided. Recall claimed. Dear customer, please avoid future paradoxes resulting from timeline transposition from unregulated sources as this will result in customer service rejection of claim."

Orison appeared in an ally with a silent explosion of air pressure before his world washed in tightly contained light. As it faded, he noticed that the bogeyman which had only just started to surface, was shredded like confetti and was already dissipating. By his side, a young and wild eyed Zeke in an olive drab army uniform stood bewildered by what had occurred.

Zeke looked at Orison and said, "You could have let me grab my stuff first."

Orison gave him a look of disbelief, not knowing whether to laugh or cry as he said, "I didn"t do it. Teaser suit customer service did."

The young mage took the case out and put on "swift". Unlike the first time, the other two didn"t merge with it. Despite that, the activation and forming of his suit was successful. After struggling with it briefly as he hear the approaching scuffle of footsteps, Orison tossed "Bold" to Zeke. Unlike Orison, the militant man didn"t have a s.p.a.ce to shunt his current clothes into, so they ripped to pieces as a thick, stiffer looking teaser suit took their place.

Zeke"s surprised exclamation drew the attention of three men beating the stuffing out of a third. As the three men peered down the shadowed alley, they were suddenly overcome with a sense of paranoia and fear. They ran away, leaving their victim to face whatever danger lurked in the darkness, marked by two Caribbean blue dots of light.

Before approaching Neil, Orison quickly checked his s.p.a.ce to see that it was as he remembered it being after waking up in the cabin. There wasn"t any stuff but for the cracked capsule and the mini trainer. There was no sense of any other existences in his s.p.a.ce except for some laws that "seemed" alive and a spa.r.s.e collection of plants on his mini plane. By process of elimination, he got the idea that anything that made it to mid dimensional reality wasn"t affected by changes in the low, at least not majorly.

Everything that he had done while he was here had been undone along with the reversal of time save for those that extended beyond the lower dimension. He suspected that as long as he didn"t cause another exception of paradox by reaching out to the abyssal will orb in any way, that at the right moment, it would go to where it needed to be without any problems and even if Flora didn"t exist yet, that didn"t mean she couldn"t. He was reticent to recreate the other three as they hadn"t made it to the point of being proper personalities anyway and he already had two out in mid dimensional existence somewhere.

From the information that was given, something had happened to Herne and Flora due to the hunter chasing after something he couldn"t handle. Ivan managed to pa.s.s that on before he too met a cruel fate. None of that mattered now but it did change how he felt about Herne and the inevitable request that came a little later due to not using the halberd. Another thing that changed how he felt wasn"t nearly as complicated and far less flattering.

Inside the capsule were things that would be very useful to him and not so much to Herne but that hadn"t stopped the hunter from taking everything except for the most useless of junk and the plants that Flora had cultivated for him. The hunter was capricious and greedy within the boundaries of what was allowed. Were it not for Flora, there was no doubt in Orison"s mind that Herne would have "hunted" him again once he was recovered. Instead of taking on Herne"s services, Orison wood chippered the aspect"s remaining essence through Stag"s mark.

Briefly acknowledging the grat.i.tude that came through the temporarily strengthened mark, Orison turned his attention back to the outer world. Striding to Neil, the young mage set up a ritual while the man protested weakly. In a few flashes of subdued light, the detective was as good as he could be before diet, exercise or cheat-like medicine could affect any real change.

As the detective scrabbled to a sitting position, Orison crouched down to eye level and said, "Here"s the deal, Cornelius Jones. I don"t need you but I like what you stand for when you"re not a drunk slob. I"ll come by to visit you soon. By then, make up your mind whether you want to be a bottom feeder whose left alone, a successful and healthy man with a life destroying career or a person who gives up the mundane world for the supernatural one."

As Orison walked away with Zeke in bemused tow, Neil said, "What will the second and third cost? You can"t expect a man to chose an outfit without being able to see the price tag."

Orison smiled as he turned back. "One of your best qualities, the ability to think on your feet... Both cost the same thing, friendship and the willingness to throw yourself behind a good cause when you see one. I primarily think of my own cause as the best one but I can accept when opinions differ."

True to his occupational sickness, Neil continued to pester, Orison until they arrived at the street of East village where Wei"s Apothecary shop resided.

The young mage said, "Zeke, make sure Neil gets a cab home. I don"t want him on the Tong"s radar."

The militant man and the detective nearly asked the same question in unison. Orison confirmed that there was a branch of the New Yorkshire tong in Port Haven but said nothing else. Walking away without acknowledging any more of Neil"s endless litany of questions. It belatedly dawned on him that the only reason why Neil didn"t hara.s.s him so much in the past was because the detective thought of him as a child to some degree. The only two sacred grounds where he should curb his enthusiastic curiosity, in Neil"s mind, were the secrets of women and children.

Mr. Wei was immediately intimidated by the helmeted stranger knocking on his door but ultimately opened up when Orison flashed a wad of cash.

After a brisk round of trade, before walking out, the young mage said, "The Tong needs to reign in Smiley before he draws the winds of the b.u.t.terfly. He"s bedfellows with the "new blood" and will only get more bold with time. Strike down the snake before it becomes a flood dragon. By the way, he"s an traumatically awakened gifted, an augmenter."

Orison walked out to find Zeke waiting with a cabby that looked like he wanted nothing more than to skip out on this set of customers. With or without a helmet, Zeke was an intimidating guy and Orison wondered how he got the cab to stop in the first place.

The young mage said, "Grand Marquis, driver... Hey, are you going to get in any trouble for disappearing from where you were?"

Zeke said, "Not if I can get a hardship leave approved. I have plenty of days saved up to take me to reenlistment time. Depends on how much of a hard*ss my company commander feels like being. An infantry specialist is no prize to worry over. I didn"t...wouldn"t have gone air born until this re-up," whispering, he said, "It was after that I was recruited into black ops and hurt in an explosion."

Once they were at the hotel and set up for the night, Zeke called his company commander in Nihon. It started out sounding bad but after some dithering and sounding like it broke his heart, Zeke managed to get the captain off his back. It only cost a 200 dollar grocery list worth of stuff Zeke would have to pay through the nose to ship to the other side of the world. The militant man was smiling deviously until he realized that at this point and time, he had a bank account that barely had that much in it.

Orison waved the concern away as something he could take care of the next day. There were a handful of ways he could raise a small fortune fairly quickly. All of which would have to wait for the next day. Indulging in a little booze and rough housing to blow off the jangled nerves of their "way past" near death experience, learning first-hand that Zeke was a light weight agonophiliac in the process, they could ratchet down enough to rest.

The young mage had never considered himself one to enjoy what he considered chest pounding behavior. However, he had to admit that it was fun clowning around when the other person didn"t get too serious. That Zeke had admitted wanting to recapture some of the late-teen, young adult life that early entry into the military and a combat professional career had robbed him of, made it even more worthwhile. Orison could imagine that Zeke hadn"t been too popular with making friends even before the light disfigurement and off putting aura the same way a pretty girl had a tough time making them. No one likes to hang around people that make them feel inferior except users.

He could imagine that Zeke didn"t get a much better deal in the military. People who made friends with him were probably more interested in hiding behind him or using him to intimidate others than out of much genuine sentiment. His superiors probably reinforced that isolation by singling out the "most competent" guy for the dangerous stuff. After all, it would seem like a bad deal to get too emotionally attached to someone it looked like the top bra.s.s had marked for sacrifice.

Orison reminded himself not to get too wrapped up in his own narrative. There was no denying that Zeke had the makings to be the best friend a person could hope for but he was still a beast of a man. He may be a lion with the ambition to "lay with the lamb" but he was still a lion. And nature would insist on having its say from time to time, regardless of what a person desired.

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