I Love Absurdity. Don't you?

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

One of the endless supply of ill thought out questions that found its way to my ear during the earlier days of my life was something I dare say you’ve heard or thought yourself. How can God be so cruel? How could he allow six million Jews to be exterminated during the holocaust or how can he allow murderers and rapists who repent their sins in the last two seconds of their depraved lives to escape vengeance while at the same time a halfway decent atheist is condemned to an eternity of grim suffering? The list goes on and the answers are varied and often weak.

God, Goddess, Deity, I’m going to refer to them as Godkind and hope I’m not infringing on a copyright or two. My point is that they aren’t human, yet they were always thought of as such on Earth in the old days. We mere mortals cast our limited conceptions onto creatures that were to us what we are to ferrets. Sad but true. We are children and chaff at once. No, actually that’s not true. That’s how it was in the pre-ascension stage. I was now a child with no shortage of chaff to tear to pieces with ease. I was a soldier officially, unofficially I was a tool, a slave perhaps. I now existed to further the benevolent and imperialistic whims of my Goddess.

But who gives a flying fuck? Certainly not me. One thing you soon come to realise when you find yourself harbouring a newfound contempt for the trials, troubles and general pointlessness of your old life to an extent you probably wouldn’t expect to feel until after your death. Life is so much better here.

Forgive me dear reader, I don’t mean to sound like a prick. Nevertheless, I have faith that one day Eria Secob will take your world as she did mine. Then you’ll see what I mean. Until then however, you’ll have to make do with my cheery narrative.

I woke up with a hangover in a stately looking blue double bed in the middle of a hotel room lined with grass. Mike was draped casually over my chest, giving us the vague image I imagine of a lopsided crow.

Casrathi was still working on the misfortunate male she’d captured the previous evening. The poor bloke was full of holes. She had him pinned to the bed with her wings through his shoulders. I think he was sedated somehow because he could do nothing but lay back as the blade bearing she-beast atop him tore bits out of his skin with her nails and swallowed them like ham slices. The twisted look of utter anguish on his face didn’t suggest that he was having much fun.

Of Haer’daral there was no sign. I have no idea where he’d gone off to, nor did I believe I’d have much success in guessing. Universes of possibilities good reader, all of imagination’s fruits stretched out before us, he could be standing upside down in a train station in Minsk for all I knew. Or maybe he was just on the bog.
It occurs to me that I’m getting into the habit of mentioning him last whenever I end up listing the four of us, poor bugger. I really must stop doing that, he’s not nearly as uninteresting as I’ve probably made him out to be. Still, in comparison to a half naked harpy tearing a man to bits not three feet from me, well, I guess the man can wait.

I have no idea what that guy did. His face looked vaguely familiar but after we’d gotten back from Tyraea and started hitting the clubs, pubs and some strange place called the ‘Hole of Wonderment’, my cognitive faculties promptly went kaput. Maybe we went hunting for un-creatures again at some point, or maybe I dreamt it.

“Morning.” Mike muttered with a mouth full of duvet.
“Morning” I replied, quickly turning my head and hoping I’d done so quick enough to prevent Casrathi from noticing me gawking at her cleavage. Oh don’t give me that look good reader, I can’t help but be a red blooded, (bisexual I guess I have to mention) male.

It took him a few moments to get his bearings, when he did he scampered off my chest and made his way to a window overlooking a café on the roof of the hotel’s second building.
“Morning.” Casrathi said, placing her arms underneath her breakfast’s back and resting her head on his bleeding chest. The grin she flashed at us made me feel suddenly keen to put some clothes on. This passed soon enough, there was no end of meat about after all.
“Morning,” I said, throwing myself backwards into the pillow. My new sadistic friend I remember thinking had the right idea, today I felt like emulating her and indulging in whatever sinful indulgences presented themselves, first and foremost was room service. We had just saved several Tyraean villages after all, I think a day of rest was warranted.

As I repeated such ideas to myself over and over whilst staring at the ceiling with a stupid smile on my face, I knew for sure that that wasn’t how the day was going to turn out. It was far too early for that kind of thing.
“Aren’t you going to join in on the Good Mornings mate?” Mike asked the mysterious newcomer, who muttered some undecipherable nonsense in response.
“He seems a little pre-occupied Mike,” I said, “Best leave him be.”
“I guess so,” He paused and looked upwards towards the strikingly orange sky. “Beautiful day, I think.”
“They always are.” Casrathi said, dangling her index finger back and forth over the mystery man’s eyes.
“Six days until we reach Earth.” I said, tapping into the ethereal headlines spinning about in the shared information deposits. Kind of like newspapers of the mind. The tricks and secrets of life in the kingdoms were showing themselves one by one. It was remarkable how different I felt to the stuttering doofus I was yester’s afternoon.

“I don’t want to die.” Our new guest finally managed to croak out.
“At last he speaks!” Mike said with a venom in his voice that suggested something other then callous taunting. I guess he didn’t get quite as trashed on Madame Sk’ksa’klas’ time delayed, hallucinogenic mystery weeds as I did last night, bloody lightweight. Who the hell was this guy? I remembered something about a rural looking area and something which may have been a climbing frame.
“Please,” He hissed in my direction, “Help me.”

Casrathi pushed herself up, took hold of his head and pulled it back towards her own.
“Fucking hypocrite,” She said (more of less) “Did you listen to Debra when she cried out for mercy as you were beating her to death with that rolling pin? Hmmm? Did you?”

That was it, Debra. We’d gone to visit a different Earth. Yes, Haer’daral and Casrathi had taken us to another Earth that Eria had plans for, it was pretty much the same as our world as far as I know. The only major difference I saw was that for whatever reason the property developers of Great Britain were less enthusiastic and there were more green bits and trees in populated areas. A lot of buildings seemed to be made out of stone as well. That looked kind of nice.

This fellow, whose name we made it a point not to find out, was very abusive towards his girlfriend. She’d been living in sheer fucking terror for years because of him and was, at long last, planning to run away. He got wind of this and beat her half to death. We, thanks to Haer’daral’s seemingly omni-present sense of awareness which extends for miles in every direction, got wind of his activities and paid him a visit. We healed Debra, then handed her over to one of Lady Secob’s internal avatars who would comfort and guide her. She was the first of her world to take the gift. And this bloke was the first un-human from his Earth to feel the vengeance of the worthy.

“If you didn’t want to die now,” Casrathi chortled, retracting one of her wings and stabbing the guy in a lung, “Then you shouldn’t have spent your whole fucking life,” she did the same with the other wing and the other lung, “Earning it.”

With both hands she dug her nails into his throat and tore it clean out. We all watched as he gurgled his last utterances and stained the bed linen with blood. Soon he was gone, and I could feel that Eria had told Debra that, and I could also feel her jubilance. A better start to a morning I have never known.

“That’s that then,” Casrathi said, pushing herself out of bed and turning to face us with a bloody mound of tissue still in her hand, “I’m still hungry, let’s go somewhere else.”

_________________________________________________________________________

Hours passed and I left Casrathi and Mike to their own devices, deciding to take some alone time for myself. Mike opened a portal to a third Earth which apparently was as close to home as we could get right now. Our world had been dubbed temporarily off limits to all natives while it was undergoing maintenance in preparation for the apocalypse.

So, here I stood on the all too familiar Plymouth city centre, the sun was shining which made the white paving stones painful to look at, people were wandering back and forth, same as always, and the headlines were all talking about seemingly impossible occurrences such as reports of people flying in Paris and the sudden disappearance of the River Bure in Great Yarmouth. If the newspapers and people’s reactions were anything to go by, then people were trying very hard to ignore these happenings and get on with their lives. There was a disturbing number of religious types on the streets however screaming for people to repent their sins for the end of days was nigh.

The end of days is always bloody nigh, end of all things prophecies seem to be as common as midges. I left them to it, keeping to my typical course of Waterstones, followed by WH-Smiths, followed by GAME. That’s my normal routine, just so I can say that I stood outside during the daylight hours. I’d stopped doing that as much in recent days, as me and Mike’s homicidal deeds started occurring more often the more I found valid targets on the streets. It used to be that we’d achieve one notch on our axe per year, satisfied with the small difference we were making, then we started enjoying it.
Obviously I can’t go about slicing and dicing my way through the pedestrians, but it was awkward. On the one hand I though that I should kill these people, on the other I thought that I was probably over-reacting, on a third freakish hand I wondered whether I should be killing at all. So, I started avoiding the daylight more and more and reserved my wanderings to the night hours. Night is when homicide should be done.
I’d missed this. I especially missed the sausage rolls that Sainsburry’s sold. I still had about sixty pence in my coat pockets, albeit in coppers mostly. So a nostalgic lunch was possible. After that I wandered down to the oddly named Hoe, which is basically the seafront. Yes that’s really what they called it, named for the farming tool in all likelihood rather then women of socially accepted questionable professions.
No sooner had I arrived, been sniffed at by an over excited canine and nearly got hit by a Frisbee and perched in my favourite viewing spot that to my great surprise, someone saw fit to talk to me.

“First of all,” the man said to me, “Blood flies off of my handkerchief and back up my nose. The next thing, I hear that Dodos have made a surprise re-appearance from the mists of extinction, yesterday evening a group of…” He paused, made a last check of my features to make sure I was who he thought he was, I nodded and he continued, albeit cautiously “A group of ruffians that me and a friend found ourselves in confrontation with exploded before our eyes. Now, to my great surprise, a man who is my exact double is sitting on my favourite spot at the seafront. You also seem to be wearing my coat. Do you have an explanation for this?”
Sylvester Wright, standing face to face with me, himself from another dimension. I probably should have realised that something like this might happen, but I guess that I expected him to be somewhere on an alternate Galahad sailing towards his own world, salivating at the prospect of what was to come.
But apparently that wasn’t the case, and here we were.

“Well?” It occurred to me that I’d drifted off, “I could appreciate that you not be as sociable as I but a response would be nice.”
“I’m sorry.” I said as I stood up and extended my hand, “I’m Sylvester Wright.”

There was one slight hint of a grin, anyone else would have missed it. This was something new, something impossible and above all something interesting. That was what we sought above all other things.
“False Prince.” He said, “Did I create you out of a subconscious desire for an imaginary friend?”
“No.”
“Did you create me from…”
“No, I very much doubt it.”
“Oh, well then would you mind…”
“Alternate reality.”
“Ah,” He said with a little too much enthusiasm. “One of those things.”

I remained silent for a moment and wondered how best to do this. Simply blurting out an explanation just didn’t seem right. If he knew us, he’d want to participate. Annexation by the Excaliban Kingdoms was the fulfilment of our wildest dreams after all, and then some. The only thing that could make it better would be for him to be on the front lines as he world was taken. So, better it be done without him knowing what was happening, then any grim sense of inadequacy that might otherwise spring forth would be drowned out by seemingly directionless exultation, courtesy of the Empress.

“Speak brother!” He said, “The world is a disturbing enough place as it is right now and with this latest development I have to wonder whether you might have some sort of explanation for this.”
“Do you really want an explanation?” I asked, “Whatever happened to ignorance is bliss?”

He gave me a dark look then, my dark look, the same kind of look I give to people I’m thinking about killing. He said each word slowly.
“Mum found two tarantulas in the laundry basket this morning. I trust you know as well as I how scared she is of spiders. Dad got rid of them. About an hour ago She phoned me and told me the story, and she wanted to know if I was ok. What do you think I said?”

It was an instinctive reaction, I pushed myself up and started to walk away. The one conscious thought in my head was that this man wasn’t me. I knew very well that I wasn’t going to let myself just get up and walk away, and rest assured a firm grasp on my shoulder pulled me back around.
“I’m not going to let you disappoint me.” He said.
“I don’t have to listen to this.” I replied, “Soon it will all be over.”

He grimaced, thinking I’d just confirmed his fears about the appending end of all things, but instead of the malicious twinge of triumph that I expected, I felt only Eria Secob’s disapproving glare inside my brain. Believe me when I tell you that when a Goddess is glaring at you, it hurts. I tried my best not to recoil in pain, then turned to face my brother who was, by the looks of things, on the verge of denouncing me as an un-one. There’s no one whose quite so easy to hate and hurt as one’s own self.
“I haven’t spoken to Mum in years.” I said, “How’d you manage it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Alongside the guilt? That unpleasant little realisation that you are different?

We started walking, we hate standing still.
“What’s there to feel guilty about.” He said with a grin that looked like it should have come more from Mike then me.
“Homicide,” I said loudly and proudly, “We kill the un-ones. Mum would certainly disapprove considering she wanted nothing to do with me when I told her I got my dick up Mike’s arse one time, and vice versa. Am I to understand that this is not the case with you? Is your mother less homophobic.”

His resulting yelp was frankly just embarrassing.
“Homicide?” He hissed at me through his teeth, “You kill them?” I stared at him, barely able to believe what I was hearing.
“Of course I do,” I said, “What do you do?”
“I, we, Mike and Caitlyn and me we just beat the shit out of un-persons. Warn them off their misdeeds, we try to save them.”

I buried my head in my hands and groaned loudly. Normally I expect I would have attracted a stare or three from passers-by, but today everyone seemed wrapped up in their own concerns. Not surprising if everyone was finding spiders in the laundry basket.

It has to be said, that seemed a little strange for Eria. Maybe it was some kind of ‘face your fears’ thing.
“I don’t believe this.” I said, “Are you deficient? How can you let these bloody things live?”
“What do you…? You kill people?”
“Oh for the shit’s sake. Yes, I kill. Mike and me, we kill. Our targets don’t deserve life and the rest of us have done nothing to deserve them.”
“But we’re meant to be better then them, we’re not meant to stoop to their level.”
“Don’t demonise killing. We do it with a noble purpose.”
“Noble, he says.”

As interesting as this was, it was also rather nauseating. I felt a need to change the subject.
“So, how come Mum hasn’t disowned you for your ‘incorrect’ sexual orientation?”
“I didn’t tell her.” He said, “Apparently with good reason.”
“So you live a lie,” I muttered, “She’ll never truly know her son. Did you ever tell yourself that when you were considering whether to reveal the truth or not?”
“Yes, I can live happily enough with concealed truths. Does your mum know you’re a killer?”

Touché.

“Touché.” I said.
“How’d it happen man?” He asked, “How’d you become a killer? Did you just wake up one day and think, Hey I know, I’ll go slay the unworthy.”
“Yes.”
“Answer the question.”
“I did, you’re right. That’s what happened.”
“Why do you need to kill them? That’s not right.”
“I disagree, personally I think your diluted reaction to their filth is as ineffectual as the rest of societies.”
“We’ve done our part.”
“Have you really?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll learn, child.” I said with a yawn, “Farewell.”

I turned on my heel and started back down the street towards the park. I searched the assorted lines of communication in my head for Mike so that he could open a portal and remove me from this nauseating realm.

Mike was nowhere to be found. That was odd. I could feel him a few seconds ago, there was always a reassuring voice at the back of my head that informed me that he continued to breathe. It was still there, but now it was as if a large wall had been built around it. Initially I thought that this was some manner of rebuke from Lady Secob, that she was going to keep me here until I appologised to my other self. Despite my cheery presentations thus far however, domestic strife was not unheard of in the Kingdoms, and Lady Secob was anything but oversensitive, even if she did see fit to sting her subjects with piercing glares when they had malicious moments.

Come to think of it, I couldn’t quite feel her presence either. What the hell was going on?

With the same icy hiss as always, I heard a portal open behind me. Thus ended this little mystery I thought, home from home was behind.

I turned, and found myself, (and also saw myself strangely enough) looking in bewilderment at an unfriendly looking werewolf. I doubt that’s what it actually was but I’m not sure how else to describe it. He, or she I guess, was at least two feet taller then me, clad in unkempt fur and looked like it could snap me in two with no great effort. I figured that this creature was here to frighten the locals in the name of Eria’s ascension in some way shape or form that made sense to everyone except me, as I seemed to be finding a lot recently. Instead the beast charged at me, and with one clawed forepaw ripped a swath from my left shoulder to my right hip.

The last time I met with a sharp object that interfered with my anatomy, it didn’t hurt remotely. That was in the insanity zone on a fully occupied territory however, this world was more or less neutral ground and whatever this creature was, its intent to cause me harm apparently outweighed any protection that could be offered to the Excaliban knights. In short, it fucking hurt. I fell to my knees and parted with a very unfamiliar cry of pain. I’d never been opened before, not properly. That was hardly a concern at the time though.

Achilles, Said one lingering thread of rational thought left in my brain, Achilles. Work.

A massive clawed hand closed itself over my head, but by now Achilles, who I later remembered operated automatically. He was sluggish though. I don’t know why and I wasn’t in much of a mood to care. Ordinarily though he should have kicked in as soon as the wolf unsheathed its claws. Something was suppressing it, and as such whatever it was that wanted to kill me had all the more chance of success.

I didn’t raise you to be some ghastly shit-spiker boy. If you want to go running around chasing blokes like some bloody mutant then as far as I’m concerned you’re no son of mine. Get out! Just fucking get out.

Yep, that's actually what she said. That, I assume, was to be my final thought before a strange death that seemed that to be happening for no reason that I could figure out. Too soon I thought, it was too soon, I had only just ascended and now fate had stepped in to equalise my fortunes with my death.

At some point or other I realised that the creature wasn’t giving me a sadistic moment of self reflection before crushing my cranium. But there was no sudden stab of pain, no distortion of vision as my eyes were forced closer together as my head compacted and then exploded. Eventually I recovered my wits enough to pay attention to what was happening, the paw on my head was trying very hard to kill me, but it was accomplishing nothing.

Achilles, I found, had fought through whatever mess had befallen it and the next thing I knew, my wound had stopped hurting. Whatever had seeped out was replaced and the entrails were stitched back up. I was whole again, and now that the tables were turned I felt a sudden desire to see if I’d fare better then my new foeman in the task of killing.

One hand grabbed the furry wrist and snapped it clean off. The creature didn’t so much as snort in indignation. I had expected some ear bursting growl of pain and humiliation that would send the townsfolk fleeing, like with so many things however, I was wrong.

The severed hand clung to my head even as I stood up. The beast just stared at me. His reactions in retrospect were anything but animalistic, no sinister growls, no excess of saliva and no apparent desire to mix the business of my death with lunch. His yellow eyes just stared down into my own as he waited for me to destroy him.

It was an assassin, sent to terminate a relative nobody and now that it could see it wasn’t going to succeed, it just stood still and waited for me to remove it from the metaphorical equation.

I summoned my sword from my pocket dimension weapons locker and slashed downwards. Thanks to Achilles the swing was a little too powerful and my sword became entrenched in the paving stones. It had served its purpose though, the beastie had been cut clean in half.

No sooner had this happened that the obscuring walls I mentioned vanished. Mike and Casrathi and Haer’daral and Eria Secob were back, clear as day, all of them now staring at me it seemed.

A second portal began to open and with a hasty tug I wrenched my sword free, almost whacking myself in the jaw with its hilt in the process. No sooner was I ready to use it however then I realised that this portal was being opened by someone who wasn’t going to try and kill me. It was just the GPTO (Galahad Portal Transit Office) considerately opening a portal for me.

I looked around for my brother, either to wave him goodbye or maybe drag him along with me. The kid needed help, that much was obvious. Oddly enough however, he was nowhere to be seen. I could only hope that he hadn’t run off with his tail between his legs.

Police sirens were the last sound I heard, I was almost grateful for that brief reminder of the good old days when I had to fear such things, now it seemed someone wanted me dead, and I know I should be more concerned about that, but Eria’s reassurances that she’d look into it and that anyone who tried this again would suffer the same fate were suspiciously reassuring.

One last look at what was almost my home town, then I stepped through the portal, back to where I belonged.

_________________________________________________________________________

The rest of the group had a fair few things to discuss with me upon my return. The theory I’d been working on when I returned, before Eria’s avatar in my head disproved that idea. She had no idea what it was that had attacked me, that was a strange thing to hear from a woman who seemed to know every last thing about everyone and everything, but it seemed her knowledge extended only so far as the borders of her kingdoms.

She told me that she’d look into it however, attacks on Excaliban citizens were not tolerated and any potential threat to the Kingdoms weren’t going to go ignored. For the moment, everyone around me seemed to be relatively calm, Eria was good at suppressing unpleasant emotions as I mentioned, and if I, a humble novice could take down a massive killer beast then the potential threat thus far didn’t seem too threatening.

Tell that to Mike though.

“Didn’t it say anything?” he said, “Any threats? Boasts or whatever?”
“Nope,” I said, rummaging through the seven foot tall ‘mini-bar’ in the hotel room Haer’daral had snared for our use this evening. “Nothing, it just tore through my chest and tried to decapitate me.”
“Not to sound rude mate,” Haer’daral said through a mouthful of something I know not what, “But why would anything outside of your ‘un-one’s’ potential vengeance agents try to kill you? What’s so special about you?”
“Probably nothing.” I replied, humble as ever.
“This is strange.” He said, “If another God ruled nation wanted to pick fights with Lady Secob then they’d make a proper show of power, not a sneak attack on a newcomer. No offense, again.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, Haer’daral was really too polite for his own good. “Hasn’t anything like this ever happened before?”
“Never.” Casrathi said, she sounded impatient for some reason “Stand up.”
“What?”

She outstretched her wings and drove them forward through my shoulders. No pain this time, but all things considered I was in no mood to get impaled. Not that this seemed to matter to her I noted as I was forcible pulled to my feet.
“What are you fucki…?” My thoughts trailed out with my words, I felt like I should really switch Achilles on and pull these spikes out of my person, but knowing that and bringing myself to care was suddenly two very different things, and I found myself unable to do anything except return the information stealing kiss that she was forcing upon me. I’ll admit, it wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but somehow I get the feeling that I may have been chemically programmed to think that.

She wasn’t satisfied with my explanation apparently, and on top of that, this was big news. She wanted it, every last thought, sight, feeling. Don’t ask me about the mechanics, but I could feel that she bypassed that cheery line from my mother that you heard earlier. Best guess, some kind of mental firewall that saw something I wasn’t interested in sharing. I was grateful for it.

When she’d got everything, the wings retracted and I fell to the floor in the same way Mike had done yesterday. I didn’t feel like doing much else for a while, so I just lay there while Casrathi picked out whatever bits of the story were of interest and shared them with the others.

To be continued