Section 2

         The taste of grit in his mouth was the first sensation to return. Even then it was only a distant sign, like when you stop noticing that the sky is blue because you have better things to worry about. It's part of the scenary. A humming was all around his ears, a millions insects looking for blood. Blood and rain. Rain and pain and he's not insane. His thoughts weren't coagulating well and all perception of time had left him. Just packed up and left without so much as a by your leave. And he couldn't see. There was nothing to see. The inbetween places, they had teleported there. Caught in the infinite and nonexistent space between dimensions. And, oh God, nobody will ever see them and they'll just be blind and deaf and mute ghosts stumbling through an invisible and transparent landscape and and
         And then the humming sharply and suddenly decreased in pitch while steadily increasing in volume and he realized that it wasn't a humming at all.
         It was the sound of the sky exploding.
         Tristian found that he had limbs and that he could control them, which for a few seconds was a mild surprise. In the next second he relearned how to use them. Just in time for the giant battering ram of air to slam into him as it ran from the source of the explosion, not even looking where it was going.
         The tickling of the wind turned into a grappling bite and Tristian found his body picked up and thrown. He caught a glimpse of a sky bleeding with fire eating the fringes before the view was nothing but sand again, with the added realization that he was falling. Or the ground was moving. It was hard to tell sometimes. Instinct and self preservation combined to propel him into attempting to position himself to roll with the impact, thus making it that much less painful. But Tristian saw it would do no good.
         He tried anyway.
         A cloud of dust obscured his form as he hit, followed by several more clouds of dust as he half rolled and half flopped along the hot, stinging sand. Part of time he couldn't tell if he was rolling on concrete or was going to sink into the sand and never come out again. Both fears played dice in his head but the only real goal was to stay alive. At least one rib tried to give up the fight as he bounced against a surface that was harder than he expected but Tristian somehow managed to reduce it to an extremely painful bruise by twisting at the last second. A dozen natural nails raked his body and he was that anyone could follow him just by following the streaks of blood lying like the remains of an unfairly unraveled ball of twine.
         When he finally came to a stuttering, reckless halt, the first thing Tristian wanted to do was lay there for a week and listen to his body heal. But the sun was streaming into his eyes, mixing with the blood dripping into his vision and forming a kind of prism, circles and colors tilting into nothing. He could see his chest rising and falling heavily, trying to get all that lost breath back, trying to recapture all those years he just shook free in the fall, the ones that always seem about to bolt.
         That wasn't all he could see though.
         There was a pair of boots next to his face. Boots covered partially by what looked like a robe of some sort. A brown robe.
         Tristian painfully turned his head to see Ranos staring down at him almost curiously, as if Tristian had just slipped on a banana peel, gone sailing into orbit and just now had managed splashdown here.
         The two of them maintained that rather awkward silence, broken only by Tristian's increasingly successful attempts to regain a normal rate of breathing, for several minutes.
         Tristian finally found the stregth to let a smile crack his face open, saying, "Well . . . did we win?"
         Ranos lifted one eyebrow, glanced at some point above and past him and then without a word bent down to help Tristian to his feet.
         As Tristian was reaching a sitting position, Ranos suddenly pointed behind him, his face completely devoid of all emotion. For some reason it looked like his eyes were flickering. It turned out to be a reflection. That's all it was. Just the mirror turing outwards.
         Narrowing his eyes, Tristian twisted on his back, grunting as muscles pushed beyond limits protested even this minor use, hearing Ranos saying very quietly next to him, "See for yourself."
         Tristian felt his breath catch in his throat and his body stiffened. In that second, he knew where the humming and the roaring and the wind and the flickering had come from.
         The two of them had created a holocaust.
         The tower was burning. They were a distance away and he could feel the heat. Stone was burning. The smell caked the air. He didn't even know what boiling rock would smell like and yet he knew this. The tower still stretched to the air but it was tilted, now only the flames were reaching for the sky, climbing over each in a mad attempt to touch the largest fire of them all. An entire wall was gone. Rubble was strewn out in a fan shaped pattern and that was all that was left. Just like that, an entire wall. He could barely believe it, the destruction was beyond anything he could conceive. People shouldn't be capable of this kind of thing. But here it was.
         "My God," Tristian found himself whispering, his words getting caught in his throat. Not taking his eyes off the distant inferno, he stood up completely, his body protesting each and every movement but he didn't care. All he eyes saw was the screaming stone and the slowly melting tower. His foot struck something hard and he looked down to see a burnt and bent chunk of rock that had apparently come sailing from the tower. It was pitted and fused with other metals. In the red light, it looked very much like an old skull.
         "I'll give you this, Tristian," Ranos murmured and his voice was strangely pensive, "for a man who detests fighting so, you've marvelously effective at coming up with ideas for destruction."
         "Maybe a little too effective," Tristian mumbled, impulsively kicking the stone away, watching it spin and wheel across the barren sand before stumbling to a final halt. "Trust me," he said in a louder voice, turning to face Ranos, "it's not something I'm all that proud of."
         "In this case, I think you should be," Ranos replied. A ghostly smile touched his face. "Though perhaps there might be a bit of a madman in you as well." He glanced at the sundered tower, shaking his head slightly as if its presence was some massive cosmic irony. "Convert the air to hydrogen gas . . . in a roomful of flame it would be like detonating a bomb."
         "That was the general idea," Tristian said softly, as if embarrassed. He craned his head to see the tower again, some part of him hoping to see it whole again and this all just a figment of a lunatic's dream. But it was his life. "Unfortunately."
         "I wouldn't get too upset," Ranos counseled, idly drawing his the toe of his boot back and forth in the sand, creating a deep line. The dry scraping was a mellow counterpoint to the soundtrack of his words. "The Hierophant wasn't someone who wouldn't have shown us any mercy. His tower most likely consisted of failed experiments and current projects . . . we did the world a service ridding it of him."
         "Still, all that desolation . . . for what?" Tristian mused. He was staring at the ground, not really seeing it. Ranos' slowly moving boot was a mirage blur in his vision. "He tried to kill us and we wound up killing him and in the end we did . . . that," his arm gently lifted to indicate the focus of his words. "It's scary, Ranos. To think that anyone, even us, has that kind of power. It just frightens me."
         "Power is impartial, Tristian, it has no care how it is used . . ." Ranos' words floated to him over the shifting scrapes of his boot on sand. Sandpaper rubbing his head. Stripping him raw. "Nor does it go away simply because we refuse to acknowledge it. If we don't grasp it for our purposes, then someone else will."
         "I know," Tristian responded. Hands in his pockets, he regarded the silhoutte of the tower, a flickering finger, a trembling shadow, against the pale red sky. "I learned that a long time ago . . . you can't be so afraid of hurting rather than helping that it paralyzes you." A sigh rippled through him and he bowed his head, watching the transient patterns drawn on the sand by the warm, dry wind. "I'd like to say damned if you do and damned if you don't but I think it's a little more complicated than that."
         "I wouldn't know," Ranos told him, his voice blissfully neutral. "I try not to think about it." He took toward Tristian, until he was standing at his shoulder. "I did a quick scan of the area . . . there aren't any minds around at all. Especially not human."
         "Good . . ." Tristian replied, shifting in a slow circle to get a better view of the surroundings. And to stop himself from staring at the shattered tower anymore than he had to. Not that he admitted that insight to himself but the result was the same. "It'd be nice to go somewhere and be able to stay more than five minutes without getting attacked." His face dove into puzzlement, eyebrows narrowing, face pinched. "This definitely isn't where we came in. Where the hell are we?"
         "My guess is another world," Ranos ventured, as a light breeze ruffled his robes, nearly making them swirl around him, increasing his girth, even though it was only air. Illusion and air. Ninety percent of magic is just that. "Not that we'll ever know for sure but the tower seems to be transdimensional, each door probably went somewhere different."
         "And with our luck we picked the prize behind door number two," Tristian sighed. Kicking at the sand as well, he added, "You must feel at home here at least."
         "Not at all," Ranos answered. "At home, life and death lived side by side, equal partners . . . the brutality and the vibrancy of both were wonders to behold . . ." he stalked across the sand, the crunching of his stride the only sound in the air wrung dry of sensation. "Here," he continued, bending down to pick up a stone shattered by the explosion, blackened and jagged, "there is only death." He hefted the rock in his hands, gazing at it with an expression falling just short of curiousity. "Or, even worse than death . . ." and he took a step and heaved the rock into the air, "there is nothing here at all," watching the stone arc now, perfectly marking the lines of gravity, a roadmap for the fallen. We all follow the same path, in the end. All pinnacles and points and all we can do is try and cover our faces and maybe avoid the scars on the way down. But there's no time. There's never any time.
         Spinning on his heel, he swung back to Tristian, saying as he did so, "We'll have to-" but stopped both in midstep and midsentence. Tristian could hear his eyes going wide just by listening to his sharp intake of breath. It wasn't a sound he heard often and the springs of his coiled reflexes lying in wait on the stairs of his head started to unwind for the descent.
         Hand already on his sword, he pivoted as well, noting the direction of Ranos' gaze as he did so, spinning the panorama of his vision and nearly throwing his knee out as he abruptly ceased as well. Tristian distantly hoped that his jaw wasn't dropping but it certainly felt like it was.
         There was another world.
         In the sky.
         It filled the entire sky. He couldn't believe he didn't notice it before. But it was so huge. Maybe that was why. You never notice the largest events, they pass you right by. So close he felt he could touch it, it stretched from the edges of the horizon on both sides. His mind wanted to shut down just staring at it. Because it couldn't be real. He could see the mountains and the rivers and all the earthworks drawn on it by the handiwork of nature. Like it was painted onto the sky, a madman's palette, it was all the wrong colors but it was the wrong image as well. There should have been clouds. Clouds or stars. Not an entire planet bearing down on them. Tristian couldn't detect movement but he felt his chest constrict at the thought of all that impossible weight far closer than he'd ever like it to be. Certainly closer than he'd ever feel comfortable with. But how close do you let a planet come? How do you tell it to stop violating your personal space, thank you very much. Tristian felt his mind giggling and he had to bite down to keep from laughing. Get a grip. This was real. It was real. He kept repeating that silently. It had to be. Because if it was, then he could deal with it. Not a problem, then.
         Without taking his eyes off the sight, as if the planet might come crashing down on them it he looked away, Tristian licked dry lips and said slowly and delibrately, "Ranos, we're both seeing this, right?"
         "Apparently, it's real," Ranos replied, his voice outwardly calm but Tristian could see out of the corner of his eyes that his partner had grown a shade paler in the last few seconds. Ranos wasn't used to things like this, his powers were great but he was a mercenary first and foremost, madmen and battles and subterfuge he could handle. What they were seeing now was almost out of both their leagues, and Tristian had been witness to more than a few mindbending concepts in his short life. The sword at his hip was testament to that.
         "I think we've just made getting off this world a priority," Tristian commented airily, injecting light levity into his voice. The planet hovered there, impassive and looming. "Unless you want to stick around for the fireworks."
         "No, I think I'll spare my grandchildren that story," Ranos muttered, tearing his gaze away from the enigmatically beautiful sight almost with an effort. Questions and questions were roaming in his eyes but he didn't seem disappointed that none of them were going to get answered. Instead he turned, pacing back toward the still writhing tower, his dark face creased in thought. "Being that we've probably crossed dimensions, I can't simply teleport us back."
         "Might the portal be in that mess over there?" Tristian asked, inclining his head toward the mess in question. Now that they had a problem to focus on, he felt a little better, the trepidation was easing from his chest. This was something they could tackle, something that was solvable. Worlds in collision wasn't his field and he wasn't about to call the people who could deal with it. Let them find it on their own.
         "Mm . . . unfortunately," Ranos mused, arms crossed and head bowed in concentration as he strolled, "but I'm sure the explosion didn't destroy it . . ."
         "You hope," Tristian interjected, wiping some sweat from his face and running a hand through his increasingly tangled hair. He must look a goddamn sight. What a time to be worrying about personal appearance.
         Ranos glanced sideways at him, slowing his stride to a halt, "Better for us that I'm right than you, I think-ah!" he exclaimed as the heel of one of his boots skidded on something underneath the sand. Tristian swore he heard the sand grinding on something.
         A few steps brought him over to his partner, even as Ranos contorted his lengthy frame and jumped ungracefully back a pace before firmly planting both his feet upon the sand. Tristian, meanwhile, was crouched down on the ground, his face not far from the surface, wiping his hand across the sand, not caring about the grains stinging his palm.
         His hand eventually touched something smooth and solid. And clear. "Glass," he muttered, eyebrows going down in puzzlement. What else was screwed up with this crazy world. Ranos was watching him with a mixture of boredom and idle curiousity, the same way you watch a dog chase its tail, just to see if it'll ever get anywhere. Tristian rapped his knuckles upon the surface hard, hearing a familiar clanging echo. "It is glass," he said louder.
         "Are you sure you want to leave now?" Ranos asked with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Tristian could see his partner's robes swirling at the edges of his vision. "Because I'm more than willing to help explore this no doubt fascinating place to aid you in satisfying your scientific curiousity."
         "Shush," he chastised his friend, wiping more sand away, trying to find the outlines of the glass. Did it extend under the entire desert or . . . no. About a foot out from where he had originally started, his hand kept meeting only sand. He went back to where he started and managed to eventually uncover a three foot wide surface, seemingly embedded into the sand. A cursory examination suggested that it stretched for quite a ways in various twists. It wasn't window glass, it wasn't totally clear and his hand could probe many imperfections and scratches. But it was glass, without a doubt. "Hm," he finally murmured, wiping his hands off on his knees and looking at Ranos, who's face was struggling for a neutral expression and not completely succeeding. Tristian shrugged in mild apology. "Hey, is it my fault I was a scientist," he defended himself, standing up. "Indulge me here a bit."
         Ranos sighed. "I'm not sure what you plan on discovering . . . it's a sheet of glass under the sand . . ." he tapped the exposed glass with his boot, glancing at Tristian, "and if I recall, doesn't glass form from sand? If there's any place we might find such a phenomenon, I imagine it would be here."
         "This isn't random . . . or natural," Tristian said firmly, tracing a foot along the sand, feeling the solidness of the glass beneath the surface. "Look . . . it runs nearly in a line, like a path or . . ."
         "Or a tunnel," Ranos added, sounding slightly bored. "Tristian, it could be any number of things. And with no one around here to ask we're never going to know," he insisted. A vaguely evil smile coated his face. "Unless you want to ask someone over there," he offered, his eyes indicating the surreal vision in the sky.
         Tristian glanced at its mass again and barely suppressed a shudder. "No thank you," he said after a moment. Sighing, he put his hands on his hips and looked down at the glass sheet almost sadly. "Too bad though, I hate mysteries."
         "And I hate nearly getting killed for free," Ranos noted, "but I think I've been fairly cordial about all of this. And if we're not going to get paid, then at least let's try and find somewhere civilized to spend the night."
         "Getting pampered in your old age, Ranos?" Tristian asked, stepping onto the glass, tapping his foot on it to test it's solidity. It supported his weight with no problem, though it did vibrate a little at his passage. "I thought a rugged desert man like yourself would be unable to resist the allure of spending a night surrounded by a reminder of his home."
         Ranos just answered the comment with a withering glance for a few moments as they walked back to the fiery tower, though Tristian could sense a vague amusement filtering in over the link. "I think you'd best keep such thoughts out of your head," he replied archly, "unless you wish to spend the day believing yourself to be a particularly ungainly species of flightless bird-"
         the first act of the universe was born in fire
         Ranos and Tristian both stopped dead in their tracks.
         "You didn't . . ." Tristian started to ask, but only got a brief shake of the head in response from a suddenly very worried looking Ranos.
         everything we know was formed then, nothing new has happened since, it has all been variations on a theme
         "Where is he?" Tristian hissed, hand going for his sword. But swinging it around would be useless if he didn't know where to point it. Ranos was staring around intently but seemed unable to find a specific point to focus on. His body rotated stiffly, sweeping from side to side, as if the motion might stir up the answers.
         and since then no force has been able to recreate even a hundredth of the majesty of that act, the stars boiling in their voids are only the smallest of embers in a universe where the real spark has faded long ago
         "It's him," Ranos whispered, his eyes darting around every which way, but coming up with nothing. Tristian was afraid to even move, for fear that anything might conceal a trap of sorts. His burns from the tower were starting to pulse with an ache, as if already cringing at the promise of more to come. "I can't focus on him," the other man continued, his voice steel in the face of mounting odds.
         flame and heat breaks everything down, only through combustion are base components reduced to something even baser . . . but even fire isn't at its simplest, there is a primal flame that will break even itself down . . . that's what I mean to discover, the common force we all sprang from
         "He's the air," Ranos said evenly, his eyes falling out of focus.
         "What?" Tristian asked, continually glancing around, feeling his heart rate climbing by the second, sweat coating the crevices in his palms. "Are you saying he's the planet or something?" By blowing him up, did they wind up making the problem worse?
         "No . . ." Ranos replied after a second, shaking his head with a start, as if plunging from an oddly bad dream. "He's in the air, droplets of heat, his mind strung like transparent jewels and suspended from them." The hallucinational quality of his words apparently failed to strike him.
         this was a world once . . . before I ended it
         "I can't disrupt his thoughts," Ranos breathed almost to himself and he suddenly sounded extremely winded. Tristian couldn't claim to be in much better shape, just the thought of facing the Hierophant again frightened him on a level he didn't know how to deal with. It seemed to be beyond anything he could conceive, this was more than just some self satisfied wizard picking on a helpless village.
         And now the glass seemed to be rattling underneath his feet.
         an entire world, full of art and culture and all those things we tell ourselves that they mean something . . . all silicate now, all the same . . . each and every person mingling together, every painting, every building, every tree and animal . . . I proved it could be done, you see . . . the evidence is all around you, as far as your gazes stretch . . . a world of differences reduced to one component, one uniform element
         "A shield might be a good idea now," Tristian murmured without moving his lips. He considered switching over to the link but that obviously wasn't enough to stop their new friend from listening in. His teeth were starting to rattle from the motion of the ground underneath his feet. He had to move somewhere, and soon. But where? Where the hell were they going to go? It's not like they could ignite the atmosphere.
         "At the risk of appearing fatalistic," Ranos mumbled in reply, his eyes meeting Tristian's only for a second, "it didn't seem to hinder him before."
         "True," Tristian agreed unhappily.
         The ground jumped beneath his feet. Tristian danced back and could have sworn he saw something dark pass under him. Dark and flickering. Oh God. Oh God. What the hell was coming along now?
         I suppose that offends your sensibilities in some fashion, but rest assured I have not left this world for dead . . . indeed idle is the last thing I've been . . .
         Somewhere Tristian heard a crack. He looked down to see the glass had developed a huge fracture down the center. A burst of hot air brushed against his legs. Stepping onto the sand, he reached for the sword and held it out loosely in front of him with both hands, not igniting the blade yet. Whatever was coming, it might attract them. Sometimes it's best to hold your cards until the last possible second. It was a lesson he was still learning. A lesson that he wanted the chance to continue learning.
         "Heat," Ranos blurted out suddenly. "By all the gods . . ."
         The glass jumped again, the edges buckling upwards. Tristian placed his hand lightly on the switch, getting ready.
         when given the proper raw material, one can let one's imagination simply run wild . . . you've had a taste of that already . . . but here the ores were of a particularly fine grade, though it's still the maker that defines the Art, if I may be allowed that bit of vanity
         A flickering amber haze fell like a net over the creaking glass. Tristian could see at least one object almost slithering around underneath it, maybe more. They seemed to be slamming into the glass. Trying to break through. He took a deep breath to calm his racing heartbeat. Calm. That was the word. He had to keep calm. Plans and contingencies were lacing together like fine lattice in his mind.
         The glass jerked again. There was a splintering like shattering bone.
         though I must admit to a certain bias in my choice of templates
         "That's not going to hold," Tristian warned his partner, eyeing the shield, which was now stretching like a bubble.
         "Heat . . ." Ranos said again, his eyes wide and unseeing. Tristian didn't even know if the man had even heard him. Tristian caught abstractions of his thoughts, formless, sharp things. He was searching. Probing. But for what? "Glass is formed by heat . . . why can't I sense them . . . I know they're there . . ." his voice was rising as his pitch grew increasingly frantic, "I should be able to . . . to . . . ah . . ."
         Tristian heard the sudden draining of Ranos' energy from his voice even as the corner of his eye caught the stretched and blurred sight of his partner crumbling to the ground, a slow motion action, a reed bending in a cradling wind.
         "Ranos!" he yelled, swiveling his stance to turn to his partner, feet already making the leap toward him.
         While behind him, there was the sound of glass shattering. Tristian felt a burst of heat and the opening salvos of a roar of flames even as buried under all of that, almost subconsciously, there was another, deeply familiar noise.
         A slim, waving shape was rising from the ground, a snake wrapped in fire, the sand spraying into the air blurring its features. Tristian pivoted in mid step, turning to face the new distraction even as his eyes took the entire sight in, the switch being smoothly clicked into place, the blade suddenly extending even as he turned, pointing perpendicular to his body. Shards and bits of glass fell around him, fusing in midair.
         When his head processed the image, his sword almost fell from suddenly numb fingers.
         "Good Lord . . ." he gasped, horror finally flooding his heart.
         I've always had a . . . fondness for children . . .
         Nearby there was the sound of panes breaking, a riot erupting without a cause. Three more times. Tristian felt the air starting to burn, as if someone had held a lighter to the sky. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, as sand drifted around him like rain, his footing not very secure in the loose ground. Clacking sounds filled the air, the monkeys and their typewriters stopping by on their world tour.
         Clacking sounds and a looping wailing.
         Instinct drove Tristian to throw himself to the side as a shape shot past where his head had been a second ago. Flame raked his face and he pushed himself into a roll, doing his best not to impale himself on his own sword. Even so the blade gouged jagged lines in the sand. Tristian came to his feet in a crouch, the sword jutting up in front of him like a challenge. Come and get me, it said. Just try and get me.
         The whiplike shape rattled over the sand, curling in on itself and rising into the air, towering over him by a good two feet. The wailing was incessant, he had to resist the urge to cover his ears and pray this was all a bad dream. If there was any doubt in his mind that the Hierophant was evil or mad or both, if any shred of doubt existed in his head that he had to do whatever he could to stop this man, it was all gone now.
         Without warning the thing darted at him again. He flung himself backward but something sharp caught his thigh, tearing a scratch down the skin. He immediately rolled with it, and hot sand ground into the wound, causing him to grit his teeth to avoid screaming. Only succeeding partway, the tiny sound was lost amidst the swirling cacophony of rattling and clicking and wailing surrounding him. The wailing was the worst part of it. How many times had he heard it from another room and was struck by the helpless innocence in that wordless plea?
         Tristian didn't think he'd ever again hear a baby cry and be able to suppress the images from this day.
         Babies. His own thoughts were pummelling angry things, and he tried to use that anger to fuel his reflexes, dancing randomly over the sand, correcting for the shifting looseness of the ground as best he could. The same one kept slashing around him, flying back and forth, he was unable to stand still long enough to mount a decent countermove, it was all defense. He had to reverse to offense quickly, or he'd just bleed to death from a million cuts. But the stark horror of what was happening kept blooming in his head, everytime he tried to push it aside, the head would attempt to ram him again and he'd be reminded.
         Babies. The bastard had taken babies. Flaming skeletons, stretched out into snake like forms, the spinal column on fire, flames dancing along the arcs of the ribs, no arms or legs but they moved with an almost sidewinder motion, impossibly swift, almost a motion blur. The smoke from their passage mixed with the dirt they kept kicking up made it difficult to even see anything properly. It was all just forms and shadows. Shadows and silhouttes. Nothing was solid, nothing felt real. And it was babies. Goddamn. A string of flames lashed him and he spun to avoid it, nearly cutting off his own arm in the process. This wasn't working. He retracted the blade on the sword, figuring he was no use if he sliced off his own limbs. He risked a glance around but couldn't Ranos. And there was no time to gather his thoughts together to send out on the link. He had to hope that Ranos would update him soon enough. If he was even still alive. Tristian assumed he was, he would have felt it otherwise. They were both still alive. And while they were, there was still a chance. The two of them hadn't been beaten yet.
         A wailing kept screaming at him, a muffled Doppler effect and even as he tried to move it slammed into him, ramming into his chest. Something threatened to buckle and he did his best to go with the motion, his back slamming right into the sand, right on top of one of the unbroken sheets of glass, the unyielding surface serving to knock all the air out of him. Of course. How fitting. With all the haze in the air, all he could see was the serpentine shape writhing above him, back curled so that the head seemed about to come down on him like some warped missile.
         And then it did, its cry scorching the air as it did so.
         Tristian managed to find the energy to flip his body to the side at the last second, feeling the grains of sand pelting his back as the thing crashed into the ground. It recovered quicker than Tristian did though and before he could even turn around something struck him in the back. In a desperate attempt not to go face down, he swung his hand out for purchase, twisting his body painfully, his hand finding the texture of something fleshy and bare and having the loose pliability of putty. His stomach churned even as he forced himself to spin around, the world dropping into a drugged out form of slow motion.
         Eyes not even old enough to understand right and wrong met his. Tristian had to choke back bile, seeing the infant's head perched at the tip of the grotesque body, the toothless mouth lunging forward in an attempt to gnaw at him, the soft brown eyes with their unquenched fire seething within, the innocent skin of the face twisted into something unimaginable horrific. What kind of mind conjures up such things? He didn't know and if there was a person that might allow such a thing and such a mind that creates it to exist, that person wasn't him. This was wrong. He knew it. If anything was wrong in this Universe, it was right here.
         The wailing rose in pitch as it pushed against him. His hand was still braced on its head and it took him a second to realize that the skull was larger than it had to be, than it needed to be. The face looked warped and stretched, the same amount of skin pulled taut over three times the surface area. His whole hand couldn't have covered that young face, and yet he wanted to. There was a light in those eyes gone wrong, a perverted flame sparking there. And he had to put it out.
         His hand arced around with him even realizing what he was doing. Motions and trajectories were lining up in his head, his body was letting instinct take the wheel, the feeling of sitting back and watching the show from a distance was never stronger. And yet he needed to see this, feel this, understand what he was doing.
         It backed up suddenly, and he nearly fell forward as the opposing pressure left his palm. Heat seared his face, giving his skin the burning tingling sensation of a bad sunburn even as it launched itself over him. Coming behind him. It was trying to get behind him. He couldn't let that happen.
         Pivoting on the ball of his foot faster than he thought he could ever do, nearly snapping his ankle sideways in the process, his vision shifted just in time to see the head charging right for him, the flexible body having already managed to twist into the opposite direction.
         His hand shot out, the device gripped firmly, his knuckles white from the tension.
         The infant head halted inches from the device, apparently regarding the mirrored surface inside with a curiousity akin to the being it used to be. A aching pain filled him at the sight. What had happened to the parents of this child? Were they nothing more than dust under his feet, had they ever in their most deranged nightmares predicted this? He wondered how the Hierophant had done all of this, moved an entire planet, perverted these children, reduced an entire civilization to nothing. A mad wizard, the two of them had thought, terrorizing a village simply because he had power and they didn't. A simple job.
         This wasn't a job anymore. This was a madness that they had to stop, if only because they were the only ones who had a chance at all. That's what it boiled down to in the end, they couldn't do it for the money or the glory or the prestige or the reputation. No one would ever know the extent of this. Those factors weren't important. What was important was that they were here and it had to be done. In the end, it's always that simple.
         All these thoughts rounded his head in seconds. Time lurched in spurts, blocks of seconds at a time interspersed with nothing. No motion. The head was still there but it was beginning to move forward. Tristian felt like his entire body was on fire and yet that didn't matter. Nothing mattered. It could all be shoved to the sidelines and placed with all the other unimportant things in his life. Tristian had done a lot of things in his life that he wasn't proud of, a very few that he was, but the thing he wanted to feel he did most was make a different, that somewhere life was better because of an action he had taken.
         The device was inches from its face. The eyes glittered and he could tell it had grown bored of the new object. The wailing was more of a growling coo, a strangling bird being stomped to death. Swaying gently, it appeared ready to strike what it felt might be a killing blow. God only knew what it would do to him then. The heat was making the air come to him in waves, and all the smoke kept making his head threaten to spin right off his shoulders.
         He thought he heard himself whisper, "I'm sorry," but he couldn't honestly say he was. Because for the first time, he felt was taking the first tiny step into making the Universe a better place.
         The thing tensed, ready to end the faceoff. Behind it the air cleared for just a moment and the planet out of place framed its skull like a halo, spreading out from the top. All wrong. This was all so goddamn wrong.
         And the blade ignited, shooting out from the hilt of the sword. There was no resistance at all. Nothing. If he had closed his eyes he wouldn't have thought anything had happened. But Tristian had forced himself to watch.
         Something heavy dropped at his feet. Sand sizzled, fusing into glass with a wet crackling. He allowed himself to glance at the neatly round hole in the head for only a second before spinning away. There was no time for reflection or guilt or anything anymore. It was just battle, striving to stay alive from one moment to the next. Meandering emotions had no place here, everything had to be short and sharp, stabbing and immediate. Nothing could carry over. And that's just what you had to feel. Nothing. In his heart there had to be nothing at all.
         Tristian skidded along the sand sideways, trying to survey the battlefield. There wasn't much to see. Slithering shapes were cutting through the dirty haze, their bodies flickering lanterns in the gritty fog. He couldn't even see the sky anymore. Which in itself was a relief. The clinically malevolent of the Hierophant hadn't been heard in a while either but Tristian suspected he might have just tuned the man out. People like that generally never learned how to stop talking.
         Ranos? Are you still there? He cast his thoughts out, trying to find the link in his own head, while his eyes scanned the murky air. No doubt Ranos was trying something suitably spectacular, hopefully an action that would spark like a beacon into the air. He wasn't sure how flamboyant Ranos could afford to be right now, they were both worn down and Ranos seemed to be hit harder overall. And if his resources were drained, he wasn't much use in a physical fight, he didn't have Tristian's sickeningly effortless style of combat. A style Tristian would have preferred not to know but it wasn't one of the things he was given a choice over. And right now it was keeping him alive. The irony had struck him several times over the past few years. The things we damn often come back to make sure we get to live to damn them again. It was just the way the world was.
         He felt rather than saw a light flicker in his head. I'm here. Ranos sounded buried, his voice echoed at the edges, like he had fallen down a well. Where are you?
         I'm- and a shape burst out of the thickening smoke, a wailing crashing into him. Tristian leapt back and slashed in front of him with a motion so smooth that it only occured to him what he did in the seconds afterward. A liquid far too warm splattered his face and he had a garbled howl as a ropelike shape writhed on the sand, the ribs making scribbling scratching noises. Bile jerked in his throat again, and he forcefully tore his gaze away.
         Tristian swallowed heavily as he guardedly made his way through the duststorm. I'm fine he finished, trying to keep all emotion out of his voice. He wondered how Ranos did it. Something to ask him later. That's right, keep focusing on later. Because there will be one. There has to be. I'm mobile again, do you need help?
         A flash ignited in the fog far to his left, almost like lightning searing away the smoke. A baby's cry warped into the melted recording of a scream. You might say that, Ranos answered. Three of them are here and I'm having trouble keeping a shield up and striking back.
         I'm on my way, Tristian responded, shifting into a run toward where he had seen the flash. In the rapid rush of battle, even the shortest distances were a million miles away. Anything could happen. Victory or death. Grey broken down to its component black and white. Just like the Hierophant desired. He tried not to think too strongly about that. Can you hold off until I get there?
         I think so, but . . . Tristian, these things . . . they're . . . abominations. I have no other word to describe it. They simply should not be. Another flash ripped through the murk, only this time a clap of thunder swiftly followed it. A cut off scream dripped like wax off the air. Tristian wished he had some idea of what Ranos was doing, if only so he knew what he was walking into.
         Only two now, Ranos explained in what was probably his idea of being helpful.
         Moving so fast his lungs burned in the effort to keep up, the tainted air not very rich in oxygen, Tristian caught sight of the ridged shadows of the things as well as the relatively small in comparsion human shape of what he thought was his partner.
         I'm almost there.
         I know, that sword is quite visible. You may want to sheathe it, unless you want these things coming after you instead of me.
          I'll take that risk, Tristian answered, surprisingly himself with the harsh brutality rippling at the edges of his statement. In his head all his words were naked, there was no hiding anything. Definitely not from himself. Still, these weren't emotions he found himself denying.
         Suit yourself, Ranos replied dryly, sounding like his old self for the first time in a while. One of the snake like shapes detached itself from the pair and began to weave in his direction. The sword. Just like he said. Damn. Ah well, he had predicted it. There goes one now.
         One for each of us then, Tristian said with forced cheer. Neither of them were saying what both were thinking. This was only a warmup and was doing nothing but weakening them. The Hierophant was lurking around ready to eliminate them as soon as the fight was over, or even before. They had to formulate a plan, none of this so far was working. Fumbling at the air, grasping out for anything resembling a solution, that relied too much on luck. That luxury was currently being withheld at the moment. Something more solid had to be concocted. But there was no time. No time at all.
         I want to try something, Ranos sounded over the link. This might make this a lot shorter and maybe give us something else to work with.
         I don't have much room to argue at the moment, Tristian said as he cut to the right, moving in a widening half circle, trying to lead the thing away from Ranos and give him one less problem. The sword was clenched tightly in his hand, the point causing dancing red lines in the thick air. Don't take any stupid chances, though.
          This from a man who basically instructed me in how to light air on fire. What part of that struck you as safe?
         I could always step to the side and let you finish this alone, Tristian shot back. Talking in his head always was liberating, it took barely any effort, and he could focus on the matters that were more crucial, such as staying alive. The thing swayed in the air, ready to strike, too much like a sadistic cobra for his sake. He wondered how much intelligence they actually had, were they just infants welded to hideous bodies, or had even that been taken away from them? Did they even understand the horror they had become a part of? Rhetoric resounded in his head. None of these were questions he ever wanted answers to.
         If this works you can probably do just that, his voice faded out a little, as it sometimes did when he was concentrating hard, if I can just slip in and-
         The scream that Tristian heard was neither a child's nor in his head. A light seared the inside of his mind even as he caught a glimpse of Ranos clutching his hands to his head and staggering back. In the swirling dust his motions were jerky, reduced to a puppet's frame by frame spasms. A cry straight from a nursery pierced the air, causing Tristian to wince at the naked pain there. He caught a glimpse of a sea serpent like body thrashing back and forth, the head thrown back and screaming. Whispers of heat floated over to him, the flaming skeleton gouging scars into the sand.
         The dirty air seemed to part suddenly and a shape loomed over him, a skeletal shadow wrapped in fire. His arm lashed out, the sword drawing crimson streaks in the air as it darted. Oh God. He didn't even think his body moved that way. Something struck the sand. A sliver of bone. Gleaming white even in this sand strewn atmosphere. Little details always came to him in moments like this. Like nothing else made any difference. The air was crying. Tears should be falling onto the sand. Because that's what happens when you cry, right? Rain striking the desert, prisms bending light. But they're not allowed, not anymore, it was taken away from them. Taken by a madman who thought he could do better. And it's trying to kill him. So he has to kill it. The sword was sketching complex patterns into the air, the blade moving so fast that his arm was starting to ache. But the thing kept moving back. Not fast enough, though. Smoldering fragments of bone were littering the ground. And it kept screaming. Why wouldn't it stop screaming. He wished it would stop. That this whole sick nightmare would stop. But someone had to stop it. And it was up to them. And to stop it they had to kill. Damn you, he growled in his head, lunging forward and stabbing with the sword, ramming it through the spinal column, ducking and rolling to avoid a fountain of fire that shot out like blood, sizzling where it struck the sand. The fluid. The fluid's all flame. What the hell did he do to them?
         Tristian darted forward again, the sword biting right into the skeleton, severing the body. Two twitching pieces fell to earth. And it was still wailing. Tristian danced back to avoid getting struck by debris. He was breathing heavily, and he wanted very much to rest. But he couldn't. There was always more. Always more to kill. Because the monsters of the Universe feel the need to propagate their own sick ideas. God damn you, he snarled again. Damn you for taking our choice away. For makin us kill these pawns so we can get to you.
         Never stopping his motion, Tristian whirled to where he had last seen Ranos. He hadn't heard from his partner since his pained shout and stumble in what felt like so long ago. But it had been only seconds. Time was running in waves, flowing all around him, and he was the stopgap. The dam in the river. It slowed around him. Like pushing against a car that refused to remove the brakes, it was progress but slow all the same. His feet barely made tracks in the dirt as he moved. Too loose. Time was too loose, a big baggy fit. Warping the noise, stretching it beyond recognition. Familiar sounds warbled from hellish throats, an entire album spliced from backalley derelicts. All the stuff you hear when you hear when you lay on your bed on a hot summer night with the windows open and the too warm breeze filtering in, bringing the city in with its passage. You lay and you listen and the world opens itself up to you. Tristian kept remembering his childhood for some reason. In moments like these, you don't want to go forward, leaving the backwards trail the only option. Because the future is no place you want to be. Patterns of shadows and light. Killing babies on the sand. That's what it all boiled down to, in the end. They were just killing babies.
         He had taken eight steps when it occured to him that it was suddenly quiet.
         Labored breathing floated bodiless in the air. Tristian slowed his pace, moving more cautiously, swinging the sword from left to right methodically. He wasn't going to be surprised again.
         Ice bobbed to the surface in his mind. "Tristian," Ranos called out, "over here."
         Tristian took two more steps in the direction of that voice, not totally trusting his senses, his eyes narrowing as he tried to pierce the air. It was too thick, a broth poorly mixed. Waiter, there's a mindless battle in my soup. Well, sir you have to admit that's not something you see every day. Are you sure you want to take it back? Hm, maybe I'll sit and watch it a bit. It's certainly more interesting than the execution in the bread. Very good, sir.
         Ranos didn't so much appear as melt from the air, his form gradually revealed as Tristian walked. He didn't look his best. His hands were braced on his knees, and his entire body was bent over and shaking. His shoulders were heaving from what Tristian assumed was exertion, and even with most details smeared from the air, he could tell the man looked flushed. No doubt they were both a sight to behold. A dark splatter on the ground might have been vomit.
         A dark shape was near lying placidly near him, absurdly peaceful given the violence flailing there just a few minutes ago. It was the head of one of the things, the body trailing off into the shadows of the settling dust. The oversized head was tilted slightly to the side, so it seemed that the empty staring eyes were gazing right at Ranos, not accusing or apologizing, just glass facsimiles turned inward to eternity. A glistening trail led from the ears, caused by a clear liquid that seemed to have leaked out.
         Ranos' coughed violently as Tristian came closer to him, doubling over even further until it seemed that he was going to topple headfirst into the sand.
         "The only thing I could . . ." Ranos glanced at Tristian, his eyes watery and pain filled before turning his head back to the sand and coughing again. It sounded like he was trying to eject something from his body. Tristian didn't know how to help him, but felt he had to do something.
         But Ranos waved him away when he put a hand out to steady him. "No . . . I . . . I'll . . ." another cough but with less force behind it this time, "it'll pass," he told Tristian. "After a moment, it'll pass." And even as he spoke, his ragged and hoarse voice was gradually being infused with its normal quiet strength.
         "What happened to you back there?" Tristian demanded, taking a step back as Ranos shook with what seemed to be one last cough.
         "I . . . ah . . ." he cleared his throat, grimancing like he had swallowed something unpleasant, beating at his chest a little, "I appear to have underestimated our new friend a bit . . ."
         "Wouldn't be the first time for either of us today," Tristian replied unhappily. It reminded him too much of their constant running defeats. They kept prevailing against what was being thrown at them but more and more it was becoming luck and that was bound to run out eventually.
         Ranos let that comment slide without any addition. He knew how badly they were doing as much as Tristian did. Rubbing his neck a little, he glanced down at the body of the thing he had just killed. "I had thought to reach into its mind and paralyze it, shut down its higher functions so to speak, and perhaps use its mind to gain some insights on the Hierophant."
         A brisk wind picked up, causing both men to tense. But it only served to carry the dirty air away, replacing it with a sky that was clearer but no less sickening.
         When nothing resembling violence erupted then, Ranos continued, still glancing around warily as he spoke, "As you no doubt realized that didn't happen . . . it . . ." and here his voice shook a little, "Tristian I've never seen anything like it, I . . . I went into its mind and found only . . . fire."
         "Fire?" Tristian asked, raising his eyebrows a little.
         "He . . . the Hierophant took . . . I got only glimpses," Ranos rubbed his face, as if trying to rouse himself from a particularly bad dream, "but he tore out the nervous system and . . . he replaced it with . . . with flame. It was like sticking my hand into a raging bonfire . . . the shock . . ." he shuddered, "the shock was not what I expected."
         "What are you saying, Ranos?" Tristian said, perhaps more harshly than he intended. "That instead of a nervous system they had fire . . . how is that possible?"
         "I don't know," Ranos replied coldly. "You are the scientist, I was hoping you'd explain. All I know is that the system was based completely around heat and fire."
         "Instead of electricity and ions," Tristian whispered, looking with new horror at the body arranged at his feet. "Good Lord," he breathed, turning back to Ranos with wide eyes.
         "You can imagine what it was like to actually be in there," Ranos commented. "If my rather violent entrance into its mind wasn't an equal surprise to it, then I suspect I wouldn't be here explaining this to you."
         "Don't take this the wrong way, Ranos, but I'm not sure I wanted the explanation." Tristian bent down to regard the still head. Close up, the eyes seemed blackend around the edges, like something had been burning inside, eating away at the skull in an attempt to burst free. He leaned over and stared closer at the liquid emerging from the ears at a trickling rate. "What did you do to it?"
         "I only had a second to recover and switch tactics," Ranos answered, his voice hushed, sounding like he was dancing around an apology, "and that left me no time to be gentle." He came over and stood next to Tristian, his fingertips barely brushing the top of the head. "In desperation, I simply increased the air pressure around its head. Monster or not, it was still a baby," his voice was clinical but only barely, strained and jagged pieces cutting up the undercurrents, "and children have soft skulls." Ranos sounded as if he didn't believe the words that were emerging from his lips. He wrenched his hand from the child's head, holding it tightly clenched at his side, like he had grasped the child's last thought and was unwilling to let it go, even if it was nothing more than a snarled story of horror. "By all the gods, Tristian, I had no choice." Pinpricks of emotion dotted his speech for the first time.
         "No choice," Tristian repeated numbly, his fingers faintly touching the sand. He could almost feel the individual grains and tried to draw some solace from that. From nature. But there was nothing natural here anymore. His hands were disturbing the remains of people who once laughed, loved, fought and cried in these spaces. The sky was filled with a world that shouldn't be there. And underneath the ground, innocent skeletal monsters slid along glass tunnels. All expressions of one man's skewed vision. It had to stop. One way or another, this had to end.
         He stared into the eyes of the child once more, wanting to close them but unable to bring himself to touch that massive head. As much as he wanted to, he just couldn't.
         Standing up sharply enough to send Ranos a step backwards in surprise, Tristian faced his partner and asked, "Is he around anywhere?"
         Ranos blinked and then his face became purposeful as his eyes went briefly out of focus. After a second he blinked again and regarded Tristian. "The same as before, there's nothing to pinpoint, he's somehow evenly distributed all around us."
         "Dammit," Tristian swore, gesturing at the air with the sword, as if trying to cut him down molecule by molecule. "He's not making this easy."
         On the contrary, Tristian had to resist jumping as Ranos' voice abruptly sounded in his head, I think the fact that we've lasted this long has made him curious . . . now it's more that he's testing us.
          What gave you that idea? Tristian easily slipped back into the silent method of conversing. Given the circumstances, it was the best and fastest chance they had of formulating a plan without being overheard.
         In the tower he only attacked us directly, after his proxy failed. Then after we destroyed most of the tower, he sent his experiments after us again. I'm very sure that he can destroy us with a concentrated assault . . . but we surprised him by lashing out and doing some damage. So he drew back, unsure of himself.
         Score one for us I guess but what's all that supposed to mean?
         I think he's playing it safe, and trying to let everything else he can muster up destroy us so he doesn't have to dirty his hands, so to speak. Less risk to himself.
         Good theories, all, but can we work a plan out of that? I'd like to avoid the fireball dodging games we played earlier.
         Unfortunately no plan immediately presents itself.
         Lovely. So are you advocating just slitting our wrists and getting it over with?
         Hear me out. He's obviously not convinced of his own invincibility.
         Neither am I. But I see what you're saying. He thinks we can hurt him, which means we probably can. That's something we can use.
         Exactly. We have to keep his attention on us and try to engage him face to face, and keep it that way. It's the only method that's going to bear any sort of fruit. Fighting his minions will only wear us down. It has to be him.
         That's not much to base a plan on, Ranos.
         I'm not sure what else to recommend, Tristian. He doesn't seem to have any vanity to appeal to and he's too adept at hiding for us to seek him out.
         So we have to wait for him to come to us. Wonderful. This is how this mess got started.
         Well actually we came to-
         Never mind that. I've got something, I think.
         What are you-
         Around them, motes of heavy light suddenly appeared in the air, placidly floating, shifting gradients of orange and red, vaguely bulbous in shape. Tristian stepped back instantly, his sword measuring out the distance between them. The motes seemed to be rotating in small, slow circles, as if surveying the area with blind eyes. Ranos stared at them warily, his body held straight but the air around him flickered with a slight glow, a minor shield in place.
         You seek to find weakness where none exists. The voice was dry and rustled like old paper. The dry undergrowth that exists under your desk, waiting for the lone spark to come along and give it bitter and brief life. Does the mere fact that I exist offend you so much that I must not be suffered to live? Do I have to conform to your strictures and rules before you will finally claim you have done enough? Is that all you wish?
         "You're mad," Tristian said evenly, not sure which of the lights he should be addressing, if any. It could just be a diversion, he was well aware of that. He wished the voice would leave his head though, it was almost like old hands with skin like dried parchment rifling through the filing cabinets of his mind. He knew that there were defenses in place to make sure that it went no farther than just speech in his head, but it still made him nervous. He glanced at Ranos' but the man was staring at something else, his face passively expressionless, like he couldn't be bothered to work the muscles to show emotion. Though neither of them said it, both knew to stop talking mentally to each other. There was no telling how much he could overhear, or even effect.
         Mad? So you're decided both the crime and the sentence, it seems. Drunk on your own superiority and moral outrage, you convince yourself the battle is won simply because you perceive your cause as just.
         "The things you do," Ranos suddenly spoke up, his voice soft but penetrating, "serve no purpose, nothing save to further your perverse curiousity." The man wasn't staring at anything in particular but Tristian could sense waves of an unknown emotion washing over him from the link. Ranos was scared on some level, he could tell that much. But it was more complicated than that, far more complex. Fear and revulsion and a frustrated sense of having stood by in futility for far too long.
         His partner was still speaking even as Tristian tried to untangle his emotions and his meaning. "Maybe once," Ranos continued, glancing down at the ground briefly, "you had a reason for these experiments but . . ." and his head shot up, his piercing gaze resting on one single ball of light, "no more." All the lights seemed to have started revolving faster, almost furiously. "Now," and his voice rang out, the only sound in the sparse desert air, "you're just passing time, idling away years and indulging in pointless exercises designed simply to see if you can still shock yourself." His eyes went to the hollow eyed child's head lying nearby, still, a light covering of sand already starting to coat it. "Apparently not," Ranos observed with infinite calm. His voice was thick in the air, almost pressing against the lights themselves, as if they were trying to hold him back. "And so, really, the only thing you're doing is waiting. Waiting to die." His teeth pulled back into a smile that chilled Tristian's blood. For the first time Tristian saw the cold mercenary that lurked under Ranos' surface. For the first time, Tristian began to see how much this partnership had changed Ranos. And how much it hadn't and maybe never would.
         "So let us kill you, Hierophant," Ranos intoned almost gently, like he was performing a mercy killing. Look at the desolation strewn around them, Tristian wondered if perhaps ultimately they were. Or maybe it was already too late. "We're only going to do it anyway. Make it easier on all of us." His words hung heavily in the air, almost cloying. Tristian felt a great presence of mind settling over them and in the slowness of the moment it was like trying to find your friends in dense fog. Stumbling around, you only make out forms and shapes. Details are scrubbed away and you're only left with the basics. But even if we could see clearly, we'd still stagger about. Because in the end, we still don't know where to plant our feet.
         With a flash that nearly blinded him, all the lights started spinning almost violently, boring into the air, drilling away sound itself. Tristian resisted the urge to cover his ears from the blistering noise and instead leapt back into a stance that would allow him to cover most of the angles, every portion of his body relaxing and tensing all in the same moment. It always formed a knot in his stomach when he got like this, but at the same time he never felt so free, like all his motions were sharp enough to slice air, that there was nothing to hold his body back. That at least was the intent.
         But there was one angle he couldn't cover.
         As the spots cleared from his vision, he saw that Ranos was rigid, nearly bent over backwards. His entire body was trembling with fine vibrations, a man caught in endless seizures, nearly spasming with an effort to break whatever force had taken hold of him. His face was sheathed in sweat, and his eyes kept roaming around, as if it was only a featureless glass cage that a simple flawed fracture would gain him escape. All he had to do was find it. But that wasn't the case. Tristian saw dots of fire dancing along his body, causing his robes to smoke and wither and he knew what was happening.
         "Ranos . . ." he nearly yelled, stepping toward his partner, the fluidity of his actions never ceasing to startle him.
         Tristian, no, stay back . . .
         His voice halted Tristian, sand falling over his shoes as he stopped moving. If he reached out with the sword he could touch Ranos. A simple brushing with the blade and he could lay open Ranos wide to the world. If there were any bonds to cut, he could free Ranos in a second. But there was nothing there, nothing to strike at and nothing to dodge, just simple brute force trying to trap them both. And so far succeeding. He had rarely felt so useless. There had to be something he could do.
         Little mindbender, and this time the Hierophant almost sounded angry, his voice the slow breaking of dry wood as the fire slowly engulfs it, waves of muted heat, your ambition betrays you. Do not seek to overreach yourself.
         Ranos only blinked, his body almost rattling with the effort to even do that. In his head, Tristian heard the familiar voice nearly gasp out, Maybe so. But maybe, and even if Ranos himself couldn't perform the action, the grim smile was definitely present in his tone, I just came a lot closer to prying your mind wide open and laying it bare to the world than anyone else ever has. Ranos' voice hardened into steel. Give me another opportunity and I'll do more than just come close.
         My, you are refreshingly confident, little man. In a world of cowards and fools, it's a rare condition indeed. Now that he had regained control of the situation, the Hierophant's voice went back to the dry and brittle cadence from before. The lights drifted into the air, spinning so fast that they seemed to be revolving in the opposite direction, slowly spinning toward each other, glowing intently. It was a headache inducing sight, Tristian had to admit. His body felt poised between two courses of action, rushing to decide whether to figure out how to free Ranos or to madly cut at the lights in an attempt to hurt the Hierophant. Nothing seemed likely to succeed, unfortnately. Tristian wanted to think that he had faced worse odds but right now he was coming up blank. Somewhere around a plan was lurking. There were still alive, which meant that they could still think. Which meant that there was a way out of this. There was a way out of anything, you just needed time to find the filtered and fine exit. Life was the trap we can never escape from. The only door out is the one nobody wants to take.
         But there was two things wrong with your reasonings and the voice seemed to be emanating right from the center of his head. An abstract conglomeration of unused thoughts and misplaced feelings stirred in his head, a toothy watchdog lifting its head up and growling at a dark shadow that swooped overhead. The voice receded a little but not by much. Tristian kept his face impassive. No need to explain what that was all about. It did give him cause for worry though, since not even Ranos had made it that far into his head. If the Hierophant decided to push, he might just rake his claws against the broken records of their brains, scratching against the groove and rendering it all useless.
         Two things wrong, the Hierophant said again, and the lights were coalescing, comets falling inward into the invisible center, sparking and flailing. They were arranging themselves a certain way, a shape was drawing itself into the air. Tristian found that he didn't dare move. Ranos grunted something incoherent, his voice a strained rattle against a throat paralzyed by fire and flame. It doesn't just burn you see, have you ever pulled your car over to the side of the road to watch the brutal majesty of a screaming forest fire, cleansing the undergrowth, making room for the newcomers of nature? Or been trapped in your house, the knowledge of fire preventing you from going anywhere as you imagine the flames licking at your body, curling skin, blackening bone, each second puncturing the levels of pain you can stand until the worst pain you can imagine is only behind the next gift wrapped moment of time. Flame isn't just a physical presence, we're wired into it from birth, from the first time lightning struck the dried trees and this terrible force fell to earth for us to behold. We haven't used it right since. We never will. Because its ultimate purpose isn't anything we can fathom. That's not the point, then. It's never the point.
         I'm far from mad the too calm voice of the Hierophant told them. The lights were spinning into each other, somehow not touching, a cluster of creatures converging on the scene of the crime. An outline. Tristian saw that it was forming an outline of a man. A three dimensional constellation of a man, stars were piling into his eyes, and his body was given the illusion of depth by a maze like collection of glimmering firelights, burning holes into space.
         Tristian raised the sword and stepped forward, trying to quicken his pace in the loose sand, running on a treadmill facing the wrong direction. It might only be illusion but it was the best road available, relatively speaking. But he had to do something. Being idle was no longer an option.
         Eyes lit by glittering flame blinked at him with more pity than actual malice. A strings of pearl lights at the bottom edge of the fact twitched upward and the entire empty form regarded Tristian, each sunken light an eye in itself, all staring, a crowd judging his every motion.
         The voice sounded sibilantly in his head again. Hoping to take him off guard, Tristian launched himself into a mad leap from his striding position, his knees vehemently protesting the sudden exertion of effort, his sword outstretched to gain maximum distance.
         He was so close. Lights dripped down like stars in his vision.
         But he wasn't going to make it.
         And I'm going to kill you.
         Tristian's foot touched empty ground, and kept going. The jarring sensation of not only falling but plummeting madly clutched at him. He caught a glimpse of the outline coming apart, lights blinking out one by one, even as he sunk into a ground that was no longer there. It wasn't even air under his feet. He was falling, with no force to stop him. Just dropping. His eyes became even with the edges of a hole punched out of reality and he realized with a sickening understanding what was happening. Falling down. He couldn't breath. All the air had been sucked out of his chest. Right into vacuum he was going. The breeze was rushing upwards past his face even as he kept plunging downwards, unable to stop his helpless descent. There was nothing he could do, that was all the world kept telling him. Just lay back and relax and enjoy the view because in the end all your efforts meant nothing. With a word and a wave you can be dispatched as easily as the dying embers struggling to sputter back to life. A little water makes it all go away. Except that the embers hang on and cling to life when they can, if there's a space to hide, an angle to exploit, if it means just two more seconds of life when they would otherwise be extinguished, those embers will reach for it. Because in the end, there's nothing left to lose.
         As if in torturous slow motion, Tristian watched his arm lift and extend, seeming to bend like rubber in the stretched time of his strained perspective. At angles it wasn't supposed to go and the searing fire raced all along his arm and shoulder, but he had nothing to say, no pain to express, it would have been futile energy expended, words and sound weren't welcome in this moment. But it wasn't fast enough, his hand couldn't reach out fast enough and he was going to keep falling even as his arm kept reaching and