The Prod of Immortality

THE Prod OF immortality

by

John Taylor

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

John Taylor on Smashwords

The Prod of Immortality

Copyright © 2010 by John Taylor

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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For Zach and Rachael

Prologue

For ages now it had tugged, growing ever stronger, at what used to be his mind. Ages, years, days, hours…his only key to the passing of time swam amidst the schools of luminescent fish that made this pitch-black trench their lair. He drifted just off the murky bottom—watching, hovering, slowly revolving—ghostly arms crossed about his naked, wispy frame. The myriad lights grouped and danced as one entity, hundreds of fathoms above, oblivious of his unblinking stare, perfecting a new variation in an endless evolution of darting, often explosive, patterns. It was dark beauty, this sanctuary of utter calm. It was peace hitherto unknown.

Once there had been others with him. They had formed a school of their own, each individual spirit drowned in the sea of collective consciousness, a pool of water heavy enough to stifle the draw of life. Those who could no longer feel that tug were lost, dispersed by the icy currents to which they took hold; and yet with their departures his own throb had actually intensified, kicking and scratching a way free of the smothering veil. Lost memories began to return, features of his hazy form started to gather detail, and a steady fabrication of weight drew him down, closer and closer with every passing, until…

His feet touched the trench floor. He was the last of them all.

And thus he would roam the depths once again. He had done so at first, aimlessly so, but each time found himself back at this place. But the draw had been weaker then, no more than a nagging ache, a thing to fill the void left by the fleeing senses of his last life. It was become now a pulsating beacon, summoning at fever pitch, and he moved forward to answer the call.

Eventually he escaped the submarine canyon, climbing out onto the abyssal plains. Bottom feeders scuttled at the steps of his slow, gliding drudge—and then instantly turned back on him like insects attracted to light, threatening to swarm. Could they sense the draw, or was it his own aura that snared them? Shimmering eels slithered about like scouting vipers, grazing at times his smooth grey ankles. Crab steeds and anemone riders marched in single file behind—an army of glowing tentacles above shadowed claws—and wraithlike jellies formed a vanguard overhead. League upon league conjured thousands more, bolstering ranks, replacing deserters. Hours, days, weeks…they came and went untold in the blackness.

---

When next there came a change, it was a sense of rising…then his feet were treading over gravel instead of mired in silt…and finally he could discern, however faintly, some forms that did not give off light of their own. His maturing eyes adjusted to the hint almost at once, amplifying it a hundredfold, unlocking a sweeping panorama before him—and for more than a moment this actually thwarted his rigid advance, such was the unexpected wonder of the scene. Here too was a profusion of life: multicolored coral fields below, teeming with endless tiny acts of symbiosis and predator taking prey; sleek, circling rays and roping schools above. But it was not these, nor the captivating probes of light blinking in and out about them, that had immobilized him. It was the distant walls and spires of a drowned city, unmistakable, skirting the farthest ridge.

Resuming his tireless stride, he veered towards the site and was before long passing between its toppled, mussel-laden gates. Long dark hair streamed languidly about his head now, interfering with his sight, and yet he could easily make out the familiar architecture of standing columns, portals, flights of steps, and crumbling arches. A paved road lay hidden beneath the sediment, he guessed…or was it remembered?…and he continued down it largely in solitude. The ruins were shunned by his amassed creatural following, their legion seemingly dispersed. Often a stray school looped past, or he nearly trampled some shuffling scavenger or shelled walker, but otherwise he was alone.

Or am I? he thought, craning his neck. A voice had tickled his consciousness. Reaching out with his mind, he spoke. Come to me, child…I can free you of the ache…

To these words came no response, and so he pressed on, beneath bridges connecting conical towers, over a ridge, through breaches in the rime-covered walls. Whose city was this? he struggled to recall. Images flashed: bronze-clad males patrolling battlements with long spears in hand; young females reclined in shaded grass, conversing and giggling; children frolicking around a marble fountain. Theirs had been a proud race, he knew, ever strong until the catastrophic end. But with the forms came no faces—no names. At the heart of the place lay a debris field: shattered brick and massive foundation stones, all that remained of a once-lofty fortress. Was I here when it fell? he fought again to remember, pausing for the second time since his climb from the trench…

And then they were upon him.

You? sent one. No, not you, fired another, the tone of it oozing with sarcasm. A third projected only insatiable hunger, a mind-rending sensation beyond words. Others bombarded him all at once, forcing him to lift the shield in his mind. Would he need to raise the sword as well?

A score, at least, penned him from all sides. Some appeared little different from the creatures they had possessed, having been within plain sight of the intruder without drawing from him a second look. The nearest of these to him were two huge morays and an octopus with strangely human eyes; still, he knew them less from the slight distortions of their forms than from the emotions hurled at his skull. The rest seemed to be something else, but they were not. They were simply advanced. These had flung not only feelings—rage, sadness, wonder, desire—but clear thoughts as they slipped from behind the stones and out into view; and these also displayed more than subtle human traits, the proportion increasing by degrees up to one whose form was not far alien from his own: the leader. Her slender limbs were humanoid, to be sure—yet longer than those sprouting from him and both finned along the calves and forearms and webbed at fingers and toes. Coarse jade skin covered her entire frame, its tone lightening a shade about her tight stomach and pert breasts, and she wore a motley garb of shells, corroded metal, and bones secured to belts of hide. Behind her back she clutched an impressive staff: the decorated tusk of a narwhale.

Agitated by the resistance to their psychic lances, her pack began to circle and close. Yet, with one hand raised, she swam forth and subdued them all. And so he allowed her into his mind.

Welcome, Father, said she, coming to a halt within his reach. Her nose was broad and flat: lacking nostrils, it opened instead into the circular mouth beneath. Otherwise, the face before him was oddly pleasing to behold, especially its searching, sparkling eyes. Flowing black hair covered all but the tips of her finned ears—and allowed only fleeting glimpses of the gills at her neck.

I am not here by chance, he realized. You have something I need…

The key? She raised one hand to his cheek: a light touch to satisfy her supposition. But you are cold. Dead.

As are you. None of us live, he said. Not yet.

The hand withdrew, and her webbed feet propelled her back and away. Nor is your task mine. But do you not wonder how I know of it? How I have become warden of the door? Do not fear…I shall not keep the tool from you. I only ask this: why revive what shall only fail again?

He responded at once. The seas are vast; the wayward innumerable. Yet, though you dredged each and every league, making vassals of them all, you could not withhold the key. You are merely one who held too tight to her memories. I see now the face you wore before—and it is meaningless.

The minion to her left was a grey-scaled hybrid with hollow eyes and churning white locks extending from its scalp to a length thrice its body’s height. It must have read his thoughts in hers. No sooner had he ended than the thing lashed out: its fists unfurled as groping claws; its mouth gaped to twice a skull’s length, revealing row after row of putrid, daggerlike teeth. It jetted within a few paces of him before she checked the attack: snatching a handful of trailing hair as it lunged, she pulled and sent the monster’s bulk crashing down at his feet. It is to no use, my pet, she said, affecting a soothing emotion. He says true…at least of the first. She found his eyes again—and held them a moment, attempting to mask her thoughts. Then, lowering her head, she connected. Can you show it to me? My face? The one of old?

Yes, he admitted. But I shall not. Many years, perhaps ages, remain to you here. I say to you: let go of memory. Seek not to recall your name. Slough off this false skin and lose yourself, else you shall come to rue it.

I have come to rue it, said she, projecting now a true, deep sorrow. The servant she had cast down, now back at her side, and many of the others mirrored her sentiment. She ceased treading water and sunk to her knees before him, hands absently clawing the seabed. I once reigned here, did I not? She guessed he would not answer and so went on. I knew it the moment I entered, so very long ago. And I found the key!—but no longer feel the draw. You’ve stolen that from us all! Grasping her staff, she pointed it at him and screamed: Take the key as well…and be gone from this place!

You shall walk dry land again, my sister, he proclaimed. In time…

She turned her face aside and entered the minds of her servants. Fetch me the ring!

---

White spray crashed above the climbing terrace like ever-shifting clouds in a sky of magnificent cyan: the end of his dark oceanic trek. Alone once more, he gazed up at the spectacle…and yearned to find it mirrored in the firmament beyond. Every step took him closer to the divide between water and air, and he could feel now an absence of the latter substance as kindled flames in his chest. The undertow threatened to sweep him away, back home to his watery grave. Yet he marched on.

Between the roll of one wave and the next he pierced the surface, spewing seawater and gasping for breath—and gloriously blinding light filled his eyes. The next wave lifted him, and in that instant he knew the moment of his first life’s birth. The sandglass of mankind had become inverted; its epoch was beginning anew. For a moment more he lingered, bobbing with the surf, eyes transfixed on a sight inland of the shore. Then his arms flailed out and pulled his body forward. Soon his feet would drink the warmth of dry sand.

The stark-white tower rose amidst a pristine green of endless salt marsh, its pinnacle lost somewhere high in the ivory-clouded azure heavens. Crystal blue streams carved paths here and there through the rushes, and multitudes of screaming birds soared and swooped in flocks overhead, out to the farthest horizon. The Earth is healed, he thought. And my haven yet stands.

There were no eyes—save those of scattering terns underfoot—to watch the dripping, naked man emerge from the waves; there were no ears to hear his footfalls on the beach. He met the crest, started over dunes, and before long crossed into marsh grasses and cattails taller than his ample height, walking at times and wading at others. A colony of brown pelicans ceased squawking long enough to gawk at him from perches in an isolated stand of mangroves. An osprey lit down nearby, clutching a fresh kill. He left them behind.

The tower rose larger with each step, until at last he could make out the individual mortared stones of which its four sides had been fashioned. Not a one was blemished: all of them smooth, solid, and radiant as the day they were laid. At the base, coming directly into view, was the single entryway to the structure, its only portal save the four windows he knew waited far above. The dimensions were scarcely enough to walk upright through, had the door stood open. But it was closed. There were no hinges or bars—only a thick slab of red-gold metal.

On the ring finger of his left hand was the key, a snake forged of the same material as the door, its head circling around to sink fangs in its own tail. The end nourishes the beginning; the beginning births the end. Coming within a step of the barrier it was created to unseal, he hesitated, the warden’s question swimming back to the forefront of his thoughts: why revive what shall only fail again?

But which is the true failure: a collapse of bloodlines or defeat of will? The first would surely come, this time as it did the last—and as it would the next. But as for the second…perhaps this time it might be different. He raised his palm and placed it flat against the door.

What was another hour compared to the ages of his wait and the months of his journey? Yet now he felt time’s passing as would his children to come. To them, each and every day would be precious: one moment wasted would be a thing forever lost, and the next one could be the last. With each step on the spiral stair another visage came into his mind: faces of his firstborn, those who once lived and might soon breathe again. He heard their voices in every touch of his hand on the unseen, guiding rail. He mouthed the words…and then intoned them…and soon the tower’s hollow belly echoed with a repeated song. At times it swam soft, almost a whisper; at others it dove deep to baritone; and between these bars it broke the chant to thrash wildly in a higher range, seething with emotion.

On and on he climbed, in utter darkness, until at last he reached the door overhead. It slid open easily, and once more he winced as light broke through the opening to attack his dilated eyes. Not two strides from his ascending form, positioned exactly at the center of the otherwise bare chamber, sat two objects enveloped in stillness: a waist-high rounded stone pedestal with a top carved to the likeness of a human hand, and a tiny strongbox resting in its upturned palm. A sunbeam from one window fell upon the support, illuminating its prize while leaving the rest of the room to shadows. The draw of life emanated from that spot—the beacon of his mystic lighthouse—and yet he did not immediately go to it. He had arrived. The throbbing in his mind had ceased, and nothing would start without him.

Framed by the northern window, the Father looked out upon the waters from whence he had come. He felt the wind on his face and smelled the salty air. He heard gulls screaming and waves roaring and the sounds of fish darting close to his head. He saw the warden passing through the tumbled city gates, ivory staff in hand, leaving her minions behind. He drank the deadly cold of the chasm, caught a glimpse of dancing lights overhead…and pulled quickly away.

From the eastern window he saw the marsh, a river, and the edge of a great forest beyond. The river Aradros. As its winding path and chill waters had survived, so would he carry on its name to the new life. But as for the marsh and the wilderness…others shall name them anew. His eyes scanned deep and came upon a lone deer emerging from a thicket of brambles. He watched it pause and raise its head, cautiously surveying the trees for an enemy. He tasted the water it licked from a clear, icy stream. He smiled at the blue wildflowers about its hooves and the red and golden butterflies flittering in the canopy above. The wood stretched unbroken ridge after ridge, past gullies and tangles and creeks and outcroppings, seemingly without end. And so this time it shall remain.

The southern portal revealed much the same lay of land, save the river ran now parallel to the seashore, cutting a path many leagues beyond through the forest before veering north. A fog crept in and wrapped its misty tendrils about the titanic trunks of oak and elm, hovering thickest just off the leaf-strewn floor as evening came on. Venomous spiders sat patiently in their webs amidst branches that cluttered his mind’s eye. The sight and faint sound of cool moisture dripping from a fern leaf, forming a little pool below, summoned to him an image alike yet discordant in its essence: hot blood trickling over a jutting rock to fall, strike, and soak deep, staining a widening crimson circle in the snow and ice not far below. A loss endured and long forgotten…or a tragedy yet to come? Whichever it was, the scene belonged to another place. It is the west calling…

The osprey greeted him at the final window, studying the Father with its keen, dark eyes between spurts of preening. Outside, storm clouds were brewing. The bird made way for the view by clutching his arm tightly with its bloody talons, and he pulled it round so that both of them could see. Away in the distance, beyond reach of the coming rain, past the great river’s branches and tributaries and the unyielding wall of mountains, a serpent slid through the sea of sand that choked the plains of Agrigoth. The sun was set, the stored heat of the day rapidly escaping, and yet he felt still its burn through the snake’s thin scales. The osprey screeched. What part shall that land play, my friend? It turned an eye on him and cocked its head to one side, as if considering the question, before gazing back at the night. Lightning flashed nearby, for an instant illuminating the marsh, and his sight withdrew from afar. A deafening boom followed; the bird screamed again.

Reaching out once more, closer now, he swept over hill and vale. Remote plumes of smoke drew near, a taste of sulfur permeated the air…and the fiery Womb came under his scrutiny. You stir, Mother, he projected, …and so again I come. Then he cut his eyes to his arm and spoke aloud: Wait for me there!—and hurled the osprey into the tumult.

An instant later he saw the bird aloft, an image snapped in a flash of lightning. Satisfied, he backed away, turned, and walked to the pedestal. Thunder roared, and shadows danced about the chamber. He took in and let out a deep breath, reached for the undying hand of stone with a hand of immortal flesh…and opened the box.

PART ONE:

Dangling From Strings

In the age that bore the Setting Sun

The Demon, Rhanwyr, he did come

To sow his seed in Mother’s womb

Then lie him down in Mavul’s tomb

I awoke in blackness to the echoed howling of wolves. It was the first occasion since our departure that I could recall being conscious during the night, for a malignant fever had wracked my body from the onset, breaking me down no sooner than the end of each day’s march. Yet sleep appeared only to further exhaust me. Disturbing dreams gnawed at my mind where there once had been tranquility, and the reality to which the sun presented me each morn was worse. At least, as my first waking sensation had revealed, I was no longer gagged with a foul bit…nor were my eyes covered, and the hunger inside to once again behold the daylight surely rivaled the cravings of my poor belly. The fever had broken. The weariness remained. I could feel my scrawny body wasting away from one moment to the next.

The moon shone dimly, but it was enough for me to picture my new situation. I was deposited on a narrow precipice overlooking a gorge, and I could hear water running swiftly far below. My arms were tied behind to a lone juniper of nearly four cubits in height. I marveled at how this tree thrived on that rocky ledge, for weakness had taken away my own ability to stave off the cold, making it seem as though my skullcap and Kuhric’s coat were but preserving frost that had already found my core.

Yes, Taloseth had draped over me the discarded garment of his defeated foe. Perhaps the mage had seen my mind’s desire for the spoils of his duel (though I had never imagined pillaging the body of my idol). Maybe he was just trying to keep me from freezing to death before I could fulfill his purpose for me. In any case, I knew by smell that it was now Kuhric’s clothing blanketing me—though another scent was beginning to choke out all others in the still air of the chasm. Something dead and decaying lay nearby.

Unable to return to sleep or detect anything else in the darkness, I was left alone with my thoughts. They began to torture me. Once more I saw my champion approach the sorcerer. Once again I saw the stones fall. I recalled how Kuhric had at first struggled to move and speak but had finally dropped his blade and stood silent. I saw the single tear well in his eye and run slowly down his cheek—the last that ever would. Taloseth had simply waited patiently as all of this transpired. Then he had approached Kuhric and buried his axe deep in the man’s shoulder and chest.

And what about my mother? She had fallen under the malice of the mage as well, yet I had no more idea of her body’s whereabouts than I had of Kuhric’s. Briefly I envisioned our hound feasting on their corpses, but my mind was too weak to sob over that thought. In truth, I did not recall any proper lamentation, for the inflictions Taloseth had certainly wreaked upon me had left me in a perpetual daze. He had seen me hooded and gagged on that first day nearly before Kuhric’s body hit the ground, and in under an hour he had marched off with me on a leash behind him. At least seven days, I guessed, had passed from then until today, but towards the end it had become difficult to judge anything at all. The sorcerer had yet to utter a word to me, nor had he (as far as I could tell) brought me within earshot of anyone else.

Finally the sky began to lighten. Once more I tried my bonds to no avail and almost retched from the putrid stench enveloping me. With what material had he constrained me? I strove to see. It was my mother’s braids.

Sorcerer! I screamed with all the strength left in my withered frame. What did you do to my mother? Tears had come at last. What do you want with me?

As soon as the echoes of my wrath expired, I heard a raven caw from the rim. Perched on an unluckier specimen of tree than that to which I was secured, it peered out over the divide as if it were some king surveying a dominion, paying no heed to my plight. Thankful to behold again movements in the light of day, I watched this bird intently as it shifted from one side to the other and croaked softly to itself. But presently it fixated on the ledge directly above me, and I looked up to see what had caught its eye.

There was no mistaking what I beheld on that stone shelf in the early morning light. It had been there all along…motionless as the rocks it was propped up against: the dead body of Kuhric. My eyes jumped away from the awful thing as soon as they fell upon it, but my mind continued to peruse the image: a face hideously warped, the tongue protruding from a twisted mouth. I shivered in disgust. The skin around the axe’s bite was crusted with black gore; the rest was exposed as a mass of bluish-green blisters. The legs were as yet covered, so it seemed the corpse had been handled only as much as was necessary to transport it to this place. But what had driven the mage to leave it here? Had I not been tortured enough?

Gathering courage, I forced myself to take another look. Now I saw a broken collarbone protruding from the skin and the bulbous eyes staring out into nothing. The raven saw them as well: morsels ripe for the picking. It cawed once again, flew straight toward the ledge where the body sat cross-legged, and perched upon its rotting shoulder. I was certain that I knew what would happen next…and I was just about to turn away from it when…

The cadaver slung up an arm at the bird!

My shriek met the raven’s an instant after it was loosed. With a vigor surpassing that of living men, Kuhric had struck his target—feathers hung in the air as an iridescent black mass plunged to the river below. I longed to follow it. Yet stillness returned as abruptly as the violence had taken shape. Then I found myself wondering if it had happened at all.

Your mother is dead, issued a sudden voice from the adjacent crag. And as for you…well, we shall see soon enough.

So my outburst had not gone unnoticed—but who was this that answered it? Now I saw her below me, not far to my left, standing in a gaping mouth of the rock wall. Her right arm caressed one of its stony teeth; her left hand