Journey

We are walking hand in hand through a meadow. I feel your cool, firm grip on my delicate pale fingers.  Your skin is like the touch of an electric moon, passing the voltage of pure white light into the center of my palm. I open up like an exposed portal, your energy flowing into me, brightening me from the inside. The grassy hills are wet from the dark night. We walk.
There was no beginning to this journey, we walk as we always have, your hand firmly holding mine, my fingers gripping back just as tightly. In the far distance is a wall of trees, looking now in the night like a black wall with peaked tips just barely glowing by starlight. Closer to us is a small cluster of tiny things, I can’t tell exactly what they are, my eyes and mind search for meaning and then in two steps we are almost upon them. There is a taut pull of your hand and I jump towards you, just barely avoiding squashing the gathering with the heel of my boot.
What I see now is a funeral for a tiny creature, a small bird with feathers that look as dark as the grass in the dark night.
We keep walking through the meadow, the trees on our left.  We are exposed to the moon and the night sky of a thousand stars. My cheeks are cold and flush, though I feel a deep warmth in my chest, a brightness and aliveness which runs like a channel down my arm and into my palm and fingers which hold on tightly to you.
We come upon a collection of rectangular structures, narrow trailers made of a cheap metal and planted shallowly upon the earth. There are a few dozen, all densely packed together. We pass one, the only one with a bright porch light. Its yellow glow reveals the neglected state of the home, the walls left without sheen. One woman stands by her front door, looking out into the empty dirt streets.
We walk on, the path now worn and without grass. The narrow homes give way to a large collection of military tents. Even without light I can feel the green of their canvas walls. An aroma of campfires and cigarette smoke and alcohol lingers close to the earth, a smell of men in old, worn uniforms. 
I study the tents as we walk, all of them dark and without light or fire to warm up the darkness. I feel you pull me towards the left, just off the path where it is nearly black, you push aside a heavy canvas wall and we step into a large tent. 
It is bright inside from overhead lamps, their light bouncing off the white fabric walls.  I sit on your lap.
There are a dozen people, perhaps a few more sitting in a circle, some on the ground, many in chairs. 
I realize then that you are across the room, sitting on the other side of the circle. There is a girl wearing all black, her shoes, her shirt, her tights, her skirt, her hair, her makeup, all of them are black, all but her skin and eyes. You start to kiss her, gently stroking her cheeks and pushing her hair back lovingly. I see you then kiss others, then stand briefly as you kiss small objects and bottles. 
I turn my attention to the center of the circle. There is a woman dressed as a bird on the ground.  From across the circle I see you looking at her and you begin to sing to yourself softly, keeping your eyes on the bird.
I am moved and get out of my seat and enter the circle, I lay on the ground and start singing. I try and help the bird to fly. I push and pull but the bird will not stand, it will not get off the floor. I relent and lay on the ground with it, clutching it. I wrap my legs around it and hold it like a pillow, like a lover. I sing a wailing song because the bird is dead.
I close my eyes, I watch the melody in my mind, watch it  move like a journey, watch it move through a meadow, down a dirt  path, through houses and tents and into a circle.  I sing until it ends, then I open my eyes. No one says anything, you are turned away from me.

Blinking Calls Of Destruction

The computers
share what you cannot.
The things she needs,
a thousand thoughts.
The damage of our
entwining chords and bubbles,
you will never accept.
My throat,
my city,
it blinks, bored, into the darkness.
Only the red lights call back,
warning,
sighing,
muted and complacent in my paranoia.
Alone right now, standing naked at the window,
I carve the new path into my arm.
A canvas of pure white,
the roads are thick
and etched in the bloody marks
of an adventurer.
A lone wolf guided by the moon and scent
of the night dwellers.
The thickening mist is silent,
constant, hiding that which prefers not
to be seen.
A new way emerges,
tangible,
thirsty.
I open my mouth and suck it in.
Breathe it, chew on the possibility
just outside the window.
I know that it must look the same,
keep up the same appearances,
not a pen must be out of place.
I must keep things as they expect them to be,
for they will be watching.
The writers and men of twisting paths,
it must look like the realm of story,
a plain story without a plot,
a story set down on the side table,
unread and unchanged.
The images will come to the censor,
the gray, the box, the filter.
The drab and colorless, the institution.
They will scan and search, looking for
Subversion, dialogue.
It will be their judgment,
their moral stamp on the colors that will ensue.
It must all appear pale and without fire,
they will push us on,
discerning what appears acceptable
from what is pure chaos,
what is breaking apart.
They will let us through the narrow tube,
the filter burrowed into each
and every one of us,
airtight, black, oozing. 
All will seem normal, plain,
coated in the institutional sheen and odor.
We will split then, dividing evenly. 
A double path communicating through the lights, the red. 
The black that appears almost invisible-
close your eyes and it is there, blinding as the sun,
hiding in the mist, flowing along the carved channels of my arm.
The small dark crystal awaits,
we bring
Destruction.
The crumbling of empire, of rock and continents
and the heavy bodies that come with them.
It is coming.
My computer beats out the song.
Listen, you mad genius.
You naked warrior,
You goddess of sex,
dripping labia exposed to the mass of small and crumpled men.
Listen.
Open up, the communication is coming.
The beat, the hypnotic chant will break the rocks apart,
brick by brick, the city will fall.
Vulnerable, bright and shining against the window
the visions slide
down my cheeks, leaving
no marks.
My mouth open,
your machine on,
the computer blinking, whirring.
I must be brave,
the red and black give their command.

Seer Of Dreams

War
came as though we did not expect it
the bubbles in the river told me,
water spoke to me
and soon, as the rain came,
the puddles were red and
glassy.
It came as though we were not expecting it
though the clouds had gathered on the hillsides and
above the olive groves and even
on the little mountain we so lovingly cared for.
In winter and spring and when the
proud foxgloves sprout like mad,
little white faces peering out of every crevice to face the
mother of all, the people of fire,
our source.

Are not the stories
filled with battles?
Dreams and desire for wretched glory.
Do the men not sing and
recall anguish and defeat out there
beyond the three rivers?

War came,
they were expecting it.
It is not incompatible
with life, it is life.
Men are born and taken.
On hands and knees they crawl
towards it, a great gleaming goddess.

I am the one who is frightened
who does not fit in,
I see it coming,
see it here
see the wounds
the bleeding.
It is I who does not sing the songs
kiss the marching.
And yet they rumble through me
like nursery rhymes
and lick at my fingertips.
I am the one who rips my
dress to rags and runs naked
through the streets.
I am the mad one
The liar
The seer of dreams.

Construction

Nothing inside, nothing outside. The construction continues.

There is really only one space that we occupy, it is our relationship to the flow of energy through ourselves and the space which gives the space shape. The form comes from within, from a certain nothingness that hides itself in endless dancing.

A night not too long ago. She was awoken from the silent sweetest of dreams. It was precisely when the first bomb struck the earth, only a block from her house.

She lies now on a hospital bed with her arm nearly severed. Her nervous system recurrently informs her that something has gone drastically wrong. Somewhere, something has gone wrong. It is difficult to place it, difficult to ascertain the nature of the problem. But it's there. Palpable, close.

On the corner of the hospital complex a re-construction project is underway. If she lifts her head up onto the pillows, she can see it from her window.
A flimsy chain link fence surrounds the dusty site, the worn woven metal providing little more than a psychological barrier between the hospital and this budding new project.

She can not recall the details of that night. A night not too long ago. Certainly no details of the day after. No details there. Only dust and clouds and a kind of nothingness full of expectation.
No details.
But she remembers waking in the middle of the night. She remembers smiling, she remembers the feeling of lightness and air. Something rising, something expanding and seeking freedom.
As she was pulled into waking consciousness by sirens and the sound of splintering metal, she felt the softness drain from her mind. Some things can only be felt at certain times, some times are more rare than others. The smile was gone before she knew where it came from.

There is a big gap in the fence, making it easy for the workers to enter and exit. If she lifts her head up onto the pillows, she can see it from her window.
The enclosed area is large, big enough to contain the planned 5000 square foot clinic that will sit here in the near future.
She watches them from her window every day, hour after hour. They provide a kind of solace that she can't find elsewhere, not in the words of the doctors, not in the voice of her relatives through the phone, not in flowers, not in light.

The boy no longer cries. She may feel despair, fear, anger, or more likely a sensation that escapes definition but is nonetheless extremely unpleasant. Her eyes are certainly wide open, watching the strange movements outside. The construction continues.

The ground is made of dirt and the 12 inch boot imprints of construction workers poke the dusty surface. A small handful of construction workers are present, all looking identical in their uniform of blue jeans, white sweatshirts, tan boots and white hardhats.

The crucifix hanging over the bed seems awful, like a foreshadowing of impending punishment. Sacrifice, death, pain, sudden change, sacrifice, punishment, pain, change. The entire mood is sinister.

A night not too long ago. The sound of sirens, a loud explosion, a smile that vanishes.
Before her brain could catch up to her movements, she was already running for her son. The loud echoes of the bomb were still in her ears. There was nothing to do but run, run for him.
A bomb, so close, too close.
After gathering the crying infant in her arms, she ran once again for her husband. She asked what was happening.
"It's them..." was his only reply, and then he left to turn on the TV.  The news sounded like the singing of birds, the words didn't make sense but it seemed as if they were saying something.

Construction has just recently begun, only a dozen metal beams have been put in place to create the foundation of the building. Three steel beams, each almost four hundred feet tall, stand vertically. If she lifts her head up onto the pillows, she can see it all from her window.
Despite the size of the proposed project, there is a quiet calm within the construction site, like the relaxed mood of a warm Sunday afternoon.

She may feel despair, fear, anger, or more likely a sensation that escapes definition but is nonetheless extremely unpleasant.

The small group of men work efficiently with the instilled knowledge of their craft. They move confidently and smoothly, knowing all the necessary steps needed to complete the project. Hardly a spoken word is heard throughout the construction zone, every man knows his role and performs each small task with an effortless ease.

A night not too long ago. The night before the day. The day she can't put together, the missing pieces she can't remember. The day she tries to build within her mind and yet fails, over and over again.
She spent the rest of that long, black night alone in bed, trying to console her crying son and failing once again with the sound of a new explosion. One after another. Sooner or later the sound would be too near, sooner or later the sound would be so near that she would no longer be able to hear, no longer would be able to see, no longer would be able to remember.

Four of them are working on raising a metal frame, the dark metallic frame looks purple in the sunlight and the huge square piece of welded steel rises vertically into the air, forming the skeleton of the new building. With only a couple of men, they manage to lift a thousand tons of metal, there are no cranes or mechanized machines in sight.

Her nervous system recurrently informs her that something has gone drastically wrong. (Memories, flashes of insight, understanding that fades as soon as it announces itself with finality.)
She lies now on a hospital bed with her arm nearly severed. The boy no longer cries.

The form comes from within, from a certain nothingness that hides itself in endless dancing.
There is really only one space that we occupy, it is our relationship to the flow of energy through ourselves and the space which gives the space shape.

The cries of the little boy lasted through the night, never ceasing, never slowing. It was as if he already knew what was coming. As dawn broke, the sounds of explosions continued.
Eventually she got used to the sound. It took a long time. She got so used to it that she forgot all about the danger, all about drastic possibilities of irreversible change.

The boy. A construction worker every so often descends from the top of the highest metal beam.
No longer. His toes are tucked into a groove in the small metal beam and he slides down to the earth slowly, like Dracula with his arms crossed at his chest and still wearing a hardhat.
Cries.

Nothing inside, nothing outside. The construction continues.

The New World

Yesterday he asks about my relationship to the café’s owners. I tell him they’re my friends. He says maybe he can make friends with me. I admit I’m easy to make friends with. His name is Erasmus.
Today I ask him if he plays chess. He says he can. I tell him I’ll bring a chessboard. He says it’s nice to have a friend. He tells me that someone else once said that we should love our friends with the greatest intensity possible from whatever distance is necessary. He explains that the woman he is quoting came to a bad end. I say that most extraordinary people do. He says that his mother was extraordinary and she led a peaceful existence. I amend my statement. Many extraordinary people come to a bad end.

This morning Walter Richard Patton came in and ordered a Danish. In high school he reversed the order of his first and middle name and came to be known by all as Dick or Dickie. His father died in Chicago the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. The next day Dick's younger brother, Arthur, came to him and said he wanted to join the Navy. He was 16 years old. Dick helped him to alter his baptismal record by changing a 5 to a 3, thus helping Arthur to gain enough years to enlist. Dick himself joined the navy shortly after his family moved to Utah.

Erasmus told me this afternoon that he once hunted down an archeologist who studies modern artifacts; eye droppers, paper cups, anything that can be found in an urban gutter. Erasmus located him, surprisingly, tucked away in rural Maine. The gentleman told him that he had worked in Berkeley on the development of the Nuclear bomb. He described the day after the bombing of Hiroshima, standing among the scientists who had helped create the most devastating weapon designed by mortal men. He told Erasmus that they all went a little crazy that day, the day after 66,000 people were killed all at once.

When Dick came out of the Navy he found himself in California. He could never bring himself to return to his family's home. There was a reason for this. In 1945 Art was lost off the coast of a small island in the South Pacific. Dick felt responsible. He was the one who had changed that 5 to a 3.

When Erasmus was ten years old his teacher and the school's principal called a special conference with his mother. In this conference she was told that her son was mentally retarded. She asked on what grounds they were making this proclamation. She was told that he didn’t understand that he should sit in his seat. He preferred to sit in the windowsill. She was then shown a paper covered in writing and told that he didn’t understand how to write in the lines. She withdrew Erasmus from the school and sent him to another.

Dick’s grandmother came from Austria with her husband and their family. Her brother in law brought his family all at the same time, but after passing through Ellis island, the two brothers never saw or heard from each other again. They simply lost one another in the strange new world.

I listen to Erasmus conducting an interview on the radio. He is speaking with a woman from England who leaked secret documents revealing a plot to bribe members of the United Nations into supporting the Iraq war. He asks her if she regrets having done it. She tells him she does not. She explains that she had thought the war might be stopped if she revealed the truth, but nothing came of her actions. She was fired from her job, she faced imprisonment, but there was a war just the same. Erasmus thanks her for her bravery.

Dick’s father died in Chicago the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. The day after the attack on Hiroshima, a group of scientists in Berkeley went a little crazy. One of them became an archeologist that studies modern artifacts. Arthur was lost at sea off the coast of a small island in the south pacific. Dick could never go home again. He sits in an empty café in Berkley, a very lonely old man with a heavy heart. Erasmus’s mother was an extraordinary woman who was told that her young son was mentally retarded. Later he was nominated for a Pulitzer. Now he is interviewing a person that hoped to prevent a war by telling the truth.

Someone said that we should love our friends with the greatest intensity possible from whatever distance is necessary. That someone came to a bad end. Many extraordinary people come to a lonely, painful end. They are simply lost, separated from those they once loved by choice or death or circumstance, left alone to face the strange new world.

The Spheres of Galia Part 12

In the biggest challenge to the King’s authority for the decades he had reigned, thousands of common folk massed outside the new palace to protest the ongoing war in Vitnu. Through upheavals and bitter strife in the kingdom were natural process, bound to occur in any realm with a large collection of players, there had never been a gathering of opposition so large that the chanting could be heard as far as the Sophrastas Sea.
People had grumbled at his unpopular rulings before in the markets and taverns, it was a minor crime, though a popular pastime. But now, it went beyond irritation, beyond drunk complaints. The people went out in the misty winter air and gathered at the gates to make their discontent known and unmistakably heard. With torches aglow that sent fiery messages to the King in his tower, they chanted into the starry darkness, rocking the metal gates with the collective force of their anger.
It was not long before their presence drew out the Royal Guards. Armed, the Royal Guards drove the rabble forcefully from the main plaza. Eager to administer beatings to members of the unarmed crowd, they drew their batons, their swords, and fists, swinging wildly at any figure without a shield or uniform. There were screams of children and much shouting. No one was spared the hand of the Guard. The people dropped their torches with each blunt blow and small fires broke out, filling the night with smoke.
The violent night left in doubt the next step for the Kingdom. The recurrent doubts as to the true birth right of the King continued to plague the populace. Many scribes and a small number of councilmen had been offended by the King's harsh rule and his resistance to change. They rallied with the peasantry, calling for a change.
The apparent leader of the King’s opposition was forcefully taken from a healing temple by unknown men in common clothes that betrayed no sign of their rank. Bright and two other councilmen had been severely beaten in the clashes with Royal forces, but Willem alone was carried away. The old healer watched in terrified silence as seven men wrapped Willem the Bright in a blanket as he lay sleeping on a bed in the largest temple of healing in the Kingdom. Locked in the neighboring chamber, Willem’s wife screamed for him while the cowering healer watched his patient being carried away.
The High Priestess hid her smile when the news of Willem the Bright’s abduction reached her. His whereabouts remained unknown, though his fate was certain. The King was playing into her hands, making it all the easier for her by removing yet another beloved man of the people. She was astonished at the level of his blindness, his arrogance. He acted as though he had never studied the history of the Spheres.
It mattered little to her that he no longer sought her consultation. These days he kept council with Argus the Torturer and though brutal, his advice was simple to decipher. She would know his next move before it became a thought in his mind. Soon, she thought, it would be time for her to act openly against the King. For now, she was content to watch his unraveling and with it, the unraveling of the Old Kingdom.

The Spheres of Galia Part 11

Branan, the former Royal Guard who allegedly leaked hundreds of secret magickal scrolls to Olslo, celebrated his 23rd birthday with the mice in the dark depths of the dungeon under the towers.

Since his capture, Branan had spent most of those two hundred days in solitary confinement. The sound-proof cell removed even the possibility of finding comfort in the screams of those being tortured. He had not even been permitted to touch the hand- written note from his family, rather, the guard read it to him through the small slat in the iron door. There were of course, no windows. No sun, no moon, it was life without seasons, color or natural pattern. In all respects, his birthday had been no different than any of the other days spent in darkness, it was by a small miracle that one of his guards had wished him a “pleasant birthday.” Perhaps it had been sarcastic given his situation, but he took it as an amazing gift, it gave him a way to count the days since his imprisonment, thus restoring to him a small measure of sanity.

His life had become a single endless night spent alone in a damp and cold narrow cell. His world, a sink, toilet, and bed. He was denied the luxury of sheets, pillow or blanket from the chill. Exercise was forbidden, human contact was a forgotten pleasure. In the earliest days of his imprisonment, when he was still permitted visits, he was forced to wear shackles and had to sit behind two rows of metal bars for the entirety of the interview. Now, he couldn’t bear to even hope for that long, difficult walk down the corridor in metal restraints, nor would he permit himself the dream of seeing another human face. The faces of people had become a diffuse thing in his memory. The harder he strove to recall a particular countenance, the more illusive it would become. His mother was a blur of pale pink and white. Remembering the smiles of old comrades was like looking at the world through rain-soaked glass, every color ran together, blurring into a palate of warped shapes. He had never seen the guards by the door, he heard their voices when they issued a command through the slat and though he resented his captors, he now lived for their voices, for that small reminder that there was life and humanity beyond the endless night.

On his birthday, he accidentally tore a toenail by bumping it against the hard leg of his bed. It had hurt for only a moment and the small sliver of nail served as a great diversion. He would toss it to the floor, then search for it in the darkness, fingers scanning the rough surface of the floor and delighting in its tactile stimulation.

Branan’s future remained uncertain. While he searched with eager fingers for a lost piece of himself, Councilman Coyar was in a meeting of the Council. The councilman called for calm and a measured response to the new challenges that Olslo’s actions had presented. The Kingdom had changed dramatically, not just with leaked magickal scrolls, but with the subsequent rebellion. The Council needed to find a way to move fluidly with the changes. "When everyone in this capital is joined together calling for someone's head, it's a pretty sure sign that we need to slow down and take a look," the elderly councilman suggested to his peers.

Councilman Pushkar responded with a call for punishment. “I have no sympathy for the alleged thief in this situation. He’s no better than a common street thug that deals in stolen merchandise and sells it to the highest bidder,” he spat angrily.

Councilman Coyar glanced at the empty seat of Willem the Bright. Where was his old friend, the champion of reason and justice? Times being such as they were, it was hard to distinguish reasonable fears from paranoia. Could Coyar himself expect his own seat to be empty tomorrow for expressing an opinion unfavorable to the King and his watchdogs, zealous men such as Pushkar for whom everything within the Three Spheres was painted black or white? Could Willem himself be in a dungeon beneath the towers after his recent denouncement of the King’s war in Vitnu? Long gone were the times of respectable debate and measured compromise. A glance into the face of Councilman Argus, the retired torturer, gave Coyar cause to shiver. There, he was sure he saw the answers to his questions. They made his blood run cold.

The Spheres of Galia Part 10

"I would rather this weren’t the end," Karnin said when he stood before the Council in a newly renovated granary. "I want to continue to serve. I feel as though I have many years left."

He looked out to the men in robes seated on the wooden benches. Their faces seemed to reveal nothing, neither contempt or sympathy. He thought about stories he had once heard in the time before the great fire, where it was rumored that the Chamber of Windows was alive with debate and shouting and the thoughts of intelligent men who could not be silenced, yet still somehow believed in consensus. The room he found himself in was silent but for a few stifled coughs and the sound of the washer women singing by the river. Karnin’s pale face called to mind notions of wriggling things that had never seen the light, a face that glowed as white as the moon, though in stark contrast, his eyes possessed a certain fire that had recently begun to burn even brighter. Though he stood tall, unwavering in his convictions, his chubby fingers fidgeted slightly with the seams of his robe, he knew the power of the council.

Disagreeing, the High Lieutenant Barthar stood, “on behalf of the proud institution of the Royal Guard, I ask that Karnin be sentenced to no less than two years in a military dungeon. We further recommend that he be dismissed from the Guard. He invited and earned this sentence, it was he who ruled out conventional options. He could have resigned from his post, he could have requested a halt to his deployment if he had such grave concerns with his military orders.”

Barthar stood in stark contrast to Karnin. His complexion was dark and his body lean and muscular. He maintained impeccable stillness as he continued to address the Council. “Instead, he used his deployment earlier this year as a political ploy,” the High Lieutenant said, “going to great lengths to create a spectacle by informing people of what he was doing.”

Karnin’s eyes acquired a glazed expression and his fingers bumbled their way over his seams with greater fervor, the prospect of dungeon time was enough to worry any man.

"He knew exactly what he was doing and he did it anyway," Barthar told the Council, “it is in the interest of our Kingdom to send a strong message to other would-be traitors. This behavior is simply unacceptable for any member of the Royal Guard. Our oaths are sacred. This simply cannot stand.”

The Council took recess to discuss their decision, though Karnin did not have to wait long. As an official Magician of the Royal Guard who disobeyed orders of deployment to Vitnu because he questioned the King's legitimacy, Karnin was sentenced by the Council to six months in a military dungeon and dismissal from the Royal Guard.

It was agreed by some that Karnin was the "victim of an obsession," referring to the continuous questions he posed about the King's birth-right authority. Officials in the Second Sphere claimed to have seen and verified Dominious’s original divine seal, which was kept in a secret library. But rumors persisted, circulating in the pools and most particularly among the clergy, farmers and crafts people of the Old Kingdom. They were unsatisfied with that assurance, finding the officials untrustworthy and secretive. They claimed that the seal of divine origin did not list the name or the location of the chamber where the King was birthed, nor did it list the name of the magician who delivered him unto the Old Kingdom, though none of those who spoke of its technicalities and omissions had even seen the seal. Karnin could not go to fight and die in Vitnu based on the orders of a falsely anointed King.

The Spheres of Galia Part 9

When the King, after almost nine long years, had decided to send more troops to a remote region north of Vitnu in the Second Sphere, feeding the flames of an already unpopular war, one powerful Councilman had had enough.

Willem the Bright spoke up in the new council room where the King occupied his seat in the north, as was tradition, and the dark wooden benches of the councilmen flanked the east and west walls. The new council room was nothing compared to the architectural gem of the lost Chamber of Windows, possessing none of the old room’s history or centuries-long energetic charge. They were now gathered in a stone building once used by the Thusmec monks for storing grain and though it was large, it boasted no windows or aesthetic. Lumina globes were used to keep the chamber lit and now, due to the King’s edict, there was no space by the south wall for the common folk to occupy, the council meetings were to be a private affair.

Willem stood to hold the floor, commanding the attention of his peers. In the dim glow, his red gown was alive with shadows as the ample fabric cascaded over his slight paunch. He was of medium height and let his salt and pepper hair make an unruly wreath around his face. His face was wrinkled from a lifetime of free-flowing expression and his eyes were twinkly even in dismay behind his clean, clear spectacles.

"The Royal Guard can not create stability in a region where there is chaos,” Willem said looking over his peers and even sparing a glance at the King, “royal submission where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life."

A slight murmur erupted as it had become the custom since the destruction of the capital to agree unconditionally with the decisions of the King. The surviving councilmen of the ordeal had been few and terrified enough to be cowed into agreement again and again. Willem himself had been absent for a good 15 months mending a broken leg and several cracked ribs and a mysterious infection that had spread from the wounds made by his assailants. He had only recently and most insistently returned to his station. He knew things had changed. Once brave and intellectual men, councilmen who had always been up for debate and discussion, now were hiding behind eyes of fear. They had seen death, torture, he knew that terrors still lurked in their dreams, as they did in his, but the very essence of their council was crumbling from complacency and blind agreement. Their traditions were fading in this new style of governance.

"It's unnatural and unhealthy for the Kingdom to be engaged in astral crusades for some principle or idea, however grand these may be, while neglecting the needs of its own people," he said. “Our capital remains in ruins, her people remain in temporary shelters without heat, light or the running water they were once accustomed to. The schools are gone, the libraries have sustained massive damage- and we are doing nothing about it. It is as if we were allowing ourselves to be swallowed up by a dark age.” Willem removed his spectacles with a flourish.

“We are approaching the ninth anniversary of the Vitnu war. I myself mainly slept through the last year of it due to my injuries. But now I am awake, and I ask you: when does it end? The scribes are asking the same. The priests are also asking, as are the people. They say that the King and his warlords have put the Kingdom on an unsustainable path towards eternal war, something we have only heard about from ancient books. Dare we continue on this path? Soon we will be a region where there is chaos, where corruption is a way of life. We will make a desert of the Old Kingdom so that we have no need of the desert of Vitnu. We will be able to fight our own people here, if we continue on this path to destruction. The nature of our goals on Vitnu is no longer important. What we once wanted is no longer attainable, something here must change. I urge you to look past the terrible things we have recently seen and find a will to change our course.”

Willem wiped his brow and took his seat upon the bench, leaving the chamber in a silence most befitting a tomb.

The Spheres of Galia Part 8

The rebels of Vitnu had invited hundreds of people to a festival in the western city of Zingan, one of the oldest in all of Vitnu. It was to be a celebration of their victories as well as a commemoration for the fallen, though it swiftly turned from merriment to blood thirsty combat with the arrival and invasion of the Old Kingdom’s Royal Guard.

“They didn't bother to keep it a secret,” General Calder said to the scribes at a conference held at an Old Kingdom base in the Second Sphere. He wore the clean royal blue uniform of the guard with his polished medals dangling from his proud, bulging breast. His narrow face was adorned with a thin, pale mustache and his flaxen hair was tied back with a crisp, white ribbon. “The Royal Guard learned about the gathering. Then troops were quickly deployed. The battle broke out within the first few hours when they arrived to investigate,” he said, folding his white-gloved hands behind his back.

The High Priestess had already delivered her official report to the King and all of the Old Kingdom was now aware that the Vitnu leader Nazario, nicknamed "The Craziest One," had been killed in the raging battles that lasted two days. The fighting had not remained only in Zingan, but had easily spread to strategic parts of the Vitnu mountains where rebel warriors blockaded roads with burning vehicles and huge boulders from the cliffs. Amidst the chaos and fighting, the Royal Guard was unable to recover Nazario’s body.

"What happened during those two days is that we gave the Vitnu rebels the biggest blow in their history," Calder said, smugly tilting up on his toes and back again to his heels in swift rocking motion. His neatly polished boots glistened sharply in the candles that lit the official room for such occasions. "With a certain amount of insolence, they organized a festival, a gathering of hundreds of their people. Everyone found out about the party, not only those on Vitnu. Why shouldn't we?”

Later, the High Priestess spoke with Calder in a private pool that could transcend the distance of the spheres. “Now that we are alone we can speak openly…Nazario?” the High Priestess asked the general through the crimson haze that supported them.

“The rebel scum fled with their dead after the battle. As far as anyone knows, thanks to our report, he is dead,” Calder told her, struggling to make out her features.

“It is as we discussed then?” she asked with tones of pleasure she did not hide.

“Yes, holy lady. I have decided to accept your offer, as has Nazario. He will play dead until you ask him to strike. You have our allegiance.”

“Good,” she answered and withdrew from the pool, leaving the general alone in the mist.

The Spheres of Galia Part 7

“In my brother Olslo's words, we recognize the strategy of poetry,” the Lucen Master Egrani explained to the small crowd that sat cross-legged upon a plush red carpet in the center of the old stone library deep in the cave of the Othrusa mountains. The scant light that filtered its way through the room was provided by a wrought iron chandelier filled with slowly melting white candles dangling from the stone ceiling. The group gathered were the sons and daughters of Lords, several others that had once been apprenticed to the magician, a few were fresh from the deserts and caves of Vitnu; also among them were a number of young Lucen scribes and a Prince.

Egrani paced around the carpet, moving his hands widely, but slow and fluidly, as though he was swimming through water. “In their most stringent formulations, the poets of the past epochs set forth a magickally charged theory, one which saw ordinary language as an ally of royal oppression.” Egrani hoped up onto a tall wood hewn stool and looked upon his students and a few attending peers with a youthful face. His hair was longish and bleached almost white by the sun and salt of the seas of Southern Astrada in the Second Sphere. His skin, for the same reason, was strikingly dark in comparison. It made his almost straight teeth flash even whiter as he spoke, catching the candlelight. His inconsistent eyes were in the constant, never ending process of shifting from bronze to blue, passing through hues of green along the way, only to then begin the lengthy process of returning to bronze.

“Regardless of what is being said,” he continued in his slow, calm cadence, “use of standard patterns of syntax and exposition effectively rebroadcast, often at a subliminal level, the basic constitutive elements of the social structure-they perpetuate them so that by constant reinforcement, we are no longer aware that decisions are being made.”

He gave the appearance of being no more than 15 years old, with a lean body and smooth, supple face, but he moved with such ease and grace it seemed impossible for him to be so young. He had spent much of his young life in the water riding the AnacarI, the hairless water beasts, which had helped endow him with the physical manifestation of youth, but it was his time in the Lucen pools that allowed this grace to take shape in his mind and presence. For it was there, in the pools, where water is not just water, where molecules transform with ease, that biological bodies mutated into manifestations of the divine.

He continued, “here, the ‘clear’ and ‘orderly’ functioning of language plays the same part in the poets’ magickal mythology that the clear and orderly functioning of secrecy plays in Olslo's view: both are invisible agents of the King, up to no good for as long as no one is looking.”

Prince Suk listened to the young master with a deep sense of awe and just a tiny bit of pride. In a way, he could be considered the boy’s father. Certainly he was his guardian in the physical sense, and had raised and cared for him in the politically neutral Kingdom of Astrada, neighbor to his own Principality in Vitnu. This brief sampling of fatherhood had lasted an accelerated 11 and a half months in which the young baby had grown into a capable teacher. In two weeks they could celebrate the one-year anniversary of Egari’s birth in Taurus. Suk mused that he had in the abstract, participated in Egari’s conception when he penetrated Olslo’s Library in Valance with the scribe Rosh. It was there that Rosh found the “recipe” for Egari. In that sense, Egari was the son of Olslo. The seven sisters in the laboratory at Taurus might be considered his mothers or his grandmothers, or both, with Rosh as his surrogate.

Egrani was not the only child, but he was the first of that initial penetration. His 11 siblings had been born into a variety of households, to a variety of parents throughout the Three Spheres after Egari was successfully brought to term in a matter of 3 months. Even the elusive Illuhuati of the Third Sphere had agreed to foster a child, creating the only child not born to a woman. The Illuhuati’s physiology, being too incompatible with that of a human, required a technology that assembled and gestated the biological data entrusted to them by the seven sisters.

Suk was drawn from his reverie by his foster son’s words, “if language control equals thought control, and thought control equals reality control, then it is not only possible, but imperative to fight the battle for a new reality at the level of language. There, and only there, can real victories be had, as elusive and temporary as such victories may be.”

The Spheres of Galia Part 5

Violent skirmishes raged across the Spheres between the supporters of Olslo and the warlords they accused of trying to stifle the revelation of magickal knowledge. There were fires upon the grounds of carefully tended manors and several of the largest squares were littered in glass, metal and blood. Amidst the panic and smoke, the Chamber of Windows lay melting. Once a glory or architecture, it bubbled in a pile of iridescent goo.

Beside the molten walls, wooden stakes had been erected on the scaffolding where condemned criminals had once been humanely vaporized, but now, the heads of councilmen from both the Red Hat and Yellow Hat parties oozed their blood. Smoke rose from the smoldering ruins of the capital city and lines of refugees marched towards the forests of Avin where temporary dwellings were being established.

The Lady Rob, along with other surviving council members found herself sequestered within the safety of the Towers of Ral, the sanctuary of the Kingdom’s most powerful magicians. Many of her fellows were distracted beyond reason. Grown men, including Philip the Old, were reduced to sniveling wretches. Most had not noticed the terrible inconsistencies of the reports that blamed the Lucen Scribes and Vitnutian terrorists for the attack on the Chamber of Windows. The Lady Rob herself had met the resurrected leader of the Lucens, Olslo, and found it impossible to believe that such a person could be responsible for the violent attack. His eyes shone with something alive beyond the simple need for violence. He was not a creature of quick reaction or anger, there was no need in him for sticks or guns. There was something else that reached out to her, coming out through his eyes and into her, something so fierce and wild and wise that it could only turn into itself, becoming soft.

Having been present during the attack, she had seen with her own eyes the strange creatures with shiny black armor that tore the heads from Council members. Her account of the event had already been written off as the results of hysteria, but the Lady Rob knew her mind to be sound.

Exploring her thoughts as she wandered the white halls of the towers, she made her way into the forbidden western tower where the magicians were gathered in the Kingdom’s defense. Here, she overheard the warlords and magicians making preparations to cut off the magickal energy necessary for Olslo's work with the Lucens and others throughout the Three Spheres. Listening, she was filled with a sense of dread.

In many ways, Olslo and his ideals of freedom and equality reminded her of her father and his disgrace. As a young woman, she had been devastated by her family’s loss of status. She had been little moved by her father’s lofty dreams and had worked her whole life to repair his name. Now, picturing Harrold’s head on a stake and remembering with pain her father’s own vaporization on the same lucite platform in front of the Chamber of Windows, she felt her hands begin to tremble. The hot tears she had never shed over her father’s execution fell from her eyes. Her body began to shake, a cold terror began to move through her, starting in her fingers, toes and back, and moving inward, journeying quickly towards her chest and the heart that lay protected. With each falling tear she released the locked thoughts and visions of the kingdom. It was not as pure and true as she had pretended it was, as she had wanted it to be. It had not been her father who had failed so many years ago, it had been her own heart and the heart of The Old Kingdom.

The Lady Rob made her way to one of the public communication portals, tears flowing unabated over her reddened cheeks, hot salty tears dowsing the velveteen fabric of her dress. She established a connection with the Lucen Scribes and relayed to them all that she had learned in the west wing.

Councilman Argus had not been present at the Chamber of Windows. Now a guest in the house of Lord Avin where the King himself was taking refuge, he expressed surprise at the scale of the astral attacks that had targeted major astral compounds of the Kingdom within the last 8 hours. Many high ranking guests of Lord Avin were convened in his dining hall, still dining on game hens and pudding despite the violence.

"It's truly what the scribes would call an astral war. What is happening is just astonishing," Councilman Argus said from behind his dark glasses. Lord Avin shook his head, “they’ve had the power to do this sort of thing all along. This is their response to the attack of our magicians on their Lucen pools.”

“You mean their counter-attack,” Councilman Argus corrected harshly. “They used brute force to destroy our capital city.”

“We have reports coming in from reputable sources that the attack on the capitol was launched by a third party,” Lord Avin said firmly but softly.

“You mean the account of the traitor Lady Rob.” The retired torturer glared, “who is clearly an ally to the Lucens.”

“There are other accounts,” Lord Avin answered softly and the High Priestess entered the dining hall, her purple robe rustling as she bowed before the king.

“A young boy suspected of being involved in the magickal attacks was just captured in the Cold Reefs an hour ago and is currently under interrogation.”

“Will he lead us to Olslo?” Dominious asked.

“It is quite possible,” the High Priestess told him.

“And the Lady Rob?” he pressed, “has she revealed anything about her connection with the scribes?”

“No majesty, but we will continue questioning her.”

“What about our plan, have we been able to shut down the Lucen pools?” Dominious leaned eagerly forward in his chair.

Shaking her head, the High Priestess continued, “Olslo's actions have thrown all magickal operations into disarray. Our magicians are working to restore some of our own astral chambers. When we have recovered these we will resume our attacks on theirs.”

“And our people? Those taking refuge in Avin, are they taken care of?”

“Our Lord Avin has been most gracious in opening his lands to our displaced citizens. Most are already sheltered and their wounds are being tended to. I personally have been amongst them, administering to their spiritual needs and listening to their accounts. Most of them cannot understand what is happening, but they are angry nonetheless. They will be glad when Olslo is brought to justice.”

In the dungeon of the Towers of Ral, Lady Rob collapsed upon the stone floor of her cell where her keepers had left her. Beyond the bars of her cell, she watched them grab hold of the boy and carry him away. She wished to scream, more than anything, she wished to scream, but her tongue was swollen and saliva ran from her mouth onto the cold stone. Completely paralyzed, she lay on the ground floating in a state of near bliss now that an eternity of pain had come to an end. Vaguely, she could recall having done something to have earned her misery, but it was a blur. All that was real was the pain inflicted by The Torturer. That was all that had ever been, all that could ever be now. She wished dimly that the strange boy could be spared the experience. Then she lost consciousness.

The Spheres of Galia Part 3

The feast would be strikingly minimal, composed of fare provided by the King’s own garden and the main course cooked simply, made of the common rooftop hen. In the grand dining room, there was nothing present that could suggest extravagance of any kind. There was no pre-dining entertainment, no dancing, no jesting. The tables were covered in simple ivory linen and a single goblet, plate and fork for every guest. The gold utensils and embroidered napkins had been kept in the closets, out of simple necessity, the room was alive with the light of a thousand red and white wax candles.

Half a dozen war-weary soldiers recently returned from Vitnu were present and still adjusting to the Sphere after several years away. Dominious had them seated to the left of his vacant chair. All of these gestures of humility and concern had been orchestrated to prove to his fellow Red Hats that their values and causes where still close to his heart. He hoped to prevent defections by Red Hats that could sink the proposal he had recently worked out with their rivals, the Yellow Hats. They were here, those Council members who had been Lords and Clergymen before becoming members of the illustrious Council, and also those Red Hats who did not sit upon the Council, among these Lord Avin.

“Many Yellow Hats seem ready to embrace the compromise and declare victory,” he said to Dominious as they strolled together through the clusters of men and sweet-scented women waiting to be seated. “The question is whether enough Red Hats will join them in support, especially in the Council, where resentment of your concessions run strong.” Dominious glanced sideways at Lord Avin, his mouth turned down at the corners, but not so strongly that it could be declared a frown.

“And you? What do you think?” he asked while maintaining his forward glance.

Lord Avin sighed, “you know that I am forever your most ardent servant,” he said, and then looked to the King as if he wished to say more. Dominious turned to him and nodded to continue. “I fear that you lose site of the doctrines of our brotherhood. We are stewards of the people, and the Yellow Hats serve only themselves. The people are hungry and over-taxed. They and their children are dying in this bloody drawn-out war. They were sympathetic to the Lucen Scribes, and now that Olslo is dead, the sense of injustice has become heightened. These were wrongs begun during your brother’s reign, and it was believed that after his death, you would set them right, but you yield to the desires of the Yellow Hats at every turn…”

Dominious raised a hand to silence Avin. “You must understand, they are a force to be reckoned with. And they are not entirely wrong. The imprisonment of the Lucen Scribes was necessary, the security tax is necessary, ferreting out our enemies is also necessary. Don’t forget, most of our brethren on the Council voted for the war during my brother’s reign, and for the security tax as well. They understood these necessities then.” Dominious pressed a hand to his forehead, searching for words to explain the particular box he now found himself in, the pressure that came from all sides and prevented action in any direction. “They are like unruly children, both brotherhoods. We must preserve the kingdom. I will speak to all of our brethren tonight. I must make them understand.”

Dominious left Avin to take his place at the head of the table. Soon all were seated at the great horseshoe arrangement of tables. The room buzzed with chatter and the clinking of silverware. An electric lute strummed quietly by the attending bard who sang softly of the orphans housed by Dominous and of the new temples of healing established throughout the kingdom.

Over the general clatter the King caught fragments of conversation. The Red Hats with seats on the Council criticized the compromise, sometimes harshly, but stopped short of saying they would try to stop it. In the middle of it all, the King sat pale and bent in his chair, his face harrowed with creases. His poultry and stewed vegetables remained untouched and grew cold. In the candlelight, the dark circles under his eyes gave him the appearance of a man in the final stages of illness. His thin hands played idly with the silverware as he waited for his moment to speak.

The Spheres of Galia Part 2

In his weekly sermon, Philip the Old expounded upon what he believed was the original intent of the Ancestors on voting rights in the Kingdom. The manuscripts had been debated by half a dozen scholars in recent times, though none were as politically powerful as Philip, who had mountains of gold and fully equipped armies at his disposal. Because of his stature and riches, his words resonated with a harsher impact, turning other interpretations of the Ancestors to shadows that no one could remember. Standing upon the lucite scaffolding in the town center after the customary vaporization of condemned criminals, the smell still lingering in the stone covered plaza, Phillip huffed and spoke with such furious conviction that the great mound of his belly swathed in arbrit, a shimmering synthetic known for its superior wicking, jounced up and down, wiggling as his words tumbled out like dominoes.

The crowd was a little subdued, reflecting on the fragility of life and their own mortality, a feeling which hit them with whirls of hurt and confusion in the center of their chest, when Philip began to speak. A little chilled by the wintery air and morbid reflection, they were slow to comprehend the true content and underlying motives of Philip’s righteous monologue. Their consciousness flowed along on the pitch and cadence of his voice, not grabbing on to particular words or concepts, but floating with each rise and fall of vocal vibration like boats traveling along a brisk stream. His self righteousness and their easy and somewhat distracted acceptance of it imbued them with a sense of righteousness too, it was the perfect antidote for the poison of reflection.

Today, however, unlike his many other sermons, Philip failed to mention the massacre of Orzab and the hated hosts of Vitnu being hunted on the third Sphere by the brave Soldiers of the fine Old Kingdom. Instead he sought to interpret the desires of the Ancestors as stated in the old manuscript. He stated, once again, loudly and with absolute belief in his conviction, that their original intent in holding elections was to allow property owners the power to vote, nothing more.

"It makes a lot of sense," he said, belly heaving, "in a modern setting. If you're a property owner, you actually have a vested interest in the community, others do not." Further, he advocated the dismissal of a prominent council member for being a follower of the old ways of Annis, which was as close to a death sentence as he was prepared to make that morning.

There were rumblings in the crowd as Philip spoke, a murmur that rose as the torpor of the executions wore away. Of the billions of inhabitants of the Old Kingdom of the First Sphere, only a few could claim to be property owners. The King himself for certain, his Lords and their Ladies by marriage, the public conglomerates formed of coalitions of noble people, a handful of the great magicians, and a few private conglomerates and personages.
A sense of slow dread and alarm grew to a buzz of whispers and anxious glances in the cold winter-drenched chill, but nobody spoke up to question Philip’s interpretation of the Ancestor’s manuscript. Not one could raise his voice towards the man with armies and chests of gold. His power silenced even the most skeptical gathered in the square. Most assumed that the majority of those present were in agreement with him, or they forced themselves to believe that so the obligation for objection could be lifted from their shoulders, for there was no sense in creating disharmony when agreement abounded. And so Philip was allowed to continue with his carefully planned diatribe.

At the edge of the thick crowd Maia stood holding the hand of her small son Olslo. He had grown just as fast as his brother, which he had a vague sense of, though he lacked the words to describe it in any detail.

“What does it mean?” she asked her sister Alcyone, who stood on the other side of the tiny boy. Maia’s face hid her concern, but it swam within her, hidden by a lifetime of magickal practice.

“How can we know? We don't yet know how far they will go. We would still be in possession of Taurus, in any case.” There was a brief moment of silence, then Alcyone heard the voice of her younger sister standing so close behind she could feel the warmth of her cinnamon-scented breath.

“This is not the world I would wish for our son to inhabit,” Asterope said, her long fair face looking even longer with the glimmer of dismay. Beside her was Celeano with a smaller, muscular body and a moon-shaped face. “Sister, you forget. Our son was not made to inhabit the world. He was made to re-make it.”

The Spheres of Galia

They had released a manuscript listing chambers worldwide that the Old Kingdom considered critical to its royal security. This was in the year of the blue Sapphire in the aftermath of the Orzab massacre. The crops were poor that year and the new security tax left the people facing hunger, while the soldiers were sent what bread there was to keep them occupying the deserts of Vitnu on the third sphere. Rumor had it that the perpetrators of the massacre in the capital city were hiding in the arid mountains somewhere in the darkness of Vitnu.

The locations cited in the manuscript from the High Priestess of the Old Kingdom ranged from underwater cities to suppliers of food, medicine and manufacturing materials. A council was summoned to determine the fate of those who had circulated the manuscript throughout the three spheres of Galia. In these meetings the Royal Guard declined to comment on the details of what it called "stolen" writings containing magical knowledge. A local magician called the disclosure "damaging," and said it gave valuable information to the adversaries of the King.

"This is one of many reasons why we believe their actions are irresponsible and dangerous," the magician cried through trembling white whiskers. Even his cloak rippled as if disturbed by a wind, though the great hall was oppressively warm and still.

The scribe Olslo was among those accused of conspiring against the King. His eyes were clear and blue, as placid as a frozen lake. He stood tall at the trial, the son of seven mothers who had worried over his upbringing and education and now were absent in light of his disgrace.

“We felt that this manuscript, along with others, should be available to any citizen of the kingdom, that airing out secrets might help to bring peace to all three spheres by empowering even the lowliest inhabitants of Galia with knowledge. We reproduced the manuscript and others without regard for, or even knowledge of, their content. All information should be available to all beings.”

Even the old magician seemed momentarily stunned by the young scribe’s composure and clear bright voice. He was quick however to re-spin his own webs for netting the support of the council. Olslo would be sentenced to imprisonment in Narion on the second sphere.

Nonetheless, the manuscript had been disseminated throughout Galia. There were many who had become familiar with its content. It was now well known that in it, the High Priestess asked her envoys to help update a list of chambers around the world which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the Royal Kingdom.

The Priestess Amalidia herself was questioned. Though the manuscript was meant to serve the purpose of strengthening security, it could now be regarded as having done the opposite.

“Just who made this manuscript available to the likes of Olslo? He could not have reproduced it without having at some point seen the original. Only the High Priestess and her envoys could have had access to it,” Lord Avin Deloro pointed out to his majesty the King of the Old Kingdom while they hunted the genetically manifested foxus in the revived forest of Avin.

“Your kingdom is ancient and vast. You are the only monarch who can claim rulership of an entire Sphere. It would make an appealing prize for an ambitious woman.” They sat astride their stallions, Lord Avin’s a deep purple, King Domonious’s a resplendent red. It was a strange coincidence unknown to either man that their mounts had been manifested in the same laboratory where Olslo’s seven mothers had conceived, gestated, and birthed him.

Ahead of them the hounds bayed in pursuit of the foxus. “I’ve never known Amalidia to be overly ambitious,” King Dominious said warily through his neat black beard.

“Believe me, every woman in a position of power is there for no reason but ambition. For them there is no brothership such as we know. We must be most wary of our wives and then our magicians, in that order. Amalidia is the worst of both.” King Dominious eyed the landscape through squinted eyes, letting the words roll through him.

Down in the catacombs of Nurk, among the ruins of a long lost civilization of the first sphere, Amalidia sat in her underground tower looking into the darkness. The manuscript had been considered so confidential the envoys had been advised to come up with it on their own: "Posts are not being asked to consult with local strong men in respect to this request," the High Priestess had dictated. In truth only she could posses the manuscript in its entirety. Only she knew of all the chambers it had come to describe. The incomplete manuscript that she had shared with the King was the same that she had leaked to Olslo and the other Lucen scribes. She smiled at her own reflection in the glass window pane. Beyond it, in the darkness, a shinier darkness scuttled through the ruined underground city. Amalidia watched her children moving through the inky depths of the Sphere.

In Narion, on the second Sphere, Olslo toiled in the mines with the other convicted scribes of Lucen. In the gloom, the clarity of his voice and eyes faded. Only there in the throws of despair did he begin to suspect that they had been played as pawns, just like he had once played in the old sphere game his seven mothers taught him in childhood. He had a bit of rope hidden under his bunk. Tonight he thought, would be a good night to die.

In their laboratory, Olslo’s mothers took the information they had gathered when they first conceived Olslo and created him once again. In the laboratory, where the King and his Lord’s fine stallions were born, Olslo was again gestating.

The Service

Suze looked into the clear blue sky of a July day. It all looked so peaceful, the simplest painting from the genius of a man without arms. There was not a single cloud to agitate the evenly coated hue. It was all chirp and sun. All summer delights and watermelon, not a single cloud to throw in a thought of moisture or a hint towards a memory of rain, for a fall that would surely come before she could turn her head towards the grass. Above her the heavens were wide and clear, resembling a roof, though as she looked she knew that beyond the obvious sense of safety were other planets, meteors, and above else, the most dangerous of all, hurtling rocks coming in her direction, containing the spores of alien life. Up above, on a July day, it only looked like summer and sweet cherry pies and fireworks. Towards the left was fall, and further, towards the white house on the corner, was winter, with its piles of snow and thick boots and smoky fireplaces.
She lay back on the grass, her long sandy blond hair framing her face like a beached mermaid. She was safe and the sky felt like a roof because right now there were soldiers out there, fighting the aliens spores with every available bit of metal and technology and ounce of human will.
As she slowly turned her head, winter would come. In a few months she would be 18, and at 18, she would be required, like all 18 year olds, to put on the lifeless gray wool pants and the suit top with ample shoulder pads. On her head would sit the pointed military hat with the nation’s yellow embroidered eagle, meant to allude to gold, though failing miserably. This would be the suit, the new mask she would be required to wear, though not even Suze thought of it as a mask.
It was just what they did, what everyone had to do. One generation after the other, marching in lock step, marching one after the other with their knees up, elbows extended, chin raised in exaggerated pride. Each year there was a new batch of enlistees. A tray of dough that seasoned and hard instructors drilled with lashes and harsh words. After discarding a few burnt and crumbling ones that just never had a chance for the cookie platter dream, the battalion would be formed.
It was not just a requirement, but a rite of passage. What every young, bright eyed and overly enthusiastic young person had to do before they turned 20. And when she returned from her years in the hostile skies alive with alien sperm, after her skin had grown used to the lifeless green pants and baggy shirt and the collared jacket and the pointed hat, then she would come back, a woman ready to vote and throw back tall mugs of frothy beer in manly competition. After her service she would be able to apply for a child-bearing passport and maybe even become a teacher.
But first, before any of that, she would need to put on those pants. She would need to learn how to hold the impossibly heavy gun with its many chambers destined for variously weighted bullets, she would learn to run in time, in position, as part of the group; not ahead, not behind, but in perfect formation. The chants would become buried in her head, melodies that would follow her into old age like white hair and memories of bloody footprints. The sound of her instructor’s voice would bury itself in her mind, finding places in her dreams to escape and re-ignite the torment of humiliation.
Before she could get the gun, before any of it could begin, she would need to go to the office. There would be the forms to fill out, little x’s and lines that would require signatures and full disclosures. Tests, weights, prodding, measurements, scans of all her most intimate parts. By the end, they would know everything about her. They could see her dreams and almost determine her future.
The blue sky could give her no words of motivation, it knew her destiny. Beside her lay a small rectangular piece of paper with the writing of machinery and machine-like people all over it. The sky could offer her no recourse, no place to hide. And just as she had reluctantly always given up her location as a child when the game was called off, “come out, come out wherever you are!” it was time to face the nation. To become a bride, giving herself, body and soul to the nation. Take me, and make me a woman. Give me your gun, the power of your explosion, and I will be your woman.
She looked down at the card, an oversized flier for the national army. “We’ll keep fighting. And we’ll win!” There were a mix of men and women, three white men, a black and Hispanic man, one white girl with a wide smile and an Asian girl. They all wore the same lifeless green uniforms, held the same black semiautomatic weapons in their left hands, their right fists raised in the belief of ultimate victory. Their smiles were white and shiny, their eyes clear as though they had never seen the blood of war, and indeed they had not, for they were models, not soldiers.
But she didn’t need to be convinced, she already was. It was a requirement and there was no place in society for discussions about pacifism or even learning about those monstrous aliens with moon-sized sperm. What was out there, past the blue of the sky, was the enemy. A cold race intent on destroying human life because it hated them, it hated their lifestyle and the human species.
Service was not negotiable. It was a requirement for the species, and Suze knew that it was time to add her body to the marching mass, it was time she became a citizen.

The Angel Of Death

He winked at me.
I winked back.
He e-mailed me.
I e-mailed back.
He called.
We talked for two hours.
The next night we agreed to meet at Jack's Bar and Grill.

It seemed like a simple conversation at a normal bar and grill with a few flashing neon signs on the windows and the pungent smell of French fries and stale beer mixed with diluted chlorine bleach. I knew differently. This wasn’t just normal. This was the place. The eternal chamber. The loud murmur of dozens of conversations, the waitresses in matching black uniforms that resembled casual wear. The smell, that left-out-all-night smell. The thin red carpets. The dark space lit by the glow of many small lamps above our wooden tables. Amid the diners, there were others that came and went. Stopping for a quick beer before heading home. A couple on their first date. It was clean. It was comfortable with its soft booths and relentless drone of plates that meet utensils and muffled conversation. It was comfortable. A little too easy, like slipping into a warm pool. Like climbing into a warm bed.

Michael was very charming. His eyes seemed to sparkle with mischief and sexual thoughts. I looked at him with desire. With heat that came up rapidly from my core. It spilled out of my eyes, into his. He seemed to catch my wishes with his eyes, he held them there, saving them for later. He sat across from me, a mug of chill beer gathered a small pool of condensation where it met the table. Shadows from the soft overhead lamp danced on his well-worn cheeks. We laughed and talked. We joked. I watched a few tears make their way across the long landscape of his face. He lost his son, sister, dad, mom and 27 brothers in 'Nam. He said:
“In 'Nam I was just a kid, and the other kids are laying in your arms, dying, crying, pleading ‘Don't let me die, Michael. Don't let me die!!!’ But there was nothing I could do. They died.”

When his father was sick in the hospital, he walked into the white walled room, into the white light of an early afternoon that found its way through the window. His father was in bed, the old man looked at him and said:
"Are you an Angel?"
Michael replied, "Dad! It's me, Michael, your son!"
And with that, his father passed.

Michael served in Vietnam in 1972. He was in the Army Special Forces. Their motto, "De Oppresso Liber.” To liberate the oppressed. He did reconnaissance missions to rescue POWs. He had 38 confirmed kills. The child he once was never left the jungle. He went with those 38 bullets. He went with every bullet. He went with every curse, every insult. He went with every young white face he saw fade to blue.

We met at Jack's several days in a row. We got along wonderfully. We had the same twisted sense of humor. I found him innocent and childlike at times. Then, like clockwork, after an almost pre-determined number of beers, he would relay his story. He lost his son, sister, dad, mom and 27 brothers in 'Nam. He said:
“In 'Nam I was just a kid, and the other kids are laying in your arms, dying, crying, pleading ‘Don't let me die, Michael. Don't let me die!!!’ But there was nothing I could do. They died.”

After the fourth night his charm took me to bed. We drove to my place. The kids were asleep and we snuck upstairs to my room. I felt alive. I felt giddy. We played on my sheets. We bounced on the bed. We kissed. He gave me what I had been craving. We made love all night. Surprisingly, he had talented hands. He knew where to touch me. How hard. How long. How deep. He moved with rhythm and force. He knew exactly what to do. I wriggled and squirmed under his touch. My body wanted this. My body needed this. And then he was inside me, inside me for hours. We shared ourselves until the sun finally broke free of the black cloth that defines night. This was our pattern several nights in a row until he stood me up when he was supposed to meet two of my sisters and their husbands. Later when I talked to him, he said he had afraid. I knew he was.

One night he did meet my little sister and her husband and my son. He was still very, very afraid. His jokes sprinkled out of him less frequently. His charm was muted by a spattering of self conscious movement and quick nervous gestures.

We met every night. He drank every night. Then, like clockwork, after an almost pre-determined number of beers, he would relay his story. He lost his son, sister, dad, mom and 27 brothers in 'Nam. He said:
“In 'Nam I was just a kid, and the other kids are laying in your arms, dying, crying, pleading ‘Don't let me die, Michael. Don't let me die!!!’ But there was nothing I could do. They died.”

We made love almost every night.

Then I went to San Francisco for a short weekend. I had been gone for less than 24 hours when I got his call, then his text. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something like:
“I knew this would happen, good luck.”
My heart plunged. My stomach hurt. I tried to call him back. I wanted to understand the severity, the finality of his words. I didn’t understand it. It hurt. It hurt like a dull knife, so unexpected, so deep. The air between me and my friends fizzled as my mind skipped 2,500 miles away. My smiles were stained with uncertainty. My jokes could not hide the deep pain that moved up and down, creating a halo of worry around my head.
I knew he was trying to give me an "out.” I knew he had been cheated on. I knew he worried that he could not trust me. He had told me all his problems. He had had cancer. His young boy had died. He was an alcoholic. He had PTSD. He had obsessive tendencies. I thought he had told me everything. He wondered if he had revealed too much. I talked to him early Sunday morning, while my friend and her two little girls slept in the other room. I flew back a few hours later and we met at Jack's that same night. He sat with his hand on his glass, he looked at me.
“I have to go to the VA hospital tomorrow morning for some tests. I’m afraid my pancreatic cancer came back.”
It turned out to be anemia. We met at Jack's Monday night.

When I stepped off the plane I had been eager to see him, eager to settle my queasy stomach. From that moment on I watched my once disciplined habit of exercises and daily activities go by the wayside. I watched it happen. I watched in paralysis as my will slipped through my fingers like a quickly fading dream. I didn't want it to happen, but I watched it all the same. It was like watching a movie. I saw myself, I wanted to shout at her:
“No, don’t go that way…don’t do that!!”
I wanted to warn her, but I was too tired. My limbs were sore from all the positions I was being bent into. I wanted to yell at her, but my voice was hoarse after all the moaning. I wanted to whisper, but I was asleep.

On Thursday we met again at Jack's. Then, like clockwork, after an almost pre-determined number of beers, he would relay his story. He lost his son, sister, dad, mom and 27 brothers in 'Nam. He said”
“In 'Nam I was just a kid, and the other kids are laying in your arms, dying, crying, pleading ‘Don't let me die, Michael. Don't let me die!!!’ But there was nothing I could do. They died.”

He asked me who Popeye's nemesis was.
“Brutus.”
“No,” he said, “it’s Bluto.”
He used his cell phone to connect to the internet. It said, “Popeye's nemesis = Bluto.” I could have sworn it was Brutus. I would have bet money on it!

I had to pick up my daughter at 8pm. Michael suggested I bring her back to Jack's to meet him. I agreed. I picked her up and brought her to Jack's. Her friend was going to pick her up from there. She was not friendly to him and made some snide comments. Michael was disappointed that she did not like him, I could see it on his face. I was going to say something to her but he grabbed my arm quickly and said:
"Not now, it's not the right time. Talk to her about it later."
When my daughter left she texted me and said that she didn't like him and that she thinks he'll abuse me because of the way he grabbed my arm. I went out to the parking lot to call her so that I could explain why he grabbed my arm. When she picked up, she started going on a rampage. I went back inside. Michael was extremely disappointed. He was sad. He was angry. His feelings had been hurt. He looked into his glass as his body trembled and his teeth clenched and gritted.
“I finally meet someone I get along with so well and some 21 year old snotty brat is going to ruin it for me? The plot next to your father is empty, right?"
"Yes" I replied, caught off guard.
"Well, you let me know if you want me to take care of your daughter and fill that plot," he said sternly.

What the fuck? Wow! He became very strange at that moment. I felt the energy both drain and fill the room. I felt fear. I watched speechless as the twinkle in his eye became a spark of sheer violence. He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted to destroy something. I was fearful, but I was calm. This was survival. For a moment I realized I knew nothing about this man. What sat before me was a lifetime of grief and sadness that needed an explosion and I did not want my family to understand the true nature of his pain. Right then I talked to him very slowly, very calmly and rationally. We went outside into the still-warm night air. We talked for a little while. I became angry that he actually thought he could kill my daughter.
“You know,” I said, “this whole evening is extremely unacceptable and we should call it a night and talk tomorrow.”
He kissed me and hugged me and told me to call him when I got home so he knew I made it home safe. I called him when I got home. By this time, my body had finally caught up with me. The calm, cool, collectedness came out in a sudden bout of diarrhea, nausea and the shakes. I told Michael what I was feeling. I told him the last time I experienced these sensations was after an initiation. He told me the initiation I might be feeling right now is the initiation of the Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He suggested I read the New Testament. I held my tongue and we hung up after what seemed like ages.

The next day I looked up Popeye's nemesis. In the earlier version, it was Bluto. In the later versions, it was Brutus. We were both correct.

I talked to my friend that morning, then I called Michael and told him I was not trained or equipped to deal with what had transpired the night before. He said:
"I was expecting this. Good luck."
I replied "Michael, I hope you find what you are looking for. At this point, I don't think it is a woman. I think it is something far bigger than that." We hung up.

That was Michael, the Angel of Death.

Like clockwork, after an almost pre-determined number of beers, he would relay his story. He lost his son, sister, dad, mom and 27 brothers in 'Nam. He said, “in 'Nam I was just a kid, and the other kids are laying in your arms, dying, crying, pleading ‘Don't let me die, Michael. Don't let me die!!!’ But there was nothing I could do. They died.”

Quest

It is a place of hard sand, a place where billions of grains have hardened and formed a solid ground of bleached yellow and dirty white. There are mountains topped with green pines and big square bricks. The Cannanites were spawned in these lands. Their robes moved in the dry desert wind. It was in the desert heat where a sect would emerge, a small group beneath the deities and gods who destroyed their idols and talked to the being without shape. Without sex, without a female, the sky god ruled alone. This was their glue, the common belief that would separate them from the other herders and farmers and carpenters of the land. Ripe with olives and dates, red with the blood of pomegranates and sacrifice, the land gave birth to the singular. Three thick branches would sprout from the tree rooted in myth and time, three branches linked by story, blood and place.
The world came to and end, as all stories do, as each life is a world unto itself. Coming from the great city to the east, Nebuchadnezzar conquered the mountain, capturing the learned minds of the sky god people. Writers and poets and singers of tradition were taken in chains and brought to Babylon. It was here, in the city, where the stories were written, where with careful pen upon parchment the myths were transcribed. The act of the hand would be the revolution, the action that would carry myth through five thousand years. The tales that would inspire war and sacrifice. The plot that would be taught as total truth clothed in the everlasting wrath of the all-seeing sky god.
Some eventually returned to the mountain and the stories were brought and studied and passed to the children that awoke in the gold-cast land. There would be kings. There would be teachers. There would be small inner chambers that remained forever dark. Animals were sacrificed and fires burned with the heat of prayer. And the branch sprouted.
The Romans followed through with a request from the sky-god elders, forever silencing the dissidents… only, the limb was not severed, it grew in the hard-bleached ground and wound like ivy up the continent and through many seas and over oceans. It would be the same people that would return with a thirst for vengeance, many generations later. Not recognizing their own kind, throats were slashed and children became food for the hungry. The mountain would be conquered again and the men of chariots would hunt the priests of the sky god, the swords would enter and the rituals would die with the men. There would be one, the one escapee, the teacher that would teach after the walls had fallen. The exiles vanished with the cool wind, carrying with them their tragic memories of the end of the world.
The mountain lived on in their dreams and the two branches grew yet another branch of similar design, a singular entity at its center with a different prophet that orbited it like a moon. The mountain grew with cities and people, with kings and priests of all three branches. But they would come from the outside, they, clad in chain mail and red crosses would come with horses and weapons, starving and seeking the mountain. The quest continued. Generations later, the fruits of each branch would bleed and kill for the peaks of gold, for the place that was theirs, for the place where things were good, where the sky god could find them.
In Sunday school, little girls are taught from books with cartoon camels and they are told of little animals that warmed a blessed baby. On Saturday, little boys are scrubbed clean and put into black clothes and walk with their fathers and wig-wearing mothers. This is the place of bombs and pomegranates, the place of exploding buses and red streets, the place of lost knowledge and fixed rules.
Were the secrets ever there? Were they found and then lost again? Or does the quest continue, an endless search for the hidden meaning of absence?