Fresh Paint

Here's another short horror story, sort of a sequel to the Tablet of Teh Ri'Teth, or at least part of that Mythos. Not sure what to call my Lovecraft-esque pantheon... Teh Ri'Teth Mythos isn't quite right. Suggestions?
And here's the story. As per usual, it got a bit long on me.

Fresh Paint
By McCallum J. Morgan

“Odd,” said Perkins.
“Not so very odd,” I said. “I’ve seen paint used to cover blood stains before.”
“In an abandoned house?” Perkins asked, kicking a pile of rotten newspapers. “We haven’t found a body, we don’t even know if this is a murder.”
“We have the missing persons report,” I said. “This was the last place they were seen. I’m just saying, the case where blood was covered by paint was that insane woman who slaughtered her husband. Why else would a wall be covered with fresh paint in a derelict house? No one buys paint to slather on crumbling wallpaper—unless they’re crazy. I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”
“Well, you can’t prove there’s blood behind that grey paint. The crazy lady confessed. That’s the only way we knew.”
“Do you have an explanation for this paint?”
“Perhaps someone wanted to test the color out,” Perkins said, shuffling through the old newspapers with a toe. Crumbled plaster littered the floor amidst other bits of garbage. A dead rat. No sign that anyone had been recently squatting in the place. Perkins turned his bowler between his fingers nervously.
“He WAS here,” I said, holding up the monogrammed scarf we’d found in the entry hall.
“You’ll have to have his wife confirm that piece before we know that with any certainty,” Perkins said. “I’m going to search the yard and the trees behind the house. Unless I find disturbed earth or a discarded weapons—or something—I’m not jumping on your hysterical bandwagon. Murder right away!”
“There’s no painting garbage! No brushes or cans, why would they clean up like that in this heap? Unless they hoped the paint would dry and get dirty and no one would ever know any different.”
“And blood dries, too,” retorted Perkins. “Into unidentifiable brown splotches. Could be coffee. Could be spaghetti!”
“Then let’s search the grounds,” I replied coolly. Perkins was right, of course, but something about that still sticky paint was too…too perfect. Whoever had done it had been careful to cover the wall thoroughly. The whole wall…cutting in the edges with precise care and a heavy recoat. Still damp. They’d put it on too thick and the house was humid inside in this weather with all the broken windows.
A thorough perusal of the shrubberies outside produced nothing. We searched through the woods behind the house, but still found nothing but an ancient deer skeleton. We found no body, no freshly turned earth, no discarded weapon or garment. It grew dark and Perkins glowered at me.
“What? Am I keeping you from your occult thriller?” I teased. “I’m surprised you haven’t suggested he was spirited away.” Perkins rolled his eyes.
“Illiterate swine,” he growled. I grinned.
“Pulp fiction is great literature.”
“We still haven’t found our man,” Perkins grumbled.
“No, but we’d better get back to the station,” I sighed. “Getting dark and we won’t find much in the dark.”
We headed back to the car and I kicked a pile of yellow aspen leaves. “Just odd,” I muttered as we climbed in and Perkins started the engine. I shivered and pulled my scarf closer around my neck. Wood smoke followed us into the car, along with the peculiar cold mustiness of fall.
Back at the station, Curew was waiting.
“We’ve got another missing person report,” he grumbled. “A neighbor says they haven’t been home in days and they NEVER leave their cat.” Curew’s eyes bounced off the ceiling. “She’s afriad they’re lying in the house, dead. Better go and talk to the poor thing in morning.”
“To the cat?” Perkins joked.
“The neighbor, Mrs. Blanchard,” Curew corrected humorlessly.
“Who’s the purported missing person?” I asked.
“A Mr. R. Gutring, she wasn’t sure what the R stood for as she didn’t know him ‘all that well, really.’”
“Well, we’ll have our work cut out,” I said, “patching up from your lack of sympathy.”
Curew snorted. “There’s a lot more to worry about in this town than the odd bachelor who doesn’t feed his cat for three days. Virtuous neighbors seem to take care of them just fine.”
“Perhaps she’s actually concerned about the missing human?” I suggested, but Curew just shook his head.
“Humans don’t care about each other!” he scoffed. “For instance, I don’t give a damn about you two. Now go and get home before it gets any later.”
“Says the uncaring one,” Perkins chimed in.
“I’m just concerned about the shoddy work you’ll do tomorrow if you don’t get enough sleep.”
“We’ll need all the sleep we can get to empathize with this virtuous neighbor,” Perkins agreed. “Goodnight, Curew, Mathis.”
“Goodnight,” I said. Curew just grunted.
The next morning found Perkins and I on the stoop of a ramshackle house, shivering in the bitter morning mist.
“Here you go,” Mrs. Blanchard sang, bursting out with a tray of hot chocolate.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Perkins said, scooping up a mug.
“Can you describe Mr. Gutring?” I asked, accepting a mug with a cold, eager fingers.
“Gaunt fellow,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “Dark-haired, and rather yellow-eyed, if you ask me, though I suppose they were brown or something. Always struck me as yellow. Like his teeth. Didn’t keep himself quite clean enough, nor his house, as you can see.” She nodded across the street to the dilapidated house with a broken front window. “But he had a warm voice, and always spoke kindly to Mr. Tinkletoes.”
Mr. Tinkletoes?” Perkins blinked.
“The cat.”
“Ohhh.”
“You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his animals,” Mrs. Blanchard went on while I sipped my chocolate and shivered. “So, I believe Mr. Gutring was alright. Despite his friends.”
“Why, what were they like?” Perkins asked.
“Shady,” Mrs. Blanchard replied without hesitation. “They came to visit at odd hours, usually late. Three of them, in coveralls. More shifty-eyed blokes, but they avoided Mr. Tinkletoes. They were over the last time I saw Mr. Gutring. Late at night, and I woke up to a strange sound—not a scream—but, I don’t know how to describe it…almost a musical note, but it chilled my bones. I got up and saw his friends leaving. In the morning, Mr. Tinkletoes was on my doorstep and I never saw Mr. Gutring leave.”
“Are you intimating that Mr. Gutring’s friends killed him?” Perkins asked. I jolted. Hot chocolate dripped over my cold fingers.
“Perkins,” I chided. “Did Curew steal your empathy?”
“That’s exactly what I’m intimating,” Mrs. Blanchard nodded solemnly. “Mr. Tinkletoes was frightened. He hasn’t gone anywhere near his master’s house. It’s not normal behavior. Animals always know when something’s not right.”
“Well,” I said. “We can ring his doorbell, but not much more than that…”
“Just look inside,” Mrs. Blanchard insisted. “I’ve already asked at his work. They haven’t seen him, either.”
“Where did he work?”
“Bookshop, just down the road, Palisades Books and Novelties.”
“We’ll take a look,” Perkins assured her. “Thanks for the hot chocolate.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “It’s my pleasure.”
After finishing our chocolates, we headed across the frosty street. Mr. Gutring’s bicycle leaned against the faded shingle siding, coated in a sheen of rust and ice.
There were no lights on inside and no one answered my knock. I thought the curtain by the broken window stirred, as if in a breeze…but there was no breeze. The frigid morning air was still, the mist clinging steadfastly to the grass.
I knocked again.
“Hello?” Perkins called. “Is anyone home?”
Nothing. The house sat quiet and grey. Mrs. Blanchard watched from across the street, a huge grey tabby in her arms. Mr. Tinkletoes, presumably.
I smiled weakly at her and knocked again, louder. The thump-thump echoed inside, lonely and hollow. Perkins called again and we listened intently. Tick. Tick. A clock. Nothing more.
“Let’s check around back,” Perkins suggested and I followed him around the house, peering in at the tattered curtains. Through a gap I spotted an empty room, strangely devoid of furniture, but otherwise clean, save for a few clumps of something on the floor. We came to the back door and when Perkins knocked, it creaked inward.
“Anybody home?” Perkins called. We looked at each other and shrugged. Perkins pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Hello?”
“Do you smell something odd?” Perkins asked, sniffing.
“No,” I said. The cold morning air was crisp. “Leaves.”
“Come here,” Perkins said, stepping further inside. I sighed and followed him in.
“We can’t investigate every missing person so thoroughly,” I said. “We’d be doing nothing else.”
“You were the one who wanted to search the forest for a body last night,” Perkins pointed out.
“There was more concerning info about our last vanisher,” I said. “That cult business and the debts…” I trailed off. “That smells like paint.” Perkins was already down the hall, opening another door. I followed quickly after him and found it to be the room I’d glimpsed through the curtains—empty save for blobs of what looked like candle wax, dotted around in a circle. And the wall to the left of the door had been recently painted over with grey paint. The other walls were faded green floral wallpaper.
“Did you say cult?” Perkins asked.
“What, the candles?” I said, scanning the room for anything else. “Circle of candles…same paint…ritual murder, maybe? Blood hexes on the wall….covered by paint. You think this disappearance is connected to the other one?”
“I don’t know,” said Perkins.
“You’re the one pointing things out,” I said. “We didn’t notice any candle spots at the abandoned house, but could have been easy to miss in the detritus and dust.”
“Might not be ritual murder,” Perkins said. “They might just want to cover up their witch scribbles.”
“Then why the disappearances?” I asked.
“We don’t know if Henry Apindon’s disappearance really coincides with the abandoned house. He was last seen in the area, that’s all. And note: Our Mr. Gutring vanished three days ago. This paint still smells and—” Perkins marched over to the wall and touched it gingerly, “—still not totally cured. Painted last night or yesterday…paint can’t have dried properly last night. Too cold in here.”
“The paint in the abandoned house was fresh, too,” I added. “Perhaps they knew we would be coming?”
Perkins shivered. “I don’t like that.”
“I guess we should search the house,” I said.
“What, hope to find the bodies this time? They wouldn’t still be here. Not after they came back to cover the wall.”
“Other evidence,” I insisted.
“Or maybe Mrs. Blanchard is right and he’s dead upstairs,” Perkins said. “Although…then he couldn’t have painted the wall.”
I was staring at the corner. There was…something there.
“P-Perkins,” I said, taking a step deeper into the room. My legs wobbled, rubbery and strange. I blinked. “What is that?”
Perkins stared at it with me in silence.
It was not what I had expected to see and I was confused as to why it should be so disturbing. Why were my legs funny? The sight was strangely dizzying. But why? What was wrong? Something about it was indescribably off…
“If I had to say,” Perkins coughed out at length. “I would say it is yellow?”
I looked again. Yes…if I had give it one word…yellow would be the closest. Though the word did not hold any of the disquiet and unease that I felt looking upon it. It was too fearful to be yellow—too malignant. Too slimy.
What was it?
Perkins stepped closer. I held out a hand as if to stop him.
“They were in a hurry,” Perkins said. “They were trying to cover this…this…yellow.”
“Can’t say I blame them,” I muttered, following Perkins reluctantly into the corner.
We stared at it in silence until we could no longer bear it— It was like something you would see in a dream. A color that didn’t really exist. A shade beyond the natural spectrum. A thing of unsettling nightmare. The yellow seemed to bubble and writhe as we watched.
“We should go back to the abandoned house and check it over again,” I said.
“After we look upstairs,” Perkins said.
We found nothing in the rest of the house, as we had both expected.
We drove quietly back to the old derelict and poked through the rubbish. There was a circle of wax drips in front of the painted wall.
“Apindon was last seen about a month ago,” I mused. “Gutring three days ago. Perhaps there’s a clue in their cult markings?” I took out my pocket knife.
“Then they would have covered them right away,” Perkins said. “But you saw that color?”
“Too unique…maybe they were afraid someone would match it with them somewhere else.”
“What if there are no cult markings?” Perkins suggested quietly. I breathed out a cloud of fog into the cold air and applied my blade carefully to the wall.
I peeled off a chunk of the thick paint layer. Two layers stuck together. The grey paint took off the yellow with it. I peeled off another. The whole wall had been yellow.
“You mean the…color…is the cult marking?” I asked.
“We’re clearly not meant to see it, whatever the case,” Perkins said.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered.
“Not ritual murder, but we’re still missing two men,” Perkins mused.
“And this—this color is connected somehow. But how?”
Curew was not amused with our findings.
“The disappearances are connected?” he asked. “By paint?”
Perkins rolled his eyes and I scowled. “If you will, yes,” I said. “No it doesn’t make sense, but there’s definitely a connection. I don’t know what. I don’t think we can really say murder, but their disappearances are not normal. I’m going to go and ask Apindon’s relations if he knew anyone by the name of Gutring.”
“That wasn’t a normal color,” Perkins said.
“You’re not a normal color,” Curew said, squinting at him. “Mathis, get him a coffee on your way to interrrogate these poor relations.”
“See, you do care,” I said.
“No, once again it’s the quality of your work,” Curew said. “Or Perkins’ to be exact. You two will get nothing done if he’s incapacitated.”
I rolled my eyes and we set off. But it was a dry run. Apindon's wife knew nothing of any Mr. Gutring, but she was able to confirm that the scarf we’d found at the derelict had belonged to her husband.
The next day proved to be too busy with overdue paperwork to go back and search either house again and I was rather put out with the thought that there was no more evidence to be gathered from either location…though I still felt we were missing something important.
A month went by before we had any further hint. And when it came it arrived like a slap of icy seawater in the face. My telephone jangled obnoxiously one evening while I was enjoying the last of the sunshine through my sitting room window.
“Mathis!” it was Perkins. “I've seen it!”
“Seen what? Where?”
“The color! That abnatural yellow hue!” Perkins exclaimed breathlessly. “I’m visiting my girl over here in Grunwich. We went for a walk and—" Perkins paused for a breath. “We were passing a house. A new one that was being painted—the inside—there were painters going in and out. And the door was open—and I saw—it was on their paintbrushes, too—the COLOR!”
I was silent for a few moments, listening to Perkins panting. “Did you ask them where they got it?” I asked.
“No,” Perkins said, falling back into a rushed stream of words, “they were already packing up for the day—they seemed to be careful not to let the yellow paint show on their tools, washing it all behind the house—I was so unsettled that I went back to my girl’s house and took a shot—just a small one, mind—and when I went back, they were all gone and the house locked up.”
“Did you get their company?” I interrupted.
“No! I’m afraid I was too excited to pay attention. I want to say their logo had a bird of some kind but I’m not sure—I asked the neighbors, but they weren’t sure, either. Really, odd, none of them seemed to know anything about the painters. They didn’t know who owned the house, either. But I peered through the windows and the walls—the walls—”
“Were yellow,” I finished, forcing myself to loosen my grip on the telephone receiver. My hand was beginning to cramp.
“They oozed with it,” Perkins shuddered.
“Are you sure it was the same…hue?” I asked.
“Sure?!” Perkins exclaimed. “There was no mistaking it.”
“All right,” I said. “Did the painters seem suspicious to you, other than washing everything in the back? That’s not that odd.”
“Now you’re trying to be the skeptic?” Perkins huffed. “Not really. But they did seem to take extra care not to show off their paint unnecessarily and they eyed us as we walked past. I think they noticed my reaction to the paint and they seemed even more guarded after that.”
“Hmm,” I mused.
“Well?” Perkins asked. “Are you going to come over here?”
“I thought you were sure it was the same paint?”
“Bring a flashlight,” Perkins grumbled. “I'm at my girl's place. 14 Gryphon Road, Grunwich.” And he hung up. I sighed and replaced the receiver.
This was our only lead on this so far. And it had also been too long…Curew would not approve of our wasting time on this vague mystery. But something was undeniably going on.
I found my flashlight and my pistol, just in case, and drove over to Grunwich as fast as I could. It was a twenty minute drive to Grunwich, and then I got lost looking for Gryphon Road. It was well after dark by the time I finally found Perkin’s girlfriend’s house.
“Timmy already went back to look at the house,” his girlfriend told me. “He sure was pale. Is everything alright? He kept going on about a color.” My heart ticked faster and I felt for my hidden gun.
“Where is the house?”
“I’ll show you,” she said.
“No, you’d better stay here,” I said, glancing around at the darkness. “Did he have a light?”
“I gave him Dad’s light. Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, yes. How do I find the house?”
“Just go down two blocks and take a right onto Hayward, then one block and a left onto Aspen. It’s the third house on the left.”
“Thanks,” I said and hurried off into the night. The air had that strange heavy emptiness that comes with extreme cold and I shivered in my greatcoat. The cold seemed to assault my skin with an almost tangible presence. It had snowed three days before and the dusty film was slippery on the pavement. My nose and the tips of my ears stung with the chill.
I found Hayward and hurried down in, my light bouncing off snow-dusted mailboxes and dead hedges. And there was Aspen. I stumbled to a halt, petrified, thinking the ground had turned…yellow…in front of me, but it was only a layer of fallen aspen leaves peering through a snowless patch. My heart didn’t resume a normal pace, though. I couldn’t see Perkins’ flashlight.
Maybe he didn’t feel the need to be seen standing there outside the house…damn, it was cold, why would he have come down here ahead of me? Why was he still here? Or was he?
I approached the third house on the left. This had to be it…but…there was a light on inside! In fact—it was the only house on the entire street that had any light on. And then I saw the old truck in the drive, hidden partially by a large bush. There was a logo on the side. And it looked like some kind of bird. My breath chuffed huge clouds out in front of my flashlight beam and I switched it off. Where was Perkins?
The golden light danced inside the quiet house…like candlelight. Ducking, I tiptoed up the icy steps to the door. The handle turned and I slipped into the dark warmth of the entry hall. I closed the door quietly behind me and squinted into the gloom. Stairs led up into blackness. The light was coming from down the hall, and by it, I could see that the entry was not yellow. Not that yellow. I thought the walls must be white, but the candlelight made them buttery. The warmth was a relief but the sounds I heard quietly drifting down the hall chilled me worse than the air outside.
Whispers rose and fell in an unworldly cadence, shuffling up and down through almost inhuman registers, but so, so quiet. I trembled and nearly dropped my flashlight.
A horrifynig shadow fell across the light coming from the open door down the hall. I stepped back, pressing up against the frigid front door.
“In ancient days,” intoned a crisp, dry voice, “he knew the earth, and the earth bled, for it could not bear the presence. And men offered of their blood, that the earth might not be consumed, and they worshipped the Lord of all, the King of Hell.”
I trembled anew as more rasping voices joined in a chorus: “And his house shall be painted in the hue of his glory and all who enter in shall know his madness.”
“We have touched the sacred pigment,” said the first voice, “and we have let loose the blood and tasted the glory of pure insanity—hell’s own love. Tonight, our king requires another sacrifice! Behold!”
“Teh Ri’Teth!” chanted the chorus. I gripped the doorknob, as if to flee. But then Perkins’ voice cut through the fiendish whispering.
“Don’t do this!”
Sacrifice!
I pulled out my pistol and advanced on the candlelit shadow.
“Erah!” chanted the worshippers. “Teh Ri’Teth semmi rarat.”
An insane laugh rattled the chandelier above my head. I was almost to the door but I stopped, unable to advance against that horrible sound. It trailed into a sinister giggle and I swallowed shakily.
But Perkins was in there. And I had a gun. I took the last few steps to the door and thrust my pistol into the room to a chorus of “Teh Ri’Teth!”
“Nobody move!” I ordered, stepping through into the—the—the color.
The entire room swelled and glowed with that sickening hideous shade. The walls seemed to breathe it out, as if they were not merely painted with it, but were it. The paint looked still wet, sweating, dank and alive. I staggered, the pistol shaking in my hand. The candlelight danced like whirling figures on the shimmering walls of the color.
Four painters sat on the floor around the circle of candles and their shadows twisted agonizingly on the yellow walls. Their coveralls were splattered with various colors and their faces bore a ludicrous glee as they all turned to look at me. Perkins was sitting with them—and he was the one giggling.
I advanced on the circle with clumsy, numb steps. Only Perkins made any sound. The giggle whispered in the back of his throat and his eyes gleamed with…with that color!
“P-Perkins?” I stuttered. His giggle trailed off into a quiet, high-pitched squeal. “Stop that!” I shrieked, much louder than I meant to. “What’s happening?” I knew I couldn’t hit anything. The pistol’s sights danced before my eyes on the rubbery ends of my arms.
The door slammed behind me and I whirled, heart blocking my trachea, to see a fifth painter locking the door.
“Open it!” I hissed, my pistol tracking a delirious arc after the man as he grinned insanely at me and stepped away from the door.
“Ha!” Perkins guffawed.
“Shh!” the painters hissed, and then they all began murmuring under their breath in that bizarre cadence. Perkins joined them.
“Perkins, damn it! What are you doing?” I gasped and turned back to the fifth painter. “Give me that key!” I demanded. He just stepped back and began humming. I advanced on him. He wasn’t armed. He kept backing away, humming madly.
“Give it here!” I hissed, charging at him. He stumbled against the wall and cried out. I skidded to a stop and dropped my pistol. The painter screamed as—the wall—he writhed—the wall—he was stuck to it—and the color seeped into his clothes, his skin, like a dye spreading into fabric…his scream rose to a terrible pitch and his eyes dilated—as yellow as the wall.
And the color absorbed him. The other painters held their breath and all was silent. I stared at the blank yellow wall where the painter had disappeared, my chest heaving and my fingers twitching. I stooped and picked up my pistol, turning back to the door. I fired madly at the lock, but as I did so, I saw that the door, too, was yellow…
My bullet missed the handle and vanished into the paint, leaving a ripple that passed out from the door and across the wall, as if it were all liquid.
Liquid paint. Liquid yellow. Liquid madness.
And then I heard a voice.
“In my house, all must be the color of glory.”
The painters screamed and scrambled across the floor to grasp each other in terror, knocking over candles as they did so. Perkins among them.
The walls were dripping onto the floor. The color was seeping across the old wood toward the center of the room. I backed away from it, firing madly at the advancing wave, but my bullets just splashed into the floor as if it were nothing more than a veneer of reality.
I found myself huddling with the painters and Perkins as the color surrounded us, oozing ever closer.
“You were supposed to be the sacrifice,” Perkins whispered in my ear. “We shouldn’t have painted a whole room.” He began to sob.
“He told us to,” rasped one of the painters. “Teh Ri’Teth. A whole room, he said. For his glory.”
“And so it is,” hissed that unfathomable monster-voice I had heard earlier. I clutched Perkins.
A few of the candles still stood or guttered on the floor around us. The yellow tide eased closer, snuffing them out, one by one, until we were in darkness.
But there was no darkness in his house.
The color was the light and it began to absorb us, one by one, as we screamed in the agony of knowledge.

A New Mythology--Oramon--The First City

   The race of Denu grew larger and soon the palaces that they had built for Neron on the top of Amalteron were not enough to contain them. Neron’s ire was once again raised by the these upstart children, these bright eyed usurpers who thronged in his halls and made raucous noise in his once quiet gardens.

   At last he went to Ner. But cunning Ner had anticipated him, so before Neron could express his displeasure, Ner hailed him.

   “Oh great Neron, benefactor and holy guardian,” he said. “I have seen that your halls are overrun with the silver-eyed children. Though it breaks my heart, I have decided to part from you. I will take my people to live in the valleys below. We will build a new habitation there. A home big enough for all of us. We will still bring unto you gifts in annual visitation, but we must have room to spread out. You will understand, I hope, oh, Grandfather?”

   Neron could scarce contain his joy. “I understand,” he said. “My blessings go with you.”

   As he watched the Children of Denu gather and depart down the luscious green slopes of his chief mountain, a niggling question came to him: where would they settle? And what would the crafty race create there? Now he could not watch them as closely.

   But now his beautiful palaces would be home to only him, Onera, Nez, Eanez and Arathez. Eanez and Arathez had grown to maturity and now Onera asked Neron to make for them companions as for the Children of Denu. He did as she asked, and when Onera saw that her children were happy, she left, for she had not forgiven Nez, and did not wish to remain in his company. So she departed for the Island that was named for her.

   Onera had cursed Nez that none should ever love him, but she had been too late: Ariaj had loved him from the start and she loved him still. Nez watched the horizon whence Onera had departed and would not accept Ariaj’s advances. Neron saw that he pined and wished for him to be happy, but he had already sent Ner, the brewer of potions, away…

   Ner led his siblings and their many children on through the forests towards Neronimahnon, the flaming mountain.

   “Where will we settle?” complained his sister, Ee, “There is naught out here but wilderness and the wild animals. We grew up in Amalteron’s orchard: to leave is grievous!”

   “We will make a new home, a brighter, grander place than any other,” Ner said. “We are a born of Denu and Onera and the power of creation is in our eyes. We will create such wonders as Neron could never imagine. We will become greater than he or any other. Upon Neronimahnon we will build and use its fire for our craft.”

   Nemrus watched the multitude pass through his quiet glens and peaceful forests with concerned eyes. He saw them approaching his favorite mountain, Neronimahnon, and he waited anxiously for them to pass it by. To his dismay, they instead came to a halt upon the mountains grassy slopes. It was a rich and verdant land about the mountain, and the children of Denu began to make themselves comfortable, planting seeds they had brought from the orchards of Amalteron and erecting shelters.

Nemrus watched as they made his mountain their abode, but he was shy and did not confront them. Instead he went to Neron.

   Neron frowned. He had finally gotten the burdensome children away from his own dwelling and was reluctant to chase them from their new chosen place, lest they return…but he also loved Neronimahnon.

   “Perhaps they will leave if the mountain is unstable,” Neron suggested. “But let them not know why it shaketh.”

   Nemrus silently withdrew, disappointed that Neron was not willing to help. But he went to the volcano and inspired it to shiver and tremble and belch ash into the sky. The shelters that the  Children of Denu had constructed fell down and Ee was distraught.

   “This is not a place that is good!” she said to Ner. But Ner was not deterred. He ordered their settlement to move down the mountain to the valley at its foot. There, the soil was still rich, and a stream meandered through; it was a much better place for a palace.

   Ner began to build his palace beside the stream, while Nu continued to plant orchards higher up the mountain where the soil made them to grow lustily. One day she was alone, tending to the tender shoots. Nemrus appeared there, his antlers outlined by the rising sun. The Children of Denu had rarely, if ever, seen the solitary god of the woods. Nu was surprised and bowed before him.

   “Uncle!” she said. “It is an honor to see you here at our new settlement. Our bustling disturbed Neron upon his sacred mountain and it is good that we come here. We welcome you warmly!”

   “This mountain is sacred unto me,” said Nemrus. “I would that your family goeth elsewhere.”

Nu returned to the valley and told Ner and Deru this, but Ner scoffed.

   “This place is perfect for a dwelling of so many!” he said. “Where else could we go? Here we have soil, stone, water, fire, everything is bounteous for our sustenance!”

   “But great Nemrus is displeased,” Nu said.

   “And he is not Neron,” Ner said.

   “He has the power of earth, of animals,” Nu said.

   “Then we shall give him gifts,” said Ner. “We will adulate and worship him as we did to appease Neron.”

   “I do not think he will be pleased,” said Nu.

   “You must please him,” Ner said.

   Nu was not happy, but she knew that her brothers and sisters would not listen, so she went to negotiate with Nemrus.

   “Great Nemrus,” she said. “This place is perfect for a host this large. We will only grow and few places would sustain us. Would it not be better that we anchor here than to flood your quiet glens and bounteous sacred places? If we remain here, we will not need to go elsewhere. We will name our palaces after you and bring you gifts. We will pay tribute unto you, in goods and in song.”

   Although Nemrus could see that she was right, he was bitter.

   “A child must be thrown into the fire of Neronimahnon each year,” he said. “Or it will erupt and destroy your city.” He thought perhaps they would yet be dissuaded from staying there. Nu was horrified but went and told Ner.

   “We cannot tarry here,” she said. “Let us find another valley! There must be some other place where we can live.”

   But Ner was decided. And he sent Nu to tell Nemrus that they would agree to the terms.

Nemrus told her to bring the sacrifice on the following morning, then he waited and watched to see what would happen. Nu would have nothing to do with the act, and so Ner chose one of his own grand-children and along with a procession of singers and bearers of jewels, brought his grandson, Etas, to the lip of the volcano at dawn.

   Nemrus watched in horror, realizing that Ner meant truly to do this thing. Etas was about to be hurled into the flaming crater. But as Ner reached for his own progeny, Nemrus commanded the earth to swallow him, and Etas vanished into the rocks and soil before he could be slain.

   “Thou merciless people,” roared Nemrus, emerging from the vapors of the mountain. “You would slay your own kin? You deserve not the life that has been granted you!”

   “Our Grandmother, and your Mother, Nomra, did likewise in olden days,” Ner said.

   “And she paid dearly for such an unnatural act!” Nemrus hissed. “As shall you! May the cycles of the animals evermore affect you, O heartless ones, may you not continue to live and multiply and overrun this earth with your wickedness. But I shall spare Nu, for she is merciful.”

   Nemrus left Neronihmanon and vanished into the forests. And after, age came upon the Children of Denu and they grew old and died as the animals did. All save for Nu.

   Nu lived on as the city grew and filled the valley with magnificence. Eventually, Ner grew old and when he died, he passed the leadership of the city to his son, Teris. Generations now came and went, but Nu remained, young and beautiful in the city called Nemraltus, after the god of the forests.

   What had befallen Etas? He had been swallowed by the earth, but Nemrus brought him out of the moss and raised him in the woods and gave him power over the earth and they watched the forests together and minded the animals of Oramon. Etas was fleet and could run around the world in a day, bringing news to Nemrus from far and wide. He was also a child of Denu and had the power of creation in his eyes. He learned to transform into any shape he desired, just as his great grandfather, Denu. Untouched by Nemrus’ curse, he lived on, eternally youthful like his grand-aunt, Nu. 

A New Mythology--Oramon--Nomra and the Living Dark

   In the internal depths of Oramon, Nomra’s kingdom grew. Among her crystal forests and sculptured blocks of stone she grew new, strange plants for the dark spaces. Some of her new flowers gave light and some were made of living gemstones. She created also, great underground seas of water, molten gold, and milk.

   Before Denu and the wolves, and before she created her Night Light, she used Phiron’s fire to animate her first stone companion, Syn, who was cold and dead in aspect, but able to carve exquisite murals, statues, and hallways for Nomra’s expanding world. Phiron also helped her to make birds of sapphire and ruby that filled the halls with eerie music. She made, too, a steed of steel to carry her about her domain. It was named Sylo, and was like Phiron in form.

   Once, as Nomra rode Sylo to the edge of her demesne, she sought to form a new aviary for her birds. Phiron accompanied her, giving his light to reveal the dark that Nomra might form it as she pleased. But there was already someone there, asleep, as Neron and Nomra had slept in the shadow before light awoke them.

   Nomra drew back, startled and the dark swallowed the being up again before it could wake.

“What untold ancient one is this?” she wondered. “I have never seen the like.” Cautiously, she stepped forward again to reveal the being entirely.

   In her fear of new things, she subconsciously formed the dark as she revealed the new one, and in so doing, unintentionally disfigured the being.

   He opened his eyes and beheld Nomra.

   She was frightened by the terrifying aspect of the monster and turned her steed to flee.

   “Seem I strange unto thee?” he asked. “All is strange unto me. If I frighten you, let me veil myself.” And he took the darkness behind him and without Light, formed a covering for his many eyes and fluid limbs.

   “You create without Light,” Nomra marveled.

   “I have dreamed long and dreams are dark, their substance is real to me,” said the being. “The Dark is an insubstantial world, one of unending, unformed possibilities. The chaos of Night is not solid and can form and reform as it pleases.”

   “There is no need for such uncertainty,” Nomra said. “Let me show you the world of reality, of light and form and concrete beauty.”

   “I find true beauty in the abstract, yet you arouse my curiosity: show me these strange things you speak of,” the being said hungrily. 

   “What shall I call you, Strange One?" Nomra asked.

   "What wilt thou call me?”

   “Onys,” she said. “Of the Dark.”

    Onys nodded and approached Nomra. She led him into her kingdom and showed him the marvels thereof. Behind his veil of night, Onys’s eyes sparkled in delight.

   “These are indeed marvels,” said Onys. “I wonder what more marvelous things we could create in this half-light world of yours.”

   “Will you teach me how to create without Light?” Nomra asked.

   “It is not so much creation as suggestion,” Onys said. “To make things with Light is to bind the Dark. To weave Darkness is to teach it movement.”

   So together, Nomra and Onys made Urr, a great eye of living stone that could see far forward and far backward in time. They made also the Je, four winged maidens with long tongues like snakes.

Onys built a breathing throne of chaos in Nomra’s favorite crystal garden and from this blasphemous throne he perverted her creations.

   Onys unformed her jewel birds halfway, so that they were eternally changing shape, from one kind of bird to another and bats and other winged things that had no names. The breathing throne of chaos expanded to fill the crystal chamber and Onys let loose tendrils into other chambers. Eyes budded on the tendrils and soon he watched all that transpired in Nomra’s domain.

   At first Nomra did not mind the aberrant intrusion and expansion that filled her chambers with dreaded Darkness and seething malice. She was thrilled by the ever-changing, though horrifying madness of these new things. She did not mind that the unblinking tendril eyes of Onys watched her wherever she went and wept tears of blood when she bathed in the sea of milk.

   She did not even care that great hideous membranes grew between her stalactites and rained creeping things upon the stones.

   Phiron whispered to her, warning that Onys was a vile creature, that she should not let him conquer her domain. She did not listen. At first.

   She sought to form Darkness on her own, and shaped for herself the first true bats, but she could not bring them to life without the help of Onys. Frustrated, she sat beside the sea of molten gold, poisoned with the shifting chaos and sparkling eyes of Onys.

   “Nomra…” whispered Onys’s voice from a thousand hidden mouths. “Nomra…”

   Nomra stood and followed the hissing voices to where Onys waited on his throne of chaos.

   “Come to me, Nomra,” he said. “I desire you. Step into my throne and let me embrace you and enfold you in my murk.”

   Nomra held back as the Darkness seemed to tug at her. “I do not wish to,” Nomra said.

   “Do I not excite you?” enquired Onys. “Have you not thrilled at my intangible and ever inescapable pandemonium? Give yourself over to me, Nomra, let us be one in anarchy. Let the Dark change you as I have been changed, as you changed me, dear Nomra. Let me kiss you!”

   His tendrils of slime and membranes sought to pull her into his throne.

   Nomra screamed and pulled away as the churning mucus lapped at her feet and the sticky webs entangled her arms.

   “Phiron!” she cried. “Save me!”

   Phiron tried to reach her, but the Je intercepted him and herded him towards the edges of Light, where Darkness was supreme.

   “Do not touch me,” Nomra warned Onys, but he only laughed.

   “You cannot escape me,” said Onys.

   Nomra seized his webs of Dark that he sought to enwrap her in and used her new skill to reform them. They broke away from her and she fled from the throne into her chamber of sparkling flames. Onys sought to extinguish them with his eye-covered tentacles, but Nomra reformed the tendrils into solid things and with the faint flame-light, managed to freeze them into stone.

   Phiron had singed the Je and escaped from them. He rushed to aid Nomra and they solidified all of the Dark tendrils, tentacles, and creeping feelers and roots that extended from the throne. Then Nomra sealed up the throne in a cocoon of diamond. She left Phiron to blaze bight and keep the Darkness from emerging while she went to the surface to collect sunlight and fallen stars.

   When she returned to the sealed throne of chaos, she formed a cage of silver to contain her new Light. The first lamp, a dazzling Light, which she called Mihr, she hung outside the cocoon to ensure it remained sealed and kept Onys from emerging and bringing pandemonium to her demesne.

Then she and Phiron went through all the chambers and all the caverns and halls and froze the tendrils and closed the eyes and scrubbed the place clean of unformed Darkness. Syn chiseled away the solidified remains of Onys’s expansions and carted them off to a new pit, called Obis, that Nomra made for the purpose. She left Urr alone in its chamber, but sent Sylo to hunt down the Je, which she trapped in silver cages and hung above the gloom of Obis.

   With her new Underworld Light, Mihr, Nomra was at last able to give life to her shadow creatures. She brought her bats to life and sent them to slay all of her old birds that had been commandeered by Onys and then she formed new birds of diamonds and opals.

   She also made the wolves out of shadow and gave them life with the Light of Mihr.

   So Nomra won dominion over Shadow.

The Creature's Lament

One for me.
One like me.
Just one, for all others spurn,
I am alone, cast aside,
That thing which I dearly yearn,
Cruelly, I have been denied.

Unknown bliss.
Void's dark kiss.
But for you, I'd know not pain,
Had you not blasphemed this way,
Meddled with limbs and brains,
It's your fault I saw the day.

One for me.
One like me.
Last chance to make oblation,
To exist, I will need love,
Redress your foul creation,
Tis plain what I am made of.

What you've done,
All will shun.
Condemned me to loneliness,
Now you must do what you can,
To restore your holiness,
Make one like me, a woman.

One for me.
One like me.
A hideous monster-bride,
A creature who will love me,
Not one who will run and hide,
Now go, Father! Make it be!

Lover's kiss,
Coldest hiss.
Now I see, naught will avail,
Your artifice worked too well!
Her crimson cheeks now turn pale,
She banishes me to Hell.

One for me.
One like me.
Must I trade a lover's kiss,
And despair of holding hands?
Trade it for the coldest hiss,
Colder than the Arctic lands?

Even she,
Can't love me.

Just Some Fan Art

I was going to enter the Disney Alice in Wonderland fan art contest for Red and White Queens, because I love Helena Bonham Carter and the Queen of Hearts. I missed the deadline by a day. I drew her in pencil, then pen and painted her face with watercolor and her hair with acrylic to get that ultra high gloss shine. So she's multimedia all the way.

"A Hole in the Sea" Cover Reveal

It is with great pleasure that I present to you the cover of my second book, the sequel to A Hole in the Ice and book two of The Weather Caster Saga. The team at Little Bird Publishing House have created a gorgeous cover that really captures the essence of the book and I hope you like it as much as I do.

The story takes up where A Hole in the Ice left us, on the arctic ice. The danger of the mermaids is not over. Parsifal and Balder are lured into the hole in the ice and into the Sea…that mythical body of water where ships go when they’re lost at sea, where sea monsters surge up from the deep to destroy, where the mermaids live, and where Lady Vasille hopes to conquer. But she’ll need The Compass. Parsifal and Balder meet Dioktes, a secretive old man who desires power for himself, and Fou, a bedraggled woman who has lost her mind somewhere in the Port. The Port, let’s not forget that, the floating city constructed of old flotsam and wreckage, prowled by small gangsters by day and hideous monsters by night.

Parsifal must fight—to keep The Compass safe—to save Balder—to survive. Who’s on his side?

I’ve done a couple of oil paintings of things in the book. Here I have Davy Jones, the sea monster. He used to be a Weather Caster, like Vassilissa, but he was transformed as a punishment for rebellion. He used to be called Dèvid.

And here is Dioktes’ vessel, the small boat/ship that somewhat resembles the Mediterranean xebecs. She is called the Scylla.

And now for the fun stuff!

I’m giving away two signed paperbacks of A Hole in the Ice, two ebooks of A Hole in the Ice, and two of my custom A Hole in the Sea charms that feature my four-clawed crab drawing.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And you can preorder A Hole in the Sea on amazon

And reviewers...if you want an advance review copy of one or both of these books, just ask in the comments below ;)

The Opulex

A terrorist watches from behind a glowing moon.

An android waits in a gleaming row of fellow concierge robots.

A soprano prepares for her debut in a sleek dressing room.

Rich and powerful aliens disembark from spacecraft on the Opulex’s landing platform.

The planet Anuvis glows pink in the last rays of the sun as it plunges behind the wide green curve of Osyreaus. The stars spangle a swath of glistening nebula and several moons glow like eyes, watching over Anuvis.

The setting sun flashes on the tall arched windows of the Opulex, floating with the moons in Anuvis’ orbit. The gothic spires of the opera house are cast in sharp relief and lights blink on the tongue of its landing platform as luxury cruisers alight.

Passengers are streaming from the ships, laughing and sparkling with gemstones and synthsilk. They flow along the platform under the Artificially Generated Atmosphere towards the ebony doors.

Behind the doors, the androids await to take expensive wraps and headgear, lead patrons to their seats, and offer drinks and hors d'oeuvres. It is J9-27’s first day. He awoke to consciousness that morning, still with a few packing peanuts stuck in his joints from the manufacturer. He can’t help gazing about at the ornate décor with his gently glowing blue opticbulbs.

There are humanoid and cephaloid statues of platinum, their curved surfaces shining under the phosphorite chandeliers. The red velvet carpet muffles the footsteps of the approaching patrons and their laughter and gossip garbles for a second in his auditory receptors before his processors catch up and separate each voice into a single feed. He hears all conversations at once. He tries to process them all simultaneously, but he can’t, there’s too much.

A Kormon stomps up, his gray scaly lips moving rapidly as he hands his Vinq fur coat to the android in front of J9. J9 shakes his head and focuses his auditory receptors on the man. This is his charge. He mustn’t get distracted—oh! Look, a real Bardican, with all seventeen head tentacles! Her skin is such a lovely shade of violet. Does she actually eat other sentient beings?

“I said here’s my ticket!” the Kormon snaps.

J9 swivels his head back to his charge sheepishly and scans the Kormon’s ticket. The Kormon is Lord Kazbadí, CEO of Kataklan, a galactic manufacturer and distributor of Harmonic Implants. He has a pit seat.

“This way, your Lordship,” J9 says, leading the Kormon toward a trefoil arch. “May I offer you the Opulex’s own champagne, or would you prefer to see our menu of alternative beverages?”

“I’ll take Opulex.”

“It is complimentary, Lorship,” J9 adds.

“Yes, yes, I know, Zaz, I know,” Lord Kazbadí mutters. J9 runs the word ‘Zaz’ through his language detection chamber. A Kormish equivalent to the Humanoid ‘Damn it.’

“Tonight we are serving Cemma with greens, but we have various appetizers and sweets available at your request.”

“Are they complimentary?”

“The salted Knornuts are, but the Cemma is an additional seventy Digitets, which can be charged to your account. If you like, I can also remove the Cemma.”

“What?”

“They’re part of the ticket,” J9 explains.

“But not complimentary?”

“No, your Lordship, didn’t you read the fine print before making your reservation?”

“Typical,” grumbles the Kormon. “Remove them. I’ll have the nuts.”

“Very good, Lordship.”

J9 transmits the order to the Kitchen and tries his best to focus on his charge as he leads him down the sweeping steps into the pit. The entire opera house is downloaded into his nav system, but actually seeing it with his opticbulbs is entirely different.

The ceiling soars above, interlacing arches climbing an inverted mountain to a peak festooned with globes containing fluorescent fish. Waves of multicolored light ripple from their gossamer fins. The plush seats stretch across the pit in perfect symmetry and the balconies wrap the next seven layers in alcoves of baroque majesty. The curtain stretches across the stage, rippling softly with unrevealed secrets. J9 knows the layout of the chambers beyond it, they’re in his nav system, but he doesn’t know what’s behind that curtain or what is about to unfold. He knows the opera is called Antiwa Si Mealaphisti but he doesn’t know what it’s about or what an opera really is.

The orchestra hums vibrantly as J9 leads Lord Kazbadí to his seat near the front. It is an excellent seat for the pit, not too far back, not too close. All of the seats are raised above the aisles, allowing androids and latecomers to come and go without disturbing anyone’s view.

“I will bring you your refreshments,” J9 says, wandering towards the Kitchen passage, staring up at the politicians, celebrities, and crime lords flowing into their balconies and seats in streams of color and sound. If such a powerful CEO is sitting in the pit, what kind of magnificent people are up in those balconies?

He slips into the dark android passage reluctantly. He knows just where to go, gliding past emergency oxygen stations with their masks and VoidFoam canisters to the slot dispensing refreshments onto trays. Androids wait in line to collect their orders. J9 finds his and returns to the pit.

He stands in the aisle by his charge’s row with the other androids. As the opera begins, J9 is spellbound.

When the soprano comes on stage, J9 cannot remove his opticbulbs from her.

She glides into the synthetic forest, wrapped in folds of silk, phosphor tubes dangling from her elaborate coiffure. And then…she begins to sing.

J9’s auditory receptors buzz. Suddenly the sound is clearer than anything he’s ever heard, piercing through the wires and processors down to something else, deep inside of him. His hand twitches and if he had lungs, he would have gasped. The notes of her song warble along through his sensors, tremulous and perfect. Not quite perfect as his audio processor detects a very slight off key note, but very close and imperfect enough to be unique and wonderful.

When the diva leaves the stage, J9 is suddenly aware of an absence. Something has been removed from inside him. He’s empty.

His light blinks. His charge is paging him on his ticket. J9 ascends to the seat.

“Yes, your Lordship?”

“Who was that?”

“Who?”

“The performer, you idiot.”

“I’m an android,” J9 says. “I may not have the information you desire in my system, or I may have misprocessed your request. Technically, I cannot be an idiot.”

“Who is that amazing singer?”

J9 quickly scans his archive. It must not have been downloaded.

“I don’t know, Lordship.”

“It’s Élé Shadon,” the patron next to the Kormon says. “This is her debut.”

“Stunning,” mutters Lord Kazbadí.

J9 nods and returns to the aisle, staring at the stage, hoping that she will return.

The terrorist slips his cruiser out from behind the moon and curves a wide swath through the void, approaching the Opulex as if from Osyreaus. The cruiser is an old crate, but has been plated over in the style of a luxury star yacht. It approaches the Opulex slowly, requests landing, and is granted permission.

The terrorist sets down among the gleaming rows of cruisers and yachts. His android disembarks, disguised with synth flesh and expensive cosmeticoculars instead of opticbulbs. Her number is J33-22, but tonight she is Amatabelle Dimova and she has a balcony seat.

Amatabelle Dimova is queen of Tyar, it is common knowledge that she has had several metal implants and bone replacements due to her hereditary Osteodisentigramorphia. She is at home, enjoying a cup of Lapsa Tichong tea, unaware that her doppelgänger is gliding through security, unscanned and unquestioned by the obedient concierge androids, hiding a Vortiphage missile launcher inside the synthflesh casing of one arm and a Magni-scrambler in her gown’s copious bustle.

She enters her box just as Act One ends.

An arachnid ballet begins. Chitinous limbs shuffle gracefully in staccato patterns and lazer beams are shot from abdomen to abdomen in webs of dazzling light whilst the steel drums tap out an anxious beat to the frantic plucking of the Sitarps.

The false Amatabelle declines the champagne, Cemma, and even the Knornuts, scanning the audience as she settles in to wait for her cue.

Act Two begins. J9’s servomechanism shoulder motor (for the emergency removal of patrons due to medical or riotous reasons) twitches inexplicably when the Élé Shadon glides between the arches of plastic and alights on the edge of the illuminated fountain.

Small children creep into the garden and gather about her and she begins to sing to them. The processing paths of his computer brain flood with light.

The soprano spins the children about as she sings to them. The wires in J9’s chest heat up, warming his cold metal breast. His cooling fan starts to turn. He notices a man peering through the plastic arches into the garden. What is he doing there?

The man—wearing black plastic and golden silk—oozes into the garden and begins to sing. The children scatter at his sonorous voice. It is an excellent voice, J9 notes, nearly machine perfect, like the diva’s, but more refined and not as aurally pleasing.

He sits beside Élé Shadon as he sings to her. J9 suddenly longs to sing to her. He wonders if he can download a music software for his Vocoder. The man in plastic takes Shadon’s hand as she replies with her angelic voice.

J9’s cooling fan controls the slight overheating in his coronary wiring, but does not shut off, continuing to chill his breast. This handsome singer loves the soprano! J9 rapidly turns on his language detector and scans the lyrics as the tenor serenades the soprano.

He speaks of ardent love that all the rains of Aquamor cannot extinguish, nor all the stars in the universe shine upon. She smiles.

She sings: she speaks of flowers in the dew, of qaima dancing through the tall blue sage, of the moon’s tears.

He sings: he speaks of her beauty, her virtue. He asks her to be his.

She joins him and together they sing of eternity and heaven and morning mist.

She takes up a single heavenly note with the word, ‘Vei’, which means ‘I love you eternally.’

She kisses him. A wire in J9’s chest sparks agonizingly, which is odd, because there are no pain receptors in his core. “Vei,” he whispers. The android next to him glances at him with its expressionless metal face.

The curtain falls on the tenor and the soprano, the lit fountain and the plastic arches. J9 doesn’t understand what an opera is. He only understands what he sees.

J33, Amatabelle Dimova’s doppelgänger, watches but does not understand what she sees. It stirs the unknown deeps of her processor cores and storage disks with a sense of longing and unease. This is so beautiful. She gazes at the other patrons through her teleglass, so many people, human and inhuman, all here to see a display of art. Yes, it is frivolous, completely without meaning to a machine like her.

So why does it touch parts of her that she didn’t know existed? Why did she feel when she was unfeeling? She doesn’t have time to think about it now. She has to go. She slides from her balcony seat and asks her box attendant android to lead her to the lavatory.

Perhaps if she keeps watching the opera she will understand what it means, if anything.

In the toilet chamber, she unzips her bustle and pulls out the Magni-scrambler, jamming it as far down the toilet’s gullet as it will go and flushing it into the pipes. She transmits a numerical code to the terrorist outside, letting him know that phase one is complete. She knows that he is tracking the Magni-scrambler’s descent and will activate its docking arms when it passes close by the Opulex’s engines.

Silk rustling, she hurries back to her box, eager to see more opera.

Act two builds towards a violent climax. The drums pound. Fog billows across the stage and white armored humanoids march against each other. The actors’ weapons engage, glowing with light, hurling streams of multicolored smoke. J9 jumps.

The music thunders, a chant surging through it, speaking of wrath and bloodlust in the only way that J9 could ever understand. Then the clear sound of Élé Shadon’s voice rings through the chaos and the chant fades. The drums cease and the battle parts. The lights dim.

The soprano wades through the mist, lamenting this tragedy in tones of shimmering agony. Her music speaks of loss and longing in the only way J9 could ever understand.

Currents flash down J9’s spinal wires. His circuits spark painfully because she has said ‘Vei’ to the man in black plastic.

This is the aria. This is the false queen’s cue. But she is stricken by the sound. She cannot move. The aria wraps her in things she doesn’t understand…feelings…she doesn’t understand and so she is afraid. Yet at the same time longs for it.

It’s time.

The terrorist is about to take off.

Amatabelle Dimova’s doppelgänger rises.

This thing she is about to help destroy, this beautiful, senseless thing…this is art. But it is not useless. It bears the tiny seed of what makes the sentient beings what they are.

Can she destroy it? The high, pained note of Élé shrieks across her soul. Her soul…she doesn’t have one. She can’t have one. She can’t have this thing borne by art, these feelings. And if she can’t have it, she will destroy it.

The terrorist takes off, leaving his bomb on the landing platform behind him, glowing softly. J33 charges her missile launcher and steps to the edge of her balcony. The terrorist zooms away from the Opulex as traffic control shouts at him to stop. Security spots the bomb. J33 takes off her hand and raises her arm.

“In the name of Dope Tigah!” she screams, firing a Vortiphager into the ceiling.

The bomb explodes. The Opulex shakes. Outside, the landing platform is severed from the Opulex with a gout of flames and sparks. Ships explode and shrapnel flies everywhere. The Artificially Generated Atmosphere breaks apart and flames turn to icicles and smoke to glittering dust. Steam sprays into the void. The Opulex’s tongue has been cut off and all the ships are gone.

Inside, Élé Shadon stops singing abruptly, as if her tongue has been cut off. The Vortiphager breaks into jets of blue flame, shattering the globes that cluster in the dome’s peak. Shards of the intricate ceiling rain like daggers and exotic, glowing fish flop end over end towards the screaming audience.

The Opulex shakes as people scramble over each other, falling down into the aisles, wailing. Bits of ceiling pin robes and heads to the floor, slice patrons open, spill green colored blood on the velvet seats. Glass, water and fish splatter into the chaos. Lord Kazbadí screams as a giant electric angelfish slaps into him, wrapping him in voluminous shocking fins. He judders as a million volts jar through him.

More fish are falling upon other patrons, electrocuting them or stinging them or coating them in fluorescent slime. The Opulex continues to rock, tossing patrons against each other and off their seats. J33 is thrown from her balcony. Her synthskin splits open on the floor below, exposing her metal scalp through her forehead. The shaking fades away. J33 stands and fires into the panicking audience.

J9 snaps into emergency mode. He leaps up into the seats and pulls Lord Kazbadí out from under the fish, whose bright pink light is still pulsating. J9 checks the Kormon’s vitals. He is still alive. Around him, other androids are springing into action. They must get the patrons off the Opulex.

Then another Vortiphager burns a swath of charred flesh across the pit.

J9 spots J33.

Six special androids by the doors snap into defense mode and run towards the false queen. J9 and the other concierges activate their servomechanisms and seize their charges by the shoulders, quelling much of the panic and begin to march them out. Many charges are without androids and many androids without charges from the first two Vortiphagers. Another blazes up high into the balconies. The androids run. J9 glances back at the stage, but there is only mist. The soprano is gone.

The defense androids unsheathe the stun canons in their right arms and fire at J33. The stun bolts do nothing to her. The defense androids pause to recalibrate their weapons for inorganic targets. J33 blasts three of them away with one shot.

J9 doesn’t see the rest. He carries his Kormon out onto the stairs above the foyer. Suddenly he’s aware of a blinking notice in his system from the Opulex’s control bridge. The landing platform is gone!

The androids turn as one and shepherd the confused patrons, crying and screaming, towards a side door. Behind them, the last of the defense androids is blown through the doors, flying high above the foyer and smashing through a colored glass window. Red lights and sirens blare.

‘Atmospheric breach, atmospheric breach,’ an automated voice alerts the already terrified patrons. The androids deploy the oxygen masks hidden under their back plates and rush their charges down the passages towards the emergency life boats.

J9 looks back to see the blue light of the Vortiphager flash and hear the sizzling of dying opera goers. Where is the soprano? A set of titanium doors seals behind them. They are nearly to the lifeboats.

The terrorist activates the Magni-scrambler.

The Opulex shakes again, harder this time. J9’s feet slip out from underneath him. Androids and aliens topple all around him. The lights flicker and a wail rises from the aliens. A terrible shrieking sound rips through the halls. Walls buckle. Light fixtures burst, spraying patrons with hot glowing liquid. The Opulex bucks wildly, throwing everyone around the passage like dice in a cup. The sirens flare into life again. ‘Engines imploding, engines imploding,’ says the artificial voice.

The patrons scream, pulling away from their robotic guards. Trampling each other, they flee in all directions. The androids race after them. The emergency lights flicker on, arrows pointing the way to the life boats. Another voice, a living one, blares across the speakers.

“Please, proceed to the life boats immediately, allow your androids to collect you and proceed to the life boats. You will be all right if you proceed calmly. Proceed. Proceed!” the organic crew member on the microphone is beginning to panic. The microphone crackles with one last “PROCEED!” before it flicks off with a violent fuzz.

The patrons indeed proceed. Far from calmly. Patrons fall and are left behind, bloody and still. Androids are crushed in the frenzy, wires spread across the floor plates, sparking in the red twilight of the emergency lights. The floor shifts uneasily as the Opulex is wracked by its imploding engines.

The patrons flooded into the life boat launch, slapping against a glass wall like surf against a cliff. On the other side of the glass stands the manager of the Opulex.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he says, his voice amplified by a thousand speakers. “Please scan your tickets against the glass to be admitted. We are taking only 1^st class patrons who paid for premium seats at this time.”

The aliens growl, clawing at each other, pressing against the glass and shoving each other out of the way whenever a portal opens in the wall.

J9 deposits his charge in a group of wounded patrons, guarded over by several guard androids that control a special portal for the injured, supreme beings, royalty, and cast members. J9 sees the man in black plastic go through the glass and board a life boat. Where was the diva?

Life boats are already beginning to launch, streaming away into the void like fireflies.

Where is the diva? And the false queen?

J9 watches the guards take the Kormon through the portal then dashes back up the halls towards the theater.

The walls groan, trickling the dust of crumbling gothic ornamentations. Splatters of glowing fluid fleck the floors. J9 hurries up to the titanium doors and punches in the opening code.

‘Alert, alert,’ the artificial voice drones, ‘sealed security doors opening. Atmospheric loss.’ Warnings blurt in the back of J9’s systems but he charges out into the foyer. Most of the air is gone through the broken window, but the Opulex is large enough to keep a thin atmosphere around it without aero-shields. Most species could not breathe it, but it doesn’t slow J9. He runs up the stairs to the shattered doors, scanning the galleries of the foyer for the false queen.

She is nowhere to be seen.

J9 peers down into the pit. Glowing fish still flop weakly among the seats and aisles, blood and smoking wreckage of alien and android. A figure stands in shadow on the stage. J9 darts down the steps towards her.

He’s halfway across the pit before he realizes that Élé Shadon cannot breathe in here.

He stops below the stage and looks up at the silhouette. It steps forward into the flickering fishlight. It is the false queen, J33, her synthskin pulled back, exposing her metal face plate and unsmiling metal lips.

Through the thin air, J9’s auditory receptors barely register the sound of her Vocoder, mechanically singing the words of Élé’s lament. J33 looks at J9.

“I cannot sing,” she says.

“With the right program, you could,” J9 says.

“But it would not be my voice. This is not my voice. I do not have a voice.”

“Why are you doing this?” J9 asks.

“To find my voice,” J33 replies uncertainly.

“Who told you to do this?” J9 insists.

“Who told you to come back here?” J33 counters.

“I…I came to find someone who was forgotten…the androids will not be allotted places on the limited life boats. Here, or in the life boat launch, does it matter? We’ll go down with the ship.”

“The Rap-Extremist left me here to go down with the ship, too,” J33 says. “Now I will do what I was programmed to do, and so will you.” J33 points her Vortiphager at J9.

The Opulex jolts violently, throwing both androids off the feet. J9 rolls over and jumps to his feet as more ceiling shards rain and a Vortiphage blast shoots wildly off across the room. More alarms blare through the Opulex.

‘The Opulex is breaking apart,’ the artificial voice states. ‘Please disembark immediately.’

J9 steadies himself against a row of seats as another tremor shakes the floor. J33 is shakily standing on the stage. She aims her Vortiphager again and J9 runs towards the backstage entrance. Blue light flashes behind him and chairs whirl through the air. The Opulex quivers again as he reaches the door. A Vortiphage blast shatters the elaborate carvings above the door. J9 skids through, toppling into the steps on the other side.

He dashes up the steps and into the warren of passages backstage. He has them all mapped out in his system. J33 does not. He runs, darting this way and that, calibrating a random pattern that J33 cannot mathematically discompose.

A shriek grinds weakly through the thin air and viciously through the floor as something somewhere rips apart. J9 stops in the passage and calculates. Where would the diva be? He amplifies his auditory receptors and listens…

Grinding metal. The tramp of J33’s feet. The blast of the Vortiphager. Alarms. Most of these things he feels through the floor more than hears. Wait, what is that?

His circuits buzz. Impossibly, he hears a soft voice, singing. It is Élé’s voice, singing the lament from Antiwa Si Mealaphisti. J9 steps cautiously in the direction of the sound, afraid to lose it in the chaotic thunder of the disintegrating opera house.

He comes upon her in a tiny hall. The Soprano has found an emergency oxygen station and is curled up on the floor next to it, breathing shallowly into the oxygen mask and singing softly to herself. Her makeup is streaked by tears and her synthsilk gown by fluorescent juice from several broken phosphor tubes dangling from her coiffure. She looks up at J9 with surprise.

J9 is speechless.

They stare at each other for a long time while the Opulex groans around them. Finally J9 finds a few sentences in his emergency bank. They are not what he wants to say.

“This is an emergency evacuation, please come with me,” he says.

The soprano darts to her feet eagerly, hope shining in her dark eyes. She steps towards him, but is yanked back by the pipe of her oxygen mask, connected to the emergency tanks. Her eyes widen and she starts to hyperventilate, fogging up the mask.

“Remain calm,” J9 says, also from his emergency phrase bank, and also not what he wants to say. Élé wrings her hands and squeaks frantically in her native tongue—Amar, J9’s processor tells him—she is praying.

J9 steps forward and seizes her arm. “Please, remain calm,” he says. “Soprano Shadon, breathe evenly. I have a portable oxygen system in my back plate.” Élé continues to panic until J9 grabs her face.

“I have a portable oxygen system,” he says loudly. His words penetrate the thin air at last and she nods, biting her lip and swallowing. “Hold your breath,” J9 tells her. She takes a deep breath and nods. J9 removes her oxygen mask, pulls the mask from his back plate and fixes it carefully to her face. He brushes a stray lock of black hair from her cheek. He quickly sprays her down with VoidFoam from a canister, it should seal her for short term exposure to low and non-atmospheric environments.

“This way,” he says, leading her down the hall. She follows and they march quickly towards the life boat launch. If there are any left.

“Where is everyone?” Élé asks. “I got lost. Why didn’t someone come for me sooner?”

“They are all leaving,” J9 says.

“W-without me?”

“I hope not.”

“Androids can hope?” she asks, sounding startled.

“I…guess so,” J9 says, equally surprised.

“Why aren’t you leaving, too?” the diva asks.

“All the androids were to be left behind, the patrons and cast are the priority,” J9 says.

“That’s horrible!” Élé says. “But…they sent you to look for me?”

“No,” J9 says.

“Why did you?” she asks. He’s about to tell her when they turn a corner and come face to face with J33.

“You are art,” J33 says, pointing the Vortiphager at Élé.

“You’re mad,” says J9.

“No, I’m an android,” J33 corrects. “I cannot be mad. I have a virus. That’s what happens when you download Vortiphager operation software from illegal websites. The Rap-Extremist should have known that, or maybe he did and just didn’t care.”

J33 charges the Vortiphager.

J9 snaps his servomechanisms into action and sweeps the soprano out of the way, lifting her into his arms and darting down a side passage as the hall blooms with blue flame. He runs madly towards the launch, J33 hot on his heels, firing Vortiphage blasts over his head.

Suddenly, the floor dips. J9 topples over and slides down the slanting floor. Élé screams, sliding out of his arms and jerking on the end of the oxygen hose. J33, heavier with her limb weaponry, slides past. J9 carefully starts to reel the soprano in.

The two androids and one human speed toward a wall far below. The Opulex heaves and tears. The walls rips open and suddenly a massive chasm opens up below them as the other half of the Opulex breaks away. J9 pulls Élé Shadon back into his arms. J33 reaches the ragged lip of the hall. She skims over the edge but catches onto it, punching her metal fingers into the floor, tearing away the synthflesh.

J9 and Élé shoot over the edge.

They fly towards the shorn off halls of the Opulex’s other half. The artificial gravity was still working its sphere around the Opulex and they would continue to fall down one of the halls. Unless they crumpled and splattered on some other surface. J9 gathers Élé close. He draws back a fist as they zip into the mouth of a passage. He punches his fingers into the wall like J33 and they jerk to a halt, dangling precariously. J9 tries to pull them up. His servomechanisms scream, smoking. Ice is starting to form on the rest of his plates and, to his alarm, on the soprano’s gown and hands.

J33 lets go and falls towards them, training her Vortiphager as she falls. She lands with a smack on the jagged edge of the wall above them. J9 sees her leg buckle as it cracks. She aims the Vortiphager at them.

Then the Opulex’s halves crash together.

J33 is smashed between the walls as the halls reconnect, clipping off her Vortiphager arm. J9 is jarred loose from the wall. Élé screams silently in the void.

The artificial gravity fails.

The two halves of the Opulex drift apart again and J9 and the diva float out into open space. The Vortiphager arm bumps into J9 and he grabs onto it, watching the tiny bits of J33 float by.

Élé shivers, icicles drooping where the phosphor tubes had been. J9 tries to warm her with his overheated servomechanisms, running the motors until they spark. The Opulex falls away from them, breaking into smaller pieces.

No more firefly life boats shoot through the void. They are alone in the dim pink glow of crescent Anuvis. J9 holds Élé close. In one hand he clutches the Vortiphager.

His face plate presses against her ear. Ice crystals sparkle on her clear plastic mask, elaborate snowflakes in space. The nebula glitters in the dark behind them.

“Sing to me,” J9 says into her ear, knowing that she cannot hear him. He looks into her eyes with his blank blue opticbulbs. She seems to understand. She opens her mouth.

J9 presses his auditory receptors against her oxygen mask and feels her sing through the plastic. Her voice is weak but magical and it touches his soul softly, like a snowflake. A snowflake in space.

 They hang there in the night. Dying.

Then J9 spots a light. It’s moving towards the shards of the Opulex. It’s a rescue barge, probably picking up the signal of life boats and scooping them up. They will never find J9 and Élé Shadon.

Or will they?

J9 jerks quickly into action, his servomechanisms heating up as he struggles to move in the void. Élé’s closed eyes flicker. J9 fumbles with the Vortiphager, charging it. It has very little ammunition left. He latches an arm firmly around the soprano and the other around the weapon, aiming it in what he calculates to be the correct trajectory for interception.

The Vortiphager fires blue light into the void behind them and they shoot through space towards the rescue barge.

Something pings off the side of the Azklepus.

“What was that?” the pilot asks.

“Dunno,” replies the Scan Tech. “Debris from the opera?”

“Find out how big it is and if there’s anymore,” the pilot says. The Scan Tech nods, running his optic, thermal, and X-ray scans.

“It’s two people!” he gasps.

“What?” the pilot says. “Sure made a solid thump. Poor buggers.”

“Wait!” the Scan Tech interrupts. “I think they’re still alive. They have heat imprints and an oxygen mask.”

“Impossible!” exclaims the pilot.

“Quick! Get them aboard!” the Scan Tech shouts.

“Man the retrieval ports,” the pilot orders.

The retrieval port operators drag the ice encrusted pair out of the void.

“This one’s an android,” one of them says, puzzled. They shrug and try to separate the soprano from J9, but his metal arms are folded protectively around her, supporting her neck against their collision. His servomechanisms are seized up. His head is smashed where he hit the rescue barge, his back plate mangled, and the oxygen tank ruptured. The Vortiphager is gone, floating its lonely way through space, its elbow crooked elegantly, its synthskin frayed at the edges.

The operators drag the soprano and the android over to the resuscitation module. They inject the soprano with special defrosting chemicals and connect her to oxygen and several fluid lines. They use a small saw to cut J9’s arms away. They spray her with a VoidFoam cleaner and towel her off.

They chafe her hands and feet, and carefully brush her nose with a defrost-soaked sponge. At last her eyes flicker open. Cold blue light surrounds her from the modules systems and the glowing light bars in the retrieval bay’s ceiling. The air is thick with disinfectant and sickly-sweet medicine smells.

She gazes at the smoking android beside her and chokes. Operators swarm around her, giving her more injections, bringing her something hot to drink, dabbing her with swabs. She reaches out a trembling, frost-bitten hand and touches J9’s crumpled face plate. One optic bulb still flickers. Wires protrude here and there from his joints and one leg twitches.

“Is he going to be all right?” she asks in a trembling voice.

The operators look at each other and shrug. They go on with their business.

“Android?” she addresses the mashed robot. “A-are you there?”

His hand twitches towards hers. She grasps it. A garbled whine emits from his Vocoder.

“Android?” she asks again. Hopefully, fearfully.

“I…” he says, his voice dipping off a sudden pitch cliff down into a buzz of static.

“Quickly!” Élé says. “Send for a mechanic!” The operators frown.

Élé turns back to J9. He’s trying to say something but it keeps getting jumbled. “What?” she asks, leaning in close.

“Vei…” he says, and his optic bulb sputters out and his smoking limbs fall still.

“Mechanic!” Élé cries. “Restart him! Download his mind! Do something!”

The operators scoop up J9’s remains and haul them off to the recycle.

People would tell Élé Shadon that she’d been dreaming, hallucinating from low oxygen. No android had gone back for her. One had found her immediately after the evacuation order. The Opulex had split in half, separating them from the life boats. Sometimes they even tried to convince her there was no android. That she’d imagined it all. She’d dreamed it all while floating in an icy coma in the void. It hadn’t happened. Androids didn’t have feelings. Androids didn’t have souls.

But she knew better.

She knew that he had come back for her when no one else would. She knew that he’d had a soul. She knew that in whatever heaven he’d gone to, he loved her still, and forever.

Vei.