It's time. It's time to fight. It's time to put the training to work and to battle the ancient evil. It's time to ATTACK!! Let's get to it.
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47
ATTACK!
It was still dark when someone shook me awake the next morning. I woke from a nightmare with a start and didn't remember where I was or what I was doing there. I realized I was in a tent, but that didn't make sense to me. Nothing did. My brain was full of fog, like the nightmare I'd woken from was trying to pull me back into it. Fear rattled the bones in my body. "Church?" A voice in the dark asked. A hand touched my arm. I jerked away.
"Who the fuck are you?" I hissed and sat up, wary and ready for a fight. The voice turned a handheld light on, like an electric glow stick, and it shone on a familiar face. "Oh, thank GOD!" I grabbed Shawn and pulled him to me in an embrace full of desperation and fear. "I thought I was dead!"
He returned my embrace and tried to soothe me. "Everything is fine. You're here with me."
I was terrified and tried to explain myself to him. My words tumbled from my mind and out of my mouth with growing urgency. "I had a nightmare that I was falling. It was pitch dark and I was falling and falling. I called out but no one could hear me. I felt the ground getting closer and closer. I think it was worse not seeing it. I tried to use my power to stop me, but my magic wouldn't work and even if it did, it won't support me. I was falling and no one could hear me. I was alone and no one could help. I just fell and fell, and I was so SCARED! I thought I'd never see you again. I thought I would fall and die, and I WOULD NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN! I thought I would die ALL ALONE!"
My voice got faster and louder as I told him what I felt. I wanted to make Shawn understand but I couldn't find the right words. None of the ones that came speeding through my mind seemed right, but I had to say them anyway. I needed him to understand but he couldn't, and I couldn't seem to make him.
Shawn struggled against my grasp. He tried to pull away, but I held tight. "No please don't leave me alone!" I pleaded. "Please! If you let me go, I'll fall! Please, LET ME STAY!"
He fought and managed to pull away enough to put his face in mine. He grabbed the sides of my face and held my head. His eyes looked inside me. "CHURCH! Try to breathe with me...slowly. It was a dream. You're fine. I'm fine. You're not going to die. I'm not going anywhere. I won't leave you. Do you understand?"
"You won't let me die alone?" I asked, the terror still so real. It was like a smell I could taste in the air.
"You're not going to die." He insisted.
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" I cried out. "I don't want to die alone and afraid. Please don't let me go that way. Promise me I won't have to die alone and afraid." I felt the tears running down my face before I realized I was shedding them.
Shawn wrapped his arms around me and pulled my body against his. "I thought that was real and this was the dream." I sobbed. "I thought I was alone again. I don't ever want to be alone again. Tell me I don't have to be alone again. Promise me I won't have to die alone."
Shawn held me and stroked my head, his fingers tracing through my long hair as I wept. He whispered soothing comfort in my ear. "You're safe with me. We're together. You won't have to be alone. You won't ever have to be alone again. I'm here and you're safe. I'll always be right here."
I held onto him like a man on the ledge of a high rise would cling to a windowsill. He held me until I wasn't falling anymore, and my tears stopped soaking his shoulder. I sniffed and cleared my throat. "I'm sorry." I whispered as I relaxed into his embrace. I was embarrassed that I'd panicked. "I'm OK now. I'm sorry I freaked out. I'm OK."
He pulled away gently and stopped to look in my eyes. He pushed some hair away that had fallen across my face and tucked it behind my ear. "I will always be right here. You are safe with me. You don't ever...EVER have to be alone again. Do you know why?"
"No."
"Because I love you, and we're better together than we are apart. Do you believe me?"
What I felt through our link told me that he was explaining the absolute truth as he saw it. He believed it, so I had no choice but to believe. "Yes, Shawn, I believe you. I love you to."
"That's good, it's time to get up now. We need to get ready. Big day today."
"Yeah...big day." I muttered. Today is the first day of the rest of your life,' I thought, or maybe the last. We shall see.'
The sun winked over the horizon, spreading its rays across the nothing and casting our long shadows toward the barrier. We'd been ready to go for a few minutes but were waiting for the sun to give the signal. I gathered my telekinetic power and used it to build an arched tunnel. I pictured thick, reinforced concrete, clad outside and in with armor plate. My arch, as I imagined it, could withstand anything. A direct hit from a bunker-buster bomb wouldn't even scratch the surface.
Both teams of gunners floated on their telekinetic platforms, ready for whatever they might encounter. The heavy machine guns had been wracked so each had a round in the chamber. The support gunners each had two loaded grenade launchers and their sub-machine guns slung from shoulder straps. Between the sets of gunners rested a pyramid of pumpkins, ready to destroy entrenched positions.
Shawn clutched his machine pistol and felt very centered. He looked and felt like he meant business. For the first time since we'd started training, I believed that Shawn was ready to deal with a potential life and death situation. I was proud of him and his emotional progress toward being ready for that moment.
As for me, my rifle had its bayonet fixed to the end of its barrel, and it was slung from my shoulders, my revolver side-arm was holstered on my right hip, and I had a pound of nuts in each pants pocket. Each of the six of us had the ear bud communicators in and we wore our recently issued grey armored vests and grey helmets.
Neb, closest to the barrier, stood behind her heavy gun. She held her right fist in the air at shoulder height. When she raised her index finger, I was to advance the tunnel into the barrier, on the second finger, I would advance her platform far enough for her to check the tunnel with a collapsible baton. If clear, she would drop her hand. That would be my signal to advance both platforms through the barrier and to follow immediately behind so she and Cy could direct me on the platform placement. Shawn was to stick with me to watch for ground threats.
I felt like I should have been scared, but I was too focused to be scared. I suspected that Neb was using her magic to influence my emotions. I also assumed she was influencing Shawn. That was just fine with me. I decided that I'd rather be confident with her help than terrified without it.
Neb gave the first signal. I pushed the arch against the barrier. It resisted, but with none of the crackling noise of the force-field in The HALL's holding cell. I pushed harder. The swirling patterns in the yellow concentrated at my arch. They radiated to it, the fluid lines forming arches of their own, like the barrier was reinforcing itself against my invasion. I added power, made the arch tougher and my push harder. For a moment, I was the irresistible force and the barrier the immovable object. I won out. The arch breeched the barrier and forced its way through. My arch forced the yellow out of the way and gave us our first look inside the barrier.
From my perspective at the rear of the assault team, the inside of the barrier looked much like the outside, the little bit of it that I could see anyway. The yellow scrub continued like shag carpet from one room in a house to the next, and the black bulk of the mountain loomed. I couldn't see enough of anything to give me an inkling of what to expect when I went inside.
I didn't have much time to gawk because Neb gave the next signal. I advanced her platform forward, partway through the arch, while she swung the baton in front of her. Apparently satisfied, she gave the last signal. I advanced both platforms through the arch and followed them in.
I jogged behind the platforms with Shawn at my side. He and I, the whole team was ready for battle, bristling with heavy weapons, explosives, and the willingness to do whatever it took to save the world. We were well trained, well-armed, a finely honed weapon of war. We were prepared for anything. Anything except for the sight that greeted us when we passed through my arch into the interior of the domed barrier. The sight was so surprising, it stopped me and my platforms in their tracks. The sight was so amazing, the fact that I'd brought the team's attack to a screeching halt drew no comment from the professional warriors.
Instead of a menacing black mountain, swarming with entrenched positions and hateful defenders, our eyes beheld a statue of a man, carved in relief into the entire height of the rock. He was a great, big, burly bear of a man, with a full beard, flowing hair, and a cherubic face wearing a closed-lipped grin. His clothes consisted of a domed hat, like a bowler without the brim, a high-collared Nehru jacket with braided piping around the edges and an ornate crest embroidered over the left breast. His pants were plain, straight-leg slacks. His feet were bare and well-manicured.
I was filling my lungs to ask `what the fuck' but didn't get a chance. My question was interrupted by sharp, tuneful whistling with a hollow quality to it, like an echo in an uncarpeted room. The sound was coming from down low, at the base of the mountain. We all looked toward the sound. Shawn and I just stared while the special forces professionals trained their weapons on the noise.
From between the round heels of the statue, out of a door-less arch, stepped an athletic man in a plainer version of the outfit carved in the rock. His clothes were pure white with no piping. The man had a deep, outdoor tan, shining brown hair combed close to his head with a left parting, and a lean face with high cheekbones. In his hands he carried the handle of a small pail and a fistful of white rags. He stopped, as the sun hit him, for his eyes to adjust. He set his rags down on the big toe of the stone man and the pail on the ground. The whistling paused as he stood tall and leaned back in an arms-up, full-body, stretch. He grunted and noticed us out of the corner of his eye.
The man's eyes bugged out of his head further than I thought possible for anything but a cartoon. He shook himself, cleared his throat, and strode toward us with his arms thrown wide in gracious greetings. "Welcome, friends. Happy to see you. Welcome to our home." He said as he advanced. His words matched his actions. I wondered if his intentions matched as well.
The professionals of the team kept their weapons trained on the man in white. The threat of the firearms didn't slow his steps as he approached us. Neb whispered some rapid orders. "Church, put a barrier between us and him. Let's see what he wants." I lowered the gunners to the ground and released the magic supporting them, then I built a three-sided box around all of us with a roof but no rear panel. That way we could hear the man in white, but we wouldn't be immediately vulnerable.
"It's in place." I announced.
"Stay where you are." Neb commanded the man, her voice even but firm. The man stopped in his tracks and lowered his arms to his sides. A genuine-looking smile remained on his face. "Who are you?" Neb demanded.
The man gave a deep formal bow as he introduced himself. "I am Fidum Cacula, court physician to his royal highness, King Pravus." He was a tall man for Solum, six feet maybe, short-waisted, and long-legged with an athletic build. He looked firmly middle aged but without the wear associated with that stage of life.
"Where are the others?" Neb asked.
"His majesty is...resting. The rest of our compliment have gone to their reward. Can I take it that you are here to kill us?" Fidum asked. Neither the announcement of his dead colleagues, nor his understanding of our purpose seemed to dampen his joy at our presence.
"Give us a moment, please." Neb said, her right index finger pointed up in the universal symbol of `just a sec.' "Church, close the box."
"Is it OK to release the arch tunnel?" I asked. "If I close the box, I can't maintain it."
"Yes, release it. I didn't realize you still had it open."
I released the arch, closed the box, and tore the top off a bag of nuts. Between the amount of magic that the arch had consumed and the continued stress of the morning, I felt that I needed to eat. I chomped the nuts down while Neb held a conference. We gathered in a tight group to talk, our backs to the man as a precaution against him reading our lips. "I'm open to suggestions." Neb announced.
The professionals talked a bit, all about traps and the possibility that this Fidum person just wanted to warn his friends of our presence. That idea was dismissed as it didn't make sense. The reasoning was that if Fidum had wanted to warn the others, if there were any others, he wouldn't have approached us in the first place. As soon as he saw us, he would have run away to get help. The thing that made the most sense was the idea that his story was the truth and that he was there alone with the king.
After the conjecture was brought up and settled in rapid fashion, Cy came up with the first suggestion. "One of us needs to go with him, check on his claims, see if there is a threat."
Bem saw a flaw in that plan and voiced it. "But he's a high-ranking empath. He might be able to compel us to see whatever he wants us to see."
"I'd know." Vulp's rarely used voice announced.
"That's right," Cy explained, "Vulp can compel someone, and he can tell if they are being compelled. He's also strong enough to forcefully release a compulsion set by another."
"I'll go." Bem volunteered with a nod of agreement toward Vulp. "Shawn, give me your side-arm. This sub-machine gun is no good for close quarters."
An `overkill' joke flashed in my mind, but I left it unuttered. Bem traded weapons with Shawn and got ready to go. "Give me ten minutes and ten more if I ask for them over the comm." Bem said.
"Fine, but no more." Neb insisted. "I'm going to say something to you every few minutes. Answer any way you want, gibberish. We need a code word, something you wouldn't say by accident."
"Niagara Falls." I offered with sudden inspiration.
Neb nodded and went back to giving Bem instructions. "You got that? Niagara Falls, that will be the trigger word. If you say that, we'll attack with everything we have. If you're not back in twenty minutes, we're coming in after you."
Bem caressed Neb's cheek like the two of them were long time lovers. "Awwww...that's sweet." He stepped away from her and went to the back of the box. I opened a doorway for him, and he went to meet Fidum.
We watched Bem as he approached the stranger. I assumed that all of us worried about him to varying degrees. My mind flashed over my very short history with the man, starting with him kicking my ass in the dojo room, then his constant teasing of me, our first romp in Shawn's apartment, and our more recent fun in the hotel the day we arrived in Oppidum. As Bem approached Fidum, I held a mental image of the lean man from the hotel session. Specifically of him clinging to my body, like a chimp to a tree, while Shawn fucked his ass. The session had been wildly erotic for me, even though I wasn't a direct participant in the sex during that stage of it.
Shawn sensed my worry and felt my sexual energy. He grabbed my hand and hissed, "not the time." Neb spoke up like she had been prompted by Shawn's words, reminding me to leave an opening in the box for the comm signal. I wrestled my mind away from the memory of sex as I watched Bem confer with Fidum on the other side of my magic.
Bem knocked on the front of the box, and his voice came through the comm. "He says the king is inside the statue head and it's almost a thousand steps up. Twenty-minutes isn't enough."
Neb gave him the `just a sec' finger again. I pulled my comm unit from my ear and closed it in my hand so only those inside the box would hear me as I made a suggestion. "I can send them to the top if that will help." I offered.
Neb gave my idea to Bem, and Bem checked with Fidum to make sure there was access into the statue head from the top of the mountain. There was. The new plan was for them to ride one of my platforms to the top and walk down. Bem's new time limit was three hours as long as he checked in at least every ten minutes and responded if Neb called him. I made a platform and Bem guided an excited Fidum onto it. I sent them up and watched as they walked from my platform onto the flat mountaintop and out of sight. I released the magic of the platform and settled in to wait with the others.
In spite of the bizarre turn of events, no one spoke. We couldn't. We had to stay silent so we could hear Bem's regular check in over the comm, or in case he cried out in an emergency. We sat on the ground and waited impatiently. Cy and Vulp sat back-to-back, using each other to lean against. Shawn and I sat next to each other. I shed my helmet and picked at the yellow scrub, tearing bits off and tossing them away until Shawn scolded me for `hurting' a plant.
I felt freshly insane. We'd all expected to encounter immediate, heavy resistance as soon as we breached the barrier. Instead, we encountered a warm welcome and a public art installation. I struggled to keep my mouth shut. I wanted so badly to voice my thoughts to see if the rest of the team was as unnerved as I was, but I knew we needed quiet.
"What's that word?" Shawn pulled his comm unit from his ear and whispered to me after many minutes had passed. "That word you gave Bem, what is that?"
"It's a place on Earth, a big waterfall."
"Why did you pick it?"
"It was kind of a joke."
"Why is that funny?" Shawn asked.
I shushed him. "Shhh, we're gonna get in trouble. Look in my memories. I'll give you a hint, Abbott and Costello."
Shawn nodded and started to think. I went back to picking at the scrub until Shawn scowled at me again. I switched to eating nuts and playing with my watch and trying not to question my mental state.
Minutes crawled by. I looked at the barrier and noticed how it swirled on the inside as much as it did on the outside. I also noticed that, in spite of the fact that we couldn't see the sky, the sunlight penetrated the barrier as if the yellow dome wasn't there at all. The light caused our long, early-morning shadows to shorten as the sun that we couldn't see climbed into the sky. It also fell on the grinning face of the statue as the great stone man looked due east, into the rising sun.
I shifted my attention to the massive statue and wondered about it. I wondered who it was, who had carved it, and why. The stone man had a kind, fatherly quality about him. He looked like a man that would help you carry something if he saw you struggling, or dust you off if you fell. He looked like someone who would offer you a hug if he thought you needed one. He looked like someone whose arms would make you feel safe and warm and maybe even loved. I wondered again who he was. The scale of his body was unusual based on the people I'd met on Solum. Dressed differently, he could have been a stereotypical lumberjack, powerful upper body, big hard belly, and thick legs. I imagined he had a deep, gravelly voice.
My mind wandered as I looked at the statue and the sheer lunacy of the situation that I was in hit me again. What the fuck is going on here? Where's the why?'' I asked myself to parrot a conversation I'd had with Neb when she first showed us the Demon's Citadel mountain. `Why all this? Why the statue and the happy welcome and where the fuck is the magic going and all the rest of it? Why? None of this makes any sense. Maybe I really am dreaming all this, but I don't think even drugs could make me crazy enough to imagine anything as nuts as that fucking statue and the guy in white who wanted to hug us for showing up to kill him. I feel like I'm on the wrong side of the mirror.'
Shawn burst out laughing, seemingly for no reason. His hysterics stopped my internal monologue and drew my attention down from the statue. The Dux brothers, and I stared at him. Neb shouted his name through a mean glare. Shawn clamped his mouth shut and tried to apologize through beet red mortification. Neb shushed him again and went back to listening for Bem. I leaned in to whisper directly in his ear. "You found it, didn't you?"
He nodded and whispered back. "Costello is in jail with the bum."
I almost laughed at my own recollection of the very funny routine. I mouthed `I'm sorry,' and put my arm around him. He leaned into me, and we went back to being bored.
**AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you haven't seen the Abbott and Costello routine mentioned in this chapter, I highly recommend it. Search Abbott and Costello, Niagara Falls. It should be around six minutes long.