Volume
One: The Road Out
Chapter Two
Verse One: No Going Home
Marion managed to trudge out to the
alleyway before he started to quietly cry. He looked around the
alleyway. Seeing the poster with its secret agent in Dark Glasses and
a dark suit and tie, Marion clenched his teeth and threw his
sleeping bag at the poster.
"I didn't ask to hallucinate a
whole pile a inane nonsense! I don't need to be seeing arsonist
pheasants and space spiders and wannabe secret agents and knock-off
Narnias with special zombies!"
The sleeping bag unfurled and flopped
to the ground like a giant piece of red bubble gum. Marion slumped
over and dropped onto his knees on the sleeping bag. He knelt, crying
quietly.
"Well I screwed that up royally.
My life was crappy enough as it was. I was just barely holding it
together. And now it’s all broken. I didn't have big dreams. I
wasn't going to be the next Peter Jackson. I wasn't even going to be
the next Roger Ebert. But I could have run a successful movie and
book blog. I could have built a nice little commentary and review
site and been clever and snarky and had people pay me to write stuff.
But apparently that was more than you guys wanted to give me. I get
to go insane prophet at the worst possible time. So now what? Are you
happy? Or do you want to kick me again?"
Movement drew Marion's attention from
the poster. As he focused his vision, he caught a glimpse of another
government agent watching him. Marion blinked and the figure was
gone.
"Typical. Rodney Dangerfield would
pity me for the amount of respect the universe accords me."
"Did you ever ask why the universe
if doing this?"
"Why bother? Wait." Marion
answered and then stopped suddenly and stood up looking around wildly
for the source of the new voice. The Alley remained empty.
"I'm afraid I don't have the
luxury of waiting. You think the universe is kicking you. Have you
ever considered the possibility that you are not being kicked, but
rather nudged?"
"Nudged? This was one hell of a
nudge. I now own precisely thirteen things in this world if you count
each sock and shoe as a separate item and also include my overdrawn
bank account and soon to be cancelled credit card. What's the
universe do for an encore? Kill all my family members, because I
don't even know where you'd look for them. I guess my family was
round one and this was round two, right? Maybe a warrant for my
arrest? Maybe give me malignant cancer? What's round three?"
"You keep saying 'universe', you
should be saying 'story'."
Marion kept spinning and suddenly saw
the delivery guy from the bookstore standing at the entrance to the
alley in his tweed jacket and red shirt. Marion noticed this time,
that the man had a gold lapel pin of a bird on the left lapel.
"It is you. Why are you doing this
to me? What are you doing? What is this? If this is a story, why are
you stealing all the most cliche elements from every other story?"
"Not cliche, archetypal."
"Great you're going to ruin my
life because we disagree on literary semantics."
"Stories are cyclical. Each
telling creates the story anew in the mind of the audience, who tells
it again. Stories resurrect themselves. The phoenix and the story are
the same. Unless the story is lost."
"Of course a brain tumour of mine
would cause me to hallucinate an argumentative literary god. I'm
going to die while engaging in critical discourse with an amalgam of
every pretentious classmate and professor I ever had. Brilliant."
"Everyone dies. The stupid error
of this age is to chase immortality, burning the future to prolong
the present. This is what life is like without a story. This is what
life will look like if the story remains lost."
The air around Marion shimmered and the
terrain altered. The location was the same, but buildings were ruined
and abandoned, police tape festooned every outcropping and no window
remained unbroken. Orange traffic cone and orange plastic safety
barricades. Several trash cans burned in the distance. Building were
stained white with ash from fires and bullet marks cut pockmarked
lines across most facades.
In front of Marion, in place of the
delivery man was a young girl. She was maybe fifteen or sixteen years
old with short black hair and a pleasantly cute round face. she was
dressing brown with a red spider web logo on her hooded sweater. She
wore a reflective orange vest on over top her sweater.
"You came back." She said, "I
didn't think you would. Where's Walker?:
"Okay, I don't think we've met
before. At least not from my point of view."
"I don't understand. We have met,
that's not a question."
"I've been hallucinating a lot of
things lately, but I haven't hallucinated you or the city in ruins
before. This is new."
"Then how have I met you?"
"It's a time travel paradox thing.
So when I hallucinate you again, I'll be able to use the stuff I know
from this conversation to help you."
"But this isn't a hallucination,
and I need help now. The factions are at war. the refugees are piling
up. People are dying. I know this hasn't happened yet in your time
Dreamer. But please, I need help. You said that the secret was to
save First Mother and keep her story true. Have you done that yet?"
"This is the first I've heard of
it. But I promise I'll do my best."
"No, you must do better. You swore
to my mother upon your place in the story. You must do this or what
you see will come to pass."
"Wait, what?" Marion said.
But as he spoke, the girl and the post-apocalyptic future version of
the city faded away.
Marion shook his head. The world again
looked normal.
"If this was a movie, I'd shoot
the director." Marion muttered, "So what are the chances
that, in denial of all physical realities and all known laws of
science, I am in fact having a series of mystic visions of some sort
of magical European past and also some sort of cliched
post-apocalyptic future? Let's see. Zombies that they refuse to call
zombies? Check. Quest to save a chosen child? Check. Evil Empire
oppressing people? Check. Secret CIA clone looking agent-esque secret
police? Check. Heavy symbolism? Check. Oblique references to rebel
and/or noble savage resistance forces? Check. Post Apocalyptic
setting? Check. Anachronistic faux Europe fantasy setting? Check.
Prophecies that foretell what must be done? Check. If this is real,
then I have having visions of the most cliched mystic vision quest
ever conceived. If it's hallucinations brought on by a brain tumour,
well it doesn't say great things for the originality of my
sub-conscious either. But hallucination girl is right, first good
advice I've received from these things. I do need to do better. Okay,
I'm in trouble and I've got no options. What can I do? Who can I turn
to in my time of need?"
Marion nodded to himself and reached
into his pocket. He picked up his phone and selected his first saved
contact.
The phone rang once and then a familiar
voice answered, "This is Harley, I can hear you."
Harley listened as marion poured out
everything that had gone wrong in the brief time since they'd spoken
last. He listened as Marion explained the escalating visions that
were probably just hallucinations. He listened as marion explained
the horrible chain of misfortune that led to his firing. He listened
as Marion talked about the weird bits with the Salt family where it
seemed like his hallucinations might mean something. Harley listened.
He didn't interrupt, just occasionally asked questions to make sure
he understood what Marion was trying to convey. He didn't mock Marion
or dismiss anything that Marion said. He just listened.
"So what do I do?" Marion
asked as he finished.
"You bunk at my place until you
get back on your feet."
"No, bad idea." Marion
immediately objected, "Amy doesn't like me. You've said yourself
your landlady doesn't like me. And I know things are tight with you
as well."
"I hear what you're saying Marion,
but I'm not leaving you to sleep in the park and I don't have any
other way to help you. My family doesn't live anywhere near close
enough to help and you don't have any family left to ask to help.
We'll have to work around my landlady. And Amy will have to manage."
"Amy doesn't manage. She could
part the harbour waters by deciding she wanted to walk out to a boat
without getting wet."
"Be reasonable Marion. She's not
that bad."
"Me staying at your place is going
to place all kinds of stress on your life that you aren't really safe
to carry." Marion argued, "I don't want to be the dead beat
friend who screws up his buddy's romantic comedy dynamic. Your
landlord will want to raise the rent if she finds out there's an
extra person. And you talk about how the changing technology is
shaking up your industry and nothing is safe, like everyone is afraid
that they're going to make Skynet or turn machines self aware or
summon the Borg from Delta Quadrant or something like that."
"Marion, your other alternative is
to sleep under a tree in the park. and I can't do that to my friend.
You're crashing on my couch while you look for a new job."
Marion took a breath and smiled,
"Thanks. Now the only question is whether I should be more
concerned with possibility that I have a brain tumour or the
possibility that I'm the chosen hero of a fantasy shadow world."
Harley laughed quietly on the other
line, "Well if you're a mythic hero of fantasy land we'll know
when the mystic warriors bust down our door."
"Wow," Marion said, "Why
don't you just cap it off by asking what else can go wrong?"
* * *
The two knights of Purity knelt in the
throne room of the Locust King.
"A man appears and summons twin
tomahawks, the weapons of the Dreamer. The Dreamer! And you let him
get away?"
"There was a wendigo as well
Majesty. It killed one of our number. The stranger assisted us. But
it couldn't have been the actual dreamer, he was no where near
skilled enough with the weapons to be the Dreamer." The older
soldier said.
The captive wizard Myrddhin stood to
The Locust King's left, dressed in black with a cloak that was lined
inside with a design of stars and screaming faces. As the soldiers
waited, Myrddhin leaned in, "Perhaps the dreamer is early in his
path, a novice yet. And without the Walker beside him, he is no
threat. Perhaps more pressing is the threat of Blackhart and his
alliance of tribes. Reports say that Blackhart's savages have
ambushed three expeditionary forces into the lowlands. We have no
credible maps of the area and do not known where his villages are
hiding. We cannot beat him if we cannot meet him on the battlefield."
"And Blackhart cannot strike at
our centre or do enough damage to stop our expansion. He's nothing
more than a delay. And you call him savage? As though you aren't one
yourself? That's the genius of the Empire Myrddhin, sooner or later
everyone becomes a citizen of the Empire. Where's the Bone Man? I
want the Dreamer dealt with before he can reach full potential. That
grubby little insurrectionist is not stealing my children. The line
will remain unbroken and Mordred will ascend to my throne after I
have finished my rule."
"Do you really think this is a
matter requiring the Bone Man? I could send a contingent of the
Knights of Purity after them. Why bother the Bone Man?"
"I know the stories Myrddhin. You
know the stories. Do not underestimate him because of his current
condition, that is the mistake of advisors the world over. Do not
allow prophecies to be fulfilled. Prophecies are created by people
who need change. We are in power and so any prophecy will not benefit
us. And so we must oppose the prophecy as soon as we hear a whisper
of it."
"As you say my lord, but I think
of other stories where the King did indeed try to prevent the
prophecy early and in so doing caused the prophecy to come to pass."
"That is a risk, of course. That's
why I'm sending the Bone Man and not just a few of his knights."
Myrddhin nodded and stepped back. The
Locust King looked down at the two Knights.
"Send word to your commander. I
want him to lead a detachment of his best personally to find and
eliminate this nascent Storyteller and his counterpart. He may take
as many as he needs, but he must finish the job. Myrddhin. Send for
Lord Dracha and Lady Cinnabar, we will have to adjust for the loss of
the Bone Man and his elite in the coming skirmishes with Blackhart.
And have Morrigan bring my son to the hall, I want Mordred to see
this. He will king one day and should not cling so close to his
mother's apron."
