Connections

It may be because we’ve so recently passed through here, but the trip back to Freedom’s Pass leaves me with the strange sensation of being stuck in a time warp. The sheer monotony of the surroundings doesn’t help. Everything between the canyon walls is the same flat, uniform brown.  We ride in oppressive, empty silence, broken only by the hum of the skiff’s engine and the whistle of warm wind in my ears. None of us feel much like talking.

A solitary ridge comes into view in the distance. I feel a calling, a tug, toward this lonely outcropping; the only change of scenery I’ve seen in hours.  The others must feel it, too; Grace guides the skiff in that direction almost subconsciously. Our eyes are drawn to the silhouette of a tree on the top of the ridge. The dark outline seems to grow unnaturally in size and prominence as we approach.  With each passing moment, the tree appears more twisted and contorted.  It’s long, barren branches reach skyward, and sigh with the wind, as if calling out to something.  The withered bark is blackened with some combination of age, decay, and fire.  As I stand staring at this blackened husk, something about it calls to mind the shining tree I saw when Tess, Elias, Dr. Mendoza and I met the Queen in White. And the symbol we discover at the base of the tree - a soot outline of a hand with a wound across the palm - brings Alastor to mind.

Suddenly the silence that had been merely unsettling deepens to deafening. The wind stops, and the branches are still. I get the feeling that the world around us is waiting for something to happen.

A caw echoes in the distance. The restless call should be enough to break the spell of the moment, but instead it intensifies it.

Suddenly, I’m struck with the eerie feeling we’re being watched.

Grace must feel it, too. She smiles wryly and shakes her head. "I guess it would have been too much to expect things to stay simple for more than a day or so...
Stay close. We're stronger together."

A soft chuckle floats down from the twisted branches of the tree. We instinctively look up, and are greeted by an unnaturally wide, bleached-bone grin.  With some difficulty, I manage to focus on the source of the smile. The shadowy figure peers down at us from his perilous perch high above.  Most of his body is obscured by shadow and branches, and the upper part of his face is hidden by long mats of what I can only assume used to be hair.  The figure begins to speak

"Of course not.  Normal being relative, mind you. After all, you lot - you're so very... 'special'."

“Special,” I find myself musing out loud. “That's a good way to describe it. I always have been, whether I wanted it or not.”

The figure shifts almost inperceptively in my direction,  and continues.

"I fear that we may have gotten off on the wrong hand, you and I.  I'm just here because I was... called.  Same as you. I'm just here to watch.  And out of... curiosity, of course."

Two responses cross my mind. The first, I hear myself say out loud.
“Called... by whom?”

"By the man upstairs," the grinning figure answers audibly, in a sing-song voice. “Or,   by the woman in the earth.  Under the glass canopy."

In my head, I connect the grinning shadow to the entity calling itself Chaos; the Chaos that came unbidden recently into the place I keep my innermost thoughts. My second, unspoken thought, is in response to that.
“ We'll be fine as long as you don't mess with my memories. I'm a little protective of them.”
Almost simultaneously, the mysterious figure acknowledges my mental response, and we fall into conversation only the two of us can hear.
“Your memories are your own, Delilah. I've no interest in the past.”
“Just setting boundaries. That's all.”
“Setting boundaries is a dangerous precedent. Expectations exist to be shattered. Like so very many things. I'm not there, or here.”
The grinning figure shifts slightly, and continues.
“Poor lass. Always on the precipice, never on the ground. Always a bridesmaid, never the bride. But that's changing.”
“What do you mean? What's changing?” I ask, glancing around to assure myself no one else is hearing this.
“Everything, and nothing. All marches onward, it all beats in turn. But you've heard this song before, haven't you?”
“What's the old saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  I answer with a petulant half-laugh. I think about it a second, and then add “Things are different here, though. And so am I.”
The grin spreads chillingly wide, and for the first time, appears menacing. “Not for long. Things are just beginning, now.”
He pauses for a moment, the grin shifting back to something more resembling a smile.
“Ohhh... shh-shh-shh-shh.  We mustn't get upset. There are... matters.”
“I'm not upset,” I reply in confusion. “Just... curious.”
“Not you, silly molly,” The figure smiles and extends a finger towards me. I eye it warily.
“Who else could you be talking to? The others can't hear this, remember?”
The shadow tilts it’s head, looking at me in mock confusion. “How easily you forget.”
I fidget, instinctively crossing my arms over my stomach. “Forget? No. I'm pretty good at remembering, actually.”
The figure smiles. “Good. You know... you are the first to... speak... to me.”
“I try to be friendly.” I grin, relieved the conversation has turned back to me. “I'm also a fairly good listener.”
“I've no doubt... I'm sure you are. But you cling to things, don't you? Fine tatters that define who we are, and who we will become.”
“Certain things are important to me, yes. I have responsibilities.”
“And what sort?” The figure inquires, the grin stretching too far again.
“To the past, and the future. I have to protect the things that have been entrusted to me.”
“Protect them... from what?” The figure shifts again, and part of it flutters oddly, almost glitching.
I smile wryly. “Not exactly sure yet. But, I definitely smell danger. Then again, I have been known to overreact.”
The grin’s laughter cascades down through the branches. “Danger is as danger does.
I smell the wind, and the wind is beneath everything. You smell it too, don't you?” The shadow man peers at me from behind his long hair with an eye that I suddenly notice is too large and silvery white. “I see the moon... and the moon sees me.”
I laugh nervously. “The moon, huh?”
“Yes... He sees you. He sees everything that you do, and hears everything that you think.”
“I know that.”
“...Do you? And yet, he hides from you. He hides beneath your footsteps. He hides in the wind. I am the wind. I do not hide.” The figure points downward. “ It waits for you, also. She waits for you.”
“He only hides from himself. If he didn't want to interfere, I wouldn't be here.”
A laughter that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere erupts above me.
I think for a moment. “She? You mean, the thing he showed us that looked like Persephone?”
At the name 'Persephone', the laughter suddenly ceases. The figure tilts its head again, and the single eye peers intently at me. “What make you, of that? What manner of obscure dialect would conjure such a thing? What do the voices in your head tell you, Delilah?”
“It's not Persephone. It may look like her, but it isn't. Grace thought it was Sophia, but she was wrong. Sophia didn't dream the world. Lucifer did.”
“Hmm. You're wrong, you know. Lucifer didn't dream the world.”
“ I've been wrong before. Enlighten me. On... this subject specifically. Gotta be careful with comments like that.”
I begin to hear a faint humming, almost like a ringing in my ear. The sound grows louder, and more insistent, until it becomes a thrumming buzz that seems to echo and reverberate through my entire head. I feel something warm trickling from my nose. “Lucifer didn't dream the world, child. I did.”
The grin widens to a nightmarish degree, and I feel panic rising.
“Stop... you're hurting me...” I find myself crying out before I can regain my composure.
“You?” I inquire, once I’ve collected myself a little. My willingness to hear him out seems to placate him, because soon the buzzing has vanished, and the world is still again.
“Me. I.”
“Thank you,” I say, wiping the blood from my nose. I find myself unsure, however, exactly what I’m thanking him for. The figure seems to sense my confusion, and smiles.
“Human frailty is such a... beautiful thing, don't you think? What good is a flower that never changes, never withers and dies? That never blossoms into... something else.”
“I follow your logic so far...”
“Logic?” the shadow man laughs. “As the cow cries.”
I eye the figure quizzically. “Okay...”
The figure moves a hand, and I hear something fall at my feet. I look down to discover a small piece of chalk. I laugh softly to myself, and pick it up.
“Onward, Crucian soldier,” Chaos says, grinning wryly. “Your time is nearly up.”
“Perhaps for now. But the fun is just starting. Any other... tidbits of knowledge you care to share before I must take my leave?”
“Mark of fourteen. Two and two are one.”
“I don't follow. But, I love a puzzle. I'm going to rejoin the others now, but I'm sure we'll speak again soon.” I grasp the chalk tightly in my hand, and feel the connection break. The others are still standing around me, and the shadowy figure is still addressing us from his perch on the branches.
"What secrets lie within?  Be it boon, or bane?  Weal, or woe?  Only one way to know for sure, and that's to go."
Suddenly, there is a flurry of beating wings and a peal of mad laughter. The figure vanishes, and is replaced with thousands of winged creatures, moving too quickly and erratically to identify. The cloud of creatures dissipates skyward, and is gone. All is still again.

A tense discussion breaks out among the others as to what our next move should be. They all seem really uncertain of what to do. I'm more aware of the weight of Chaos' chalk in my hand than the actual content of the conversation, however. I know what I want to do, but I’m pretty sure the others have to agree before it will work.

I sit quietly, until it feels like the general consensus is leaning toward investigation. Once the chance arises, I make my offer.
“I think I can get us in there.”
“Alright,” Grace says. “Let's do it.”

I approach the tree, and touch the chalk to the trunk. The trail of white left behind by the chalk becomes a door in my mind, and the line begins to glow with white light.  As I complete the rectangular outline, I close my eyes.  My hand moves instinctively to where my mind thinks the control panel on the imagined door should be, and I realize I’m touching the drawing of the hand on the tree. For a split second, what I feel under my hand is not the rough bark I know is there, but cold steel.

My eyes flicker open to the sight of the horizon rushing toward us. A shockwave of light and silence overtakes us, and the combination of physical force and blinding flash forces me to close my eyes again.


The next thing I see is a steel platform with seven bridges radiating from it. Immediately, I know exactly where we are; Arcadia, just before the fall. We’re looking at the bridges in City Prime; the ones where the last battle with the Core took place. A young female figure staggers toward the center of the platform, looking as unsteady as the bridge she walks on.
“Father!” The girl cries out, the pain evident on her tear-streaked face.
“Persephone,” I hear myself whisper.
“Who was her father, Delilah?” Grace asks quietly.
I hesitate for a moment, trying to think of how best to explain.
“Abraxas, right?” Frac prompts, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“Yeah, as far as we could ever figure out,” I answer. “All we really ever knew for certain is that she wasn’t exactly human.”
I see Grace’s eyes drift inadvertently toward my abdomen.
“Yeah, I know,” i say, catching her gaze.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Grace looks away awkwardly.
“No, it’s okay. I worry, too.” I say, hopeful that hearing me voice my concerns will assuage her embarrassment.
The vision of Persephone in City Prime has faded, and we find ourselves in a dark hallway. What light there is reflects dimly off the dull steel walls. Broken glass crunches under our feet as we move forward. This place still feels like Arcadia, but I can’t seem to pinpoint what part.  Frac must think we’re in Arcadia as well; he eyes me nervously, and shifts to put Mercury between us.
“This isn’t anything I’m doing,” I say testily.
“Just taking precautions,” Frac shrugs. I sigh and roll my eyes. How many times do I have to apologize for something I had no control over? Doesn’t he realize how infuriating it is to have that mishap thrown in my face every time we see something to do with Arcadia?
Still fuming, I volunteer to scout ahead with Mercury, on the theory that he and I have the best vision in the low light.  The carpet of detritus gets thicker as we make our way down the hallway. Metal and glass crunch under my feet, and the smell of mouldy paper fills my nostrils. A faint glow seeps under the door at the end of the hallway, and I can hear what sounds like the buzz of a fluorescent light. The door is open, so Mercury and I go inside.
The room looks to be a laboratory of some sort. Papers, broken instruments, and other debris cover the floor. A control panel sits in the center of the room, the display busted. Against the wall are two empty large glass tubes. Genesis chambers. A chill hits me as I finally realize where we are.
“This is the Devil’s Nursery,” I say, more to myself than anyone else, as I step toward the tubes to examine the identification plate between them.
I run my hand over the smooth brass of the plate. Any writing was worn away long ago. Something in the back of my mind keeps insisting there’s a significance to this room I’m not grasping yet. I take another look around, trying to see what I’ve missed.
Finally, it clicks. The broken control panel, the cracked Genesis tubes; this is the room where we found the clones of...
“Daniel,” I gasp, stumbling back. The unbroken tube fills with swirling blue fog which solidifies into the figure of a young boy. He looks much as I remember him. Something about him feels other, though; as if what I’m seeing is some odd mixture of the Daniel I loved and the clone that became the Maitreya.
I sense, rather than see, Mercury step up beside me.  
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly, aiming his gun at the tube.
I nod, and step a little forward.
“Hello, Daniel,” I say, finding myself oddly comforted by the close proximity of Mercury and his gun.

“Was he yours?” Grace asks quietly, coming up behind us.
“No. Not mine, really.  He lived with me and Atravitus, and I took care of him, but he wasn’t exactly my son.”
“What happened to him?”
I open my mouth to try to explain, but I can’t find the words. A blur of memories overtakes me. Daniel, sick in his bed, calling me to read to him. Recognizing his face in the painting of the Maitreya we found hanging in the chapel. Discovering the clones of him in this room. The Maitreya crawling out of the pit, only to be killed by the only father either of us had ever known.  
“You tried your best. That’s all you could do,” Grace says, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“My best wasn’t good enough,” I reply, fixing my gaze on the ground.
“Sometimes that happens.” Grace reminds me softly.
“You let me down, Delilah,” The boy’s voice is more the Maitreya’s than Daniel’s, but it’s still recognizable.  “Are you going to let me down again?”
“I’m going to do everything I can not to,” I answer honestly, looking him in the eye again.
“What makes you think this time is going to be any different? What’s coming is much bigger than anything you’ve faced before. It’s bigger than you can even imagine.”
“Daniel, I’ve traveled with Delilah my whole life.” Grace interrupts when I can’t find an answer. “ I know that hasn’t been long, but in that time, I’ve seen her learn and grow more than most people do in a lifetime.”
“Let’s go,” Frac calls out from a little behind us. “Let the baby pout.”
“He’s lashing out because he’s hurting, Frac,” Grace replies. “ I want to help him if we can.”
“What do you want, Daniel?” I ask, stepping forward and putting a hand on the tube.
“I want to be somewhere else,” He answers sadly in a voice that for a split second, belongs completely to the Daniel I knew.
“I promise I’m going to do whatever I can to bring you peace,”  I say quietly.
“There’s only one thing that can bring me peace.” Daniel answers, his tone harsh again.
“I can send him somewhere else, Delilah,” Mercury reminds me. “I can erase this memory. It’s what I do.”
I look at Daniel. Even if I could bring myself to let Mercury erase him, it wouldn’t change his torment. It would just stop me from remembering it. I’m going to need all my memories. Even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones.
“It’s a part of what’s still inside you,” I hear Alastor’s voice in my head. Like so much of what he’s told me, that phrase could mean a number of things. I don’t have time to sort it all out at the moment, so I file it under ‘things to think about later.’ That part of my brain is uncomfortably full these days.
“No, Mercury,” I say decisively, turning back to the matter at hand. “ I want to keep this memory. I can’t forget him.”
“Then, I will always be here,” I hear Daniel say sullenly in the background.
“That’s fine,” Mercury looks me in the eye, ignoring Daniel.  “Just remember, Delilah; you chose to remember this. You control it.”
I know that’s basically what everyone’s been trying to tell me all along, but somehow it clicks with me this time in a way it never has before. Arcadia is a part of me now, and it’s only as real as I allow it to be.
“Let’s keep going,” I say, turning toward the exit.

As we continue down the hallway, I position myself so that Mercury is between me and Frac. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m surprised and a little hurt that he doesn’t notice I’m trying to play by his rules.

Gradually, the buzzing fluorescent lights and rusting steel of the abandoned Devil’s Nursery give way to worked stone. The doors lining the hallway shift from steel to wood. I’m pretty sure this isn’t Arcadia anymore.
One of the doors ahead seems to stand out from the others. Something about it gives me the creeps. Looks like we’ve found our next stop.
Grace walks up to the door, looking as uneasy as I feel, and tries the handle. It takes a few tries, but the wooden door finally creaks open. On the other side is a place with which Grace is intimately familiar. It’s the front room of the small house she shared with James and Jennika; the room that later became Adam’s cell.

We follow Grace in, looking for occupants in the dim light, but finding none. The smell of sickness hangs heavy in the air. Grace walks to the center of the empty room and stands defiantly.
“Why?” Grace clenches her fists. “Why am I here again?”
It’s hard to watch her like this. I know how it feels to be stuck reliving the moment when your world fell apart.
“Maybe we should go,” Mercury suggests, moving closer to Grace.
“No,” Grace answers firmly. “There’s something I need to learn here.”
Suddenly, the shadows in the room seem to coalesce around Mercury, wrapping around him almost like chains. Grace reaches for him, but Mercury disappears, pulled down into the shadows.
We all look around for a moment, unsure of what to do. This is the Hellscape, so he’ll be back. Right?
Another figure steps out of the darkness. It isn’t Mercury, but it is someone we’re all familiar with; some of us more than others.
“James,”  Grace looks at him, love obvious in her eyes. The thought crosses my mind that I’ve never had that, and it saddens me to see how much she’s lost.
“Grace... I’m really glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.” Grace looks sadly at him.
“What’s wrong?” James looks into Grace’s eyes and takes her hand.
“James, you’re dead...”
“No, Grace,” James smiles,  “You’re confused. You’re the one who died. But you’re back now. And everything’s okay.”
“No, James. You’re the one who’s gone.” Grace looks away, letting go of James’ hand.  “Things got bad, and a lot of people didn’t make it. I’ll always love you, and I’ll always remember you.”
“Of course, Grace. I’ll always love you, too.”
Grace closes her eyes, and James fades away into dust.

As Grace looks at the space where James just was, Mercury steps back out of the shadows to rejoin us.
“Did you miss me?” He smirks.
“Of course,” Frac grins.
“No you didn’t,” Mercury rebutts matter-of-factly.
A moment later, a voice calls from the other side of the room.
“Mom?” the voice sounds weak, as if the speaker has been ill for some time. We look toward the source of the voice, and see Jennika sitting on the bed in the corner. Her face is pale, her eyes look tired. The bed is tousled, as if Jennika has been trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable for a while.
Grace walks over to the bed and sits by Jennika.
“Did you love me?” Jennika asks accusingly.
“Of course I did!” Grace responds, obviously hurt by the question. “You were everything to me.”
“Do you miss me?” Jennika’s tone is softer this time.
“I think about you every day.” Grace answers, putting an arm around Jennika’s shoulders.
“Are you happy with the choice you made?” Jennika answers in a voice not completely hers. She gazes intently at Grace, waiting for her answer.
“I made the only choice I could. And you’ll always be a part of me.” Grace moves to embrace Jennika, but her arms find nothing but open air.  Grace stands, and straightens the covers on the bed just as the bed, too, fades away.
The room shifts slightly, and the light becomes even more dim and ominous. Writing spiders across the walls, until they are covered in cramped scrawl. The scent of the air changes from sickly to stale as the room morphs into the space we’ve come to recognize as Adam’s cell.
We look around the room, expecting to find Adam, but he is nowhere to be seen. What we do notice is a prominent strange symbol on the opposite wall. As we examine it, trying to remember why it feels so familiar, the symbol stretches and expands into a hole.


We step back, and watch as a figure emerges from the hole. It’s a tall, beautiful woman who feels quite familiar, at least to me. She glows, just like the tree I remember seeing with Tess and Elias and Quovardis and Dr. Mendoza.

“You’re... the Queen,” Grace speaks up first.
“Yes,” she responds with a smile.
“Are the others okay?”  Mercury asks, voicing the question that’s on the tip of my tongue. Lenore and Tess have been on my mind a lot lately.
“They’re under my wing.” the Queen responds softly.
“And us?” Grace asks.
“You’re protected, too, though it isn’t the kind of protection I would have offered.”
“He’s not all bad.” I respond, jumping to the defense of the part of the King I’m still convinced is the Alastor I knew.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” the Queen says, rather tersely.
“We’re not your enemies,” Grace assures her.
The Queen smiles sadly. “Tell me, what would you do if the only way to save the world was to kill me?”
“I’d look as hard as I could for another way,” Grace answers. “Any other way.”

The Queen smiles again, and with a quiet sigh, turns and walks away. As she fades back into the wall, something falls from her hand and rolls across the floor. Grace follows the sound, and finds a marble on the floor. The smooth glass sphere shines even in the dim light. Deep inside, however, is something like a cat’s eye, if the pupil were composed of  a turbulent storm. The marble seems to grow as we look into it, until it becomes the size of a crystal ball. Suddenly, we can see the Queen’s chosen standing with Millennium in Megathelema.

“There’s something I want you all to see,” Millennium says. as he ushers the others down a dim hallway. They follow the twists and turns of the corridor deeper and deeper underground, never encountering anyone else.   The hall ends at a metal door that looks to be twice as tall as anyone in the party, and my guess would be just as thick. It takes Millennium a few moments to deal with the numerous safeguards and security measures sealing the door, but eventually it swings open.  The room inside is cavernous; the opposite wall is barely visible, and the ceiling rises into blackness. In the center of the room is a colossal machine that reminds me of a an icon. Attached to the machine is an even larger female figure, head bowed, arms folded, eyes closed as if asleep.
“Why are you showing us this?” I hear Elias ask.
“Because we’ve already seen it.”  Dr. Mendoza answers.
“The Queen,” Quovardis concurs.
“Yes,” Millennium agrees.  “She’s our Goddess. Everything about this world... Icons, the noesphere, every single poe... works because of her.”
“You do realize she’s not the only power in this world, don’t you?” Lenore quips.
“We’re beginning to see that, yes.” Millennium answers, not amused. “Things are changing, and we’re not exactly sure how. But, we think you are connected to it.”


We are pulled back from the vision and find ourselves outside the tree.  Before we even have time to catch our breath, however, we find ourselves in a different vision, this one from Alastor. The fallen rubble of Arcadia lies around us, and there on the ground, is a female body. Only, it isn’t the body I expect to see. On closer inspection, it’s Persephone, not me.
“But, before, it was you we saw fall...” Grace turns to me, confused.
“Yeah, I know,” I answer. “I don’t understand it either.”
As we watch, Alastor walks slowly toward the still body. He moves his hands as if reaching into her, and when he raises them again, he is holding a ball of light and shadow. He watches it for a moment, as the energy inside it swirls and spins. Then, with a swift motion, Alastor separates his hands, rending the ball of energy asunder. He reaches one hand upward, sending half the swirling mass skyward. The other hand moves downward, burying that half of the energy deep into the earth.

“Why would he separate them again?” I ask, concluding that the object we had seen Alastor dealing with was the combined essence of Abraxis and Sophia that had been sealed into Persephone just before the fall. “That doesn’t make sense...”
We see a very similar scene play out before us again, only this time, Alastor doesn’t separate the swirling mass, he takes it over to a glass coffin. He stands for a moment, looking down at the figure inside, which I recognize as myself. He lowers his hands toward me, pushing the ball of energy into my body. I sigh and stir in my sleep, but do not wake.

We snap back to ourselves. I sit in quiet contemplation for a moment, pondering another mystery masquerading as a revelation.
“Delilah, your child... that child is everything,” Grace interrupts the silence. I smile. Grace may be more right than she knows. Everything I’ve seen points to my child having a strong connection to all the powerful forces in Arcadia: Persephone, the Maitreya, Abraxis, Sophia... And I’ve been in the middle of all of them since the first moment I can remember. Is that why this child and I ended up together?
I smile, and rest a hand on my stomach. “It’ s a big responsibility.”
“We’re not doing it alone,” Mercury looks at me with more concern than I’m used to seeing from him.  I find this some combination of heartwarming and unnerving. Did I miss something? He does realize I’m talking about my child, right? The one, not so long ago, he threatened to kill as soon as he deemed it a threat? And, I very much appreciate the offer of support from him, but I don’t think I like his invocation of Alastor in this situation. I want my child to be able to make it’s own decisions, and I have a feeling that might mean keeping Alastor’s influence on it to a minimum.
Something crackles behind us, and we feel a rush of heat. We turn to find the tree in flames. The fire doesn’t consume the tree, but it seems to change the atmosphere. We crawl onto the skiff, finally feeling free to move on.