© Copyright 2017 Douglas Christian Larsen. Rood Der.
Rood Der — Episode Eighteen: Cataclysm
Evening
drew nigh, the sun just faded, and the night birds were just beginning to sing,
with the nocturnal insects warming up their instruments. The mountains
reflected the last of the light in a luminous glow, and all the world stilled
at evening’s approach, with the Sister moons about to appear at either side of
the sky. Always the larger moon, the Honey Moon, the great blue moon, edged
into the sky first, and perhaps five minutes later the small green moon, the
Story Moon would rush into the sky, moving much more quickly than her larger
sister.
As the light of the sun faded two strange
creatures, shaped like men, met and gazed at each other in surprise. They
looked very much alike, although one was inhumanly white, while the other was
inhumanly black. They looked like sculptures of metal, or snow, but they were
very much alive, and they started when they saw each other, and then they
laughed. It was almost like one shape looking into a mirror, but which was the
image, and which the reality?
They embraced with equal force, and then
simultaneously, held each other back to fully appreciate the other, and then
they laughed again, but then, even without speaking, they looked as one at the
moons, and then, hand in hand, the black man and the white man began to run,
dashing at great speed.
Tonight, something was very different. This
evening, the Story Moon came rushing out upon the stage of night several
minutes prior to the appearance of the Honey Moon. And tonight the smaller,
green moon seemed to bob in its path, spinning somewhat erratically. Like a
drunkard tripping through the heavens, the Story Moon staggered and tripped. After
ten minutes of this racing display, the Story Moon seemed to increase in speed,
spinning even faster.
Very late, the Honey Moon finally appeared,
and she edged out shyly upon the stage of the sky, shining azure in the night.
She seemed to be moving slower than usual, and there seemed to be some great
disturbance on the surface of the moon, with flaring bursts of light appearing
like flowers. Usually the larger moon was faint, providing less light than the
Story Moon, with tints of shimmering purple, forming a soft indigo, but
tonight, she was deepest azure, and far more evident in the sky, as if she
edged closer to High Vale, or bloated from within, filling with lethal gases.
Wise men gathered, even prior to the Story Hour,
at the Congress of the Sisters, when the Sisters crossed in the sky, forming an
eye. The wise men gazed up, murmuring. It was strange, this sensation they all
felt, as if they had lived this before, and they knew something catastrophic
was brewing in the sky.
“This has happened before, three months ago,”
one of the taller men whispered. “I remember this.”
“I do, yes, I remember this,” a wise woman
spoke up, loudly. “We all remember this. It is the Cataclysm. It comes.”
“You two are being silly,” a much older wise
man spoke, striding out into the night upon his short cane. “Things do not
repeat. Every night is new.”
“You were killed,” another wise man said, “I
remember it, a flaming ball of light skipped across the grounds here, bouncing,
and when it passed close, you were running, and you were killed, out there,
between the river and the trees.”
“Yes,” the first wise man said, “that is how
it happened, but it was the second time. And each time, although the vast
configuration is the same, the details do not have to be. Brother, do not run
for the river this evening, but stay here in the group with us.”
The older wise man looked serious. He began
to tell a jest, but then paused, looking up. He felt it as well. This had all
happened before. He felt an overwhelming urge to run for the river—but he
halted himself, and stood with the others, legs trembling. This could not be
true, it could not be real, and yet, he felt, somehow, that it was all
happening, again. There was nothing they could do to halt the approaching
events.
At the great cave of the Wee Folk, the bees
were out, buzzing in a great black mass of cloud, writhing. The Wee Folk were
out, as well, watching the moons approach.
“It is coming, again, do you not sense this?”
an ancient honeykeeper called above the murmur of the Folk.
“It is important,” Lady Celestaer cried above
the murmuring, “that we all stay here at the cave. Do not run into the forest.
Do not mount any bumblebee. Soothe them, and bring them inside our fortress.”
And the Wee Folk, casting uneasy glances up
at the moons, began to gentle and shepherd the bumblebees back into the caves,
herding them deeper, near the honey vaults.
Lady Celestaer desperately wished that their
Protector, the Great Red Cock—that he could be present—for this is where he
should be. She understood, however, that he was out fighting his own battle,
and was hard-pressed for it, for several of their wandering bees had been slain
by something new that stalked the land, and that their great Rooster would
return, scarred and limping, but only after
the Cataclysm, if it did not kill him—for his fate, she did not know, for he
had entered the world after the last cycle of the Cataclysm.
It was happening again, for the third time.
Each time it was not exactly the same. Always, some of them died, but perhaps
if she kept her people in the caves, and sealed the entrance, perhaps more of
them would live.
The Wee Folk, after all the bumblebees were
safely inside, closed up the honey fortress, and prepared for the soon uproar,
propping stones and wedging boards against the large rolling door made of rock.
Families gathered together, huddling, and the elderly were urged to lie upon
their pallets, with padding gathered about.
In the foothills of High Vale, just below the
tallest mountains, a heavy yurt stood upon a rock pedestal. The yurt was rough,
made of heavy buffalo skins and green saplings, but somehow it seemed new, and
almost prefabricated, very evenly sewn and fastened with bone clips. A large
man, rippling with muscle stepped from the yurt and stared up at the sky. The
man was pale and blond, with a great yellow moustache and yet an immaculately shaven
face. His hair was pulled into several large yellow braids that dangled over
his broad back.
“Now what!” the man cried, staring up at the
fast-moving green moon and the ponderous blue moon. It couldn’t be possible,
but the little moon looked like a missile heading directly for the big moon.
And the blue moon seemed to swell in size, as if it might soon pop, like an
overinflated balloon.
The man waved his hands in the air, his
fingertips fluttering as if he were typing on an invisible keyboard, and then
he started making swiping gestures, as if he were flinging aside windows that
only he could see.
“Oh boy,” he muttered, and ducked back into
his yurt, fastening the flaps behind him. Inside the yurt, frantic activity
occurred, as stone walls suddenly formed in video-game fashion, lining the
walls of the yurt, and steel beams miraculously appeared in the rafters.
Higher up at the foothills of the high
mountains, outside the steaming caves of the Hot Springs, three people sat
doctoring one another in a small circle, like monkeys grooming one another for
fleas. The largest of the three, a man with a great brush of red hair above his
head in an outlandishly exaggerated Mohawk, gawked at the sky.
“It’s happening,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“What’s happening?” cried the battered woman
seated before him.
“I don’t know, but it’s about to happen,”
said the big barbarian, his black face-tattoos flashing weirdly deep blue in
the converging moonlight.
“It’s just the moons,” the woman said,
returning her attention to the bloody wounds on the big barbarian’s arms. “Big
deal. Sure, last night they were fairly awesome, but tonight they’re just
moons. What’s your problem?”
“The green moon is moving way too fast. That’s
the Story Moon, it’s the moon that the bees and the Wee Folk make all their
decisions by—and look! The blue moon is getting closer! The Honey Moon is
coming this way, right into the path of the Story Moon!”
“Those are such stupid names for moons—Story
Moon, Honey Moon—and shouldn’t the Honey Moon, oh I don’t know, but shouldn’t
it be...golden? You know, like honey?
Who in the world would want blue
honey?” she retorted, wondering at his excitement.
“They are beautiful,” said the third person,
a slight man looking dazed and dreamy. “I never knew there were two moons—oh,
wow, ooh, oh look! Such colors!” He sounded like a little boy watching
fireworks for the first time.
“Yeah, down
boy,” said the woman, turning her attention to the smaller man, dabbing his
forehead with a wet cloth. “I doubt you would get this excited if I wore some
new Victoria’s Secret for you. And
keep drinking the water, I’m telling you, Freddy, you need to just keep
drinking the water, and here, nibble on these
grasses, these kind taste really good.”
The small man rolled his eyes. “You know, if
my sponsor finds about me and all this grass, they’re going to kick me right
out of AA—sheesh, three years of sobriety gone in one day waking up in a new
world. Guess I’ll have to attend NA now.”
“It’s not that kind of grass,” sniped the
woman, shaking her head.
“I’d rather stay off all kinds of grass,
eating or smoking, or drinking—although that tea old Hank made, now that’s not
too bad.”
“Remember?” said the barbarian,
good-naturedly.
“Yeah, yeah—Rooster,” said the slight man, rolling his eyes.
A very rumpled bumblebee of massive
proportion, crept close and snuggled against the woman’s thigh. She absently
smoothed her fingers through the bee’s shiny hairs, and the creature buzzed in
appreciation of the woman’s touch.
In a dilapidated ruins, nestled deep between
bony, filthy people, a very bony-looking man with broken eyeglasses looked up
at the moons. He reached up and checked that the small cap was on the back of
his head as he stared up at the converging moons.
“Does anyone else see two moons up there?” he
queried, not expecting an answer, but of course, the small blond boy came
crawling forward, ever-ready to supply all the information that the bony man
might ever require (and two hours of commentary, besides).
“That wee one is the Story Moon, ye see? It’s
not really them, the Sisters, ye see, but them through the glass. All the sky
is a glass, ye see? In mindi-anture, that’s what my Grandpa says, we is mindi-anture,
though I don’t believe him, my Grandpa tells the most pre-propperessous
stories, ye never know when to believe him, ye see? And when the Story Moon
gets right up to kiss her sister, the Honey Moon, that’s the Story Hour, and
usually me Grandpa would tell me a story, but ever since the lizards got us, we
ain’t had no stories, it’s really sad, do ye see?”
The bony man rolled his eyes, reminding
himself not to speak out loud in the future. He glared at the roly-poly boy,
who grinned back at him. The kid looked like a pale monkey. Why did anyone ever
have to invent kids?
“Okay kid, thanks again, now crawl back over
there by your Grandpa,” he snapped, feeling a little guilty at speaking so
shortly to the boy, but the kid really couldn’t shut up. And besides, he doubted
the boy was even real, just like the lizards—hell, none of this was real. It
was all a fever dream.
High above in the skies of High Vale a small
airship sailed along, almost seeming to keep pace with the small racing moon,
with a tall man standing upon its deck at the wheel. The man watched the racing
moon with grim eyes, on the right side of the ship, and reminded himself that
it was starboard, he watched the moon
on the starboard side. It didn’t matter to him
how or why you referred to everything on this damn...ship, but the sailors wouldn’t listen to him unless he called
everything out properly. And there were only two airmen on board to help with
everything—sailors of the skies—but right now they were asleep in their
hammocks, snoring loudly, emitting the vapors of cheap rum like whales spouting
salty breezes.
A very broad and somewhat short man came
trampling onto the deck as loud as a bull in the proverbial china shop. The big
man leaped upon the rail and leaned far over, vomiting up his guts. How anyone
could hold that much bilge, it was amazing.
“Careful, Ulf, you don’t want to follow your
cookies over the side,” the tall man cautioned the broad man, catching him by
the shoulder and holding onto him.
“You have cookies?” the broad man grinned,
turning to look at the Captain with a mouth hanging with oozing vomit, bubbles
and froth.
“Delicious cookies made out of pork, writhing
with worms,” the Captain said, helpfully.
The broad man groaned, hung out over the rail
again, and continued to empty his guts.
“Can’t you make the boat be still?” the broad
man moaned, going limp upon the railing like an animal skin.
“You’re a Viking, and you get seasick?” the
Captain queried, eyes sparkling.
“Boats on water, bad—but boats in air?” he
asked, and then his own question seemed to double him up again, but at least
this time it was mostly dry heaves.
The Captain strolled back to the helm of the Phoebe, and spun the wheel toward port,
catching the full wind in the broadsail, and they raced at right angles away
from the converging moons. The large leather skin of hot air boomed as it was
punched in the gut due to their abrupt change in direction, and the ship bobbed
in the rich velvet skies. The Viking returned to his dry-heaving over the side.
He didn’t know exactly what it was, but the
Captain had a powerful inkling that the farther they moved away from the moons,
the better. And he steered for a tall mountain peak that did not seem more than
ten or so leagues away. It would be a race, then. Would the moons converge, or
could they achieve that distant peak?
Even the stars pulsed with extra energy, as
if all of them received extra fuel. Many of the stars flared and seemed to
spin, like fiery pinwheels, and the breath of the heavens seemed too warm.
Down on the rolling plains, traveling through
high grasses, a short cart bumped and rattled over the uneven ground. Bands of
strange-looking men and women marched about the cart and other carts, while
others rode upon shaggy ponies. These people were rough, and laughed coarsely,
but stared nervously up at the moons. They had large noses like beaks, and
strange and colorful feathers swept back from their low brows.
In the back of the cart, two men were trussed
and tied against opposing sides of the cart, but the cart was small enough that
the men constantly bumped against each other.
“I still think that this was all part of an
elaborate joke,” muttered the balding man, whose wrists were bleeding beneath
the tight leather thongs that bound him.
“We just came through at the wrong time,” the
other man said. He was lithe and handsome, blond, and yet very dark-skinned.
“Hey, John, I don’t know if you’ve realized
it, but um—don’t take this the wrong way, okay man?”
The dark-skinned man glanced over at the
balding man.
“Did you know that you are...black?” the balding man queried, his
eyebrows up his in his forehead.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the
dark-skinned man asked. “I’ve always been black. Why are you bringing it up
now?”
The balding man snorted. “I don’t know. It’s
funny, I guess I’ve always known it, but I just never...thought about it, I
guess. Isn’t that weird? It never seemed to matter, is all, you know, no tension?”
The dark-skinned man thought about it,
bemused.
“I guess I never thought about it, either. It’s
never been any kind of issue,” he said, finally.
“Do you think that’s...Them, you know, changing things?”
“I don’t think so. I remember talking about
it with my Grandmother. She explained that my Mom was black, or at least as
black as my Grandmother, but that my Father was some blond guy, who didn’t
stick around. She told me that it might cause problems in my life, but that
those problems would only make me stronger. Funny, but I can’t think of any of
those problems right now, I can’t remember any. Now that I think about it, you
seem to be the first person to ever comment on my...racial, I don’t know, my
what? Racial heritage? Parentage? Whatever you call it, it’s never been a big
deal.”
“Yeah,” the balding guy said, “now that I
think of it, I kind of like it, you being black. What about me, do I look, I
don’t know, ethnic in any way? Do I maybe look like a Latino, or American
Native, or anything cool?”
John Galt stared at Jethro Mouch. He
considered him, squinting his eyes, cocking his head from side to side.
“Well?” Jethro asked, excited.
“You look...very...pink,” concluded John Galt.
“Damn it, come on,” sniped Jethro Mouch,
gritting his teeth and kicking his bound legs in temper.
“If it helps, you have always looked pink,”
said John Galt.
“Pink,” snorted Jethro Mouch, and then
considered. “Hey, John, do you think I might possibly be...gay? Would that be weird?”
“It’s possible, I’ve seen the way you look at
Joss Chen,” John Galt said.
“No, no, if I had a...gayness for anyone, it would have to be you.”
John Galt chuckled.
“Well, do you feel a gayness for me?” he
asked, eyebrows up, grinning.
Jethro considered for many moments, looking
his friend over and over, from toe to head, from head to toe.
“No,” he sighed, finally, “I don’t think I’m
gay, either. I’m exactly the same as I was on the other side. You know, when
you think about it, I would probably have to describe myself as heterosexual,
but leaning decidedly toward asexual.
It’s never been such a major deal for me.”
“Yeah, that’s about right,” said John Galt. “That’s
how I’ve always read you. I think that’s the way most people are, except that
society keeps pushing everyone toward being an exaggerated—whatever.”
“Why do you keep looking up at the moons like
that?” Jethro asked, nervously glancing up. “It’s not like you’ve never seen
two moons before.”
“Well, it is like I’ve never seen two moons
before, we always got out of this place before nightfall, but that’s not what’s
making me nervous,” said John Galt, staring at the smaller, green moon, which
was racing like a bullet toward the bloated blue moon.
“What is it then?”
“Something bad,” said John Galt. “Something
very bad.”
“You know what would be the stupidest thing
of all, you know, if we died right now?” Jethro asked.
“Yeah, that we never actually got to find out
what are supposed gifts were,” John Galt said, sighing.
“Exactly,” said Jethro, chuckling, “I mean
think, what if it was...magic?”
The small green moon tumbled and spiraled,
weaving like a drunkard, while the blue moon kept swelling larger and larger,
as if it was aiming for High Vale.
There was an echoing loud crack that swept over High Vale, and
almost simultaneous bright flashes of white flared upon the Honey Moon, as if a
star had suddenly bloomed near the top of the blue moon. The loud crack swept
around the world, echoing softer and softer. Another blossom of light appeared
on the Honey Moon, and an even louder crack like thunder shrieked in the night,
and the sound impacted against the world of High Vale, shaking it, and the
whole world shuddered.
If anyone had been looking through a
telescope at that moment, they might have discerned a vast crack spreading
through the Honey Moon.
Barney Taggart, bloated and gigantic, his
skin stretched taught about his Humpty-Dumpty body, gibbered up at the moon,
and pulled leaves and dead branches over his legs. He dipped his stained hand
into his meat bag, and moved it about in the muck, and then pulled out wet
fingers, which he sucked, keening softly. He whimpered and wept, almost howling
up as the two moons almost met in the sky.
“I’m so hungry!” Barney wailed. “So, so
hungry! Please! I’m hungry. Take me away from here, please!”
Through a tangled woods a gray man dashed,
running pell-mell through the trees, his gray skin and clothes shimmering in
the darkness, as if he were lit from within. He paused for a moment, looking up
into the trees at a great nest of fresh webbing and the many spiders feeding
there upon an oblong form wrapped in webs. The spiders paused in their feeding
and gazed intently upon the gray man. The gray man chuckled, twirling a black
and knobbed stick in his fingers.
“I remember,” he breathed. “I remember this.”
The spiders, losing interest, turned away
from the gray man, who surged into a fresh run, pumping his free hand and his
hand bearing his twirling stick, running faster than a normal man should be
able to run.
A witch sitting in her tall tower strode to
the window and gazed out, looking up at the converging moons.
“It’s a glitch,” the witch murmured, shaking
her head. “How many times is this going to happen? One of these times, it’s
going to kill me.”
“Must have something to do with severing from
Vestigial Surreality,” a great baboon said, perched in the alcove of another
tall window.
“Oh what do you know?” the witch snapped,
glaring at the ape.
“Well I have echoes from several of my
incarnations, the one in the Crystal Spire, those in the Tween, I seemed to
experience a lot of the things that occurred simultaneously, and some of all
those are filtering back into my memory.”
“You’re just thinking about—her, about...them, all your...dirty...women,”
she grated between her teeth.
“Sandy,” the baboon sighed. “You can’t blame
me for any of those things. That wasn’t me—I mean the me sitting here with you. I didn’t pull any of those strings.”
“Don’t call me that, I’ve told you over and
over again,” she snarled, glaring at him, lifting up her hands as if to access
some secret control panel. “And they were
you, oh yes they were, each and every one of them was you, and each and every
one of them cheated on me, because that’s what you are, Ape. You are a cheater.”
“I’m actually not,” he said. “Not a cheater.
I am and always have been true to one woman.”
“Liar!” she howled. “What about your Heathcliff? You cannot justify that!”
“Look,” the ape said, trying to sound
reasonable, “you pulled me out of a place that was before all of that. I didn’t
do any of those things, San—Seven, I
didn’t cheat on you. Me, sitting here? This me? I have always been true to you, Seven.”
“But you are an ape!” she howled, clenching
her fists, taking several heavy steps toward him as if she meant to brain him.
The baboon regarded her with sad, almost
human eyes.
“I’ve been manipulated from every angle,
especially by you. I didn’t choose this shape, this body,” the baboon said,
grinning at her with his horrible fangs.
“It was her, your precious Emily! She’s here,
right now, all about us! She’s at the heart of all this,” the witch screamed. “She
is the Heart of High Vale.”
“I’ve never met her,” the baboon said. “I do
love Wuthering Heights, though. It’s
my favorite book in all the world.”
“How dare you say that, to me?” she wailed,
hugging herself suddenly, taking several exaggerated backward steps away from
the baboon, as if she were willfully keeping herself from strangling the ape. “You
said you loved William Goldman best, Control,
and what about The River Why—you
prove how fickle you are, you have as many favorite novels as you do favorite
women.”
“Look, Seven, most of my...beloveds, they
were you, or you were them, that’s how you explain it, my love, and hell, yeah,
I do love a lot of different books, and all the women in those books, each from
different periods of my life, I mean, nothing compares to The Sea Wolf, but that’s mainly because I was so floored by it when
I was a boy, and The Lord of the Rings—”
“Oh shut up, Ape!” the witch said, sighing, losing all her fervor. She was sick
and tired of this existence, all the years she had spent locked away in this
tower, with time going all crazy outside these rooms. She couldn’t really blame
him, not this man—who really was a man, if trapped in an ape’s body, and she
still loved him, desperately, she just couldn’t help it—he was the only man for
her, and she would always love him. It’s just that they had all conspired
against her, and it wasn’t fair, and they had won—that was the worst thing of
all, that they had won, Maulgraul, the Shaannii, and Emily Brontë, and even
other versions of herself—she was frustrated and horny and angry and bitter and
she just wanted it all to end. Why couldn’t she enjoy her piece of the pie?
Perhaps she would do better if she bowed to the Reboot, and just gave up all
these struggles?
Since the detachment, which kept cracking the
moons above, she had done no good for anybody, least of all herself.
She just despised how nice the Ape was, how
just like himself, like he was that day of the scorpion sting, when she might
have had him, if only she had not become so schizophrenic! Of course, that was
mostly due to Maulgraul, that stinking witch, which was like cursing herself,
cursing Maulgraul, because one was the chicken, and one was the egg, only which
witch was which?
And this curse was due to the Heart of High
Vale, keeping Stacey from her, jealously. And even with all the resources she
had at her very fingertips, she just could not slip past the ever-watchful gaze
of the green authoress, the creator of Heathcliff and Cathy, and her sadistic turn
of mind. Lustful bitch. How could Seven compare with some of that?
Up in the great and abandoned Sentinel tree,
a vast and ancient and still-living tree from ages and versions past, an odd
group of people gathered on the veranda, hundreds of feet up above the
entrance.
The young man with the scraggly beard leaned
out far beyond what was safe, and the little meerkat man perched next to him
laid a gentle paw upon his shoulder.
“You should be careful, Jack,” the meerkat
man said in his chittering voice.
“I still think this is the best way,” the
young man said. “I’m sure it will work.”
“You have absolutely no idea if it will work,”
said the meerkat man, about the size of a raccoon, beating a little rhythm with
his sticks, shooting out colors of light like firecrackers.
“Shhhh,” said the tall, elongated black man, “Michael,
don’t make any noise, we don’t want to signal the Man in Black below.”
“We’ve seen no sign of him, I think we lost him
when we came through the portal into the Dulance Preserve,” said the meerkat
man.
“Wait, look, right through there,” said the
young man, pointing out along the trail over the bumpy rise where they could
see silhouettes against the horizon. “Do you see that? I see someone moving
there.”
“You have better eyes than me, Jack,” the
incredibly tall black man said.
“Me want see,” came the voice of the crooden warrior, who was back in the
body of the tree—they didn’t want to chance his great weight upon the balcony,
which was ancient, and might fall away from the Sentinel, plunging them all to
their deaths on the giant boulders below. The giant, who dwarfed even the tall
black man, was sticking his head out and trying to see where the young man was
pointing.
“It’s happening,” the meerkat man said, “quick,
back into the Sentinel!”
They drew back, save for the young man, who
was yet peering out at the horizon. He was certain he could, with his very
sharp eyes, just discern the movement of a tiny figure hurrying along the path
toward the Sentinel.
“Jack!” cried the tall black man, and the crooden warrior screamed, as the young
man, Jack, neatly leaped over the bannister and plunged into the abyss.
In a moment, the little meerkat man was over
the side after the plunging Jack.
Far away, upon the blue moon, the Honey Moon,
in the sprawling city of Olde London, a group of intimate friends sat in a neat
and homey suite of rooms, at 221B Baker Street, waving snifters of aged brandy
beneath their noses, patiently lighting cigars (although many hands were
trembling). Sherlock Holmes smoked his customary black clay pipe.
“I say, Holmes,” said Doctor Watson, puffing
on his cigar, “the end of the world—tell me, does any of this seem somewhat...familiar?”
“My dear Watson,” said Holmes, “I believe I
have recovered evidence, circumstantial, mind you, that we have actually
experienced this singular scenario, two times prior to this date, and possibly
three. You would imagine that this little end of us and all that we know, well,
that it should be growing rather boring, wouldn’t you say?”
“Evidence, Holmes?” Watson ejaculated.
“Not hard evidence, on the contrary, but in
certain dreams I have been experiencing these past three months,” Holmes said,
calmly, sitting close to the window and staring out as the green moon swelled
sickeningly massive in the glass. It was all like something out of H.G. Wells,
or Jules Verne.
The ground trembled, and another explosion
detonated somewhere near. Police whistles and klaxons sounded, and rough voices
passed on the street.
Nikola Tesla, standing at the other window,
sniffing his brandy but not tasting it, studied the approaching moon with
fascination.
“I too have experienced these dreams, but to
myself these seemed more like prophetic visions, as opposed to something we
have already experienced,” the scientist said. “But from what the boy shared, I
take it, that in some manner or other, this is not the reality we have always
known as, well, reality?”
“Quite succinctly put, my dear Tesla. By
studying the histories in the library I have deduced, long before the rise of
Frankenstein, that this is an elaborate simulacrum of reality, for in the
reality of the histories, I am the creation of a certain Conan Doyle, known to
his friends as Arthur Ignatius, and knighted at the age of forty-three. He
accomplished many things, but The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was certainly his most popular invention.”
“That is absurd,” snorted Doctor Watson.
“But the man we have met here in Olde London,
Arthur Doyle, that is in reality not the historical man, but a mere simulacrum,
as am I, and you, and the good Doctor Watson here,” said Tesla, sniffing his
brandy, thoughtfully.
“Well put, Tesla old man, I think most men of
deeper thought have arrived at this similar conclusion,” replied Holmes,
puffing at his black clay pipe.
“I certainly won’t have it,” said Doctor
Watson, throwing his brandy down his throat and reaching for the bottle. “I
think, I see, I hear, I taste—in short, I am, well, I think. Hmm, I am, well,
whatever, all that rot.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” said Holmes, as
the ground shook, the building creaked, and then the explosion to end the very
world erupted, throwing rubble into the air and knocking the gentlemen on their
sides, and the green moon struck into the heart of the blue moon, and the sky
wailed in the voice of a dying god.
The three men, pushed themselves to their
knees and the ground buckled beneath them.
“I say, Holmes!” cried Doctor Watson.
“Gentlemen? It was very nice—” Holmes began,
but then the very world caved in, and all of Olde London disintegrated, grating
into vapor as explosion after explosion ripped the two moons into pieces.
In High Vale at the grand manor house of Lord
Dulance, at the heart of the Dulance Preserve, the household was out on the
patio, as was customary for the Story Hour. The children gamboled and the
servants chased them. Even the infant, on the lap of her mother was happy and
sweet, and the Grand Lady Varrashallaine, who wore her flowing white dress, babbled
and cooed to her sweet child. It was like a festival night. The night was
electric.
The wise men were present, including a wizard
and a witch, all of them promising that no cataclysm would take place. The Lord
Meren Dulance—known as Six by his friends—stood tall and proud on the steps
where he had once throttled a giant Dragon Warrior in the defense of his lady,
his head thrown back, gray beard jutting.
Six sensed that the wise men were wrong, for
he had dreamed of this night, night after night, for the past three months. He
knew it was coming.
And the Story Moon, two hours earlier than
usual, entered the Congress of Sisters, crossing before the Honey Moon—but to
their horror, the small green moon plunged into the heart of the great blue
moon. There was no pause. Only driving collision, with nothing slowing the
inevitable cataclysm, as each lunar orb dashed forward, disintegrating even as
they met, in incessant intercourse, plunging, exploding, erupting as a bomb
without fire or smoke.
It was ghastly, the great orbs colliding, and
all the folk of the world stood gawking, mouths agape, slack-jawed and
horrified, faces contorted and bodies stricken, but unable to look away from
the celestial holocaust.
Many believed that millions of people
inhabited the very surface of the Honey Moon, with a smaller number living
inside the Story Moon. No one in High Vale knew this for certain, it was just a
rumor, or an old-wives’ tale, a bedtime story for children, or a subject to
discuss during the Story Hour. But if it was true, then millions of people were
perishing, even at this moment.
But even as the horror took place in the
skies, the rumbling cacophony rushed down upon High Vale like a herd of a
million horses, hooves sparking fire upon the sky, shaking the much larger
world, quaking the ground, rippling the mountains, shaking the rivers and the
seas—and the heavenly missiles began to rain down.
A massive boulder plunged from the Honey
Moon, and roared into fire as it hit the atmosphere of High Vale, and this
fiery comet came streaking down like a judgment of heaven, and plowed into the
world, lifting and dropping the world like a carpet. The ground retorted,
screaming, thundering, and booming.
And then, rocking and rolling, spinning
crazedly, came vast metal discs, flying vessels launched from the Honey Moon.
Great flying saucers dashed from the conflagration, sailing swiftly. One sailed
through the sky over the mountains, and another, and another, and yet a fourth
emerged into High Vale, on this last vessel was slammed by fiery meteorites and
plunged to a fiery death in a deep High Vale canyon, exploding, bursting.
Still the moons collided, exploding now,
jettisoning vast spouts of flame and fire, and both moons exploded from many
areas, and yet the Sister Moons were discernible as moons, retaining enough of
their shape as they each moved in opposite directions, ripping each other to
shreds, tearing and biting at one another, a colossal battle in the heavens.
And though much larger, the blue moon seemed to take more damage than the
smaller green moon, crumbling more quickly, disintegrating, and as they
continued to destroy the other, each moon took on more the color of the other
moon, so now there was a vast turquoise conflagration filling the entire sky,
billowing outward from horizon to horizon, lighting up High Vale brighter than
day.
The smaller moon smashed on through,
pummeling the greater moon, tunneling and churning, continuing, now half its
original size, while the previously larger moon broke into hundreds of shards,
none of which was close in size to the other moon. And these pieces collided and
explosion after titanic explosion filled the sky, rolling like vicious thunder
around and around and around the world of High Vale.
And only then did the true death begin to
rain down upon High Vale, as shrapnel from the two deconstructing moons entered
the High Vale dome of life, and caught fire, streaking like missiles into and
all about the whole world. Coming down like bullets, like missiles, like hail.
Rooster, before the crystal caves, seized the
arms of Frederic and Frances and dragged them from their stupefaction, and the
great bumblebee followed. They hurried into the caves as the first blistering
rain of death struck the ground outside the cave, and many ricocheting bullets burst
into the cave. Rooster led them back to their lukewarm pool, which might offer
them some protection from the fire and destruction.
Upon his airship, Captain Joss Chen threw his
vessel into a steep dive, releasing most of the pent-up hot balloon air in one
bellowing blast, and they plummeted toward the mountain peak, now not so far
away, as a scattershot of missiles the size of bulls whizzed past them and all
about them, and many cannonball-sized meteorites snapped instantly through the
vessel as if they were standing still.
John Galt and Jethro Mouch, captive in their
wagon, could only clench their eyes shut and scream as a hailstorm of fire
pelted all about them, and a vast boulder fell from the sky to utterly
disintegrate five of the running plainsfolk, right there, only a few feet
removed from the cart. And after another blast the wagon went end over end,
tumbling and casting its captives to the dirt.
And High Vale bucked in the Cataclysm, as the
Sister Moons continued to disintegrate, even as they moved through and away
from the other, as ricocheting boulders crashed together and created a
maelstrom of fiery rain. The whole sky seemed to catch on fire, and High Vale
quaked, and coughed, and staggered about like a dying patient, gored to death
by its two most trusted protectors.
The ground lifted and crashed down in a wave,
as a carpet is snapped to rid the dust, and a vast wave of dark and muddied
clouds, racing faster and faster, growing in power, rumbling with thunder, rolling
around and around the world, full of lighting and vast shapes, and people brave
or stupid enough to go abroad in the world, witnessed the tread of giants
across the face of the sky, vast demons that laughed and battled each other,
and threw jagged bolts of lightning at any mortal that they spied far below. The
dark, massive shapes roiled and boiled, churning, as vast whirling winds stood
up upon the world, and raged against the rolling thunderclouds, and lighting
was seen to rip from the ground into the heavens, and then reverse, coming down
tenfold in magnitude upon the ground.
Massive cracks opened in the ground and a
terrible and agonized cry was heard from the depths, and many believed they had
heard the death-wail of Oros Borelais, God of Violence and War. And towers
toppled that had stood for a thousand years, and great walls collapsed as vast
rents appeared in the world, and the land fell, and entire towns vanished, and
other lowlands suddenly filled with water like blood, and vast waves roared
across the land, while seas suddenly evaporated in whirlpools that belched fire
and smoke. And even the unimaginably towering Sentinel, a tree from ancient
times and another world, leaned out over the void, its retaining stone blocks
shifting, and it was uncertain whether the god among trees would fall or
somehow regain its stature.
Thousands of voices muttered prayers, all
over the world, chanting the mantra: “This has all happened before, and it will
happen again. This has all happened before, and it will happen again. This has
all...”
In the witch’s tower the small woman
shuddered in the arms of the great baboon, who held her to his furry chest, and
stroked her hair with his elongated ape fingers, soothing her, whispering into
her ear: “Shhhh! I’m here. Shhhhhh! I’m here. It’s almost over, it’s almost
over. Shhhh! I’m here....”
And large hailstones of burning fire pelted
against the tower, rattling it and shaking it, and the ground murmured, and
voices were heard throughout the sky, and the trees gasped while fires raged.
Somewhere, sounding very far away, a large bell
gonged, and rang, gonged, and rang.
© Copyright 2017 Douglas Christian Larsen. Rood Der.
Rood Der — Episode Eighteen: Cataclysm
If you like Rood Der, try
Vestigial Surreality online free:
© Copyright 2017 Douglas Christian Larsen. Rood Der. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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