EN World Short Story Smackdown - FINAL: Berandor vs Piratecat - The Judgment Is In!

Jacque clapped his hands and squealed at the airplane that bounced up out of the artificial surf. - “Cee, it’s darling! Did you really give it a puppy brain for an AI? Oh, look, it’s splashing me!”[1]

Criminal Procedure sighed. Jacque was less tiresome than many of the beautiful idiots he’d kept as arm candy, but that just meant he’d kept his interest longer than average. Or maybe that was just a side effect of having your secret underground hideaway directly beneath Las Vegas; you got used to constantly being tempted with brighter and gaudier things, until you ended up with the attention span of a fruit fly.

“Cee?”

“Yes, Jacque, I did, superimposed over the AI it already had. That’s the plane I took off Mister Right.”

Jacque gaped. “That was *you*? When he was battling Viragor over the Caspian Sea and that big vortex opened and he vanished into another dimension?”

“That was me,” Criminal Procedure agreed. “He didn’t really go into another dimension, though. He’s in the Hung Gardens. But I kept the plane. I had to overwrite all that truth-and-justice crap he’d programmed in, and I had this puppy that wouldn’t stop pissing on the Tabriz rug in the command center, so–“

“You need to get rid of the sharks, honey,” Jacque said, peering at the underside of the airplane. “They’re starting to rip up the paint.”

Criminal Procedure eyed the couple sunbathing on the artificial beach. Jacque’s immediate predecessors in his bedroom, they’d been a matched set, but lately seemed far more interested in perfecting their tans in performing for him.

“Maybe they’re just hungry,” he said. “Bring me a gaff, would you? And a stun pistol.”

#

Five miles up, the Chippendale Boys did their best to blend in with the scenery. [2]

“I’m not sure whether to be happy nobody is giving us a second look, or annoyed that nobody is giving us a second look,” Geoff said.

Brian shrugged. “We’re in Las Vegas, Geoff. You’re practically wearing a burqa by local standards.”

“I don’t understand why we can’t wear our costumes. I hate civvies.”

“I don’t particularly like them either, but are we trying to be inconspicuous or not? Do you think we’re going to find Criminal Procedure if he gets word that we’re traipsing around town?”

“I think we’d definitely find him,” Geoff said. “I just don’t think we’d walk away.”

They stood in silence for few moments, remembering Mister Right.

“Okay,” Brian said. “I want to get this mofo as much as you do. All we know is that he’s somewhere in Vegas, and he’s got some kind of garden that doesn’t match any of the attractions in Vegas. All we have is half a photo and nobody’s been able to map it.”

“Not even the one in that Japanese restaurant at the Wynn?”

“Okada?”

“That one.”

“What is it that you can never remember the name of that restaurant?

“Who cares about the damn restaurant?!” Geoff shouted. “We’re looking for Mister Right and all you can do is talk about a restaurant?” A few tourists paused and looked at him, as if they expected him and Brian to be starting some kind of impromptu theater. Brian took him by one well-formed arm and steered him around the side of a faux Italian pillar.

“Geoff,” he said quietly, “you know there’s only one way to do this. You’re going to have to feel the love. Are we close enough?”

Geoff bit his lip. “I think so. We might have to wander around to find something in range. But I was hoping we wouldn’t have to....you know how wasted it makes me. I’ll be a dishrag for days.”

“You’re worried about a hangover at a time like this?”

“No. I’m worried that we’re going to show up in Criminal Procedure’s lap and I’ll be useless to you.”

Brian stood on tiptoe to kiss Geoff on the forehead. He still had to pull Geoff’s head down to reach him.

“The guy may be a criminal mastermind, but he’s got a solar plexus and a pair of ‘nads like everyone else,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

Geoff tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Brian watched in awe. They both loved Mister Right, of course, but only Geoff had the power to feel the love, to reach someone he cared for so deeply that he could, literally, move heaven and earth out of the way and open a door to wherever they were.

As the dimensional gap unfolded, showing a hint of green beyond, Brian had two fleeting thoughts: that only in Vegas could you open a door in the space-time continuum without anybody particularly noticing, and that it was a really good thing Geoff wasn’t the stalker type.

#

The garden was an orderly progression of topiary trees and hand-cut stone. [3] Geoff expressed his appreciation by dropping to his knees and heaving.

Brian helped him over to a strip of grass between walkways. “I didn’t think it would hit you this fast,” he said.

Geoff rubbed his face on the grass and rolled onto his back. “It didn’t,” he said. “Something’s wrong. Mister Right’s here, but....”

“Show me.”

Geoff slung an arm around his shoulders and they staggered across the garden. Geoff thrust one arm out like a drunk trying to get his hands around a doorknob. He pulled them past one of the oddly-angled topiary trees, then another, until they reached the last in line. He threw his arms around the slant of the trunk and sagged.

“Here?” Brian asked, but Geoff only moaned in reply.

Brian inspected the tree carefully. Who would get a tree to grow like that? The trunk was shaped strangely, its top parting like a pair of legs, a huge knob at the bottom about the size of a–

“Human head,” he whispered. “Geoff. He’s the tree, isn’t he? What did that bastard do to him?”

“Nothing I wouldn’t do to you, eventually,” a voice called from across the garden. Brian whipped around, moving his body between Criminal Procedure and the incapacitated Geoff. He’d expected the villain to be decked out in some new super-science armor and wielding a death ray, but instead he wore a perfectly ordinary pair of board shorts. The only thing in his hand appeared to be a mojito. He stared at Brian.

“Are you cruising me?” Brian demanded. “You really put the ‘ch’ in ‘chutzpah,’ you know that?”

“You and your friend came barging into my underground fortress wearing tuxedo collars and matching Speedos,” Criminal Procedure pointed out. “Can you blame me?”

“You killed Mister Right!”

“Not killed, exactly. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘transmogrified’. He’s quite alive there, just in a slightly different form. Hm, maybe ‘re-engineered’ is a better term? I used an intelligent micro-lifeform to do the work; I’m still trying to figure a catchy term for it.”

Brian cracked his knuckles menacingly. It wasn’t really necessary–of the many schools of martial arts he’d mastered, he preferred muy thai–but it was important to keep up the look of the thing. “You can let him go,” he said, “or we can do this the hard way. And if you make a double entendre out of that I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t you want me to give a monologue about my next grand scheme to take over the world?”

“I assume it has something to do with that micro-lifeform you told me about. At a guess, I’d say you plan to introduce it into the water supply or some other delivery system, infect the entire population of the world, turn a few into hideous monsters to make a point, then demand they obey your every whim or else. Am I missing anything?”

Criminal Procedure sighed theatrically. “Nothing significant. You take a lot of the drama out of this, you know? So let me skip ahead to the part relevant to you: if you surrender now, you can have a short, but exciting, career as my bedwarmer. If you don’t, I’ll kill you and your skinny friend, and chop down Mister Right to make firewood.”

“I was actually thinking that you’d surrender and face a fair trial in the criminal courts, or resist and I’ll have to twist your head off your neck.”

“Looks like we’re at an impasse here,” Criminal Procedure said. “Say, do you remember that prop plane Mister Right liked to fly? The one with a computer brain?”

“The Friendly Skies?”

“That’s the one.” He reached into a side pocket of his shorts and pulled out a small metal box with a few buttons. He pressed one.

There was a whine that spun into a deafening roar behind him. Brian threw himself flat as the Friendly Skies shot over the wall behind him, tearing leaves from the trees in the topiary garden. It zoomed past, raining seawater. That’s hell on the paint. Mister Right is going to have a fit, he thought, and then some instinct told him to grab Geoff and get behind one of the trees.

“I reloaded the forward guns!” Criminal Procedure shouted. Behind him, the Friendly Skies banked, bumping into the artificial sky a few times as it came back around.

Brian tried to think of whether there were any security overrides, any codes that Criminal Procedure might have overlooked or forgotten to close off in the Friendly Skies’s mind. Probably not. Was it tracking him by sight, or heat signature? It would have to have some way of locking on him as a target; it was unlikely that Criminal Procedure would have had time to program his image in specifically.

At worst, he needed cover.

As the plane dipped toward them, Brian dashed forward and tackled Criminal Procedure. The mojito flew from his hand and shattered on the pavement. He threw the villain over one shoulder and dashed through the topiary trees, weaving back and forth, making it difficult for the Friendly Skies to get an accurate shot at him. He also hoped it knew not to shoot Criminal Procedure.

The curved walkway gave way to a short beach that lapped at some kind of indoor ocean, bounded by a framework on the far side. Brian pounded along the beach. He slowed once to reach over his shoulder and punch Criminal Procedure in the face to keep him from struggling. The plane circled overhead, propellers beating.

I need some way to control that thing, he thought, and then kicked himself for being an idiot. He reached back again and rummaged in Criminal Procedure’s shorts for the remote control. His hand closed around a sleek box the size of a very expensive mobile phone. He looked at the complicated array of buttons. There was one labeled HERE BOY.

Brian pressed the button. The Friendly Skies pulled out of its turn and aimed its nose straight at him. He could swear it sounded eager.

He waited until his legs stopped listening to him, dropped Criminal Procedure in the sand and ran faster than he’d ever run in his life. He made it almost all the way to the topiary garden before the plane met the beach in a sound he’d never be able to forget, no matter how many drinks he poured over it.

#

“I know it’s an intelligent micro-lifeform with the power to do terrible evil,” Geoff said, “and I don’t care, I still say it’s adorable. Look at it scoot around. ” On the display screen in Criminal Procedure’s secret laboratory, the thing turned its tiny red orb back and forth as it wriggled. [4]

“I don’t really care if it’s adorable,” Brian said, “I care that we can use it to undo whatever he did to Mister Right.”

Geoff put his arm around Brian’s shoulders. “I care too. Look, neither of us has the science background to do this. Who do you think we can ask to take a look?”

“Captain Curie?”

“I’m not sure she’s forgiven him for that spat at the Embassy.”

“Maybe not, but do you think that she’d pass up an opportunity to get her hands on this fabulous laboratory? It’s got all the equipment she’d ever dream of....”

“And it’s in Vegas,” they said in unison. The Chippendale Boys clinked their mojitos together in a toast.
--------------

[1] plane
[2] boys
[3] trees
[4] microscopic lifeform

Uh, that would be Round 1, #8,maxfieldjadenfox vs. mythago. Hope I wasn't late, but if so, congratulations to maxfieldjadenfox for going on to the next round

Note to self: tell judges ahead of time which days aren't so good to start a round.

mythago said:

Uh, that would be Round 1, #8,maxfieldjadenfox vs. mythago. Hope I wasn't late, but if so, congratulations to maxfieldjadenfox for going on to the next round

Click to expand...

By my count you're six hours early!

Everyone else at work headed out to lunch today. I stuck around to read stories.

Mythago said:

"And if you make a double entendre out of that I swear I’ll kill you.”

Click to expand...

So, this woman walks into a bar. She goes up to the bartender, who's just finishing up someone else's mixed drink, and she says "Give me a double entendre." So he gave her one.

Thorod Ashstaff said:

This is often ENWORLD's subtle way of saying "Hey, it's a great site, but it needs the occasional influx of cash." i.e., If you're not paid up on the (reasonable) annual dues, you can't receive or send private emails. If you ARE paid up, then you need to change your settings under 'profile.' I think.

If some administrator type like PC has a different idea, feel free to correct me.

Click to expand...

Sometimes, it's also ENWorlds not-so-subtle way of saying 'Yeah, I'm half broken and some of the things that should work, like taking people's money, don't do what they should."

*cough*

Level42 said:

I wondered if anyone on Enworld had ever had a near-death experience in their time and if so, what did they see on 'the other side'. I'm really interested to hear about this kind of thing. I've always wanted to know what actually happens when you die. I realise this is off-topic. Mods please feel free to move this elsewhere if this is an unsuitable thread. Thanx

Click to expand...

I'll tell you one thing, being dead sure gives you a fresh perspective on life.

Ok, there's the novelty stage. You get to hang out with Elvis, ask God what it was all about, tourist stuff. Once you settle in, though- once you get past the whole shock/wonder/philosophy of actually being a bone-fide stiff, you start to see things with pin-sharp clarity. Let me tell you about it. All about it.

The trouble with humans (I know this, because I used to be one) is this: you're too marginalised by time. You need that beginning, middle and end, and if you don't have it, you lose all point of reference. Which is gonna make it real hard to explain exactly what it's like to be dead.

Life: it's all about the process; all about the sequence. Short stories, movies, politics, books, life, war. He started it, she started it. He called me a name, so I threw a punch. He ground my face into the dirt, so I kicked him in the nuts. He threatened my pride, so I took his land. He killed my baby, so I bombed his people.

Violent stuff eh? But you can't blame it all on the equilibrium. Round here, there's no such thing. If you were here with me, instead of expending the precious seconds of your life on this internet forum, oblivious and happy in that land of the living you cherish so much, you'd get this whole thing instantaneously. It takes some real convolution of thinking on my part to make it work, believe me. See, in life, there really is no comparison to the timeless, non-sequential nature of death. For you, even the most immediate moment is still a moment. Even the most infinitesimal quantum second is still a measure of time.

If Death's like anything, it's like that. Click your fingers - gone. The whole 'majestic' span of all things condensed to a point smaller than a singularity, and then its over... Jeez, I can see your brain straining at the seams from here. Forget about it.

Anyway, once you lose the luxury of time, you lose the t1t for tat. Night follows day, he said/she said, bears no relation to reality here, not even the reality of rationalisation (we don't have that either). You ever hear the term 'seeing the light'? Aren't the dead supposed to 'move into the light'? Maybe that's ghosts, I forget. Well, let me tell you - the light's extraordinarily bright around here. No filters. No shadows of thought shading rational hypocrisy, no word-forged nooks and crannies, no place for those nesting lies to hide. A spade is, without exception, a spade. That kind of lucidity can be very intimidating.

And the cold truth lurking beneath the shadows of logic? People are violent, sadistic and blooded. Life: it's a sudden flash of brutal existence, reason stripped to the core, results unwinding like random ribbons of blood flying loose from a ragged wound.

Here the veil is lifted, the filters removed. Welcome to Death. That was your life. What did you think? Nasty, wasn't it? What's that? Bits of it were ok? The bits where you lied to yourself? Lied to others? Did a convincing job, didn't you? So good you convinced yourself. Well- guess what. There's no fooling the soul. Filters removed.

You look disappointed. Maybe you were expecting paradise? You imagined us all here, little gods, basking in the divine joy of the supreme being, magic sparking from our fingertips? Maybe you have something else in mind? Some kind of alter-reality you can mould to fit your petty Earthbound dreams? Man, that would be sweet wouldn't it? I'd have me an Austrian villa, all icicles and turrets, and a room filled with naked porn stars, and maybe some kind of robot to fix me up with burger banquets and tend to my every whim; a roaring fire, skiing like a pro and sex on tap!

Wake up doofus. I'm here to answer your question, remember? Why waste my breath on whitewash? Go find a hardware store and a priest if that's what you want. This is death, not fairyland.

The other cold truth is this (and this will really fry your nuts if the rest hasn't already) the universe has a real problem, and that problem is YOU. The Universe thought death might sort out the problem. But death failed miserably as a solution, in fact it made things worse. Can you believe that? What a hoot! So we got our strife here just like you’ve got yours there. We just don't allow ourselves the luxury of fantasy or logic, and there's the only difference (well, apart from the whole incorporeality thing we‘ve got going on). It's not about us against you, you against us, or us against us. Conflict is bunk. It's every man for himself and you'd better get your gear wired down because when you get here you'll find out real fast that being a newbie is no excuse.

Take me, for example. I thought I had a pretty good life. Now I'm here I realise, in fact, that I had a pretty awful one, and regret most if not all of it. The majority of my actions were detrimental, mostly resulting from my own insensibility to consciousness, responsibility and, above all else, charity. No, the image you just conjured in your head is not the sort of charity I mean. Get rid of it. That's the rationalist, narrow-minded image of charity right there. Equilibrium really rules you doesn't it? Listen dude, I'm talking about charity to Creation. Recognition of and (unpaid) dedication to Universal lore, embracing of the whole, not just the miniscule aspect you lifers call home. What the hell is Earth anyway but a spit-ball compared with the vastness of everything else. But let's not externalise too much. I'd hate to scare the crap out of you before I've even gotten to the best, most terrifying bit. So for your sake I'll play along - Earth really is the most important peckerwood in the whole intergalactic megaverse and God spends every ounce of his being worrying about you guys down there, just like you spend every moment of your waking day worrying about that speck on the left testicle of the ant that lives in your garden, mmmkay?

Back to me though. I was this fat, spotty, pretentious, self-centred geek. Spent half my time playing games online, the other half moaning about the suckiness of those same games right here on Enworld. I Larped (you should've seen me, what a disaster), I dungeon-crawled, I nitpicked and analysed game systems, campaigns and RAW. I studied every detail, every inch, of worlds, locations and people that existed only in my head, or, worse, in someone else's head. And all the while, the real world thundered by and I, oblivious to its deafening roar, simply played on. Life was a game. Dice were my friends. Disembodied voices, manifest as text and smilies on my computer screen, represented the greater part of my contact with human life. What a sad, pathetic individual I was.

Then one day, while taking the bus to work, some guy with a backpack, several pounds of improvised explosive and a whole manure pile of righteous indignation sent me and everyone else occupying the top deck on a one way trip to never never land. As wake up calls go, it was pretty damned impressive. Unfortunate really that I should come out of it in a body bag or I’d have been a changed man.

The bomber’s here too, by the way. And man, is he disappointed. There's been a lot of encouragement for me and him to interact, to 'repair the shattered aspects of our souls'. I don't know if either of us are getting anything out of it, but he's sure as hell catching on real quick that there are no virgins in the afterlife. What a maniac. Imagine blowing yourself up for the sake of sex (we don't have that either, by the way).

So, I've meandered a bit, and I forgot the core principle, or the point I was trying to make - aka, the truly terrifying bit. No. That's not strictly true, I didn't forget. I just decided to keep it to myself. I've kinda warmed to you, so consider yourself off the hook. What can I say. I'm a sucker for a great fantasist

The truth is, you don't wanna know about life after death. You don't wanna know that life is actually just about as good as it's ever gonna get for you. And you know why? Because time is a dreadful thing. It drags, don't you find? No more so than when you're waiting for the end. All the worse when you have to start from the beginning.

The least you want is certain knowledge that when the end finally comes, everything's gonna be great. That, and comfort in knowing there's a point to the story, that when you started this whole thing there'd be an outcome. There's nothing worse than a story that just fizzles away to nothing halfway through.

And everyone likes a happy ending.

In the tradition of equilibrium, this is the end. I'm due a whole heap of trouble for this. Not just because I hacked the spirit of the Enworld server (yeah, go figure, computers have souls. And if you think that's scary you should hang around for, oooh, about twenty years, then we'll talk) but because we're really not supposed to incite flawed logic in the grandeur of creation, or screw around with lifer's heads. It's gotta be all 'hey doofus, I'm thinking of a name beginning with S, first part sounds like weave, or leave, or heave‘. Communion favours ambiguity, but what can I say; I was a facetious, argumentative, non-conformist in life. Being blown to bits didn't change much more than the relative location of my limbs.

On which note, some parting words:

A body is not the sum of its severed parts.

You can have that for your signature if you like. Just don't forget to give credit where credit's due. Don't make me come down there and haunt your sorry ass.

[SBLOCK=Message for Mods]Can someone delete this. I can't find the account. Looks like trolling - the stuff about Enworlders as sad, pathetic individuals is particularly offensive: Morrus[/SBLOCK]

Irrespective of win or lose, that was a lot of fun
I can't think of a title though. It didn't seem appropriate to give it one either. Is a title essential? Couldn't find anything in the rules one way or the other.
EDIT: Oh, and also, I substituted an i for a 1 in for tat because Enworld censors for some reason. Nothing wrong with that particular species of bird that I know of.

Titles Schmitles

Dlsharrock said:

Is a title essential? Couldn't find anything in the rules one way or the other.
EDIT: Oh, and also, I substituted an i for a 1 in for tat because Enworld censors for some reason. Nothing wrong with that particular species of bird that I know of.

Click to expand...

Who needs titles. I changed mine three times, and am very unhappy with the one I ended up with, should have left it off. We live or die by the words on the page (or in the post), not by titles.

As for that particular word, as the brilliant G. Carlin once said: "#### doesn't even belong on the list, man!"

Dlsharrock said:

Irrespective of win or lose, that was a lot of fun
I can't think of a title though. It didn't seem appropriate to give it one either. Is a title essential? Couldn't find anything in the rules one way or the other.
EDIT: Oh, and also, I substituted an i for a 1 in for tat because Enworld censors for some reason. Nothing wrong with that particular species of bird that I know of.

Click to expand...

Wow...you got yours done already?

I just wanted to mention that I accidentally looked at the wrong pictures last night and all my planning up to this morning was for naught. Luckily, I have until Saturday at 6ish (my time) to complete this. It does seem, however, that my opponent has put the pressure on me by firing the first salvo and getting his story done in a hurry.

Also, I have the beginning, core and end to my story in mind (using the correct set of pictures). I just need to type it, tie it together and proof it. I'll do the bulk of my writing Saturday morning and should have no problem getting my story posted before the deadline.

Round 1: orchid blossom vs. Piratecat

Untitled

She was sixteen the first time she slipped out of the maiden house and into the foothills. Her daytime explorations had revealed only a strange energy, one her Priestess-trained senses felt but didn't see. Still young, it had taken her several weeks to discover that this veil was like the one that hid their valley from the world beyond. A hidden place within a hidden place. And like curious young people everywhere, she sought that place.

Heart beating hard in her chest, she crept out of the maiden-house and into the night. Away from the small village that housed the Priests and Priestesses she muttered to herself and a blue ball lit her way across the meadow and into the trees. Her feet knew the path as if she had walked it each day of her life, in every life before this one. She reached a place where two trees arched over the path; their limbs intertwining to create an arbor.

The time of testing was still months away, but so determined was she that she focused her mind and used the spell that was reserved for the ordained to part the veil. With surprising ease it opened, and the soft tread of her bare feet were the first of a human felt in that ancient place in millennia.

She returned to the maiden-house before dawn, but a priestess waited to bar her entrance. Instead she was led to a small hut of her own, maiden no longer.

* * *

Years of vigorous training passed with years of watchful eyes. No word was ever said of her midnight journey or the journeys that followed. No accusations or punishments, no words of discouragement. She continued her training, and at 26 finally wore the delicate tattoo on her forehead of the ordained. Chosen for her was a circle of stars, and a secret name.

Some nights a flame burned in her heart that led her away from her home and into the foothills to part the veil and meet him. It was years before they even spoke, years more before he began to teach. He was, without doubt, of another world but she did not fear her gentle teacher of those arts the priests could not teach. He touched the very stuff of the stars and infused them both.

She began to glimpse the afterworld and the otherworld, and then the neverworld. Possibilities swirled through her mind that none had before seen. “You must be prepared for these,” he said. “The world is changing.”

* * *

The years were treating her kindly. At nearly forty she looked and felt no older than she had on the day of her ordination. Twisting strands of ink wound themselves around her wrists and the backs of her hands to encircle fingers signifying her mastery of the spheres.

She led services and cast the circles. She advised the mighty and tended the common. Power grew in her and the respect of her teachers and students was hers. Even the eyes of the old ones who remembered her impulsive departure from the maiden-house watched her now with some pride. Yet they still wondered about her midnight rambles into the foothills.

His beauty had not faded, but in his movements age had begun to show. She parted the veil into his realm and saw the signs of autumn. Had summer not still embraced this place in its soft warmth just the week before?

He came to her through the autumn leaves, unashamed to live uncovered in the body he inhabited. Here there was no such thing as shame or sin and they united in unbridled passion. “The world is changing,” he said again, later. “All things come and pass in their time, and come again. A new world is coming, and you must know it, so you may remember and guard the old.”

Drowsy with satisfaction, she nodded. He had said such before, but he continued. “Tonight we will journey. I will guide, but with your power we will pass between the worlds.”

She clothed herself, questioning. Surely her own power was nothing to his. Yet he was calmly waiting. Whether or not this was beyond his power was irrelevant; it was within hers. “The first lesson,” he whispered to her, “The power is always yours. You have seen the place we must go, the otherworld. Lift the veil.”

Breath moved in and out of her lungs. The inner eye turned to the visions she had seen, some beautiful, some terrifying. A different world was before her eyes, one of machines where people had become estranged from the world they lived on, but one with a great beauty of its own. Lips moved in prayer, but the veil remained closed. In great compassion he said, “We cannot go there, it is the future world and even our arts cannot send us into a place that does not believe in them. If you could dig deep enough into the earth you would find remnants of the last technological age, the age when I was born. The place we must go is not so pleasant.”

Unsurprised by the confession that his life had spanned millennia, she focused on the other place she had seen in her visions. A place of pain; one she would not willingly enter without his assurances. The veil parted, and they stepped to the edge of a crater so large the other side could not be seen. The sounds of far-off screams haunted the place and torment hung heavy in the air.

“This is not a place of my world,” she said plainly.

“It will become so. It already lives in the imaginations of many, although not yet those of your homeland. It is called Hell, an afterlife of eternal punishment for the wicked.”

“Will the wheel then be forgotten? Souls return, all know that. Our sojourn in the afterlife is short; until we are brought again into the world to right our past wrongs and learn from a new life.”

He sighed. “Already some seek a simpler solution. Bliss for the good, eternal pain and suffering for the bad. A simple justice of black and white. The belief in this has already created this place, it will become larger and stronger as more come to believe.” Stairs appeared in front of them and he began a slow decent into the increasing cacophony.

Blistering air washed over them as they descended. Red haze filled their eyes and faces, screaming and contorted sped toward them, their voices driving her to the edge of madness. She held to the rock behind her and pulled sulfurous air into her lungs. Moments later she asked, “Who are they?”

“Men of great evil from the last technological age. There are few whose souls truly deserve such a place as this. They are among them. Come.” He led them through a doorway in the rock. Inside the cave it was cooler, and the further they walked the more the screams faded, but the heavy feeling of the air did not lift.

The corridor ended in a column of clear white light shining down on what seemed to be a creature made only of human arms. They were twisted together such that even hands were hidden. “These are among those who believe they belong here, whether they do is another matter.”

Her hand reached out to touch, but stopped, suddenly fearing the hands that must be there. “Why would they believe such if they do not belong?”

“The twisted arms tell you why. These are those who unwittingly assisted those with evil intent. Forced, or tricked, or ignorant, guilt has led them here.”

Finally she asked the question that had been held at the back of her mind. “Why have you led me here?”

“Like all things, I must pass. I have already spent many more lifetimes on the earth than I should be allowed. The next age is too close now to release them, but it will pass and someone must return these souls to the wheel. I could not reach them all in the time I had, I spent too much of it searching for one who I loved. Those who believe they belong here are the hardest to find. Such a one were you, my beloved.” He leaned and spoke a name in her ear.

As if from a spring, memories came slowly to the surface of her mind. A life in another world. A noisy, busy world filled with machines and grand buildings and people scurrying self-importantly here and there. Even as she reached out to him he said, “We have had our time together, as we will again. My time is at hand. Lift the veil; to a place that is the opposite of this.”

She wanted to refuse, but this most recent life still dominated her thoughts and obedience to this teacher was a habit ingrained. An overwhelming sense of power was manifest in this new place, seeming to emanate from a huge winged man before them.

“His rebirth has begun,” her guide said. “Human belief is changing him, but he has worn this shape before and will wear many others in turn before he returns to it again. Not many will pass after me who can join the wheel and be reborn. They will abide here or in hell until the age changes again. Then your work will begin.”

“Will this place not trap their souls as much as hell?”

He shook his head. “This place bears a much closer resemblance to the afterlife you have always believed in. It will change again and the souls residing here will be reborn. But hell is always hell, it is kept there by the belief of those who feel their punishment is justified. Those you must release, and perhaps on a distant turn of the wheel hell will be emptied and finally disappear.”

The wings of the man, or rather god, rustled. Her guide turned to look. “It is my time,” he said again. He looked at her again for a long moment then turned and walked away toward what she now remembered the word for. Angel.

* * *

The sisters had noticed her leaving the small hut near the foothills at midnight. As usual, one watched for her return at dawn, but she did not return. They opened the door uninvited to find their sister lying peaceful but lifeless on her palette.

The moment had been anticipated from the night a sixteen year old girl had slipped away from the maiden house. The priests and priestess brought offerings, herbs and texts, plants and jewelry and arts, all the knowledge she must preserve. Then together, they lifted the veil around the cottage, leaving to await another age.

[sblock=comments about my story]I have had an extremely busy last couple days, so I’m just pleased I managed to get something to turn in. It’s certainly not my best work, but I feel good about it.

I decided to try to break one of my bad habits, overexplaining. I always want to describe everything, and explain everything. So much so that it can drag the writing down. So while the language here is a little flowery (or a lot, depending on your definition) I tried to make sure I didn’t use extra words. I also tried to avoid starting too many sentences with He or She, instead stating things other ways.

The other things that tends to be important to me is a name. Names for characters make a huge part of who they are. I wanted to try and go without that little cheat of definition through name. I also felt for this particular story having the characters be sort of anonymous worked.

And of course, keeping it short. I don’t tend to think in short story lengths.

I don’t know that I’m proud of this as a piece of writing, but as an exercise for me it was well worthwhile.

Oh, also, this is what comes of listening to Loreena McKennitt while writing.[/sblock]