Ch: 290 Space Oddity

“Ye hae been angry and sour fer days lad…” His beautiful smith murmured tenderly a few mornings later, snuggled up close in the sunshine streaming in through the window.

 

“It feels like things are coming to a boil, Shai. I’m getting squeezed on every side and they won’t stop…” He sighed with a sweet, sad smile. “I need to blow off some steam…”

 

Invitations to a party landed all over town a few days after lady Miriam of Craft’s ‘miraculous recovery’ from her ‘mysterious illness’. No one really questioned why Gary, who had been so uncharacteristically quiet and calm would celebrate that… but the invitation was not specific. It simply said that the bearer was:

 

…cordially invited to dinner and a show.

 

But first, he had to answer the summons he’d been expecting. Sir Tony’s replacement, sir Archibald seemed a nice enough guy, but getting called to answer yet another summons was exhausting. 

Gary followed the knight to the common court in the ducal palace, to await the judge for this latest hearing. This one was some legalistic attempt to find or create a flaw in Otho’s paperwork… 

The demand from the cult of Order specified he would be escorted to court alone and face summary judgment on the matter of being illegally married as an orphan of the town…

Rolf would be presiding and had also been an usher at the wedding, so Gary felt pretty smug about dancing along to their tune for once.

 

Reading the briefs scattered on the table, it was suddenly less encouraging. 

Since he was still technically an orphan, and hadn’t been a direct participant in Rio’s ‘birth’ officially, the grounds for Gary’s parental rights were safe as fresh grass before a hungry goat. 

Shai was in the same boat, save that she could legally foster him, on the approval of the orphanage director. Otho had made those arrangements, but now the details of their illegal marriage were making things uncomfortable again.

 

“Court is in session, sir Rolf Belen, presiding.” The bailiff said firmly.

 

“The facts of the matter are not at issue.” Rolf spoke without preamble or hesitation, taking command of the room from his simple desk.

“The marriage vows between Gary Ward and Shai Ward are currently uncontested by the duchy, as the legal status of the groom is an open question before the ducal council itself.” He clapped his comically small gavel twice and spoke again. 

“This hearing is adjourned without prejudice until that matter is resolved.” He fixed a glare on the gray robed order cultist on the opposition side, who had remained anonymous, simply called ‘advocate’ in the filings.

 

“Do not waste the court’s or the defendant’s time again. Your demand that he attend alone was highly irregular and will not be entertained further. Dismissed.” Rolf banged his little gavel one last time, rose and departed.

 

Gary shrugged and wondered why he’d been summoned at all, as he followed sir Archibald out into the late afternoon sun. “Well… see ya Archie.” Gary mumbled as he turned down the street for home.

 

“I should escort you back.” The tall, lanky knight murmured. As they strolled through the quiet merchant’s quarter, past shops just closed up for the night and a few people pulling a large, hand drawn wagon along the wide, empty streets in the gathering dusk.

 

“Sure, I gotta get back for dinner, you should join us… It’s pot roast and…” Darkness crashed down on him, in a rattling, thunderous instant. All he saw in that moment was armored legs and arms, lots of them, in red and shiny steel.

#

 

“Pity about sir Archie.” Lord Fargnahagn sighed. “He was dutiful, now we will have to dispose of his corpse along with yours, I suppose.” 

He nodded to a red streaked, metal clad form slumped in the corner of the stone hut Gary was bound and gagged in.

Several figures in robes of red, gray and brown stood around the dismal stone chamber. 

The musician was nude, strapped to a table inside a salt circle, surrounded by bright lanterns casting radiance all around, leaving no shadows in the room at all.

 

One of the silent, gray robed figures stepped up and carefully passed over the salt ring, bearing a tray in his hands. He set it down on the wide table and held up a short, curved blade for inspection. 

“This will be alarming and painful.” Ali’s voice came from the robe, coldly clinical. “But, since you aren’t really human…” 

He shrugged and dug his knife into the prone young man’s abdomen, as the others began chanting a prayer to each of their cults in chorus, over his muffled screams.

 

When the musician finally screamed himself hoarse, a small stone tablet inscribed with ritual spellwork by three different priests of three separate gods was carefully inserted deep inside him, by indelicate hands; reminding Gary that pain came in many subtle flavors. 

 

The former healer closed the wound with a muttered spell that sounded distinctly different from Tawny’s methods. “Our part is done. Take Archie and throw him in the waste pit.” Fargnahagn said cheerfully to his flunkies. “Groundworms are excellent for covering up such details.” He remarked casually to the bloody, sweating man bound to the table. “You’ll join him soon. Our gods have forbidden your murder by our hands, lest they be censured by the divine council… but you have made an impression on so many people.”

 

A tall skinny man in ill fitting common clothes stepped into the room; behind him, Gary could see the edge of the civic waste pit. Knowing he was in the stone shed a mile outside town beside the worm pit was not immediately helpful.

“You have been severed from all mortal gifts and from the magic of the world around us, fool. You are a powerless mundane boy, tied naked to a table.” Helene spat on her way out. “As it should be.”

 

The skinny man was only vaguely familiar, until he spoke.

“You’ve been following me, hunting me…” Irdall Renth, journeyman woodcutter and noted pervert, gasped harshly, spittle flying from his chapped, slack lips. “Now it ends! It ends here!” 

 

The man lunged forward and plunged a long, broad knife into the bound man, nailing him to the table through his abdomen.

He screamed through his gag, as the world went black.

#

 

Nearly sixty people were gathered at the rowdy inn by the river, wondering what strange thing they were in for tonight, while the hosts of the party were still upstairs. Amy and the boys had things going on the stage already, jamming with the shadow band Rio had wrapped around his nimble fingers.

Shai found and woke her sleeping husband, prodding him from his bed gently. “Come on lad, you invited them all… Though ye should be resting, by rights. Running off tae sleep while folks be arriving…”

 

“Yeah, I’ll get plenty of rest soon, Shai…” He mumbled hoarsely, with an angry, stranger’s gaze in his familiar eyes.

#

 

“Gary Ward, you are summoned here to answer for your crimes against the pantheon and the immortal conclave. Your pleas for mercy will be heard now.” Order intoned coldly.

 

The naked young man imprisoned in a field of coruscating lights stood there angrily defiant, glaring at the gathered swarm of immortal beings.

“I keep getting hauled here before you to ‘answer for my crimes’ Has that worked out yet? Really? You guys have been yanking my chain, dragging me here and there for more than a year, and keep getting bit whenever you come in reach.” He snarled from inside a sphere of shimmering force.

 

“Silence!” Order bellowed, ineffectually.

 

“What is this, a collection of local scumbags, forgotten godlings and opportunistic outsiders and demons with a grudge?” Gary demanded, scorn dripping from his voice.

“I see very few familiar faces up there… had to dig through the trash heap to find enough immortals for your little farce… did we gather your whole group, Order?”

His mocking, musical laughter rose up to the gathered entities. “Looks like most of your backup singers are Hollow Ones… not even proper immortals. Looks like Morrie had to call in her whole band of buttholes for this gig.” He laughed angrily at the gathered beings, over Order’s continued demands.

 

“You did a better job of restraining me this time at least. You only forgot two things… My storage gift is bound to my soul, my ghost, my shade.” 

He smiled and produced a softly glowing jar of heavy glass, with a chunky glass stopper. Molten bronze ran in thick waxy runnels down the sides, covered with miniscule spell bindings and glyphs of restraint. “Second thing: I knew I was never getting out of this alive. I did my living and dying already.” He growled, with a sinister smile on his mad face.

“Now, I get to make my plea for mercy, begging succor, from you wise and superior immortal beings… Or maybe I pop open my jar of… well… we’ll see.” 

 

“Silence mortal! Judgment is done, you will be cleansed from this world and banished back into the void from whence you were drawn. This is the law.” Order barked fiercely, with a nod to Morrigan. 

“You may reclaim your property now.”

 

Her screech of delight shook the wide open courtroom arena, as her triple ravens lit out from the mezzanine filled with gods, outsiders and eternal entities. 

“Sure Morrie… come get your plaything.” He mumbled angrily, as he grabbed the stopper wedged in his jar… 

 

The divine courtroom shimmered under a wash of alien and terrible energies. 

“I’m your property, am I? I’m a slave with nothing to lose… Except for my unregistered, highly unstable SexBomb.” He sang in a voice that echoed strangely, despite being soft and low.

“Toodles, assholes.”

#

 

“Gary…” Becky murmured softly from behind Shai in the bedroom upstairs. “...are you ok?”

 

“Yeah?” The very furious young man demanded, from behind a very strange, rage fueled mask of calm.

 

“That’s not Gary.” Shai whispered softly, as Ragy stomped downstairs.

 

“I am so Gary… come on. Jam sesh in the common room, I need to make some noise.” He snarled through a false smile. “Don’t let on… There’s a few War and Order cultists in the house.”

#

 

The light faded, along with the shocking, thundering report of whatever thing detonated in the divine court. In the verdant crater, all around the steep forested walls, gods, goddesses, spirits and outsiders stared in alarm at the sudden change of venue… and their much more corporeal and… mortal bodies.

 

War, Order, Craft and the Morrigan stood together on the inappropriately shaped memorial island, alone, while on the opposite banks of the lake, they were surrounded by the courtroom’s upset and confused occupants.

“And that’s when I decided that you were all going to have to go as well, Fucknuggets.” A soft voice said from behind the pillar.

They took a step back to the shore of the small island, when he appeared from behind the reliquary obelisk.

 

“You can’t be here!” Craft squealed in horror and backed up until his golden sandals splashed in the water.

 

“It’s a trick, again.” War snarled, his sword of flame and blood appeared in his hand, though he too remained as far away as he could manage.

 

“How!? How did you come here? You monster!” Morrigan shrieked, as she hopped higher in her little pine tree. 

 

“If you deserved any kind of answers or explanations from me, you probably wouldn’t understand anyway.” He said with a cold, unfriendly smile, as he circled the tiny island hideaway. 

“You guys have never experienced indigestion, but you will… from the inside. Don’t worry, I’ll be with you, every step of the way.”

 

He had his damned guitar out, strumming a strangely soft and pensive melody.

 

 Ground control to Major Tom…

 Ground control to Major Tom…

 

His voice was soothing and soft, as he sang lyrics that made no sense at all. He strolled and sang his sad, sweet song as he pursued the three flightless gods around the wrinkled, scrotal shore of Ballbag Island.

 

I'm stepping through the door…

 

And I'm floating in the most peculiar way

And the stars look very different today

 

“Why can’t we escape, Morrigan?!” Order demanded coldly. “I am unable to slip from this form!”

 

“None of you can… this island is all you left me, this little private part, tucked away in the lower regions of what was once a very pleasant little moon. You’ve joined me in the infected blister in my taint, caused by an ingrown hair, shaped like a bitch ass war god. Now we are going on a journey into the butthole of the universe… All of us together.” 

 

“This can’t be…” Craft whispered in hopeless despair.

 

“This isn’t an end for you… It’s a beginning. One none of you deserve, but I don’t get to make that judgment.” He nodded to the hungry, roiling nebula above them, surrounding a tiny blue and green dot. “The Devourer does.” He smiled fondly at the nightmare of angry swirling lights and colors high above. 

“We will be spending a long time together on my former home, living mortal lives of some sort or another. I’m hoping for some kind of bird, flying would be nice.”

 

He went right back to his silly, sweetly sorrowful song, as the music changed.

 

For here am I, sitting-in-a tin-can,

Far… above the world…

Planet Earth is blue…

And there's nothing I can do!

 

No fear infected his song, only a sad, sweet longing for home and rest.

 

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles,

I'm feeling very still…

And I think my spaceship knows which way to go!

 

Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows…

 

There was soft, silent trembling of the rocks, soil and plant life in the crater, as stones and globules of water from the lake began drifting into the sky, gently floating away. 

 

There was a soft scream of terror from the first entity to drift up into the vast boiling sky, soon joined by a wailing chorus of beings, great and small, as their varied and strange forms drifted up like soap bubbles at a child’s garden party.

#

 

Can you hear…?

And I'm floating around my tin can…

Far above the Moon…!

 

Planet Earth is blue…

And there's nothing I can do…

 

Starman sat on Gary’s favorite stool, strumming alone and singing a sadly gentle song that dripped with loss and sorrow, but remained courageously dignified in its ending. He stood, delivered a theatrical bow and stood straight, with a few tears shining on his red and white painted face.

 

“We love you all, we always have…” He whispered in Gary’s voice, speaking for the first time, as he slowly faded into motes of shadow and moonlight, vanishing from the stage. 

One by one the band hung up their instruments with care and faded. The lights in the house dimmed, until moonlight streaming in from above drew the gathered people’s eyes upward, to where the ceiling had been.

 

The house silently and gently faded away, until only the garden, the hotspring pool and a scattering of shining musical instruments remained on the lawn. 

From high above, a single sweet, long, piercing note whistled, slowly becoming louder, until a gray shaft of wood, tipped with a yard long leaf bladed spearhead fell from the sky, stabbing into the lawn with quiet finality.

 

The family and friends in the garden stared around in confusion as Gary hugged each of the guests in turn before gathering Shai, Becky and the kids into his arms. 

“I love you so much.” He whispered… and was gone. 

#

 

On the wide stone flagged rim around the worm pit, near the stone work shed they had commandeered for their ritual, a number of robed Order, War and Craft cultists were gathered. 

“It will be good to get back to regular business.” Theophus remarked to lady Helene, smiling amiably. “Once I wrest my temple back from Harlan and his brood…” He sneered. “Filthy tribals… they breed like animals!” 

 

“Otho of Joy must be dealt with… he simply refuses to die of old age.” She muttered angrily. “Maybe this Irdall fellow can continue to be of use… let’s delay eliminating him, for a while.”

They were so busy congratulating themselves on their successful inquisition of a heretic, that when a scream rang out, they froze in place like frightened rabbits. 

 

It was not the hoarse, agonized wail of a torture victim finding the end at last, but the wailing scream of a man in mortal terror.

Irdall Renth backed out of the shed with blood on his hands and that ululating peal of horror and madness on his lips.

 

“You scuffed the salt ring, fool!” Farghnahan shouted. “That’s all! He’s dying, his shadow can’t hurt you!”

 

The madman stalked out of the shed, dressed all in black, from head to toe, striding confidently. He seemed taller, more handsome and dangerously real. “You summoned me here… you cannot flee!” He roared, in a voice that shook the world. 

 

Irdall’s wail modulated only slightly, as he ran right to the edge of the worm pit and vaulted the railing, his scream becoming a mad laugh as he fell down among the writhing furry monsters below. 

 

“I stand corrected, you can escape that way… the rest will face me.” He whispered, as vast, shadowed bat wings spread behind him in the fading light.

“I am become death, to preserve this world… shitheads.”

Ward snarled, as the screams began and ended, very quickly.

 

Ward rushed to his brother’s side, already knowing what he would find. There were only a few motes of sparkling shadow drifting around the knife lodged in the table top. Those blew away as he watched powerless, from the doorway of the stinking garbage hut… save that it smelt only of strawberries and toast.

#

 

Far above, as the moons rose into the sky, mortal eyes everywhere saw two bright bodies; one huge, golden and as familiar as every child’s own mother’s face. The other was green and warm, wandering aimlessly across the sky, shedding radiant motes of light in every direction. 

 

Many drifted out among the stars or shot away in streamers of light, while others showered down from the sky in slow drifting sparkles. The show went on and on for the entire night, in silent and tranquil beauty.

#

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