"Before", Chapter 7: Once in Endless Ages

[Scott of Hyperborea]

"Before" or "Romance of the Three Duchies"
Chapter Seven: Once in Endless Ages
Chapter Seven Soundtrack: "You can run from all the memories, but never get that far..."

CHAPTER SEVEN

"In the unremembered eons," said Keloudi Ly'Tecnomaezj, as we travelled towards that darkness, "after the divorce of Mors and Vivantia, their enmity coalesced and took form. It sunk to the bottom of the world, a miasma of hatred and despair and regret, and that sea of sorrow became known as Balgurd. And from that sea spawned fish, the Demon Fish of Balgurd, who are also called deamons - the extra 'a' means extra demonicness. Then Los, eldest-born of Mors and Vivantia, cast a net across Balgurd, to keep in the fish and contain the evil. And the strands of the net were the dictates of the moral law, and the ways of righteousness, and they held back the darkness. But every so often, a fish wriggles through the net and enters the world. It lays its eggs there, and has no purpose other than to destroy as much of the goodness of the world as possible, so that the net will break and the gates of Hell will open wide. Some cower and hide from the light in the sewers of cities; others take to the swamps and fenlands, and still others wreak havoc in the villages.

"But of all the fish to break free and enter the world, the worst was the one that descended upon us four hundred years ago, in the glory days of So Sara. It rose from the depths near Cerce, captured that city, and made it its own. There it laid its eggs, to hatch thousands of demon fish spawn, until the enter country for dozens of miles around was ashen and depopulated, and the Dukes of Goldenmoon named it Dolor, the Land of Suffering.

"Twice the Demon Fish of Balgurd have tried to break out of Dolor and take over the lands of men. Once, they were repelled by the users of So Sara; once by the allied might of Goldenmoon and Riverrun. The smart money says they're building up their forces for a third try. And Ju'Uliave Mercaja and Daniel E'lipov aren't exactly the sort to inspire confidence as the champions of humanity.

"Thanks for the pep talk," I told Cloud. "We've still got to find a place to camp for the night."

We had approached, despite some difficulties, to within about two leagues of the Dread City of Dolor. Here, so much suffering had sunk into the land that not even grass would grow, but the broken rocks and defiles afforded us a measure of protection that we hoped would hide us from the sight of the demons until we were ready to make our move tomorrow. We held no illusions. We had not eluded the demonic patrols by stealth or knowledge of the local terrain. There were no demonic patrols, for one very simple reason. As far as we knew, no one else had ever been stupid enough to come here voluntarily.

Our plan was as simple as it was ill-conceived. Quercia would grant Pupil and myself - our two strongest warriors, not counting the unreliable Once - invisibility. Cloud would give us his talisman, conferring magic resistance. Then we would sneak into the city, find Red (wherever he was, and assuming he was even there) and rescue him (whatever was guarding him, and assuming he was still alive). Then we would somehow escape from the city, rejoin the others in the wastes outside, and run like hell.

We found a spot to camp without too much trouble. A cave in the low grey hills afforded us shelter, a view of the city, and most of all a hiding place. We set up early, around sunset. Rain had suggested extracting Red by night, but Cloud and Quercia had both vetoed the idea. The demons, they said, never slept, and saw equally well in light and darkness. There was no point in giving them the advantage.

We all cooked our dinner (the last of our rations, not that we expected to need more) in solemn mood. When we had finished eating, Pupil cleared his throat.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you for joining me to rescue my friends. Odds are, we're not going to make it through tomorrow. We all know how inadequate our plan is for the task. I'm not going to give you false hope. All I'm going to do is say - thank you. Now, everyone get some sleep. Make peace with Mors, pray to Semisa. We'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning."

We were up long before dawn.

I was woken by the screaming. It sounded both animal and terribly human, but there was also something mechanical mixed in, like air whooshing through a hole in the universe. I bolted upright, ready for a horde of demon fish. Then I fell back down, desperately covering my eyes from the brilliant white light that threatened to burn them into cinders.

When I opened my eyes again, they were adjusted just well enough to see an incredible scene. The naked Quercia stood upright, her head tilted back, crying to the heavens. Straight up from her mouth shot a geyser of white fire, which burnt a hole clear through the cavern ceiling and into the sky above. Once, also naked, sat beside her, clutching at her legs and rocking back and forth like a madman.

"Oh gods," said Rain. "Oh gods." Then Pupil, looking at the white light: "Every demon in Sxiro is going to see that."

Cloud had the most presence of mind among all of us. He took his necklace, the one with the anti-magic stone, and held it against Quercia's carotid artery. It sizzled and glowed and threatened to burn entirely, but the pitch of Quercia's screams began to fall, and the white fire began to grow dimmer.

"Quercia!" said Pupil. "You've got...to get...under...control!"

"I was under control once," said Once. Then: "Quercia...you're Quercia...you were Quercia...once."

Somehow, the words Once directed at the user were even more disconcerting than the screams and fire shooting out of our company mage. It was the first flicker of sanity we had ever seen in Once. It was the first time, as far as we knew, that he had ever told the truth.

"Everyone," said Pupil, before Quercia had stopped sputtering flame. "Pack up our stuff. We're getting out of here. Way out. Retreat. The demons know where we are, and we want to not be there by the time they send a patrol to investigate. Whatever Quercia's doing, we can sort it out later. Once, are you...all right?"

"I was all right once," said Once.

Pupil's look of disappointment at the typical response was palpable. "Move!" he yelled, but we were already practically finished packing. No one wanted to stay there a second longer than they had to.

"Can you walk?" Rain asked Quercia. The user shook her head no. Cloud and Rain both grabbed an arm and started dragging her out. She had stopped belching fire now, but her eyes were still glowing white.

Outside the cave there was no immediate demon ambush, which pleased me to no end. We ran southwest as fast as we could, following the low ground so as to not waste time climbing. If the fish were no faster than we were, then all that stood between us and a fate much worse than death was a two league head start.

Once stopped, suddenly.

"There was a cave here once," he announced. He began rooting around in the dirt.

"Once!" cried Pupil. "Fast! We have to flee!" But there was fascination in his voice. Once was showing something almost like independent thought. We all felt it. He had changed. Not completely, but...

The giant Elw uncovered a tiny opening in the soil, angled behind rocks, absolutely invisible to anyone not looking for it. We all looked at each other, considered the merits of a two league head start, and then slowly climbed down into Once's cave. It was the best hiding place we would get within leagues of here, and it might be well-concealed enough to escape even the demons' heightened senses.

"Once," asked Cloud when we were all inside and had closed the opening with loose gravel to perfect its invisibility. He was articulating very precisely, the way you would speak to a young child. "How did you know about this cave?"

"He...remembered," croaked Quercia, saying her first words since the incident. "Give me water. Oh, gods, give me water. No, I'll do it myself"

First, she invoked a light source. Then she struck a rock, and a spring burst forth. She drank huge gulps, and we watched with more and more consternation as she didn't stop. Finally, she seemed satiated, and fell panting on the cavern floor.

"Quercia," said Cloud, "I need you to tell me everything. What you felt, what you saw, why you..."

"Fuck you," said Quercia. "I'll tell you, but not because you make me."

Pupil glared.

"I slept with Once," said Quercia.

I don't know whether Rain or I looked more betrayed, or whose feeling of betrayal was less appropiate.

"Magic," said Quercia. "Well....Cloud's right about it. Sort of. You can't get magic power from nothing. Some people get it from ritual sacrifices. Others get it from demon pacts. I'm not that evil. Well, not really. But a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. I eat people's dreams."

She paused a second to let that sink in.

"Not just the kind they have at night. I mean their hopes, their desires, who they are, that kind of thing. I lay with them at night, and then, when they're asleep, I whisper to them, and I coax their dreams out through their closed eyes, and then I eat them. Without the dreams, I lose the power. But I've never had a shortage of people willing to sleep with me.

"In the morning, I wake up feeling refreshed, powerful, full of magic. Usually. But with Once, it was different. I slept with Once, and I drank his dreams, and it was like...it was like trying to drink the Eluin river. There was so much, and I couldn't take it, and I thought I would explode, and then the fire burst out of me, and..."

"I have never told you about Once," said Pupil, with the air of a man who has just made a difficult decisions.

"You told me about Once once," said Once, but the rest of us went silent, and Pupil began to tell his tale.

"When I was younger, and even better-looking than I am now if such a thing is possible," said Pupil, "the goddess Semisa fell in love with me."

It took me a few seconds to realize I was the only person whose mouth was hanging wide open. "What?" I said.

"Oh, don't look so shocked, Sun," Cloud told me. "This is Sxiro. The gods still walk here, though not as much as they did of old. Such things happen. Why, when I was a child, I..."

Pupil cut him off. "It is true. Not too many men have met a god, in these latter days, but there are a few, and I am one of them. Now, as I said, I was a young noble of Goldenmoon, rich and strong, and the goddess Semisa fell in love with me. I didn't refuse her, because to refuse a goddess is suicide. And when she tired of me, I didn't press her, because to press a goddess is also suicide. So I escaped with my life, and Semisa was pleased with me, and she offered me a boon. And I refused, because the gifts of the gods are too strong for men to bear, and those who seek after too many blessings usually find them curses after all.

"This annoyed Semisa, who felt she owed me a gift, and so the Goddess of Reincarnation offered me visions of my future, which I declined. She offered me knowledge of my past lives, which I declined also. Feeling jilted, she demanded I accept some gift from her. I didn't want to offend her, so I asked for something that seemed trivial. I asked for knowledge of my present.

"This pleased the goddess, and she told me I had chosen wisely. Then she ripped one of my eyes out of my head and stuck it in backwards, so that it was always facing inward, looking in to my skull and showing me the hidden currents of my mind. Since that moment, I've been fully conscious of my own motives, desires, and goals, and developed no little skill at analyzing other people. Though at the time the pain was terrible, I gritted my teeth, thanked the goddess, and prayed that she would leave me alone.

"Instead, she praised my wisdom one more time, and told me she had a task for me. Twenty thousand years ago, she told me, she had loved another man, one not quite as wise as myself. She had offered him a boon, and he had asked that upon being reincarnated, he could forgo the river of forgetfulness, and remember each of his past lives. Semisa had granted the boon. For centuries, the man retained the memories of all his various incarnations, but as the years went by, they began to weigh harder and harder on him, until his fragile sanity collapsed under the pressure. He begged to Semisa to have the curse revoked, but she was a merciless goddess, and having granted her boon she would not take it back.

"But she bade me find this poor soul, now in the body of an Elw prince, and care for him in his madness. She told me that if I showed him charity, he would be a great asset to me in my times of need. So I went far into the lands of the Elw, further than any Goldenmoonmen had been before, and I found Semisa's ex-lover. You can tell where I'm going with this. Once doesn't lie. All he does is get lost in twenty thousand years of experience. There's nothing that doesn't trigger some lost memory in him, but he's so full of memory that he can't do anything else but remember. It's a hard curse to bear, but I've tried to help him however I could."

"Then that," said Quercia, "is why he gave me so much power. I'm used to drinking a lifetime of hopes and dreams. Instead, I got a few hundred lifetimes out of him. And that's why he looks like he's doing better. I've drained some of the memories and emotions that were clogging up his mind."

"Could you cure him?" asked Pupil.

"Not without killing myself," said Quercia. "You saw what happened to me last night. If we wanted to repeat that every night for a year, sure. But I'm never touching the poor guy again. Self-immolation's a pretty normal hazard for magic users, but I'm not gonna go out looking for it."

"Far be it from me in most cases to suggest a magical solution to a problem," said Cloud, speaking up, "but this may be the solution to all of our current problems."

"Huh?" asked Quercia.

"Power. We need it to fight off the demons and recapture Red. Storm can get it by sleeping with Once. Last night, she wasn't prepared. She drew more power than she could handle, and it took her by surprise. But if she can do that again, we'll have a supercharged magic user. We have all seen what she can accomplish when she's not supercharged. If she can direct all that white fire into a useful spell, we may not need our previously determined strategy of subterfuge and invisibility."

Quercia shook her head. "Didja hear me? I just said, never touching the poor guy again." She gestured at Once.

"I touched a guy once," said Once.

"Too much information!" said Cloud. "Listen, Quercia. I know you. If there's one thing that gives you pleasure, it's wielding ridiculous amounts of power in an irresponsible way."

"Go on..." said Quercia.

"This is more power than you'll ever have otherwise. It will very likely save all of our lives."

"Hmmm..." Quercia thought for a second.

"Do it," said Once.

We all looked at him. Whether it was the effect of Quercia's dream-draining magic, or hearing Pupil tell his story, or just an act of desperation, Once had just spoken his first fully sane sentence in a lifetime. Maybe in hundreds of lifetimes, if what Pupil said was true.

"Ha!" said Quercia. "I'll BET you'd like to sleep with me again." She tossed her hair back. "All right. Tonight. I'll charge myself off of Once. Then we'll go fry some fish."

"Tonight," agreed Pupil.

"Tonight," agreed Cloud.

"I fried some fish once," said Once.

[Kaiser Mors VI]

Yay! My using depressing names has come to fruition!