Hubris - 61. Angels Don't Sleep

Lagerof opened her eyes to the cool darkness of her door room; her skin was covered in a layer of cold sweat. Her heart bashed against the inner cave of her chest. At some point she’d kicked the quilt off in her sleep. In the distance she could hear a bell ringing - a thin metallic sound that pierced the shadows. Whether the bell was somewhere outside the dorm or within her own mind she could not say. Within the ringing she heard the faintest whisper, almost unintelligible:

“Hamon…Hamon…”

She sat upright, breathing in air that smelled of soil and sweat and defecation. A thick, earthy smell that was different from the raw citrus smell of cleaning chemicals and antiseptic. They should have been a comfort to her - they should have given her a sense of control. Instead she shook, forehead resting against her palms. Eventually her heart stopped racing. Her breathing grew more even. A few moments later a gas lamp danced on the bedside table, casting her distorted shadow on the wall.

In the mirror she looked at herself, a thin woman who had cut her blonde hair short. When she had returned from Timberford her hair had grown three-fourths of the way down her back. Cutting it had been her first measure in regaining control. She challenged the thin, bird-like woman in the mirror with a glare. “You are in control,” she told the woman in the glass. “There is much work to be done. Let’s get to it.” The pep talk over, it was time to start her routine: She grabbed a change of clothes and a towel and left the tiny dorm that contained her new life after purgatory.

Each corridor in the Black Diamond had been designed to be perfectly symmetrical: built with the exact same length, the exact same height. She'd spent many hours working with the designers of Tannhaus Industries to get the feel and design of the compound just right. Pale light oozed out of lamps grafted into walls made of concrete. The footfalls of her boots reverberated, taking her from the land of half-remembered dreams back into reality.

She turned the corner where a young orderly dressed in white scrubs was bent before a bucket full of soapy water. He swiped at the floor with a sponge. “Good day, Dr. Lagerof,” he chirped brightly.

She stopped at his greeting. She looked at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. The man was young, just barely over the threshold of adulthood. Thin wiry hairs grew over his lip. His eyes held the eager glint of the underling who wanted to impress the big boss. Though she did not know him, his recognition should not have confused her. Thousands of employees manned the compound from scientists and doctors, to security, orderlies and custodians like the young man kneeling before her, and cooks. It was her job to oversee it all. To make sure the wheels of the train kept spinning without fail. When her duties to the Theocracy took her elsewhere, she passed the orders down to someone else. Everyone knew who she was even if they didn’t know her.

She tried to speak. Tried to give something close to a human response. Her mind stalled, struggling to come up with a response. It was just one of the many things that had changed since returning to her post as director of the Black Diamond. Words tumbled through her mind without catching on her tongue. At last she managed a brisk nod. “Good day,” she said, glad that her voice came out sounding more confident than she felt. She passed the orderly before he could make another attempt at conversation.

I’m not in the mood today.

First shift was just starting up, which meant she had the washroom mostly to herself. She filled a washing basin with hot water sourced straight from the dam the Black Diamond was built atop of. She settled into the hot water and let the steam unknot the tension in her shoulders and at the base of her spine.

She scrubbed her skin raw with a bar of lye soap. She imagined she was washing the dirt of the wild off herself. Yet when she closed her eyes she could still feel damp earth beneath feet. It was all too easy to close her eyes and imagine that the corridors of the Black Diamond were the corridors of the temple in Timberford. I’m still stuck in Timberford. I never left it.

She’d dedicated her adult life to the Theocracy. Not because she believed in Elysia, but because the position of power it afforded her. The power to explore the world without boundaries. The power of science, to descend into undiscovered depths. What is my allegiance now? she allowed herself to wonder. Is it to the Theocracy? Or has my allegiance switched to someone else?

“Hamon…Hamon…Hamon,” a voice whispered over her shoulder. ¨I give my life to you…¨

She turned, sure she could feel the flutter of someone's breath on the back of her neck. But of course there was no one there. She was alone.

She hoped her office would be empty, but it wasn't; the door was half ajar when she reached it. She paused, wondering who had the courage to step inside without permission. One of the ground rules all the staff knew was not to disturb Lagerof when she was in her office.

Slowly she pushed the door open; it let out a thin creak. There was an odd metallic taste at the back of her throat. There was no sign that her office was disturbed. Wall to wall bookshelves were filled with thick black leatherbound volumes on anatomy, psychology, journals from explorers, and other scientists like herself. Another shelf was dedicated to jars with insects and plants and algaes she’d collected over the course of her travels. In the corner of her desk was a microscope, a gift from Gregor Tannhaus Sr., the big rooster of Tannhaus Industries. She remembered how she had spent hours poring over slides, privately exclaiming over the kaleidoscopic patterns of dragonfly wings, blood cells, anything she could fit under the lens. Now when she looked back that memory seemed to belong to someone else.

The double doors leading out to the balcony were open. I closed and locked them last night before I left. She could hear rain sluicing down the gutters and the crash of thunder. She stepped out onto the balcony. She let out a small breath of relief. “Inquisitor Charoum, I was not expecting you.”

The Seraphim stood with his back to her. Lagerof’s office was situated at the top of a large tower. From here she could look out at the rest of the compound. Guards armed with rifles walked along the walls of the fortress, wearing ponchos over their armor. The walls were tall, meant to keep unwanteds from getting in…and from getting out. The compound itself was situated on a small island three miles west off the coast of Ontariun. “I'd figure I would make a little detour before returning to Ontariun.”

“Ontarian? You're not going to the Anomaly.” A sliver of resentment edged into her voice. The whispers in the labyrinth of the Black Diamond referred to it as The Black Hole, often with a torrent of prayers to Elysia when spoken aloud. Fantastical fools, all of them! How can they call it something so simple!

“Resentful that you don't get to tag along, Lagerof?” He grinned at her from over his shoulder, flicking a silver lock away from his eyes.

“It chafes a little,” she admitted only because she knew it was obvious to the angel and there was no sense in denying. To Charoum the world is made of glass. “But even so there is plenty that must be done. The work I do is not dull.”

“I’ll have to tell Drajen this!” The Inquisitor’s silver cat eyes widened mockingly. “Perhaps being made head of this place wasn't far enough down a peg for you!”

Lagerof met his gaze evenly. Of him she was not afraid. The only thing I fear is losing my sanity and I may well be doing that. “Do you need something, Inquisitor or did you just come here to taunt me?”

Charoum’s face settled into a remote surface. “No, I did not come here to taunt you. I came here because I need your counsel.”

“My counsel?” Lagerof scoffed, arching an eyebrow. “My dear Inquisitor, how far have you fallen? Once you are given a conquest, you are like a dog with a bone: It's impossible for you to let it go - the luxury of being immortal, I imagine.” Not all of us are given the luxury of living Iterations. “It's not like you to have second thoughts. Know that I will listen but we are not friends. Lost souls like us aren't capable of making friends.”

“Are you lost, Lagerof? Is your soul still burning in Inferno?”

It's been there since the day I was born and it never left, she thought.

Charoum turned back to face the island; the Gaulhill Sea glittered at the edge of the horizon. He was silent for a long time, long enough that Lagerof thought he might not tell her after all. She was ready to recede into her office when the fallen angel spoke.

“I went to The Black Hole.”

Even he calls it that! And with a trembling voice. Do my ears deceive me? “You did?”

“Or I think I did - I’m not sure.”

The doubt Lagerof heard in the Inquisitor's voice was palpable enough to make her question her own sense of reality. “What do you mean you're not sure?”

“I mean,” Charoum snapped, his wings giving a flap of irritation, “I have memories of going to The Black Hole, but they are blurry, almost as if they came from a dream! Only angels don't sleep! Not unless we lose the will to live, then we go into a long slumber, but we do not need to sleep the way you mortals do! I thought you might have some thoughts on lost memories and dreams given your failures in Timberford!”

It was Lagerof’s turn to lapse into a long and thoughtful silence. “What do you remember?” she asked after a moment.

The Inquisitor closed his eyes, casting his mind into the past…or perhaps it was the future. “I remember a forest with mist and trees. An endless maze where time did not exist. There was a town…a town that should not have been there!” His jaw clenched with such force Lagerof could hear the angel’s teeth grinding together. “And he was there!”

The scientist felt the third chill in one day crawl down her spine. She could guess which he the Seraphim meant. “The herald?” The face of a dark haired youth bloomed in her mind, startlingly clear compared to the rest of her memories about her time in Timberford. He fed me his blood and freed me from the flames of Inferno. I hate him for that - I was perfectly fine where I was!

“Yes. I encountered him in the forest…and…” Charoum faltered.

Lagerof watched the angel in fascination; she had never seen him so ill-composed before. An encounter with the herald will do that to you.

“The last thing I remember is burning,” the Inquisitor continued. “The taste and smell of oil. The look of glee on his face as he lit the match…”

Got a taste of your own medicine, Inquisitor? I’m sure you’ve inflicted worse fates upon others. She asked the question that had been burgeoning in her mind during this conversation…a conversation that was growing too long, too intimate for her taste. “What's causing the Anomaly?”

“Only an Architect is capable of bending the rules of reality to such a degree,” the Inquisitor said. An edge of resentment slid into his voice. “Not even I have such power. I believe this Architect is a rogue…she is not affiliated with Monad or Hamon, but seems to be neutrally chaotic with motivations of her own. There is something familiar about her. I should know her but again everything is fuzzy…”

Lagerof voiced a theory that would not have occurred to her before her time in Timberford; a time that was every bit as fuzzy as the Inquisitor's time in the Anomaly. “If you are reexperiencing this period of time - if you are stuck in a loop of sorts - then you must break yourself out of it.”

The fallen angel looked at her with renewed interest. “How do I do that?”

“Do things differently than you did the last time. In other words: Don't die.”

His face shifted back into an unreadable puzzle. “Come with me.”

She laughed, the sound bitter and caustic and birdlike. “You’ve made it perfectly clear you like me exactly where I’m at. Why the sudden change of heart? Or did your encounter with the herald break you that much?”

The Inquisitor’s lip twisted into a snarl. “I have witnessed what will happen if the herald isn’t stopped!” he hissed. “All of this…” He gestured at the shacks and huts on the far side of the island where many of the staff were housed. “...will be gone.”

“And you think I can help you?” The scientist grinned. Her heart swelled in her chest. It brought her great joy to see this new, more vulnerable side of the Seraphim.

“The Black Hole is spreading. I still have no idea what the Architect behind it intends, but a hunch tells me it will spread until it engulfs everything. It continues to pull in all who cross it: practitioners and torchcoats alike. It does not spell victory for the Theocracy. We must cut out the heart of the Architect…if it can be done. And kill the herald in the process. Then the war will end.”

I doubt that very much my dear Charoum, Lagerof thought. I don’t think this war has an end for you…in this Iteration or the next.

“You are a scientist. Once upon a time you were a good one. You reputation is untainted enough that I’m willing to give you another chance.”

“Going to convince the Pope to give me back my post?” Lagerof knew her cynical smile could not hide the hopeful flutter of her heart from Charoum.

“The Pope’s mind continues to deteriorate day by day. He only remains at his post because no one has the heart to pull him down from the podium. It will be easy to convince him. You know I hate saying it - but I will if it convinces you: I need you. I need your observational skills. Do you want to tag along or do you want to stay here, in this dank place that smells of piss and insanity, or do you want to embark on the opportunity of a lifetime?”

Lagerof gave her answer without hesitation.

                                                                                …

Barghast watched the dark smudge at the water’s edge, his heart galloping in his chest, his urge to go to it at war with his reluctance to approach the line where the sand met the water. His tail tapped anxiously against the sand. His claws sifted through it absently. The sight of it filled him with the dread of returning home - a thought he didn’t like to think about. While the North had proven to be every bit as dangerous as the Okanavi Desert, he’d found his calling. Gaia had given him his duty. A duty I will fight to fulfill with my dying breath if that’s what it comes down to. Because in this place you can never let your guard down. Just when you think you’re safe another problem presents itself.

How long had the smudge stood there, not moving? Something's wrong. He refuses to tell me what it is. Does he not trust me enough to tell me? Have I not proven that he can tell me anything? Resentment curdled in his heart. It hasn't been easy for me either. I gave up my culture to come to this place. To come to him…And I will forever be disfigured because of it…

He imagined a jaw snapping shut over the thought and immediately felt ashamed. He told himself all he needed to do was go to the edge of the water; he was the one who was being selfish, not the other way around. But his spine was ramrod straight and he couldn't make himself move. The light was failing, day turning to dusk. Brush strokes of bright pink and cosmic orange spread across the celestial canvas. Eventually the smudge drew away from the beach, coming up the crest where the lycan sat. Resentment forgotten as quickly as it had appeared, the Okanavian shot to his feet and took a few hesitant steps forward.

Slowly the smudge grew arms, legs, a human torso. A head. That smudge became his beloved. Barghast sniffed the air, hoping to catch the familiar sweet piney scent of aether. He winced. The smell that returned to him was sharp, spicy. The smell of fear hung around him like a black wreath. The Okanavian sneezed into the crook of his arm.

Crowe looked up. The first cracks of concern broke his unreadable expression. “Are you getting sick?” he asked in the language of the desert. He pressed the palm of his hand to Barghast's snout. “It doesn't feel dry; it feels cold to the touch. You're not sick.”

The barbarian waved a paw through the air, the way he’d seen his twin o’rre do when he'd said something dismissive. “It’s just allergies. I’m not used to this climate.”

His beloved smiled. For the first time in days it was a genuine smile that reached his eyes…only to be extinguished as quickly as it had appeared. Behind the brief smile it was impossible to ignore how tired he looked. Dark marks that he insisted were not bruises marked the flesh around his eyes and brackets of strain had appeared around his mouth. He had not aged a day since they’d met and yet Barghast could sense that he had aged. He hasn’t been sleeping. The nightmares have returned - he wakes up screaming every night. He was fine once we left the Mirror Expanse, but now…

His ears fell back against his head at the thought of waking up to his twin o’rre’s screams yet again. They couldn’t go on like this. While Crowe lit an aether joint, Barghast gathered the courage to tell the truth. “Twin o’rre,” he said. His voice came out a growl. He didn’t want to sound angry so he said it again more softly. “It is not my allergies…It is your smell. I didn’t want to say anything before, but I can’t ignore it. I’m sorry for lying to you.”

The practitioner blew out a ring of aether smoke. He didn’t speak or look at the lycan for a long time. He took another puff from the joint pinched between his fingers. Barghast felt a whine start to rise in the back of his throat when Crowe looked up at him through the withering threads of smoke. “You didn’t lie to me, Barghast. You told me the truth in the end - that’s what matters.” A moment later, “What do I smell like?”

“Like fear. Like death,” came the answer. There was no avoiding it. “Tell me what is on your mind. I hate when you bottle up your emotions. We’ve been through so much and yet your head is still like a puzzle box.”

“Sometimes I don't want to talk about how I feel or what's going on!” Crowe snapped. The change in his scent was as abrupt as his reaction - from the spicy death aroma of fear to the burnt wood smell of anger. “Sometimes I just want to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself because I don't even know how I feel!” His voice grew into a shout; his entire body shook with the force of his emotions. Barghast could only watch in fascination.

Crowe shot to his feet. He whirled away from the lycan, muttering under his breath. He began to walk back in the direction of the water. Barghast thought he might go back to the ocean where the Okanavian didn't have the courage to follow, but he stopped after several paces. The tip of a second joint bloomed in the dark.

Barghast hated himself for feeling resentful of his beloved. I always prod him too much. I must keep in mind the burdens he carries are far greater than mine. He tried to give him space. He tried to wait for his return…but he couldn't. Even in his anger the Okanavian was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. He approached him slowly, careful to stop a few steps away so he didn't crowd him. It was three steps too far.

“Twin o’rre, I didn't mean to upset you.”

Crowe stopped pacing. He sighed, turning to face the lycan. “I know you didn't. You're just doing what you do: being a lycan. You can't help yourself. But it's also unfair. I don't have a sense of smell that tells me how you're feeling, but you do. You can smell it when my blood changes.”

What his beloved had said about the difference in their sense of smell was a thought that hadn't occurred to Barghast. They lapsed into silence, neither one sure what to say next. After a moment the lycan was the first to speak. “It's excruciating not to know what you're thinking. To not know if you're upset with me or at something else. I wish I could live inside your head.”

This earned him a bitter chuckle from his twin o’rre. “I can assure you, you don't want to live inside my head.”

The burnt wood smell was gone and so was the toxic spicy smell…for the time being. Barghast knew they would be back soon. He went to his beloved and pulled him into his arms, letting Crowe's head rest against his chest. The Okanavian looked up at the stars. Were they the same stars he’d looked up at from his life in the desert? This is my favorite way to be; I wish we could stay like this forever…but there's always something else that has to be done.

On the beach fifty meters away a crustacean crawled out of the surf; it was impossible to ignore the rancid smell. More were coming out of the water to its left. He counted half a dozen of them altogether. “Twin o’rre,” he said, “I don't want to move from this position, but we should leave the beach and find a place to camp.”

Some hours later they rested beneath the stars, curled up on a tarp. Barghast sensed it was the early hours of the morning. The scene would have been perfect, but Crowe was crying in his sleep.

The Okanavian resisted the urge to wake him. He’d traveled with the warrior long enough to know it was best to pretend as if he didn't know anything at all…even when pretending was the last thing he wanted to do. Even when trying to understand Crowe's complex array of emotions proved to be exhausting. So he waited and reminded himself that his beloved would approach him when he was ready.

He closed his eyes, pretending to sleep as his beloved raised himself into a sitting position. He heard the striking of a match and knew he was lighting another joint. If he was not down to his last joint, he would be soon the lycan guessed. Crowe's amount of smoking had increased since they’d left the Mirror Expanse and it seemed he had to smoke more of them before the herb took effect.

“Barghast?” Crowe said. Of course he was no fool. Of course he knew the lycan wasn't really asleep.

“Twin o’rre?” Barghast sat up. His twin o’rre’s voice pulled at him like a leash.

“I can’t sleep.”

“What’s wrong, my beloved?” Barghast found himself scanning the darkness around them, making sure they were safe. Making sure there was no one around to hear them. Mammoth stood a few paces away, chew idly at a bit of scrub that stuck out of the sand.

“You know how I haven’t been sleeping the last few nights?”

The lycan could think of no other response, so he nodded with a reassuring hum.

“It’s because I keep having the same dream. The same nightmare.” Crowe spoke haltingly as if there were pebbles lodged in his throat.

The Okanavian brushed a stray dark lock of hair out of his eye. “Tell me. What is this nightmare that causes you to wake up screaming.”

Crowe took another drag from his joint. “There’s a town at the center of a forest. It shouldn’t be there because it was burned down long ago…but it’s there all the same. A ghost town. The woman in charge there has lost everything…her husband, her daughter…but the town has given it back. She just doesn’t know - or maybe she doesn’t care - that they aren’t really there, that they’re just ghosts…There were other people there. Some of the faces were even familiar. They weren’t trapped. They were happy.”

The more he spoke the less he made sense. Barghast knew better than to interrupt lest he didn’t want Crowe to open up to him again. Building trust with the practitioner, he’d learnt, was a complicated process. It was also fragile.

“We lived in this town,” the practitioner continued. “We had our own house. We had food and water. We weren’t starving there like we are now. Going from place to place, meal to meal. What no one knew is that the place was a lie. A trap made to look pretty. The idea of safety was nothing more than illusion.”

Slowly Crowe’s scent was changing from a sweaty, feverish smell to his natural scent. The scent Barghast had fallen in love with. The Okanavian pressed his snout to his scalp. He inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes in relish. “What happened?”

The sorcerer’s voice caught. “The Theocracy came and besieged the town. You died. I died. Everyone died. It was awful. I can still see it. I can still hear it. I can still feel the despair of losing you…”

His beloved was shaking now. Shaking and afraid. Afraid even though they were alone on the beach. No one but the two of them - the way it should always be. But we are never entirely alone, Barghast thought. There will always be something lurking close by to tear us apart. I won’t let it happen. Bad things happen when we are separated. He reminded himself nothing could happen to Crowe if he remained close by. He would have to find a way to stay close by without smothering his beloved. It was a confusing balancing act, but moments of being together like this were with it.

There’s nowhere I’d rather be, no one I’d rather be with. That will never change.

“Hush, my beloved.” Barghast pulled Crowe back down onto the bedroll and tucked him into his arms so that his back and the soft curve of his rump rested against the lycan’s body. Keeping him warm from the sea breeze. Protecting him. Always protecting him. “You are safe. You are not in that town now. You are here with me.”

Crowe’s scent bloomed stronger. After days of the same toxic sludge smell, it was like detecting pheromones in the air. Barghast found himself caught in a ray of euphoria. For the time being his twin o’rre was back with him. All mine. Not for the first time the Okanavian wished there was a way he could tuck his beloved fully inside his body where nothing or no one - no one but me - could touch him. He felt the thought along with all the blood in his body travel down to his cock. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d fucked.

Fucking. He balked at the word. He knew Crowe didn’t like it when the Okanavian called it that.

“It’s vulgar. What we do is much more intimate.”

“What do we do?”

“We exchange. We share. We open up. When I take your knot inside me, I’m letting you in completely.”

This was what Barghast wanted now more than anything. Always at the worst time. Something about seeing Crowe in pain always aroused his lust. He closed his eyes while Crowe mumbled on, unaware of the lycan’s agony. Barghast prayed to Gaia. Prayed that the sweet pheromone smell would abate. That the swelling of his cock - the knot now slipping free of its sheath - would grant him mercy.

Don’t push him any more than he’s already been pushed. Don’t take any more than he’s already given.

The lush did not abate. A growl built up in his throat. He couldn’t stop its passage. “Twin o’rre,” he growled and pressed the tapered head of his cock to Crowe’s rump. “It has been many nights since we’ve made love. You are safe. I am with you. We are alone. I will not let anything hurt you tonight. Tonight I need you.”

He heard Crowe’s breath shorten. Felt him give a short jerk. Thinking he meant to jerk away, Barghast tightened his hold on him slightly. His beloved wasn’t getting away from him this time. “I won’t hurt you - I’d never hurt you - but I’m having you tonight.”

The Okanavian felt the tension drain out of the smaller body pressed against him. Crowe’s head bobbed in the dark. “Alright,” he whispered. “I trust you. I trust you not to hurt me. I just…” He swallowed. “I don’t want to lose you. You’re all I have left in this world. The only thing I love.”

Barghast pressed the head of his cock to the practitioner’s rump. “I love you, too. I always have. I always will.”