David E Anderson – Author

I – Pendragon

I could see that Andrew was losing it; I mean, really losing it. It had come on gradually, since he started dating Troy Morgan, a girl who was even weirder than he was. A dark-haired and dark-eyed pixie of a girl, she always went on about tarot, reincarnation, astrology, and all of that mumbo-jumbo. He was fascinated with it, because it explained things he couldn’t explain by other means.

“You don’t understand, Dave” he told me one night at a picnic table in my apartment complex as my wife and the girls slept inside. “You can’t understand because you’re like everyone else. You think in worldly terms. I don’t. I think in universal terms.”

Did I mention he was drunk? Hell, we both were.

He told me that his feelings of deja vu were the result of his having lived before. This had gone back to high school, at least as far as I know, as high school was where we met.  A few months after the death of his mother.  The loss had sent him searching for meaning beyond what the eyes could see.

But Troy explained it, theories about old souls in new bodies, about reliving your life, about fluid time…

About the Citadel.

She tried explaining it to me one time. I mostly nodded, finding it interesting but clearly BS. She said the Citadel wasn’t a building here on Earth, but it held things that had come from Earth, things such as valuable stones and old books.  Things assumed lost to time, but actually just moved there for safekeeping.

I guess I believe in God and the possibility of an afterlife, but I saw all of that as something entirely spiritual, where physical bodies and items could never pass.  The idea that “you can’t take it with you” made sense to me.  Once you die, everything physical stayed behind and there was no possibility of a return from what crosses over.

Andrew and Troy were living together, partly for convenience (they both worked low-paying jobs) and partly out of feelings for one another. She never made a decision without consulting the tarot cards, and this decision was right according to the figures on the cards, the knights and kings who symbolized so much more. They also told her to try for a child.

I thought they were crazy. Andrew?  A father? Right. He was great with my kids, but he didn’t have the stability or temperance to be a full-time father. But it was their decision (or the cards’ decision), and, as usual, I chose not to get involved.  How could a rational person convince them not to do something they were told to do by a bunch of flat pieces of plastic with weird symbols on them?

He called me from Lyon’s Den, a bar in Alton, really excited. They were in the middle of celebrating, half-drunk with either joy or alcohol or both.

His mood had changed, though, when I came to his father’s house in Alton four days later. He had me meet him there, an old white wood structure built way back when. I hadn’t asked him what the big switcheroo was all about. I knew that if I appeared too curious he would save it just to get my anticipation up.

I stepped into the screened-in porch and saw Andrew pacing just inside the house, dragging his hands through his crew-cut hair as if trying to make an important decision. Was he finally beginning to realize that he was making a huge mistake?  I knocked on the window and he spun and jumped as though I was the devil coming to collect his soul.

He let me in, then began pacing again and mumbling. I wondered if he was putting on a show for my benefit.

“So?” I asked.

“I just don’t know,” he said either to me or to himself.

“I don’t know either, and I won’t until you quit pacing and tell me what it is you don’t know.”

He laughed nervously, though apparently at something he was thinking, not at what I’d said.

“Is Troy okay?”

He stopped pacing. “She’s fine.”

“Do you know you haven’t looked at me since I got here?”

Andrew looked into my eyes for a few seconds as if trying to stare me down. Then he looked away. “Happy?”

I felt like going outside and coming in all over again.

“Come on.” He headed up the stairs. Part of me didn’t want to go, didn’t like him ordering me around like this, but most of me wanted to just find out what the hell was going on. I followed him up the stairs.

We ended up in his father’s study. His father was a Professor of English at the University of Southern Michigan. Papers were piled high on the shelves, perilously close to avalanching. I felt cramped in his office, which had little floor space unless you wanted to crawl under the computer desk, and with papers seeming to lean in towards you, a claustrophobic wouldn’t sleep for weeks.

When I entered, Andrew reached around me and pushed the door closed despite the fact that we were alone in the house. I got the feeling that he expected hallowed specters to be listening in on us.

I considered asking him again what this was all about, but I decided not to appear too anxious and to let him go at his own pace.

He looked to me as if about to say something, then turned away as if about to pace, but quickly found that there was no room for it in the office. He turned back to me, swallowed deeply, then cleared his throat, as if about to make an important announcement.  “The baby…” He stammered, lost for words.

“Is something wrong with the baby?”

“I can’t…I can’t let it be born. Troy knows it, but she won’t say anything. She’s not supposed to. She never is. It’s happening again. I’m supposed to just let it. I can’t. Jesus, I can’t. Not again. I’ll be here forever.” He seemed about to cry. This was no act.

“What? You’ll be where? What’s happening?”

“Everything! Everything that’s ever happened to me is happening all over again! I told you I’ve been here before, and I’m going to keep coming back unless I can stop it from happening again!”

“What’s happening?” I asked slowly, trying to calm him.

“It’s not that easy to explain, and I don’t expect you to believe me, not at first. She’s been dropping hints ever since I’ve known her. I think part of her wants to stop it from happening, but she can’t, because it’s her baby and she loves it.  She’s always loved it. But I think I know how to stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“The baby…from being born,” he said bluntly.

“What? I thought you wanted this baby!”

“I did. I did. Until I figured it out.”

“Something in the cards is telling you to desert your child?”

“Not the cards, no.  The cards are on her side.  They’ve been telling me what I want to hear, but they’ve been manipulating me.  But no, not desert the child. Kill it.”

“You mean abortion?”

“No! She wouldn’t agree to it. She’s never supposed to.”

“What did you figure out? Why don’t you want the baby?”

“Because it’s going to kill me when it grows up, that’s why! It always happens that way, every time. I never stop it. I try, but something always stops me, and then I have to go back to the beginning and start all over again, only to have it happen again…and again. It’s some…vicious cycle that I haven’t been able to stop. It’s gonna kill me for good one of these times. There’s only so much my soul can take.”

“Calm down, Andy. How do you know this?”

“I can’t prove it to you. It’s just things that I know. They’re facts. It always happens that way. I kill him, he kills me.”

“Who?”

“The baby! Only it won’t be a baby.”

“What’s it going to be?  A puppy?”

“Funny, Dave.  I mean it’s going to grow up before it kills me.  It won’t be a baby any longer.”

I sighed. “Well, tell me what you do know.”

He thought for a moment. “Remember what Troy told me about my blood?”

“Pendragon,” I said. “You’re related to King Arthur.” I didn’t want to tell him that I was pretty sure King Arthur was entirely fictional.

“Exactly. Only she was closer than she thought. Actually, I think she knew it all along, but wouldn’t tell me. If she told me…You see, I am King Arthur, or at least I was…before.”

“And King Arthur….wasn’t he supposedly killed by his son?”

“Mordred.  Yes.  They killed each other, at the same time. Only it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Only one of them was supposed to die, not both.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows, not even the gods. Half of them expected Arthur to win, and half of them expected Mordred to win. So every time we return, it happens again. The battle starts all over, me against my son. I got half the gods and so does he. We’re always totally equal, so we both win and we both lose.  I doubt I can change that balance, not without doing something drastic, and I won’t know if I’m turning gods towards me or away from me.”

I don’t need to say how ludicrous this all sounded to me. I’ve always tried to face things with an open mind, not ruling out anything I couldn’t prove to be wrong, but this sounded like the ravings of a paranoiac.  Jesus, what if his delusion ended up leading to him killing his kid?

I didn’t know how to act, what to say. He was convinced, and, though he told me I wouldn’t believe him at first, he talked as if he expected me to believe him.

“So this baby’s going to kill you?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. Of course that’s what he was saying!

“I expected this,” he grumbled, as if I’d betrayed him.

“What do you want from me, Andrew?”

“I want you to help me.”

“Help you how?”

“I can’t stop this alone. I always try to do it myself, but it never works. I’m just not strong enough. I don’t have the guts to pull it off.”

“What do you expect me to do? Kill the baby?”

“It’s the only way,” he pleaded. “Now…it’s helpless. It can’t fight back. Once it’s born, it’ll be too late.”

“What am I supposed to do? Cut Troy open and…Jesus, Andrew!”

“If you don’t, I’m dead! If you don’t protect me, my blood will be on your hands.”

“I could go to jail for this.”

“You told me you’d take a bullet for me, that you’d give your life to save mine if it came to that. Well, I’m not asking you to die for me. I’m just asking you to give me your help.”

“This is different and you know it.”

“How? Are you willing to save my life or aren’t you?”

“You’re asking me to take the life of an innocent child, one who hasn’t done anything and, as far as I know, never will!”

“It’s gonna kill me.” His eyes opened wide, like a man seeing his own death closing in.

“Even if you’re right about this. Even if…fate…or whatever will turn him against you, it’s not planning on it yet. It’s still innocent. It can’t comprehend murder.”

“So when are you going to help me? When it’s ten? Twenty? Will it really be easier to kill a child or an adult than an unborn baby? Besides, I might grow attached and not want to kill it. If you’re going to help me, it has to be now, before it’s too late!”

“I can’t do this.”

“No? Well, what about my life? You’d put the life of the baby before the life of your friend?”

“Maybe you’ll hate me for saying this, but what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not,” he insisted.

“How can you be sure?”

“I am.”

“Okay, then how can I be sure? How can you expect me to kill this baby when, for all I know, you’re all wrong about this?”

“You think I’m crazy?”

I didn’t have the heart to say yes. “Not necessarily. Maybe you’re just reading things into this that are all wrong.”

“So, in other words, you think I’m crazy.”

I shook my head, looking down. “Fine, fine. For the sake of argument, fine. How do you know all of this?”

“It’s hard to explain,” he said, but I got the feeling that what he meant to say was, ‘There’s no point in trying. You aren’t willing to believe me anyway.’

“Well, you’re going to have to try.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. It’s like… pieces of my life as King Arthur are recurring. You remember how I’ve always had this deja vu?”

“Of course.”

“Well, until now, I’ve always had recurrences for this life, the one I’m living now. Whenever anything happens, I remember it because it’s happened before, the last time I was here and maybe the time before that and the time before that. I don’t know how many times I’ve lived this life, but I would guess at least three or four. Each time I die, I end up coming back to the beginning and going through all this shit again.”

“Why?”

“Because I keep screwing up. Because I always see it coming and just let it come. I keep sending myself back to the beginning and do it all over again, thinking this time, I’ll stop him.”

“Why do you keep sending yourself back? Why don’t you just go on to the next?” Don’t you dare think that I believed him at this point. I’m not that easily swayed. I was just going along so I could see what he was trying to tell me.

“Because if I go on, it’ll just happen in the next life and the one after that. I’m stuck because this is the one time I’ve even realized what was going to happen and could’ve done something to stop it. If I can’t do it in this life, I can’t ever do it. On the other lives, I don’t stand a chance.”

I nodded, trying to show that I was at the very least comprehending what he said.

He saw this, understood it, and scowled for a moment. He leveled off and continued. “From here on is where my life as King Arthur comes into the scene, so now I’m having flashbacks to them.”

“What kind of flashbacks?”

“It’s hard for me to explain, because I’m rarely consciously aware of them. They hit me deeper than that. Every once in a while I get feelings of great power, of nobility, or royalty, and I even sometimes catch myself talking in an old English accent. I’ll have dreams. I won’t remember the details, but when I wake I feel as if I’ve returned from a long time ago, a time when I was surrounded by horses and knights, and I was always doing things with a purpose, always with great importance as if the future of the world depends on my success. Once I woke from a nightmare screaming and clutching my stomach. I don’t remember what I dreamed about, but I felt like I’d just been run through with a sword.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, certain that I understood what this was all about and trying to collect my thoughts so I could explain it to Andy without pissing him off or putting him on the defensive. I decided to give it a shot. “Consider this. Maybe it’s all part of your imagination.”

“No,” Andrew said.

“Just hear me out. Okay? Just listen.”

“All right.”

“Because this is what I’m thinking and unless you can prove – and I mean PROVE – me wrong, it’s probably what I’m going to believe no matter what you say.”

“I said all right!” he shouted.

“Now, Troy told you that you had Pendragon blood in you. How did that make you feel?”

“You seem to have all the answers. Why don’t you tell me?”

I hated when he talked to me like that. “I assume you felt like you were a part of history, an heir to the throne of England. Am I right?”

“Go on,” he commanded.

“Okay. You already knew, even before Troy became pregnant and before you started having these dreams, that King Arthur died at the hands of his son, Mordred.  Right?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, probably seeing where I was going with this.

“As I see it, you’re taking pieces of what you know about him, and therefore your supposed past, and incorporating it with your present and future. You wanted to make your glorious past part of your present and future, and these dreams are the result.”

“I see what you’re saying, but I’m afraid you’re wrong.”

“You can believe that if you want, but you’ll have to prove it to me if you want me to help you.”

“And if I can’t, then what?”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both,” I said.

“All right, then.”

“All right what?”

“Let’s go to the Citadel,” he said.

II – Proof

I felt like an idiot, to tell you the truth.

But I went along with it anyway, without complaint. If I put up any resistance, Andy would accuse me of not giving him a chance to offer me proof. Of not being willing to help him.

His father’s bed was the only one big enough. We both laid on it, our feet in opposing corners at the foot of the bed and our heads touching. I told him I wasn’t tired, but he didn’t believe me and, besides, I was.

I’d been up until almost one the previous night, working on a story on my computer, and then I got up with my baby daughter, Kristen, at quarter to seven that morning. So, yes, I was tired and could have used a nap.

He’d drawn the heavy shades and turned the lights off, so his father’s room was near dark. He told me not to open my eyes or try to move, even if I was uncomfortable. I followed his orders.

He was either asleep or pretending to be within ten minutes, but I was awake and considering getting up.

Finally, Andy began to snore. Lightly, but enough to annoy me and keep me awake. I also realized that I was extremely hungry, not having eaten since breakfast.

On top of it all, I still felt like an idiot. I kept my eyes closed and remained still, but kept on telling myself to just get up.

But what if that was what Andy wanted me to do? What if he wanted me to get up just so he could tell me that I wasn’t about to give him a chance? Maybe he knew he couldn’t prove himself, and wanted to put the blame on me.

He’d never let me live it down. The only way I could get through this was to just lay there and do as he said, give him every chance I could.

Suddenly…

III – Grand Eternity

The switch seemed almost immediate. One moment I was laying on the bed thinking about giving Andrew a chance and the next I was staring into a universe I didn’t recognize.

Under normal circumstances, I’d be convinced that I’d fallen asleep and this was a weird dream.  Except I knew it wasn’t.  I’d often had dreams where I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not, and more than once managed to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming when I actually was.

But I knew this wasn’t a dream.

We were in what looked like outer space, gazing into a panorama of stars. Unlike the stars as viewed from Earth, they were all the same size and appeared to have a pattern to their formation. Though the pattern itself was beyond my comprehension, as if for the benefit of those with a higher understanding.

“Something, isn’t it?” Andrew asked with a sigh.

I turned my head, and saw Andrew next to me, seated on a white armchair apparently made of smooth plastic. I realized that we were in the cockpit of an airplane without instrument panels or visible means of guidance. A large windshield surrounded us, offering us a wide view of the universe, whatever universe it was.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“If you don’t know, then it can’t be explained. You can never understand more about this place than your own soul can tell you. Listen to yourself.”

I did.

This wasn’t an alternate or parallel dimension to Earth. This was something more, something bigger.  If there were alternate and parallel dimensions, then this was the box in which they were all contained.  The master universe.

I brought my hands to my chin to see if I would feel my body. The movement was exaggeratedly slow, as if time had momentarily lost the rigid structure it had on Earth.

I stroked my chin and felt the stubble growing from two days of being unshaved. Why was the stubble there? I’d assumed my body was still on Andrew’s father’s bed, but I realized I was wrong. The bed was empty. We were no longer there.  If his dad were to come home and look into his bedroom, he’d see an empty bed.  If he’d walked in two seconds before we left, he would have seen us disappear before his very eyes.

“We’re really here, aren’t we?” I asked. “In this plane…in outer space…aren’t we?”

“You already know the answer.”

I did. “There’s no natural structure of time here. It’s just here and it never changes. Any sense of time we feel is something we’ve carried over. Right?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. I was right.

“So? Where do we go?”

“Second star to the right,” said Andrew, and he finally turned to look at me, neither smiling nor frowning as if emotions didn’t exist in this dimension. “Straight on till morning.”

Then the airplane, which had felt stationary until that point, jettisoned forward, but without accelerating or meeting with any resistance. It fled past the stars at an incredible speed, as if the speed of life, the speed of time itself, had suddenly begun moving faster.  With no natural time here, he was creating it, as time is necessary for movement.

As the stars passed, I felt a sense of comprehension of their pattern. But a sense was all it was, as if I’d known and understood the pattern a long, long time ago but had since forgotten. It was incredibly familiar, but I couldn’t recall from where or when. I knew, however, that if one star had been out of place, I would immediately spot the error.

I also realized that the stars were brighter, more vivid, than those viewed from earth, a perfect shade of white. The surrounding sky lacked the purplish blue of Earth’s night sky. It’s darkness was so strong it appeared to be alive, perhaps aware of our presence, watching us with curiosity and amusement, and maybe even malice.

The star ahead appeared to be growing at a hectic pace, but this was only an illusion as we were the ones approaching it. It was so bright that surely no human eyes would bear to stare directly into it, but we were somehow able to look into it without retinal damage.

I was reminded of the claim many make of the bright light we move toward and into in our final moments of life. For a moment, I feared that was what was happening to us, that we had died in our sleep, that the house had burned to the ground around us, but that was only my earthly fears slipping through as had our concept of time. It wasn’t the light of death that we were hurtling into, but it was somehow related – perhaps a brother to it.

It occurred to me that this vast universe, which I decided to call the Grand Eternity, was a no-man’s land between dimensions, a universe containing an infinite number of universes. Earth, or rather the universe containing Earth, could be reached through one of the other stars behind it, the one from which we’d come. Each star was a doorway into one of the dimensions, leading to a universe as infinite as our own with its own laws and concepts; some lifeless, some with societies similar to, or inexplicably different than, our own.

The light of the star filled our windshield, and moments later we were into it.

IV – Citadel

The familiarity I felt for the Grand Eternity was gone. This world was one of which I knew nothing.  Unlike the previous universe, I was able to consider the possibility that I’d been dreaming, about the Grand Eternity and about this one.

We were on the roof of a stone building, stung by cold wind which made it painful to breathe.

The sky above was various shades of purple – some near black, some almost pink – that swirled among each other like the contents of a lava lamp, intermingling but never mixing, moving overhead much faster than the clouds above Earth’s sky.

They might have been the steam from some sort of volcano elsewhere in this world or pollution from factories creating machines I couldn’t dream of. Or they could be the natural colors of this alien sky, a phenomena that the inhabitants of this world have grown accustomed to the way we Earthlings accept the fact that our sky is blue.

We were standing in the center of the roof and we could see no other sign of the world below us, no ground or other buildings rising alongside ours. We were evidently very high up, too high to see the horizon. A wire-mesh fence surrounded the roof, almost twice my height.  The fence looked very much like those on Earth, and was perhaps created by humans.  Had to be a recent addition, one to stop people from falling off or using it to commit suicide.

The roof was level, made with solid granite with a grayish-green tinge. To one side of us was a circular grate in the building’s room. It was almost thirty feet in diameter, with holes big enough for a person to fit through. I could see wind coming out of it, blowing dirt and pieces of debris. Across the grate from us was a small four-sided wooden pyramid, supported by metal posts that criss-crossed against each other.

“Where are we?” I asked, having to shout for Andrew to hear me above the wailing wind, though he was only a couple of feet away.

“They call this world Tirnanog,” he said, apparently familiar and comfortable with this world. Why hadn’t he told me of his journeys here before? Because I would never have believed him, that’s why.

“That’s what this planet’s natives call it,” he continued.

Natives? Extraterrestrials, I realized. My God, I was on an alien world! Not just on an alien planet, in an alien universe! A world NASA would never even know about.  One I wouldn’t have even considered rational just a few minutes ago.

“This world’s visitors give it many other names. Kevlar, Ferrago, Bowaayoh. On Earth, it’s been referred to as ‘Neverland’ and ‘The Land Of The Ever-Young’.  ‘Oz’.  Yes it’s the inspiration for stories like Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan.  Their authors knew about this place.  J.M. Barrie had been here.  L. Frank Baum knew someone who had been.  It’s very plentiful and relatively peaceful world, beautiful during its daytime. The weather is wonderful, unless you’re as high up as we are.”

“How high are we?” I asked.

“About fifteen thousand feet.  Almost three miles.”

I did some quick math, and realized that this building was about ten times the height of Chicago’s Sears Tower.

He continued. “They say that Tirnanog is the oldest world in any universe, and it is the only one we can reach directly from our own, and it can probably be reached through any world in any universe if its life-forms are complex enough to make that kind of journey. On Earth, only humans are that complex. They say that because of its age, time has slown down to the point that no one in this world ever ages.”

“Who’s they?”

“The old ones, people like Troy…and me. Troy says that I’m one of the oldest people she’s ever met, even older that herself and Cliff.” Cliff was a friend of Troy’s, the man who’d introduced her to astrology and tarot. She sometimes called him her spiritual guide. I’d never met him, though I’d been in the room when she talked to him on the phone.

“Troy brought you here, didn’t she?”

“She showed me how to get here. Us old ones are never truly brought over. The path is shown, but we must travel it ourselves. In your case, I did bring you. You could never make the journey yourself. You could probably return to Earth alone, but you couldn’t come here alone.  Perhaps in time, you’ll be able to.”

“You’d been here before you met Troy?”

“In other lives, yes. In all of my incarnations of this life, I never journeyed over before meeting Troy. I’m sure I came here when I was King Arthur, also. That was probably the first time.”

“So King Arthur.  He really existed?  Historians say he didn’t.”

“Oh, he didn’t.”

I turned to him, shocked.  How could he be the reincarnation of someone who never existed?

“Not in our world,” he explained.  “But in one much similar.”

“You’re the reincarnation of someone who lived in an alternate universe?”

“Yes.  That’s very rare.  As far as I know, me and Troy are the only people on Earth who have.  But I guess there must be others.”

I couldn’t stop staring at the sky. The view was incredible. I remember once staring at our own sky, contemplating it for nearly an hour, thinking about how much it looked like a painting, too beautiful to be created merely by chance. This sky was beyond beauty. It was magical, phenomenal. However, the stiff breeze was chilling me to my bones. I asked if we could go inside, to get out of this wind.

“Of course,” he replied. “Come on.”

We walked around the grate to the pyramidal structure. I briefly wondered if the design was taken from the Egyptian pyramids or if it inspired them. Did we trade ideas and designs with creatures of other worlds, the way housewives swap recipes?

The sides of the pyramid were approximately forty-five degrees, all coming to a single point almost twenty feet off of the ground. I wondered what units of measurement were used in creating this building.

“This is the citadel, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes.” He put his hands against one of the walls as if preparing to climb it, then waited. There was a squeal of metal, and a section of the wall slowly slid inward and aside, revealing a dark passageway, which he entered.

I quickly followed him through before I could lose sight of him. The wall shut behind me, putting us in almost total darkness. There was a faint amount of light from ahead. I could see Andrew’s silhouette ahead of me. It was only when he spoke to me that I realized he was facing me. “Do you have any recollection of this place yet?”

“None,” I answered, surprised. “Should I?”

“No,” he said, and turned and began walking toward the light. I quickly caught up alongside him, reaching out and running my hands along a wall, finding it was cold, rough stone. “But I was hoping you would.”

“Why?”

“It would better justify my bringing you here. What I’m doing is against their laws. I just hope no one finds out in time to stop us.”

“Stop us?” I suddenly remembered that we were involved in a plot to end Troy’s pregnancy. Is this enough proof to convince me to help him? I decided not to decide yet. He’d certainly proved most of what I doubted, but still hadn’t proven that the baby would kill him.  “What will they do to you?”

“I’m not worried about what they’ll do to me. It’s what they’ll do to you. This has probably never happened before. You aren’t an old soul, but Troy said you have strong psi powers. You would never have been able to make the journey with me otherwise.”

“What can they do to me, kill me?”

“Maybe,” he said casually.

Deciding he wasn’t completely serious, I wasn’t worried. He would never have brought me this far if he was putting me in mortal danger, would he? “I have so many questions. Christ, I’m walking on another planet.”

“I know. It was like this for me, too, when I came with Troy the first time.”

“Is this planet…Are the natives like us?”

“Well, it’s like Earth in many ways. Some are intelligent. Humanoids. They’ve learned to communicate with us, and they’re about as intelligent as we are. There are four species of humanoids. They all live in peace. There’s also vegetation, marine life, insects….rodents….no birds, but some of the rodents fly.”

“Will we meet the intelligent ones?”

“No. They rarely enter the citadel.”

“Why?”

“They’ve been around a long time, longer than any other civilization. They’ve learned to cohabitate in peace with each other. The beings that come to the citadel are from other worlds and generally not so peaceful. Though no natives have ever been killed, there have been some incidents that have upset them terribly. Believe it or not, the natives’ peaceful attitudes tend to piss off some of the visitors.”

“This place sounds kind of like a United Nations,” I joked.

“It is, except with less cooperation and harmony. Part of the reason the citadel is so big is because they want to discourage beings from walking out into their world, and the trip to the bottom would be enough to discourage anyone.”

“Has anyone ever done it?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve talked to people from Earth who have gone out, and I’ve met some beings from other worlds who’ve done it, too. Troy and I have talked of making the journey, but that would take days of walking just to get to the bottom, and even longer to get back up.”

We stepped into an open area, circular, about the length of a hockey rink. Lining the outer edge of this area were dozens of doors, all closed except for the one we’d entered through. The doors were made of a thick, dark wood and attached by heavy metal bolts to walls of stone. The stone was dark and dull, but of various sizes and shades, perhaps from various worlds, forming arches over the doors.

The center of the circular area was empty, without floor or ceiling, a tube without sides that carried debris upward in a cyclone pattern to the grates we’d seen on the roof. This tube was surrounded by a spiral staircase going down from this floor.

“Incredible,” I said, watching the debris swirl upward and out of the citadel. “What is it?”

“Well, let me put it this way. Without it, the wind we felt on the roof would topple the citadel. The wind always comes from one direction, on our maps it’s west, so the western walls are built with funnels that collect wind, then redirect it into the center of the citadel where it is naturally sent upwards and out the roof without damage to the citadel.”

“Whose idea was it? Ours?”

“No. It was the idea of the Narkimians, who are from another universe. When the citadel was built, Earthlings had no concept of high-rises.”

“When was it built?”

Andrew thought before answering. “It’s hard to explain. I mentioned how time moves slower here on Tirnanog. You won’t physically notice it while you’re here, but you will age much, much slower. It was built millions of years ago in Tirnanog years.”

“This building is MILLIONS of years old?”

“Only in Tirnanog years. In Earth years, it’s only about fifteen hundred years old. That is, it was built around five hundred A.D. You see, one day on Earth is like about five or six years here. We shouldn’t be here more than an hour, but when we return, we will have been gone only about two seconds, and two seconds is all we will have aged.”

He led me to the spiral staircase around the wind tunnel. “I suggest you don’t look down, not if you have any kind of fear of heights. You wouldn’t be able to see all the way to the bottom because of the debris, but you can still see about a half a mile or so.”

His saying this made me tempted to look, but I figured he knew what he was talking about and I am slightly afraid of heights. Besides, with all that debris blowing up, I’d probably get something in my eyes. “Where are we going?”

“To the library, three floors down.”

The steps were dark rectangular stone blocks that reminded me of the dark monoliths in ‘2001:A Space Odyssey’. We walked down, circling the wind tunnel exactly once and dropping about thirty feet. There was a chest-high railing around the tunnel made of a dark, heavy, tubular metal.

At the second level down, we found another circular area with doors along the perimeter. I wondered what was behind each one. Offices? Restrooms? I pictured Monte Hall at one of the doors with a microphone, asking if I wanted to know what was behind. No thanks.

Something struck me as particularly odd about the citadel. Of course, I found the whole place odd, but there was something missing that I couldn’t identify.  After descending another half-level, it occurred to me.

Lights! The citadel had no visible lights, though we could see perfectly. I asked Andrew about this.

“We call it autoluminescence, something developed on another world. Something’s been added to the air that stores light during the day, then releases it at night. It takes no energy, since it technically operates on solar power.”

“But that tunnel we came in through was dark.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t get much light during the day, so it doesn’t release much at night. If we had better ventilation in here, we could circulate the air so that its light inside that tunnel, but it’s not really necessary.”

“Crap,” I mumbled, thinking about the economic possibilities of autoluminescence. “Can we take some of this with us?”

“You can’t take things with you,” said Andrew.

Just like when you die, I thought. They say you can’t take it with you. Everything you get on Earth stays on Earth. The connection sent a chill down my spine, bringing back my earlier suspicion that we were, in fact, dead.

We descended another level, again circling the wind tunnel exactly once and again finding the same types of doors around the perimeter. Whoever had been the architect, that Nark-whatever-ian, hadn’t planned anything fancy. Had humans come over to help build the citadel? Yeah, probably.

“If you spend enough time in the library,” said Andrew, “all of your questions can be answered. Everything you would ever want to know is in the books there.”

“Are they in English?”

“Nope. None of them. They’re all written in the old tongue.”

“The old tongue? I never took any old tongue classes in school.”

“You’ll see.”

He hadn’t steered me wrong or lied to me on this quest yet, so I decided not to question him on this statement. He wasn’t bilingual to my knowledge, but obviously he could read the books.

We descended another level and found this floor similar except for the fact that there was only one of these dark doors standing alone.

He led me to it, then grabbed the large, brass, C-shaped rung that served as a handle. He turned to me. “Are you ready for this?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

He pulled the door open, put a hand behind my back, and then shoved me into the library.

The room was completely unexpected after the gloominess of the rest of the citadel. Everything – the walls, the books, the floor, the ceiling – was brightly colored, mostly shades of yellow and gold. The floor was carpeted in a sun-yellow thick shag. The walls were made of grainy yellow bricks, all perfectly square in contrast to the haphazard shapes of the stone walls throughout what we’d seen of the citadel. The shelves were unpainted tan wood, and the books – all uniformly gold – were standing perfectly upright and had no dust on them from what I could see.

I’d worked in a library before, and for books to be so perfectly placed and clean is nearly impossible, unless the only beings that ever entered the library came in to clean.

Immediately to our left stood a glass display case with silver edges and a golden platform inside. Not golden colored, but apparently made of gold. On the platform were three books laying side-to-side with the covers up. Each cover was identical. Gold background and a series of X’s similar to cross-stitch forming a square. No words on the covers, nor anything to tell the books apart.

Bookshelves lined the far wall and the wall to our right. The shelves reached the ceiling, which was about twenty-five feet high. Ladders on rollers, like you see in old movies, lined each wall. The books on all shelves were without words or markings, no OCLC or Dewey Decimal numbers to mark their place within the system. Was there a system?

Throughout the room were waist-high shelves, high enough for only one row of books stored beneath and each had one book laying open on an angled podium-like platform. I wondered why the shelves were so low, then I realized that many of the library’s visitors were surely much shorter than Andrew and I.

A brick wall stood behind the glass display case, but just past the case the wall disappeared, opening up to more of the library.

The bookshelves along the walls were each about fifteen or twenty feet wide. Between each was a yellow brick wall separated by a window which rose from a foot or so off the floor and reached almost to the ceiling, curving in at the top and coming to a point. Through the windows, I could see the swirling purplish clouds speeding past.

Andrew was looking at the books in the display case, resting his hands on the glass top.

“What are these books?” I asked.

“History. Answers.”

“Who wrote them?”

“Seers, wise men from one of the native tribes of Tirnanog, almost a subspecies. They have the ability to see into the past of any world they choose in any universe and write about it. They can only write objectively, because they aren’t particularly creative. They know all, but have little imagination.”

He pointed to the nearest waist-high shelf. “That shelf there has the complete history of a world known as Colupyme, up until a few years ago, that is. The next volume hasn’t been written yet. Colupyme is almost as advanced as Earth, but their beings are more rational than Earthlings, less spiritual. In fact, they have very little religion. There are some recent developments in religion, but any such beliefs are outlawed and punishable by imprisonment until the beliefs are denied, though anyone imprisoned for ten years is automatically executed. Their planet is mostly swampland and they live in trees that grow out of the swamps. They swim or travel in boats, except for the children, who have the ability to fly until they reach puberty. Last I read, surgeons were working on techniques to make it so even adults could fly. I can’t wait to read the next volume.”

“Do they ever visit the citadel?”

“Never. You have to be somewhat spiritual to visit.”

“Is Earth’s history here?”

“Yeah. They just completed a new volume, so they have everything up until last year. Of course, the seers know shit our own historians will never know.”

“Have you ever read them?”

“No. I plan to. Soon. Cliff’s read them and it says who Jack the Ripper was, what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, where the Ark of the Covenant is. It also mentions that one of our presidents in the twentieth century committed a murder during a campaign and got away with it. Not ordered it, but actually committed it personally.  He wouldn’t tell me who because he wants me to read the books myself.”

“Those would be the first books I read.”

“Would they?” he asked doubtfully.

I thought about it. No, an alien world would make much more interesting reading.

“How about the books along the walls?”

“More general stuff, also written by seers. How the Grand Eternity and all of the universes came to be. Books on universal chemistry and spiritual biology. Books describing solar systems and planets not interesting enough to warrant their own sections, planets with only lower life forms. Universal atlases. I’ve glanced through them, and I’ve only found a few things within their pages that particularly interest me. A lot of mumbo-jumbo to cut through.”

“And what about these books?” I asked, indicated the books within the display case.

“Ah,” he said, nodding and smiling. “These books are why I brought you here. These are the history books.”

“The history of what?”

“Of the intersection between the worlds, of Tirnanog, of the citadel, of the old ones, of Troy, of Cliff, of…me.”

“Jesus,” I mumbled.

“Yeah. Him, too. A new chapter is about to be written. You’re going to be added to the pages of history, my friend.”

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, unable to hide the quiver in my voice. I was almost ready to agree to take the life of Troy’s baby on faith, just so I wouldn’t have to see.

“I don’t see any other choice.” He lifted the lid on the case and removed the middle book. It looked heavy, as would be expected from a volume containing such vital information.

I closed the glass lid and he lay the book on top, then began turning its pages, knowing what he was looking for. He found it quickly. “Ah-hah!” He turned the book towards me. In the words of the seers themselves.

I looked at the book and saw nothing but a bunch of odd characters.

“I can’t read this,” I told him.

“Just try.”

“What do you mean, try? I don’t know that language!”

“Sure you do. It’s old tongue. All souls are born with the innate ability to read this language. It’s universal. Even illiterate people can read it.”

I shook my head, then looked back at the book. I looked over the characters more carefully, definitely noticing a pattern, but still unable to read. “I can’t read this, Andrew.”

“You’re just telling yourself that.” There was no doubt in his voice. “You sure as hell can read this. Start at the top of the page and read.”

“Read. Okay.” I attempted to babble out the nonsense I saw before me. “And when the soul of Andrew reaches its incarnation…Holy shit!” I looked up at him. I’d thought I’d been making those words up, but I realized I was actually reading them from the book. Though the letters were still foreign to me, they somehow managed to put information into my head, information I knew to be true.

“Told you,” he said proudly. “Only it doesn’t say ‘Andrew’ there. It says something that symbolizes me. You took it to be my name, but it actually has no meaning until your spirit gives them meaning. Read on.”

“And when the soul of Andrew reaches its incarnation in the Earth year of nineteen-sixty-seven…” – that was the year he’d been born – “…it will prove to be a time of conflict and possible conquest, a trial of great magnitude for his future in Tirnanog and a possible end to his soul. In the Earth year of nineteen-ninety, he will become acquainted with old ones Troy Morgan and Cliff, and will…” I paused. “Why doesn’t it give Cliff’s last name?”

“Only because you don’t know it and can’t put that information into what you are reading. His last name is Gilbert, by they way. Keep reading.”

“He will become acquainted with old souls Troy Morgan and Cliff Gilbert, and will come to know the truth of his old soul for the first time in this life. In nineteen-ninety-two, Troy Morgan will give birth to a son, just as Troy Morgan gave birth to the son of Andrew when he had been King Arthur in the tenth century. And the instances which came to pass shall come to pass again, with the forces being equally divided betwixt them both, and the battle becoming once more a loss for both Andrew and his son by Troy Morgan. This incarnation of the soul of Andrew Uphaus will be the final, repeating this endless battle between the two souls until both are lost and the balance is destroyed or the balance is upset by another force.”

I looked back at the page after having read this and the characters on this page were still unknown to me, though their meaning was perfectly clear. “It’s all true.”

“It’s time to upset the balance.”

I couldn’t disagree with him. I wanted to back out of helping him still, but I couldn’t justify it after having made my promise and having read from the book. I was divided, just as the gods were. I wondered if the division I felt was nothing more than the two halves of the gods fighting within me, arguing over which choice I should make.

“I know what you’re feeling,” Andrew said. “Just remember that when all is said and done, you are the deciding factor. The gods cannot choose a man’s destiny. Remember that.”

“I’ve got to help you, Andrew. I promised I would, and I won’t desert you. I’ll probably go to jail, but…I’ve just got to help you. Just promise me two things.”

“I will if I can.”

“First, we won’t hurt Troy, not any more than is necessary to kill the baby.”

“Okay.”

“Also, that I won’t have to lie to her or deceive her in any way, because I can’t do that. I can’t make her think I’m going to help her, then turn around and kill her baby. I think she’ll understand why I must do what I must do, but I have to be upfront with her.”

“I agree.”

We both heard the click and squeal off in one corner of the library and turned. A door I hadn’t seen opened and three beings entered the library. The first was a human, dressed in a brown suit and hat, and he didn’t hesitate to weave past the shelving units as he moved towards us. As he got closer, I could see that his hair and even his eyes were brown.

The two other beings were about four feet in height, hairless, and wearing green clothing that resembled kimonos. They were pale-skinned, kind of an off-white, and had eyes slightly larger than a human’s and a long, narrow nose and small mouth.

An hour or so ago I didn’t believe in alien life forms, and believed no man had ever encountered one.  Now, here I was facing two of them.  I should have been stunned the way one who witnesses the impossible logically would be.  But I wasn’t, am not sure exactly why.

I began to turn and leave the library, but Andrew grabbed my shoulder. “Seers.”

“Well, well,” said the man in brown, looking at me. “The seers were correct as usual. They told me there was an unwelcome visitor.”

“I was hoping they wouldn’t,” Andrew said to me in apology.

It took me a moment to understand. The seers had seen my arrival and had alerted this man to my presence.

“Look, Cliff,” said Andrew. “He was able to arrive here. Doesn’t that say something about him?”

“You’re Cliff Gilbert?” I asked. “Troy’s spiritual advisor?”

He shook his head. “I’m her brother.”

Andrew appeared shocked. “I didn’t know that was possible!”

I almost asked what he meant by that, then realized that Cliff wasn’t saying he was her brother in this world, but that their souls were linked by kinship.

“Troy tells me that you two have the ability to read each other’s minds,” said Cliff. “Is that true?”

“Sometimes, yes,” said Andrew hesitantly.

“Then he came here on your power, not his own. You used the mind-cross.”

“Yeah,” confessed Andrew, his shoulders slumping.

“You know it’s forbidden, Andrew, not between an old soul and a young soul. Your friend doesn’t have the discipline to be trusted. I can’t allow him to return.”

“Who gave you that kind of authority?”

Cliff looked over his shoulder at the two humanoids behind him. “I’m acting on their orders, and, therefore, on behalf of the citadel itself. You’re free to leave, Andrew. As for your friend here, well…” Cliff reached into an inside pocket of his suit’s jacket and removed a pistol. He flipped off the safety, then pointed it at my chest.

I took a step back. “You’re going to kill me?”

“Come on, Cliff,” pleaded Andrew. “He’s got a wife and kids.”

“Is that assurance that he won’t talk?”

“Talk about what?” I asked. “Who the hell would believe me anyway?”

“You never know. Our seers have said that there would be a risk, that there are those who would believe although they are not old souls.”

“Can’t they tell you whether or not I would talk?”

“No. Their response could affect your motivations. It’s the same reason that they don’t know whether or not your plan to kill Troy’s baby will succeed.”

“You know about that?”

“Of course he does,” said Andrew. “So does Troy, on some level. Neither of them can interfere with my plan, though.”

“But by killing me…”

“It’s different,” said Cliff. “I’m not doing it to stop you from killing Troy’s baby. I love Troy, but to interfere would most likely turn a few more gods against us.”

“I can’t do it alone,” said Andrew.

“That’s not my problem. It’s yours.”

“It’s yours now,” said Andrew, grabbing a handful of pages from the book in a vicious grip, a clear threat to tear them from the book.

Cliff laughed.  “Andrew.  We both know you wouldn’t dare harm that book.  That would absolutely turn more than a few gods against you.  You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Andrew slumped his shoulders.  “Of course.  You’re right.  However…”

He handed me the book, giving me a nod.

I took the open book in one hand, and gripped the pages as Andrew released his grip on them.

“Put the book down,” ordered Cliff, raising the gun as if prepared to shoot.

I almost did until Andrew grabbed my arm. “Don’t! He wouldn’t dare shoot you while you’re holding that book. Your blood might spill onto its pages and it would be ruined.”

“God damn it!” Cliff lowered the gun and reached for the book.

“No!” I yelled, stepping back. “Stay back or I’ll tear pages out!”

He withdrew his hand and stepped back. “They can write another copy. Nothing will be lost.”

“If that were true,” mused Andrew, “he would have shot you by now. That book’s unique. It’s not something you can just run another copy off of. Right, guys?”

He looked at the two seers, who nodded in reply.

“All right, Cliff, we’re going up to the roof, then we’re getting the fuck off of Tirnanog. Don’t try to follow us. You know the book can’t accompany us back to Earth, so I presume you’ll find it up on the roof when we’re gone.”

“How do I know he won’t destroy it anyway?”

“I guess you don’t.  Desperate people do desperate things.  But, really, what choice do you have?”

“You realize, Andrew, that by merely threatening to destroy that book, you could be turning some gods against your plight. When you go to destroy Troy’s baby, you may be in for a nasty surprise.”

“Hey, the gods have been with me for a thousand years. I don’t think they’ll be fickle enough to align against me just because of one moment of desperation.”

“We’ll have to see about that.”

“I hope you won’t hold this against me, Cliff. It’s nothing personal, you understand. The seers will tell you when we’ve left the citadel. Until then, don’t come after us.”

Cliff returned the pistol to his pocket. “I guess you win, Andrew.”

I had the feeling that Cliff had a plan in mind, and his concession was nothing more than a bluff.

“Come on,” said Andrew. We both backed out of the room and I shut the door.

“Listen to me,” said Andrew with wide eyes as we headed towards the staircase.  “Do not, under any circumstances, damage that book.  Yes, the gods will forgive me for this, but if you damage that book, they won’t, since this was my idea.  And if you destroy that book, you’ll be dead within 24 hours of our return to Earth, if you make it out of the Citadel at all.

“He’ll kill me back on Earth?” I asked, closing the book.

“If you destroy the book, yes.  He or someone aligned with him.  Assuming you don’t, he won’t dare touch you.  For one thing, he’d risk getting caught and going to jail.   He could get away with killing you here, and he may try, but the rules are different if we make it back to Earth.  The gods wouldn’t approve of him killing you back on Earth over a mere threat to the book.”

I followed Andrew up the stairs, hoping that Cliff would trust that letting us leave was the safest option for the book. Something told me, however, that we weren’t out of danger while we were in the citadel. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want us to leave.

We ran up the steps as if being chased, and I kept looking back as if expecting to see someone behind us. Still, the feeling persisted and I could see by Andrew’s backward glances that he was feeling it as well.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Deja vu? Do you feel it?”

“Deja vu? You mean, we’ve done this before?”

“I didn’t think I’d ever brought you here in any of my past lives, but maybe I was wrong.”

“You mean we tried this….and failed?”

“I don’t know. If you did, you’d probably have some kind of feeling of being here before. Let’s just keep going.”

I stopped, hearing the sound approaching. A pulsating that, yes, was somewhat familiar. A pressure coming at me from all around, straining at my eardrums.

“What is it?” I asked Andrew, who had also stopped.

Before he could answer, I saw it. A flash of black came up the stairs from behind us, moving too fast to be seen clearly. It came so quick, I only had time to raise the book like a shield. I caught a brief glimpse of a dog-like face, with a long, black snout.  Suddenly, the book was torn from my hands and gone along with the dark image I’d seen.

“It’s got the book!” screamed Andrew.

“What was it?”

“Cliff wasn’t joking! Shit!” Andrew turned and ran, and I followed, realizing there was nothing stopping Cliff from pulling all of his punches in getting us.

“Joking?” I asked between breaths. “About what?”

“Genetic engineering. Another planet…” He was already out of breath and panting, but didn’t slow down at all. “…in our universe…has perfected it….Cliff said he….was working….on some ideas…using Earth animals…here in the citadel.”

“That was a bat, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so…”

“But it’s head looked like a dog’s.”

“Like I said, genetic engineering.  Probably a bit of dog and bat mixed together.  He said something…about a chicken…but I thought….he was kidding.”

“A chicken?”

He shuddered. “Just keep moving.”

We passed the next landing and as we rushed up the stairs, I saw a door open out of the corner of my eye, but the door was out of sight a moment later as we moved higher. Had I seen something emerging?

I passed Andrew, who, apparently, had also seen it and had frozen. I grabbed his shoulder. “Come on.”

“Go!” he ordered, walking backwards up the steps.

“Move your ass!”

“Go! I know what I’m doing!”

A chicken appeared on the steps beneath us, and I found myself unable to move. It rose above ten feet in height, but was proportionally skinnier than a regular chicken and with considerably fewer feathers. Apparently, Cliff’s engineered chicken had a serious molting problem.  It stood on legs that were somewhat thick and had four huge toes, not the legs of a chicken at all.  Somewhat human.  Reminded me of Sesame Street’s Big Bird.

“Go!” screamed Andrew, and I ran on ahead while he faced off with the chicken. It had stopped at the bottom of the steps, watching Andrew with curiosity, the way a predator watches its prey. I realized with horror that Andrew would probably fit into its oversized beak.

Andrew turned to see if I was still running, and I was. I had circled around and was now directly across the wind tunnel from him, half a floor higher.

The chicken took a step and Andrew backed away.

He said something to the chicken. The whistling of the wind tunnel drowned his words out, but I could hear from the tone of his voice that he had somehow challenged the chicken. Was he crazy?

He looked at me. “Stay there! Get close to the railing!”

“Andrew!” I shouted, pointing to the chicken which had advanced while his head was turned. He looked back and the chicken froze.

“Come get me!” I heard him yell. From this distance, I could make out the chicken’s features more closely. It had a swan-like neck and swollen hands at the end of its wings. I couldn’t see clear enough to count the fingers through the swirling debris, but it was probably only three or four.  At this distance, it looked more like a dinosaur than a chicken.

I moved closer to the railing, wondering if I could get back to Earth without him. He said I could, but I didn’t know how. Just tap my heels together three times and say ‘there’s no place like home,’ perhaps?

It took a step and my heart lurched. It had some trouble finding its footing on the steps which were too narrow for its feet. It walked slowly, seemingly expecting some sort of trap and was trying, as I was, to figure out what Andrew was doing.

He had me close to the railing and directly across from him. He wasn’t retreating against the chicken’s advances.

Andrew grabbed onto the railing and hoisted himself up, straddling it.

Suddenly, his plan was very clear to me, though I couldn’t believe he’d be crazy enough to try it.

“What’s the matter?” he screamed. “Chicken?”

The bird screamed, its voice loud and shrill, nothing like a chicken’s cluck. Then it pulled its wings behind its back and charged clumsily up the stairs at Andrew, who was watching it intently and apparently counting to himself.

I leaned out into the wind tunnel, grabbing onto the railing for dear life.

The chicken stopped running and leapt, flapping its wings, and Andrew leaned away from the stairs, letting go of the railing and kicking away from it, into the wind tunnel. He spread his arms and fell ten feet before being caught by a wind current that carried him up.

The chicken went over the railing, over Andrew, and into a current above him. It tried to somersault down, but only flipped in the air, its wings beating frantically.  It hadn’t dipped down because, though bigger than Andrew, he was a bird, at least primarily, and birds are less dense than humans.

Andrew stayed level, spinning toward me but too far down. The chicken was being carried toward me. If it wasn’t too busy trying to get Andrew, it would probably be able to grab me and pull me out with it.

A sudden cross-breeze caught both of them, lifting them both higher and throwing the chicken into the center of the wind tunnel. Andrew fought the same breeze, kicking his feet and pedaling his arms like a swimmer. He managed to stay out of it and along the edge of the railing, coming directly at me.

At the last moment, he suddenly was wrenched away from the staircase. Seeing no other choice, I shoved my body over the railing, keeping one firm grip on it with my left hand. My feet dangled out into nothingness, supported only by the wind rising from below.

As he passed, his hand miraculously met with mine and we gripped each other. The forward momentum swung Andrew toward the railing. He grabbed onto it, managed to lock his legs around it, and pulled my body closer to it. I let go of his hand and grabbed the railing and quickly pulled myself over, gravity suddenly returning to my body.

A moment later, we were both laying on the stairs, panting like dogs. The chickenoid squawked angrily at us, spinning upward out of control towards the grate. Its bulging eyes darted about, trying to find us.  As I’d said, I might be able to squeeze through the holes in that grate, but the bird was far too large.

“Any more where that came from?” I asked.

“I only knew about the chicken. I didn’t know about the bat.”

“Then there could be more we don’t know about.”

“Could be,” he agreed.

“Let’s go.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He got to his feet and pulled me up. We quickly broke into a run. My legs ached from all of this climbing. We made it almost to the top floor when I heard a hollow ding! nearby.

More curious than scared, I looked around and saw Cliff across the wind tunnel and one and a half floors below, firing his gun at us. I almost ducked before I realized it would be a miracle if he hit us. Not only because of the distance, but the wind between us was deflecting his bullets. I flipped him the finger and followed Andrew to the top level. The chickenoid was above us, pinned to the grating by the wind pressing from below. It saw us and squawked in anger.

We went through the door and up the dark tunnel to the roof. We got up there, able to see the chicken through the grating. A feather floated up from the grate and disappeared over the edge of the citadel

The wind seemed fiercer than before, penetrating our skin all the way to the bone and drowning out any ability to hear each other.

“Now what?” I asked, only so he could read my lips.

He grabbed my head in both hands and slammed his own forehead into mine violently. I passed out.

V – Home, Home Again

I grabbed my throbbing forehead. I opened my eyes and saw pure white. I thought I was blind before I realized I was staring at the ceiling.

I sat up and turned to Andrew, who lay completely still with his eyes open, unblinking.

“Incredible,” I mumbled.

“So? Are you going to help me?”

I considered this, then realized there was nothing to consider. “Absolutely. You kept your part of the bargain. I’ll keep mine.”

“I don’t want you to do this just for the sake of keeping your word. If you want to back out of it now, I understand. You didn’t know when you made your promise. Now you know. If you’re going to help me, do it because you want to help me, not because you think you have to. You don’t.”

“I’ll do it, Andrew. Just tell me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Are we going to kill Troy? I mean, I don’t see any other way…”

He stared up at the ceiling.

“I’m not saying I won’t do it if we have to kill her. The baby has to die, but she doesn’t have to, does she?”

“I don’t know.”

“And there’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t want to get caught. I don’t want to go to jail. I’ve got a family, and they depend on me. If there’s any way we can do this without the authorities finding out, I want to try it. You’ve probably thought this out more than I have. I doubt you want to go to jail, either.”

“You’re right. I have thought this through some, and I don’t think we’ll have to risk going to jail.”

“If we have to risk it, I’m willing.”

He sat up. “Remember earlier, in the citadel, when Cliff was about to shoot you? There, he couldn’t be prosecuted. It’s perfectly legal for him to do whatever he wants to you in the citadel. If we can get Troy there, then the same goes for us. I think we can destroy her baby by using the citadel, and maybe we can even leave Troy intact.”

“I’m not sure I want to go back there. Cliff might be cooking up some more mutants for us to face.”

“You’re right. It won’t be easy. Cliff almost got us with his chicken, and he probably will try to stop us again. Just remember that we have half of the gods on our side, too. They’ll try to keep us alive.”

I found that reassuring, then realized the gods really had no reason to keep me alive, except as a tool to help Andrew.  Once we were done, I was expendable.

“So how do we get Troy there?”

“We could try to deceive her into going there willingly.”

“No. We promised we wouldn’t do that.”

“Then we’ll have to drag her kicking and screaming.”

“And then what?”

“I’m not sure. There’s an altar there. A Christian altar that she fears for some reason. It holds bad vibrations for her. I suspect the gods most associated with Christianity are sided against her and in our favor. If we can get her there, I think we’ll know what to do.”

The gods most associated with Christianity?

VI – Troy Morgan

We drove in my Mazda to his apartment complex in Kinawa, just outside of Alton, talking about the plan. I wasn’t sure I liked it. It counted on cooperation from Troy that I wasn’t sure she would give. He said she would be too concerned with the sanctity of the citadel to risk involvement from the police or neighbors. I thought different, that the majority of her concern would be with her unborn child.

I agreed with the plan nonetheless because I could see no other choice, and maybe, just maybe, Andrew knew her motivations better than I did.

We parked, then walked in silence to the building, then headed downstairs to their apartment. We walked side-by-side down the narrow hallway. I couldn’t help feeling like a villain. Troy had done nothing wrong, was just an innocent victim of circumstances, and I was taking part in a plot to destroy her unborn child, the most innocent party in this entire situation.

The feeling of deja vu returned. This scene was one I’d been in before. Had this already happened? Had we tried to kill Troy’s baby once before? If so, why were we doing it again, unless we failed? If it failed before, how did we expect to succeed this time?

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I was just remembering a time when Andrew and I returned to his apartment after making a beer-run.

“Do you feel it?” he asked.

“Yes,” I confessed.

He threw open the door, and Troy was sitting on the couch. She waved to us casually.

Andrew shut the door, then threw the bolt and attached the chain.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“We need to talk,” said Andrew, walking towards her. I stayed by the door, like we’d planned, in case she tried to escape. There were ground-level windows, but Andrew was sure he could stop her if she tried to crawl through one of those.

“What’s going on?” she asked again, more forcefully this time.

“We just got back from the citadel,” he said.

“You took him?” She looked to me, shock on her face, and I nodded.

The phone rang, startling all three of us. Its ring seemed loud and urgent for some reason, though there’s no reason it would be any louder than normal.  But I somehow knew it wasn’t some salesman or wrong number.

“I’ll get it,” said Troy.

“No,” said Andrew. “Let it ring.”

She stood up and shoved him aside. He reached for her arm, but she pulled herself free, shoved him, and dashed for the phone. Andrew lost his balance, falling onto the couch. She sped to the phone. I considered trying to intercept her, but I didn’t want to leave my position and I wouldn’t have been able to get to her anyway.

She picked it up. “Hello?” she asked casually, brushing her dark hair behind one ear. “Cliff? What is it?”

I looked to Andrew, who stood but stayed by the couch.

“They’re already here,” said Troy. “No….Oh, God! I see…Are you sure?….All right. Just a second.” She held the phone out to me. “He wants to talk to you.”

She didn’t seem intent on just running away, so I walked over and took the phone. “Hello?”

“I didn’t ask to talk to you,” said Cliff, confused.

“Shit,” I said, turning to see that Troy was racing to the front door, quickly unhooking the chain. She’d put me on the phone with Cliff only to get me away from the door.

I dropped the phone, but before I could even take a step, Andrew slammed into her back, then wrapped an arm around her throat, choking her.

“No!” she managed to scream, struggling against his arm, shaking her head side-to-side. She kicked Andrew in the knee, and he responded by tugging her off of her feet, holding her by her throat. She gagged, and I was afraid he would kill her.

“Ease up,” I said.

Cliff shouted my name over the phone. I picked up the dangling receiver and brought it to my mouth. “This is none of your business, Cliff! Do you understand? Don’t get involved.”

“I’m going to stop you both. If you return to the citadel, you’re both dead!“

I hung up the phone and followed Andrew, who was dragging Troy into the bedroom. He threw her onto the mattress on the floor, then pinned her to the bed. He talked calmly to her, reasoning with her. He said he wouldn’t harm her if she’d be quiet.

“He said…” I began.

“I know what he said. You told him this wasn’t his business, and you’re right.  It’s not.  But neither is it your business.”

It took me a moment to see his point.  I thought Cliff’s involvement was upsetting the balance, and shouldn’t be allowed.  But the same was true of me.  No, Cliff wasn’t upsetting the balance.  He was the balance.

“You mean he’s only allowed to interfere, because I’m interfering?”

“Something like that. Come on.”

I climbed onto the bed.

“No,” Troy pleaded softly. “Don’t hurt my baby.”

“Shut up!”

I considered saying something. I couldn’t believe he was saying this to her, that he could be this heartless to someone he clearly loved. I almost refused to go with them to the citadel, but decided to forgive him for his indiscretion.  Cliff’s involvement was part of the balance, but so was mine.  Without me, the balance would swing in Cliff’s direction.

Andrew lay on top of Troy, their foreheads touching. She was weeping and whispering ‘no’ over and over. I lay flat alongside them, my head resting alongside theirs, touching.

Someone pounded on the door. I heard the knob rattling.  I first thought it was cliff, but unless he lived in the building, which I’m pretty sure he didn’t, he couldn’t have gotten here in time.  Had to be a neighbor who heard the ruckus.

“Don’t…say…a…word,” ordered Andrew.

After a moment, the knocking stopped.

“What if they were going to get the police?” This wasn’t going to work.

“Stop it!” Andrew shouted at me. “Just relax. You’re holding us back. You’ve got to concentrate.”

I tried, but I couldn’t. Though I no longer heard anyone at the door, I worried about what would happen if the police showed up. Would Troy tell them what we were doing? We’d go to jail for what we’ve done so far, without having finished the job.

“Stop it,” ordered Andrew.

“Sorry.”

“Everything’s going to work out all right. We can get over in no time, if you just relax.”

He was right. If we crossed over and killed the baby, we’d be safe. Even after we returned, Troy would never be able to prove we’d done anything. If she survived.

I didn’t want her to die. As long as she survived, everything would be fine. I could live with anything less than Troy’s death.

We waited, and I relaxed. Troy still wept, but she didn’t fight. I suspected whoever had knocked had given up, decided they were overreacting.  If not, they were waiting for the police, who wouldn’t be here in the next few minutes.

I hoped we’d go over quickly, before the police had any chance of arriving, but several minutes passed with us silent on the bed.  I finally figured the cops hadn’t been called after all, and that we were safe.  As soon as I decided there would be no police and that all was well, we went over.

VII – The Return

All three of us were in the cockpit of the plane this time, seated side-by-side with Troy in the middle. We stared forward in silence as time accelerated and we slipped forward through the stars into Tirnanog.

“Is this necessary?” Troy asked us once we were on the roof of the citadel. The sky above seemed slower, tired. The chicken was still caught in the grating, but it had died and withered. I remembered that time was slower here. We had been gone for less than an hour, but to the chicken, that hour had been months.

“I’m afraid so,” Andrew said. “I have to go through with it this time. I have to stop it so I can live on.”

Troy burst into tears again. “But this is my baby! How do you know we can’t stop it somehow else? How do you know we can’t change our baby’s fate by other means?”

“There’s too many gods involved. No matter what we do, it’s all going to end up the same.”

“So where are you taking me?”

“To the altar.”

“No!” She backed away from us, though there was nowhere to escape to but into the citadel. Andrew and I grabbed her arms and led her to the pyramidal structure. She walked with us, dragging her feet in a moderate attempt to slow us down without actually stopping us. Did she know Andrew was right? Did she secretly approve of our decision?

I was glad the chickenoid was dead. I didn’t want to have to face that again. I remembered the bat, but that had never actually attacked us. Perhaps it wasn’t trained for attack. Had Cliff made anything else? Oh, shit, I didn’t want to go back in!

We went into the citadel and led her down the spiral staircase. So far, we were alone. Hopefully, we’d returned to the citadel before Cliff. If he’d left even a minute after we did, the time difference would turn that into, what, a day or so? Enough time to complete what we came here to do. However, if he’d returned right after getting off the phone, he would have a lot of time to prepare for our arrival, several days. Perhaps a week or two.

We went down five floors and were unchallenged. Andrew’s grip on Troy was firm. I worried that she’d try to escape by jumping into the wind tunnel. I was sure she could fit through the gratings, but would the wind blow her off of the roof, causing her to fall many miles to her death?

Andrew led us to the door to the altar, one not unlike every other door in the citadel. He opened it and we led Troy inside.

VIII – The Altar

I was surprised to see how closely the altar in the citadel resembled a Christian sanctuary, with a magnificent sparkling golden cross rising twenty feet off the floor behind the pulpit. There were rows of pews, all dust-covered as if no services had occurred there in years. I remembered that Earth Sundays were almost forty years apart in citadel time.

I saw that Troy was shivering and looked nauseated. She tried to pull free from us, but lacked the strength. “God damn it, guys! I can’t go through with this! Please don’t do this to me. Take me home. I’ll get an abortion.”

“Stop it,” Andrew ordered, and she did, but continued to shiver. He looked at me as if about to speak, then surprise flashed over his face as he looked past me.

“About time you guys showed up,” said Cliff. I turned and saw him standing against the wall behind the door, holding a shotgun casually. The barrel was pointed directly at me. “I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

“You son of a bitch,” said Andrew. “You have no idea when to stop, do you?”

“Let her go, Andrew.”

Andrew spun Troy around so she was between him and Cliff. He seemed to plan on using her as a shield. Didn’t he realize that Cliff was aiming at me? “Fuck no! This isn’t your business!”

“Troy is my business.” He stepped away from the wall, blocking the door and bringing the gun within five feet of me. I considered rushing him, but was afraid it would go off before I cleared the distance between us.

“You’re being used,” said Andrew. “You’re being used and you don’t even realize it.”

“So’s your friend here. So shut up and let her go!” ordered Cliff, tightening his hold on the gun.

“Like hell I will!”

Cliff shoved the gun at me. I thought for a moment that he’d pulled the trigger. “You want me to blow him away? You want me to blow your buddy away? Well, you’re giving me a reason to! I’ll do it if you don’t let Troy go! Is the death of her baby worth the death of your friend?”

You know?  To him, it probably was.

Troy tried to struggle, but her strength was practically gone, as if the altar was draining her spirit. Andy pulled her arm behind her back and bent them up, straining her shoulders. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Look, Cliff. If you have a problem with what we’re doing, then you point that gun at me, not him, me! Dave’s just as much a pawn in this thing as you are, so if you want to save Troy, then you’ll have to stop me.”

“Shut the hell up, Andrew. I’m getting sick of your crap. Let Troy go. I’ll count to five, then I’m going to shoot Dave, then I’ll try to deal with you.”

“Fine. Shoot him.”

“What?” I asked, hoping, to this point, that Andrew had something in mind. Would he really sacrifice me to kill Troy’s baby? I wouldn’t have believed it, but at that point, it looked like that was the case.

“One,” said Cliff calmly, leveling the shotgun at me.

Andrew stood defiantly, unemotionally, holding a squirming Troy before him. I looked at Andrew’s eyes, but he didn’t appear to be thinking. Either he had no plan, or he already decided on one.

“Two.”

Andrew looked at me, and I shrugged a question. His lips didn’t move. He had no message for me.

“Three.”

Andrew looked at Cliff. “All right, take her.”

“Let her go, Andrew. That’s all I’m asking. Let her go.”

Andrew held onto her. “Just take her.”

“No! Let her go!”

“Take her, Cliff!”

“Four!”

“Okay! Fine!” Andrew shoved her towards Cliff. She stumbled, started to fall. Cliff stepped toward her, taking the gun off of me. Andrew ducked and followed Troy, then shoved her forward with both hands into Cliff. Cliff stumbled backwards, but kept his feet.  She fell and Andrew stepped over her, throwing himself against Cliff. The gun went up and Andrew grabbed its barrel.

“Get her to the altar!” he screamed.

“No!” yelled Troy.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and literally dragged her to the front of the church, my back to the altar.

“Let her go!” yelled Cliff, yanking the shotgun out of Andrew’s grip, then lowering it towards me.

Andrew turned slightly, throwing a shoulder into Cliff’s chest, knocking him against the door.

The shotgun went off. I saw a flash from the barrel with a loud crack.  Though aimed in my general direction, the bullet missed me.  I heard a second blast from behind me, from the direction of the altar. I thought it was an echo until I turned around.

The wall had imploded near the cross, opening a hole about a foot in diameter. Wind whistled through, knocking loose stone from around the hole, blowing the crumbling stone across the carpeted floor.  Andrew had mentioned the holes that capture the air and direct it up and out of the citadel.  Cliff had just created a new hole, where wind blew in with nowhere to go.  The wind whipped through the room, making it difficult to move as I was shoved in one direction before the wind would pull me in another.

I stopped dragging Troy, and the struggle near the door quieted as well. We all watched as the wall continued to crumble, further pieces being blown loose from around the hole.

“What the hell?” I heard someone ask, then realized that I’d said it.

Chunks of rock continued to cascade down, opening a larger and larger hole. I’d thought it would stop at a certain point, that only the rock around the damaged area would break off. Instead, the whole wall, being near a million years old, was slowly breaking apart.

“Oh, shit!” yelled Cliff.

Suddenly, a large chunk of the wall came free at once, breaking into smaller rocks in mid-air. One piece struck my shoulder, knocking me away from Troy. She knelt at the steps to the altar, covering her face from the debris flying about.

I put my hand to my shoulder and felt the warm, wet stickiness of blood. I didn’t look to see how bad it was. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the opening sky through the hole. The sky!

The wall continued to crumble around the cross as if it would never stop. The cold wind whipped through me, chilling me to the bone. The hole grew until parts of the cross were exposed.

I watched a fist-sized stone fly from the wall and strike Troy on the top of her head at incredible speed. She slumped to the ground.  Considering the size of the rock and its speed, there was zero chance she could have survived that.

Troy was dead, and her baby would follow her in the next few minutes.  In some sense, Andrew had just won, but I had a feeling things weren’t as successful as he would want.

The hole was about ten or more feet in diameter and showed no sign of stopping. A series of popping sounds, like balloons, came from the hole where the cross was being exposed. The cross began to sway, loosening itself from the crumbling wall.

Oh, shit! I sprung to my feet, accidentally putting myself into the path of a pea-sized piece of stone, which struck my throat, knocking me backward. I struggled to stay on my feet, but I was suddenly disoriented.

Fighting to breathe, I heard my name, then turned and saw Andrew rushing at me, his arms extended, his eyes wide. I wondered what the hell he was doing, leaving Cliff and his gun, but then I heard the creaking noise from behind me. I turned and saw that the cross had broken free from the wall. My mind screamed for my body to dodge, but the towering cross held me transfixed.

I was struck from behind and thrown to the floor, rolling uncontrollably in a cross-breeze that pulled me to the side. I hit the altar and looked back, but only caught a brief glimpse of Andrew standing where I’d been a moment before. Then the cross came straight down on his head, hitting the floor a half-second later with his body crushed beneath its weight.  The bottom of the cross lay only a few inches from my foot.

“Andrew!” I croaked, rising to my feet, having to grab the altar railing to stand against the undertow of wind trying to pull my feet out from under me. Despite the dirt flying into my eyes, I could see a lifeless arm protruding from underneath the cross.

I ran forward, stumbling once in a wind shift, but not stopping. I knelt by the cross and tried to lift it off of my friend, but even if I could, I knew he was already gone. On the other side of the cross, his legs lay still. The rest of him was pinned under the cross.

I grabbed his wrist, feeling for a pulse, anything to give me hope…

A hand clutched my shoulder, and I spun, looking up into Cliff’s shocked eyes. “Don’t bother.”

I leapt to my feet, throwing my weight into his body, slamming him against a pew. You killed him!” I accused. “Bastard!”

“No, I…”

I struck him across the face, knocking him into a row. I picked up a rock, perhaps the one that had knocked out Troy, and threw it into the back of his head as he tried to get to his feet. He collapsed, moaning.

I reached down and pulled him into a standing position. His hands fumbled for support, and I pulled him away, then shoved him toward the altar. “What the hell did you think this was, a fucking game?”

Dizzy, he began to stumble, but I grabbed his shirt and lifted him upright. We passed by Troy, the top of her crushed head sticking out from under the cross, her blood staining the red carpet a darker shade.

“Stop,” he said.

“You killed them both, you sorry son of a bitch!”

“It was an accident!” He backed away from me up the steps to the altar. I grabbed him and lifted him, then threw him further back. He turned and crawled away on his hands and knees, his brown coat stained with blood.

I found a basketball-size stone, lifted it with both hands, and then threw it onto his back. He screamed, then collapsed, rolling over to knock the stone off.

I grabbed his shirt and one leg, then lifted him off of the ground. “No!” he screamed, thrashing. “Stop For God’s sake!”

I carried him to the hole in the wall, which had stopped growing after the cross fell, then tossed him through. He flailed at the ragged edge of the wall as he passed through the hole. He missed, and disappeared, his scream gradually fading from my ears as he fell and fell and fell.

I left the altar, walking back to the roof as I wept silently. I disappeared alone into the Grand Eternity.

IX – Return to Eternity

Alone in the cockpit of the plane, flying through the star-speckled darkness, I began to feel more at home, more aware of the laws governing the universes than ever before.

The Grand Eternity. My birthplace. The birthplace of everyone and everything. The birthplace of the gods.

It always existed. It always was. It never wasn’t. It never changed. Would never die. Never change. Never.

“My God, why not?” I asked out loud, laughing so loud and unexpectedly that I worried myself. Why couldn’t I stay and just watch the stars go by forever and ever, never return. Without time, I would be as eternal as eternity itself.

“You can’t, my friend.” I looked to my left and saw Andrew in the co-pilot’s chair, smiling at me.

“You’re alive?” I whispered.

He shook his head, then reconsidered and nodded, then reconsidered again and shrugged. “Well, I guess that depends.”

I understood.

“You aren’t going back?” I asked.

“No. Not this time. You understand.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Then you will. Isn’t this whole thing just so goddamn crazy?”

“What about…”

“What?”

“The battle. What about the baby? I mean, is it over?”

“I give up. I just want to stop. The whole thing’s ridiculous anyway, just as crazy as everything else. Who really cares who wins? Not me. It’s not important. The balance will always be there.  Nothing I do will ever change things, not really.  We can change what we do and what happens to us, for better or worse, but everything balances out in the long run for everyone and everything.  So I’ll give the gods something else to bicker about.”

“You know, you’re right. I do understand.”  I really did, though I knew that once I returned to Earth, everything would be fuzzy and my understanding would be more or less gone.

“I’ll see you again,” he said. “I’ll be waiting.”

“I know.”

“It won’t be long, not in the scheme of things.”

“I know.”

“Goodbye, my friend.”

“Goodbye, Andrew.”

He disappeared in a flash.

The End