*copyrighted material*
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The walls steamed hot, the stagnant fumes escaped lazily from beneath the chromium steel prison cell door. No room for sunlight to shine through, except for some fissures on the top sides of each decaying partition. Halfway underground, trapped in twilight. The rays filtered through in the shape of radiant spiders and color spectrums screened on the sweltering and water-logged tile floors. Stellar-shaped patterns of beige and gray. His extremities and upper back felt benumbed as if an entire colony of ants had invaded his body, crawling under his sweaty skin. A drop of salty perspiration got caught by his eyelashes and through his waterline, it burned. He vomited. Wyatt blinked in a haste with a worn-out frown, the coal-fired boiler at the belly of the cell had been cooking him for a few minutes now. The heater’s hatchway was wide open.
What was the intent of these water heaters incorporating cells? Forcing dehydration into their victims, besides comfortable hot showers for non-civil townsfolk and other self-righteous commodities upstairs.
He gasped with foul tastes in his mouth, he’d been shackled by the ankles. His chains levered to the rasped and claw-marked brick ceiling while his hands had been handcuffed to the sewer grate that collected all of the humidity of the room. His fixed vertebrae disks had eventually
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given in to gravity after a month and a half of cervical torture. The agony and torment were unbearable. He wore only a pair of sweat-soaked knickers. Sweat dripped from his bushy beard and down to his semi-nude scalp.
Not long after the first few days of a sterile interrogation at the police department, Jesse Mcallister had been ordered by the Visitors to take Wyatt to Fort Yggdrasill. A military stronghold located nearby Nooktown’s runways hangars surrounded by hills, an outmoded facility with unclear purposes given to the public except for the obvious justification of detailed cargo value and condition control. Just a hand-picked bunch of words to hide the government’s obsession with sovereignty beasts. Yggdrasill—named after the vast mythical tree in Norse cosmology—where Wyatt was held hostage under primitive, brutish torture devices and exposed to extreme hunger had been inhabited by active servicemen for centuries since the structure formed part of the first handful of strongholds built and designed by no other than Queen Elizabeth I back at the end of the 1500s. Roanoke—originally an English colony settled in 1585, as a small piece of land accidentally discovered by Sir Humphrey Gilbert while lost at sea on his way to England—was abandoned by the Queen’s regiment shortly after the construction of the scattered fortifications due to heated discussions with the inhabiting Renou people, who stemmed from the Saami Vikings during the Stone Age. The wise Renou roamers had claimed the soil was enshrined by apparitions—before any altercations with the colonists—who’d cautioned them since the beginnings of time about what these entities called ‘The Grip of Modern Men’. Or the upsurge before the bane. A cosmic misfortune.
Fort Yggdrasill, yet archaic, was quite a conception. 4.5 acres and six adamantine gates. An outer and inner ward surrounded by chipped stone walls, blackened oak frames, and ironwork fixed with forelock bolts. More hardwood skeletons and firebricks for the compound edifices. Gambrel roofs and white trussed English windows. Each building was three stories high, which
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included quarters for those in military service and intelligence. Office rooms, off-limits testing, and research rooms. And also a cafeteria.
The ex-cabbie in his delusion—or rather not one—observed upside down as light pellets poured from the heated walls from all points of the secluded prison cell. His vision was clouded by faintness and steam, but soon his ears picked up whispers and mumbles. Until those became full-mouthed noises, like standing in the middle of the sea. Wyatt looked around disoriented, as he tried to decipher how small spheres of light could produce such noises without alerting any of the guards outside.
“We must waste no time . . . before the Cosmos changes her mind . . . ” A voice whispered, sparking a debate amongst its companions.
“No, this will lead to rack and ruin. It’s far from our jurisdiction.”
“Fate is fate. We need no court for this! Our function as Defenders of Shine is to watch over those akin to the grand organic order.”
“The Cosmos makes no mistakes, correct? She has brought our attention to this plight. We cannot ignore her wishes.”
“Is this really what she wants? If interfering with paramount forces is what we are doing now, the Renou people will—”
“Quiet! Save your words for court. The human is listening . . . ”
“Should we show ourselves for the session? Will this human be a problem?”
“He will surely find his way into grave-passing before the trial expires, forbid Krishanu from ever knowing I said that, at this point, Marut can’t contain his anger all by herself.”
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As if someone had turned on the light of a concealed plane of existence, Wyatt could suddenly see the unviewable. A ghoulish swarm of apparitions had concentrated around him. The same occurrence he’d eyewitnessed outside Nooktown’s all-encompassing pastures. Yet now, he could distinguish their true form with his own eyes and not through veils of gloom. Deciduous horns of all sizes, tangled and contorted. Made of ivory-colored material and empty eye-sockets, clothed in sublime weaved pattern dressing gowns. Some with colors he knew did not exist. Their bone structures, however, resembled those of people, matchless at times yet with semi-conical heads. Wide and unearthly narrow and fat-boned carcasses but no jaws.
Wyatt paid no mind to his agony. Questioning his judgment was something he refused to do on such an advanced stage of suffering. Still, he could not disesteem how these ghosts had plagued his reasoning from the moment of his arrival.
“Make some room for the rest of us, would you? The court will enter the session any moment, you bickering souls!” The mumbling and whispering came back as another one of their kin opened the way toward the prisoner. This phantom, in particular, was surrounded by floating sparks. He shone like a golden nebula and his deer horns resembled those of a leafless willow tree.
“Krishanu! Twin of mine, wait up!” Far back followed a small framed reflection of the newcomer. A female surrounded by jets of zephyrs and glittered as a sapphire gem.
“Marut! Help me extinguish the fire.” Her twin brother, Krishanu, called with the utmost sentiment of defiance. “We shall not show any courtesy to these partisan spirits. I’m tremendously disappointed at how our title as Defenders of Shine has taken a fall out of personal interests.”
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His sister responded with a gentle nod and killed the fire from within the heating torture device with a sweep of her bony hands. Her twin then looked up at Wyatt’s shackled legs with a distasteful glare, burning the bulky chains with sacred flames.
Wyatt’s debilitated body hit the floor with a smack, and the blow brought him back to a shaken reality. Looking around, his side pressed onto the wet floor, and curling up his legs in pain. Startled, as if weeks of torture had detached his mind from fully understanding his surroundings.
“Y—you . . . ” Was the only word that came out from a mouthful of gibberish words as he assessed Krishanu’s features.
“Stay where you are, human. You’ll need rest for what might come ahead . . . ” The phantom replied, before looking at the rest of the spectral observers. Suddenly, all of them vanished and the prisoner waited for the unexpected.
The walls stretched into an elbow room, seemingly infinite from every point of that mystical new space made of whiteness and pillars of light. A circular tribunal judge table set with marble tones appeared in its center, a tower with five seats with complexly designed armrests. Two chairs above and three underneath. This bizarre turret-like piece of furniture was enclosed by an endless amount of seat rows for those to witness the extraordinary trial, along with the jury box. In an instant, the rows were full of spectators. The phantom, in the company of his twin sister, stood tall between those observing and the empty tower of seats that belonged to the grand judges. A ring-shaped space in which those involved in the case could navigate around the whole courtroom, seeking the jury’s support.
It was an anticipated opening of the ceremony as the five grand judges walked into the necromantic tribunals. A raw drumming symphony with a chorus that seemed to come particularly from nowhere except the pale ceiling from which more beings could observe the
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trail from an inverted dome. The five grand judges—the authority in this realm—were idiosyncratic beings that shared many incarnate similarities with those surrounding them in the infinite room, bony with thorny heads and vacant eyes. Still, their cold meats were oddly slender and taller than any creature Wyatt had ever seen, ten feet long at least. He could see the works of it all as a projection through his eyes inside the prison cell. Still handcuffed and low to the ground.
The five opulent creatures tumbled to take a seat, their long garments setting in slowly as if the place lacked gravity. With no words, they proceeded to focus their attention on the ghost twins. Marut and her brother promptly lowered their gazes in reverence, with notable respect. The Five Possessors of Enlightenment, or in other words the five grand judges, were composed of one single spirit cut apart into five. Gurdaat—all of them a sentient part of that collective spirit—sat in all seats elevated by the turret.
“Krishanu, The Flame. You’ve postponed this trial on several occasions . . . ” Gurdaat affirmed with stoic features. “Even when it was you who convoked us in the first place, it is unequivocal to everyone in this courtroom that even you doubted the outcomes of what you called a new epistle from the Cosmos. Tell me, what has transcended? Why have you changed your mind?”
“Dear fellow Defenders.” Marut’s twin began. “And dear grand judges, the Five Possessors of Enlightenment. My convictions have not faltered, not a single day. But I’m aware this trial would have no cause if I did not come prepared for it. Or rather remind you all that our sole purpose in this world was and is fighting against ‘The Grip of Modern Men’.”
“Go on,” Gurdaat replied. A flat reaction, but still humbly awaited by the phantom.
“It’s been a few centuries that we’ve been operating with little guidance of the grand organic order. We lost against ‘The Grip of Modern Men’ but never recovered. We’ve fallen astray
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because we remained losers of that battle. I believe this new epistle I’ve been gifted with begs for our attention, a new battle against Roanoke, their government, and military forces.”
“Krishanu, The Flame, you keep talking about a new epistle, but according to our functionaries, you are the only Defender of Shine who’s seen it. I might need to remind you a true epistle shows itself to all creatures of the wild world with no exceptions. Animals, sprites, and all spiritual beings forged with no human vessels. Can you please clarify your intentions?”
“My good intentions remain intact, you know me well. I think it’s time I share my thoughts about the obvious contradictions in my statement. I believe the new epistle has reached animals and sprites with no complications, and I also do believe I’m the only Defender of Shine that received such a good omen to deliver it to my comrades. Not because they are not worthy but because this mission shall not succeed if we all find ourselves comfortable waiting for the Cosmos to act alone. To believe in what not all of us can see. It might sound ridiculous . . . ” Marut’s twin pondered for better use of words, “but we all lack apprenticeship to what truly ‘The Grip of Modern Men’ means, for it to be defeated.”
“Are you suggesting we find inner discipline at the hands of a mortal of your choice?” Gurdaat asked, notably puzzled by Krishanu’s words, sympathizing with the nettled crowd.
“Wyatt Elsner, the human here before your eyes, is no prophet but a tool despite his controversial origins. What I’m referring to is that he is not under your scrutinizing eye because of me today. The Cosmos made her choice but needs us to achieve the best-case scenario once on the battlefield. How can our community not see this is not a man-made narrative?”
“I see . . . ” The judge turned to his other four selves, reading their expressions briefly before continuing, “Exactly what is it that the Cosmos has burdened us with for this quest?”
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“The grand organic order has asked my brother to retrieve an authorization of immunity for this man,” Marut spoke, her wispy arms traced with lilac veins as she firmly pressed her palms against each other. “We know these kinds of endorsements are granted . . . scarcely to anyone. But Krishanu and I are positive that allowing Wyatt the instructed weapons will produce much more visible changes. These changes will work to our advantage and restore some order. Enough time to collect more epistles, if we can collectively break the ice with the Cosmos once more, then we won’t have to wait another three and a half centuries. Our uttermost enemy is not Roanoke itself but their newest division of primitive mercenaries, known as the Visitors, and their puppeteers. Our old enemies might have passed away long ago, but our new ones have inherited ‘The Grip of Modern Men’ we desperately fought over back then.”
Gurdaat gave the twins a stern, yet absorbed look. Deciphering what the grand organic order had become was a riddle to all Defenders of Shine, even those above to conduct the rest at the front lines. The multi-existent judge finally knew what question was next. “Marut, The Wind, have you experienced at first hand the grace of this arcane epistle your brother speaks of? I’m confident someone such as yourself can expose this case in much . . . conciliatory manners.”
Marut straightened her back and took a step forward, “Gurdaat, it is a fact that by our condition as twins, we are weaved with the same frequency, but I must be clear that the message was directed at him, not me. I wish for all of you to under—”
The unsullied alloy door of the excruciation cell opened through the remaining clouds of scorching fog, and the conjured projection of the courtroom vanished from Wyatt’s eyesight in a breath.
A uniformed figure came in. It was Jesse Mcallister with a tight grip on his six-shooter. Escorted by a pair of short-limbed troopers that could barely keep up with his pace and outrage. With a
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quick move, the Head Commander and Mayor of Nooktown grabbed the oldest Elsner brother by the throat and slapped him with the front sight of his gun.
Jesse then realized the fire of the water boiler had been dead for a while now. He stomped out the prison cell and shot the guards on shift at the other side of the wall. Then came back much more furious than before, cutting his air a second time and digging his nails through the gloves.
The blonde man then hissed, “Where did your petty little brother go?” His contained fury and impatience trickled out from his voice. “The vermin ran off further into the woods with his pestilent pet, my men can’t find him . . . I don’t think you and your little piece of shit brother know the mess you street rats are getting me into. The Visitors are capable of ANYTHING, and now I’m forced to show them my men’s latest report.”
Jesse let go. Playing with the barrel of his gun, opening, and closing, as the bloody-faced prisoner wheezed for air. The pain, was extremely engrossing as he couldn’t fully compute the Head Commander’s indignation.
“I know that the Renou Community tried to help you before you could set foot on Nooktown. I ordered my men to search for Woodbone before you arrived, but it turned out he was the first one to vanish . . . ” He sighed. “We found the Renou pastures deserted as well. I guess it’s just too bothersome to trust people these days. Right?” He scoffed, bending his knees and on his toes. Pressing the gun’s muzzle on Wyatt’s nose. “My men will torture you until you tell me where the hell is everyone hiding. Or until you die. Whatever happens first . . . ” He looked back at one of his soldiers, “Let’s start with some nail plucking, shall we?”
END OF CHAPTER #13