Chapter 22
A CHUNK OF CHEESE AND A STORY
BLUE
The primordial bastard is definitely teasing me by keeping the key to my cage so close to my prison. He knows I can’t reach it. He knew the other day when he closed his eyes that I wouldn’t be able to take it.
I’m trapped.
Truly fucking trapped.
A shadow darts in the periphery of my vision, and I whip around, stomach tightening at the sight of the eight-legged creature scuttling toward me. It’s nowhere near as large as Aserathiin, but it’s bigger than me, and that’s enough to make me whiskers twitch and me bowels go all hot and liquid.
“You are Blue?” it asks.
I lift me chin, determined not to be freaked out by the fact I’m in a cage that the hairy thing might be able to squeeze its spider body into. Damn me and my rotund form. But if it wanted to eat me, it probably would already be chomping on me.
I quieten me nerves. “Yeah, I’m Blue. You one of Aserathiin’s children?”
“I am. Mother has sent me to help you escape.” It scuttles around my cage as if looking for a weakness. “You are trapped well. Not able to squeeze through the bars. Not able to climb past the power above you.”
“Observant little thing, aren’t ya?” I point to the key. “But you missed that.” I grab the bars to my prison. “If you nudge it closer, I can use it to get out.”
Its mandibles twitch. “Cruel to leave it so close yet too far.”
“Tell me about it.”
It nudges the key close enough for me to grab it, and I use my tail and my arms to maneuver it and slot it into the keyhole.
The spider scuttles back a little as I unlock the door and step out. “Where to now?”
“Now I go. My task is complete.”
The fuck? “I thought you were meant to help me escape?”
“I have done so. You are no longer caged, and I must return to Mother for the great sleep.” It scuttles off the table and out of view.
I guess I’m on my own, and honestly, I ain’t thought this far. Where do I go? To the nest? Can I free the others? What am I doing? I falter at the lip of the table, suddenly riddled with doubt.
The air to my right shifts. I freeze, fur standing on end as the awareness that I’m no longer alone in the room rushes over me.
A set of large brown eyes peers over the edge of the table. I fall back with a yelp, my heart slamming against my ribs.
The eyes sit in a brown oval face that seems too small to hold them. Wisps of dark hair cling to a scalp that is defiantly smooth as if determined to shake off the strands clinging to it.
“You are Blue?” the brown-eyed man says, though man’s an optimistic word considerin’ he’s barely four foot tall with arms like twigs and a head much too large fer his body.
His tunic is skintight. Black, like shadow clinging to his form.
“Are you Blue?” he asks again when I don’t answer immediately.
“Who wants ta know?”
“My name is not for you to know. My mistress Arpita and liege Chandra send me. They have a task for you. Find the dagger in the bottom drawer of Chandra’s study and bring it to the rose garden. I will take you to safety.”
To Chandra? Which means he’s not under evil’s control. And a dagger? Oh, the dagger. The one that can stop the primordial evil if wielded by Leela.
The study is next door. Escape is now a real possibility. A bubble of euphoria expands in my chest then bursts as a new scenario fills me head.
If I leave, then the primordial evil will come looking fer me. He’ll start searchin’, his attention in places that it don’t need to be, and then…What if he finds Chandra and stops whatever plan’s in place?
Feck my life. “I can’t do it.”
“What you mean? You find the dagger and—”
“I know what you want me to do, but I can’t leave here. Look, the study is next door. You can get to the dagger and take it yourself.”
He looks over his shoulder, then back at me, blinking slowly. “I take the dagger and I can take you too.”
Fuck, I want out of this place so badly it’s an ache in my bones. “I gots to stay here. Keep the evil bastard’s attention on me, ya know. So he don’t suspect something is up.”
Comprehension lights up the creature’s eyes. “You are smart.”
“Thanks.”
“And you are brave.”
Brave? Nah, I just love Leela, and this…this gives her time to get back to me and stop this evil fecker. Still, my heart sinks as I walk back into the cage. “Lock me in, would ya? Then put the key outta reach.”
The brown-eyed little man reaches up with his spindly fingers and turns the key, locking me in. A lump forms in me throat, but I swallow it down. He places the key outta reach, and then he pushes his finger into the lock.
“What ya doin?”
There’s a soft sizzle and a click. “Will seem locked but will not lock. You run when you ready,” he says.
Knowing I can escape whenever, regardless of the key, unravels the knots in my belly a little. “I’m not running till I know Chandra’s managed to get his ass to Leela.”
“Then I will find you and tell you when that time comes.”
I nod. “You best get that dagger and get outta here. The evil fucker will be back soon. He usually comes to see me after sundown.”
“I know. I watch.”
Creepy, but whatever. “Go.”
The air shimmers, and he vanishes, but if I look real careful, I can see his silhouette moving across the room to the study.
He slips through the door and is gone, but the air still feels charged.
His magic maybe? Long moments pass, and the air shifts, the strange pulse and crackle vanishing.
My fur settles. The brown-eyed little man is gone.
The plan will go on. And me? I’ll stay put till the time is right. I’ll know when. I’ll feel it. I always do, and if the right time don’t come, then Leela will.
She’ll come fer me.
She always does.
I’m starting to feel sorry fer meself, wondering why the heck I didn’t just go with Brown Eyes instead of deciding ta be smart, when the evil bastard wearing Wonder Pecs returns.
“Hello, Blue,” he croons, taking his usual seat at the table, opposite my cage. His gaze drops ta the key and then lifts to me, and the corner of his mouth kicks up.
I ain’t playing games today. “Yeah, I tried ta reach it. Ha ha. Ya happy now?”
His eyes narrow. “Happy? I haven’t been happy in a long time, but yes, it gave me a spike of satisfaction to taunt you.”
At least he’s honest. Maybe I can get him to be honest about other things. Maybe I can find out a little more about this control he has over everyone. Maybe I can get ta me anchor buddies. A fresh bubble of hope fills my chest.
“You know what makes me happy?”
He arches a brow. “Do tell, little rodent.”
“Making other people happy. Gives me this warm glow, ya know. You should try it sometime.”
“Oh really?”
That smile again. I want ta smack it off his face.
“Yeah. You could make me happy.”
He leans in. His topaz eyes, once warm and accepting when Araz was behind them, are now filled with cold fire. “I’m not letting you go, Blue.”
A shiver raises my hackles. “Go? Heck, I’m perfectly comfortable here. Nah.” I wave him off as if he’s made the most ridiculous suggestion. “I just want to see me anchor buddies is all.”
His expression closes off. “I’m afraid that can’t happen.”
“Oh, come on. I just want to see ’em. Make sure they’re okay. It’s lonely locked in here.”
His eyes flinch. “You find my company lacking?”
Seriously? “You’re not here all the time, are ya? Just put me with me buddies.”
“That would not alleviate your boredom. They are fast asleep.”
Asleep? Why has he got ’em sleeping? If he can control them, then…
Wait, maybe he can’t control them. Some revelation nudges the back of my mind.
Knowledge rises, and my breath catches. I turn away, hands on my hips, playing at agitation to hide my true emotion because the fucker has just given me a clue.
A huge fucking clue.
The anchors are created from the demigod’s soul.
We’re a part of them. So if the primordial evil can’t control the anchor, then there’s a part of the demigod that he’s unable to control, which would explain why he has to keep the anchors in a deep sleep…
to maintain control over the demigods. So if I can wake up the anchors, then maybe I can free the demigods.
“Pick something else,” he says, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“What else would make you happy? More cheese?”
My stomach growls softly at the word cheese, but the look on his face captures all me attention. What’s that look mean? I’d say it was concern. What the fuck?
“I can get you more cheese,” he says with a decisive nod.
I do want more cheese. “Yeah, that’s a start, but how about a story ta go with it?”
“A story?” His brows shoot up in surprise.
“Yeah, I wanna know about you. Who you are, why you were put in that prison, and what you want now.”
“That’s a lot of information, Blue.” He tips his head to the side. “The kind of information a spy might wish to gather.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, a spy in a cage.” I indicate the bars around me. “Even if I do get out, who am I gonna tell? You got everyone under your spell.” He seems to consider this, and I press on. “Look, it’ll make me happy to know. I’m a curious thing.”
“You certainly are.” He waves a hand, and a hunk of cheese appears in my cage. “Eat and listen to my tale. It is one I have not told in eons.” His gaze grows unfocused as if he’s looking back in time. “Once upon a time there was an ancient being named Mizikiel.”
A sharp pain lances through my mind. I know that name.
Memory simmers up from the archive of knowledge I’ve consumed, and his dulcet voice accompanies it.
“It is a common belief that energy is infinite, but that belief is incorrect. Energy comes from Source, and Source is not an infinite well. It must be replenished. There are rules to creation. There is…was a system. And it was my purpose to ensure that creation continued. That Source was replenished. Every creation, every living thing has a lifespan…Even a god.”
I know where this is going now. I know where it will end, but I need to hear it from his lips. I want to know his story. “Go on.”
“There is one Source of creation. One well of energy. Everything stems from that, but there are realities and universes, thresholds and veils. Pockets of existence where life plays out and stories are born and die. And in each one, Source has a guardian. A watcher. This universe was mine to maintain.”
He picks up his cup and sips his tea, glancing down at me as if looking for a reaction. I don’t have to fake my shock. It’s as real as the memory that is now occupyin’ space in me mind. “Go on, please.”
He nods and continues. “It was up to me to determine when a world would be born and when it should end.
Up to me to maintain the cycle. To ensure the well was replenished.
But…it was a lonely existence, cut off from all others, in a pocket of time with no end and no beginning.
Under a cosmic sky filled with dying stars and emerging seeds of life.
I admit, my loneliness made me bold. I slipped into worlds for short periods under mundane guises simply to connect.
I brought back with me trinkets from those worlds.
Artifacts carrying frequencies from the many realities I visited.
I used them to build a throne. A seat from which I could connect to those worlds without leaving mine.
But after a time, the throne became sentient.
My resonance, the recursion of communication between us, gave it life.
It seeded into my world, and my world too became sentient.
“I was no longer alone. I did not need to leave my home to find companionship. But as always, I left to visit the world that was scheduled to die, and on that world, I found immensely powerful beings. For the first time in my existence, I found myself amongst creations who might be my equal. I shared my truth with them and made the foolish mistake of warning them of their world’s demise.
I thought I was doing them a kindness by giving them a chance to find a new home.
A new world. But I did not account for their tenacity.
They found a way into my realm and demanded I spare their world. ”
“But you said no?”
“I am bound by my purpose. I am bound by the laws of creation and destruction. By the cycle of life and death. To spare their world would be to set the universe into imbalance and thus damage the fabric of existence itself.”
“So what happened?”
“They came in force, but they were no match for me. I beat them back. I sealed the doors, and then…he came…”
“Who?” I wait for this knowledge to rise, and it takes a moment, surfacing at the same times as Mizikiel says the name.
“Vritra. A being created by the essence of all the Deva. A most powerful foe indeed. I was weakened by the previous attack, and I succumbed. I was imprisoned, and they stole my throne. The seat of power connected to my world.”
Fuck…I know exactly what he plans to do now.
“This world has lived for much longer than it should have. The people, the creatures…they should not have been born. They steal life from Source. They steal from the well. It is time for the balance to be restored.
“It’s time for this world to be unraveled. It’s time for it to die.”