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#2
MAR 10 |
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Aquaman, dripping with sea water, easily pried the clasps from the ornamental box given to him by Dr. Fate. He looked at its content in distaste and quickly grew angry. He rushed up the beach, promptly consumed with anger, and met the man who had forced him to this point in his life.
“This is not what I came here for,” Aquaman growled, hurling the box to the ground as he met face to face (to face) with Nicholas Onokentauros.
The contents of the box spilled onto the sand next to the elaborate sand castle Onokentauros had built. Tiny bones tinkled against one another until they rested at the drawbridge of the castle. Onokentauros’s second face gave an indecipherable smirk as he realized what the bones were while his front face bared the brunt of Aquaman’s wrath.
“I didn’t give them to you,” Nicholas defended himself, trying to look intimidated. “That’s a present from your good pal, Dr. Fate.” He nudged a thumb in Fate’s direction, who was watching in silence. Fate had been hoping something would have happened by now. He had delivered the box, what was he to do next?
“You will meet two men, this belongs to one of them,” the Phantom Stranger had told him. As Fate surveyed the spilled contents of the box, he was shocked to realize what they were.
“It’s your hand,” Fate said, not looking away from the small bones. “Aquaman, your hand was in the box.”
Aquaman scowled as he addressed Fate. “I know what it is, Fate,” he yelled. “It’s not what it’s supposed to be.”
He grabbed Onokentauros by the collar and pulled him across the sand to meet Dr. Fate near the ocean wall that Nicholas had created. Nicholas’s second face grunted as the back of the shirt’s collar pressed uncomfortably across his cheek. Effortlessly, Aquaman pushed Nicholas to the ground next to the bones at the tiny entrance to the castle.
“My people are dying, Fate,” Aquaman stated, trying unsuccessfully to calm himself. “I was promised something that would help them but instead I am given the useless skeleton of my missing hand. This man,” he said as he pointed at Onokentauros, “has the Lost Age of the Atlantis Chronicles in his possession and he gives me worthless bones.”
“I didn’t give you anything,” Nicholas corrected as he tried to brush his robes clean of the damp sand sticking to him. “And no one ever said I had the Lost Age in my possession.”
“Then I am leaving,” Aquaman spat as he turned to leave. Unexpectedly, he was prevented from his path by Dr. Fate.
“You are not finished here,” Fate announced. “I have need of you.”
Fate had barely finished his sentence before he was brought to his knees, the breath forced from his lungs by an unanticipated punch to the stomach. Aquaman stepped around Fate and proceeded down the ocean path from which he had emerged.
“Wait, King Orin,” Nicholas Onokentauros pleaded before Aquaman could disappear into the water. He waited for Aquaman to turn at the mention of his Atlantean name. “I said I didn’t have the Lost Age,” Onokentauros said, “but I know where it is.”
“Where is it?” Aquaman demanded as he moved back toward the shore, helping Fate to his feet.
“In there,” Onokentauros pointed at the miniature castle he had built in the sand. After a dramatic pause, which his second face loved so much, he added, “Are you ready to go get it?”
Without question, Aquaman answered. “Yes.”
Until a month ago, as humanity measures time, Manitou Raven had not breathed real air into his aging lungs for three thousand years. Being imprisoned within the Helm of Nabu was a miserable existence, made tolerable only with the insistence that one day Raven would see his wife again. Now, after all of this time and three millennia of vengeful planning, he was so near realizing the results of his machinations.
With a variety of seemingly nonsensical words, breathing under water was a simple task and tolerating the cold ocean depths was effortless. As his eyes adjusted magically to the darkness, he could see the dim glow of his goal resting at the bottom of the sea floor. Not surprisingly, he was greeted by guards of Atlantis before he could get close to its boundaries.
“I come to speak to your ruler,” Manitou Raven spoke telepathically, his words given physical weight and carried through the liquids around the security envoy. “I have information that represents the exacerbation of your ailing civilization.”
He waited as the water mystically translated his words as silently, the guards parted to give way to the Queen of Atlantis. Mera swam gracefully to meet Manitou Raven, trailing her long red hair behind her. Her face was riddled with cracks, her skin excessively dry despite being continuously submerged in water.
“I am Mera,” she announced. “I am the Queen to Atlantis’s missing King. You will speak to me if you have information regarding the Atlantis Chronicles.”
Manitou Raven smiled uncharacteristically, showing his aged teeth. “Queen Mera,” he broadcasted with his mind. “I not only know what mysteries lay within the pages of the Lost Age, I lived them.”
Mera looked skeptical, waiting for further explanation.
“I was in Atlantis three thousand years ago,” Manitou Raven explained. “The plague that your people experience currently was first brought upon the Atlantean people then. I had a direct hand in its eradication and I can assist in its eradication today. All I need is your assistance.”
“Pardon my skepticism, visitor,” Mera said as her royal guard shifted into a tighter position around them, “but Atlantis has always taken care of its own matters. We have little need of the assistance of an ancient wizard. Please take your leave of us.”
Mera turned to leave, instantly surrounded by her guards. Manitou Raven did not hesitate or back down.
“Three thousand years ago,” he said as loudly as the water would allow, “there was loosed upon this world a horrible thing. The sorcerers of Atlantis ignorantly berthed an ancient evil beyond the virtues of comprehension. The Lost Age of Atlantis is lost for a reason and those that will find it will not save your civilization, they will release that same ancient evil back upon this world. They will die and so, inevitably, will Atlantis.”
“As I said, visitor,” Mera said without turning around, “we will take care of our own affairs. Your tales have little interest to me.”
“The one who will release the unspeakable is your husband, Queen Mera,” Raven announced. “And unless you agree to assist me, he will die and kill everything that has ever existed.”
That got Mera’s attention.
Onokentauros directed Dr. Fate to the front of the sand castle as Aquaman watched from the waterline. “To enter the Empty Space, we need to abstract ourselves from reality,” he said. “I need you to transfigure this sand castle into a castle of mirrors.”
“Why?” Dr. Fate asked, leery of Onokentauros’ motivations.
“We will climb into a reflection of the castle’s reflection,” he said matter-of-factly. “Two levels of reality abstraction are necessary to go where we need to go.”
There was little that Dr. Fate thought he knew of the mysterious possibilities of his power and the indescribable physics of his world. What Onokentauros was describing was deep magic, dangerous actions with difficult aftermaths. Nevertheless, Dr. Fate went about transforming the sand into the reflective surface of a mirror.
“I know what you’re doing,” Aquaman said as he stood gazing into the suspended wall of water that was raised to lead him to the beach. A shark twice as big as a man lingered in front of Aquaman’s face and spoke an unspeakable language to the only man on the planet able to understand it. “I’ve been in the JLA a long time. You’re creating an actuality trap.”
“Very good, Aquaman!” Onokentauros grinned. “It’s an obligation where we’re going. We need to be completely removed from the here and now before we will be recognized as inhabitants of the Empty Space.”
“You had better have an escape plan,” Aquaman demanded.
“Of course I do,” Nicholas responded. “I’ve been the undisputed king of actuality traps for three thousand years. I know what I’m doing.”
Aquaman stared at him intensely, a stare usually followed by a fist or a swarm of hungry water animals. Knowing that he had no other options to save his people, he had no choice but to go along with this stranger’s plan. As Onokentauros saw that Aquaman was done talking, he turned his attention back to Dr. Fate and the castle.
The castle was now a perfect mirror, reflecting the night sky and the ocean walls beautifully within its elaborate façade. Fate stood waiting, his impatience masked by the helmet that covered his face.
“What’s next?” he asked, his fingers still simmering with the ghost of mystic runes.
“Now you take off your helmet and place it next to the castle gate,” Onokentauros instructed. “You won’t be needing the Helm of Nabu where we’re going. It’ll just give us away to the locals.” Not arguing, Fate removed his helmet and set it atop the small pile of bones that once was Aquaman’s hand.
“Are you ready, Aquaman?” Nicholas asked as the Sea King was still staring at the shark before him. “He can’t go with us.”
“She,” Aquaman corrected as he moved to join Nicholas and Fate. The look of concern was evident of Aquaman’s face as he tried to understand what the shark had been trying to tell him. Sharks rarely made things easily comprehensible, usually forgetting the point before they get half way to it. Aquaman had no time now to investigate.
“Okay then, folks,” Onokentauros announced. He squatted next to the helmet in the sand and pointed to the reflection of the helm on the castle. “This is a reflection of the Helm of Nabu within the surface of the castle.” He shifted his finger to within the reflection. “This is the reflection of the castle reflecting off of the surface of the Helm. This is our way in…reflection of a reflection on its own surface. Not all magic is magic, some of it is actually just mirrors.”
With careful coordination and the concentration of both of his independent consciousnesses, Onokentauros gave a final grin to his travelling companion, one smile per companion.
“When we get there, we should start digging immediately,” he said as they felt themselves begin to fade from reality. Dr. Fate and Aquaman did not have time to call anything into question.
Knowledge takes its toll on those that are consumed with it. The man known as Dharma could barely hold his humanity together, the knowledge of everything that is, was or will be filled his life and every moment. Was today right now or might it have been a hundred years from now? Was what was going to happen going to happen soon or will it happen three thousand years ago?
Of all the things that were certain within the memory of the human shaped thing called Dharma, one thing was certain: something was going to happen. Whether or not it would happen in the future was absolute, yet it might affect what happened yesterday. The time frame was questionable but the future seemed doomed. Or maybe the past was doomed. What happened three thousand years ago might have happened tomorrow. Perhaps what happened tomorrow will not happen until three millennia in the past. Only Dharma knew, and only Dharma could have done something about it.
The throne he sat upon was a dull metal and did not signify any type of royal appointment. It had sat in its place for hundreds if not thousands of years, for use only for he who controls the Shadow Cabinet. The Cabinet has existed in secrecy for lifetimes, a shadow force against evil. Dharma was in charge of the Shadow Cabinet, burdened with the responsibility until the end of time, using his inexplicable knowledge of the past, present and future to prevent terrible events from occurring before they happen.
His Shadow Cabinet had abandoned him. He was an untrustworthy sort, neither good nor truly evil, doing the things he did only to preserve what he knew to be the future. Surrounded in silence, covered in the darkness of his throne room, he was in a perpetual state of contemplation.
His thoughts manifested themselves in a physical form, filled the musty room with images of the world beyond him. The images were disturbing.
“The Spectre,” he said aloud, using his voice for no other benefit than to remember how it sounded. “How can these things befall the world when you roam the ethers forever in search of vengeance or redemption?”
Images of the ghostly Spectre mingled with green flame, silent explosions consumed the landscape around him. A young group of metahumans that Dharma had had a hand in creating meet their doom as the Spectre struggled. The city of Dakota loomed in the background, a devastated bridge leading to nowhere turns into something animate, something dangerous. Amidst it all, there was a lone figure that Dharma could not see properly. His visions of the future could not reach the figure, nor could the vision penetrate beyond that point in time.
Years ago, Dharma had created a meta-gene bomb that exploded in the streets of Paris Island. The occurrence was dubbed ‘The Big Bang’. The bomb killed hundreds, but those it did not kill gained superhuman powers. Dharma used them to his own ends, to seemingly save humanity. His plans had apparently failed; humanity appeared to be nearing its end. There was going to be a second Big Bang, this one not controlled by anyone and not designed with the intention of saving humanity. This Big Bang was going to be fatal for the whole of humanity, and Dharma needed to be in attendance to either prevent it from happening, or use the result to his advantage.
For some reason, Dr. Fate had expected to find himself within the sandy confines of a labyrinthine castle, so he was unexpectedly surprised to find himself in a barren land of endless desert. Aquaman and Nicholas Onokentauros were beside him, but beyond them, there was little to see. There was no sun in the expansive sky but an oncoming dusk signified some form of light source. There was no wind but only the sound of air moving.
“Quickly, Fate,” Onokentauros urged. “Whip us up some shovels. We need to get underground as soon as possible.”
“Why?” Fate and Aquaman asked simultaneously, unconvinced of the certainty in the voice of their guide.
“There is more here than it seems,” Onokentauros explained as he dropped to his knees and began digging with his hands. “This desert is called Roba el Khaliyeh and it is a lover of the dead and a hater of all things that have life. Everything that you see here is not here when there is light. They rise and appear when the light is gone in search of food and water.”
The second face of Nicholas Onokentauros continued. “As you can guess, there is no food and water anywhere in the Empty Space,” he said. “Except us.”
“I don’t care for the sound of that,” Aquaman stated.
“Our human forms are fat with water,” Onokentauros said. “The brain can remain wet for weeks after death and the marrow in the bones is a delicacy when something hasn’t eaten in centuries.”
With that, Dr. Fate had created three golden shovels from the air around him and handed them out. As they began digging in unison, the motionless wind sounds began to change; a low flutter of sound transformed to include a hint of moaning, perhaps a sign of life.
“Do you hear that?” Fate asked as he paused in his digging. He wished he had not left his helmet behind. “Moaning and breathing. Coming from all around us.”
Onokentauros quickened his shoveling, his second face muttered inaudibly with urgency as his front face ran with sweat. “That means we need to hurry.”
The hole was only knee deep as Fate listened. He was silent as the sound of the breeze swirled around him. “Do you hear them?” he asked.
Aquaman grabbed Dr. Fate by the shoulder and pulled him back to the hole, demanding his assistance. “Get to it, Fate,” he said.
Fate resisted. “No,” he mumbled. “I can hear her calling me. I can hear her voice out there.”
Onokentauros stopped and looked to the sky. The light was nearly completely faded, the darkness visibly overcoming the quasi-day. “It’s too late,” he said. “They’re here.”
The three rose from their incomplete hole and stared into the horizon, where the darkness moved all around them, rapidly shifting closer. Limitless hordes of black creatures formed from the amorphous dark and came at them.
“Chak Lah’i,” Onokentauros whispered, his eyes wide with fear. “We’re too late,” he said while his second face added, “We’re screwed.”
Aquaman looked all around them. The beasts were coming from all directions, gaining on their position with dreadful speed. The things were hideous as their features were almost discernible from their distance. Wingless bats about the size of small horses, showing their unnaturally large curled teeth likes the bones of a fish. They had small, hairless forepaws on the fronts of their torsos, with hands slender and graceful like those of a dancing girl. The noise the things made was indescribable.
“Run!” Onokentauros yelled in a panic as he attempted to leap from the shallow grave. He was prevented by Aquaman who held him in place.
“Run where?” Aquaman asked, knowing they were completely surrounded. Onokentauros was in a state of panic, eyes darting manically, growing wider as the reality of the situation became more grave. Suddenly, there was a flash of yellow and Onokentauros was on his back. Aquaman was face down upon him and Dr. Fate was laying on Aquaman’s back, the three of them piled together in the shallow hole they had not completed. Dr. Fate attempted to cover the mouth of the hole, and therefore his backside with his cape, forming a lumpy yellow bump amidst the barren sands of the wasteland. It was a terrible disguise.
The three sandwiched men tried to stay as still as possible, adjusting their bodies at a minimum for comfort. The sounds around them churned directly over them, the sounds of a hurricane of torment and torture without the accompanying winds. These things, the Chak Lah’I, where on top of them and, surprisingly, their hiding place seemed sufficient.
They stayed still for what seemed to be hours as the beasts atop them snarled and rushed until Dr. Fate felt a sharp poke into his ribs from above them. The poking continued several times as Fate contemplated his next move. As the poking persisted, the sounds of the beasts above them suddenly ceased.
Poke. Poke.
“Hey,” a strange noise of a voice announced, a deep voice accompanied by two other simultaneous high pitched voices. “You can come out now, Fate and friends. The coast is clear.”
The three in the hole remained silent and motionless for a bit as they considered the dangers above them. Dr. Fate decided to get up, now or never, to face annoying poker. He recognized the man immediately.
The man smiled to Dr. Fate; three smiles that chilled him to the bone. A maddened grin joined by two additional grins; white and pearly teeth in the place where the eyes should be.
The Corinthian held out his hand to assist Dr. Fate and the others from the hole, smiling all the way.
“Boy,” he chuckled. “It’s a nightmare out here.”
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To Be Continued…
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