Silence. So much silence.
     Not silence, truly. But here, there is no wall of noise. No sounds that deafen. No unending shattering pain in the ears. Here is normal. Which is silence by comparison.
     Brilliant colours here, everything seems made from stained glass. Light from behind sets blues and greens aglow. Yellows and reds become dancing fire. A great circular ballroom of fantastic hue.
     And in the middle a rising, glass throne. Empty. Waiting for someone long dead and gone. King of this lunatic's home.

     In the distance, the great machine repeats itself. The gears move back a step, then continue forward once more.
     A shimmering wall slowly grows from the floor, bisecting the room clean through the empty throne. The wall is thinner than paper, and glows with the reflections of moving water.
     Someone launches themselves through from the other side of the wall. An other side which is not here, in this room. A man, his hair bleached white, his skin pale. The only real colour on him is his deep indigo lipstick. He seems panicked, and in his flight his feet catch the arm of the throne, and send him sprawling to the ground.

     Almost immediately the wall begins to descend, closing. But, yet, someone else steps through before it can vanish into the floor. His walk is slow, calm. He has clothed himself all in soft grey. Grey slacks, grey shirt, darker grey vest. He could be a professor, if he weren't so young. Maybe only twenty.
     "I am very unhappy with you, Damien." He addresses the man with blue lips. "Your insipid stupidity has managed to unmake something I had been working quite some time on." He exhales, his chill breath fogging in the air. "Why do you still insist on changing how things have gone?"
     The distance between the two decreases, as the man in grey approaches.

     The man on the floor, Damien, scrabbles away. As yet he hasn't tried to regain his feet, merely skuttling on all limbs.
     "Back off Janus!" He hisses, but his fear prevents him from sounding all that intimidating. There is, after all, only so much that he can do here.
     "How was I to know that you and Janus were grooming that guy for something?" Another few feet are skuttled, and he comes to a wall. A backward glance, before continuing. "It isn't as if I'm as good with forward as the two of you." He is sounding desperate.

     "I'm not one to care about excuses." Janus responds. "And I, unlike Damien, have no qualms about doing to you what you did to my plan. You aren't my past, after all."
     Another step closer, and from the man's hand extends a straight wire of gleaming light. The wire folds outward, widening, until it becomes a blade. A wicked blade of curving angles, and impossibly impractical edges.
     Janus seems surprised a moment, that the sword has appeared, then he smiles. His smile is just as wicked looking, as the blade itself. "Deimos, good of you to join me."

     The sight of Deimos makes Damien's eyes widen momentary, mortal fear. Until now he was merely looking at a thrashing. Now, Deimos was threatening complete and total extinction down all possibilities of his life.
     But Damien, too, has resources and seconds give him the time to clear his mind enough to call upon them.
     "Phobos, my love, I need you." His voice whispers, his hands clasp a locket hidden under his shirt. There is no bravado here. "Help" he adds, quieter.

     The silence deafens. The silence claws upon the skin like a living thing. From every angle, and every corner, comes a thousand thousand glassy motes. They buzz, and scrape against each other. Their wings beating in a harmony of words.
     "Nathaniel?" The scrapping of legs, the beating of wings, and the voice sounds like autumn has come and stolen the life from the trees. "You called upon me?"
     A glass insect lands upon Damien's shoulder, and looks up at him with a dozen human eyes. Each blink according to some indepedent rhythm, unfettered by the motions of the other eyes. "My Love? I looked for you in your apartment, and couldn't find you. I sought you in the streets of Paris, and you were gone. I found you, though it took me many of your years. Where is this place?"
     Another lands upon Damien. "You will have to find another housekeeper, I'm afraid." It says, moments after the other creature stops.

     Janus stops. He no longer holds all the cards, and his straight flush has just been dealt an off-suit. To the cloud of glass insects, he inclines his head.
     He cannot even afford to speak unkindly of Damien, and so he does the only thing he can. Greet the newcomer.
     "Phobos. It has been some time. I hope you are well?"

     "Nathaniel." Responds the cloud. "I'm not supposed to speak with you." Its voice echoes about the great stained-glass ballroom, sounding so much like there is water nearby. "We have not yet met."
     It is like an admonishing mother. Gentle, yet unswerving.
     With that, the insects of Damien's shoulder speak again.
     "Nathaniel? What is it you need?"

     Damien is unsure of how to respond. He cannot simply say what was occuring. Phobos doesn't view the universe the same way, and might undo Janus with disastrous results.
     "I was worried for a moment. Scared." He cannot lie, either, for Phobos can smell such things. Phobos lives upon fear, and lies are the walls behind which fears are hidden. "I called out, because I wanted you near."

     Everything halts. The insects cease their motion in the air. The fog of Janus' breath stops fading. The two men stop breathing. The air itself goes entirely still.

     In a hundred thousand other ways, this meeting has occured. Replayed, over and over, by the third man who sits in the corner. He seems similar to the other two. Older perhaps, yet his skin says he is younger. Maybe only his late teens, but his eyes -- one blue, and one yellow -- speak of much, much longer.
     He snaps his fingers, and the two men vanish, as do the sword and the cloud of glassy insects. "Another go, shall we?" He says to another man standing nearby. It is the same man, but this one wears only a necklace of killer whale teeth and swim trunks. "Once more, and we'll call it even?"
     The fourth nods, and his eyes burn with dusty light.

     "Tomorrow, you can choose the setting." Echoes into eternity, as Time twists like taffy for them.

     In the distance, the great machine repeats itself. The gears move back a step, then continue forward once more.
     A shimmering wall slowly grows from the floor, bisecting the room clean through the empty throne. The wall is thinner than paper, and glows with the reflections of moving water.

Posted by Martin at June 17, 2003 11:24 PM