Post by Non Compos Mentis on Sept 18, 2015 18:29:20 GMT -5
Back where everything began. The stinking, sweltering metropolis where the American Dream comes to live greedily on Wall Street and die horribly in some squalid back-alley. I'd lived in New York State for most of the last ten years, it had almost been that long since I'd stepped foot in its most notorious settlement.
And yet there I stood in the middle of New York City, chasing the information that had finally come through from Eira in true cloak-and-dagger form. An envelope slid under a door by some silent, invisible hand. Maybe it was Eira herself, but more likely some anonymously purchased hired-hand, a courier that asked no questions. Whoever it had been, they were gone when I opened the door to check.
The envelope contained one slip of paper and on it was written a name and an address. That address lead to Manhattan and a high-rise tower that looked nothing like I had imagined. For a shadowy organisation hiding behind the fabric of civilisation the building was a complete contrast, a beaming obelisk in the midday sun. It was with not inconsiderable anxiety that I made my way into the lobby... and immediately felt like I'd made a mistake.
I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong but a feeling of paranoia set in as soon as my boot hit the highly polished, obsidian black floor. And not the everyday paranoias of the sick, the crazy and the deluded either, this was all too palpable. All too real.
My footstep echoed throughout the room and the eyes of the assembled few at the elevator turned in unison. All middle-aged business types, decked out in their suits that covered the whole spectrum... of grey. Three discerning men and two women, all with stern gazes focused intently on my out-of-place appearance.
Ping
The elevator arrived at the ground floor and opened with the heavy clunk of expensive mechanisms. Mirrored walls and an air of luxury conspired to hide the darkness I knew was all around. Rather than walk forward, I hung back in the centre of the lobby, boots squeaking on the buffed floor as I shifted uncomfortably. All ten eyes remained on me, beckoning me in my denim-jacketed dishevelment to join them.
“I'll catch the next one.” My words echoed in the hall, bouncing off surfaces hewn from lavish materials. For a moment there was only silence in the room, the five imposing figures only continuing to stare, until sharp footsteps broke the stalemate. One by one the paranoia-inducing stares disappeared into the lift and soon the doors shut with a smooth, well-maintained bump. Off the elevator went, to some floor far above, and I pressed the button for another. While I waited I checked the floor plan on the wall nearby for my destination.
Every floor had been rented out to some organisation or individual with all manner of businesses represented. Up the floors I traced my path until I found the name that Eira had provided, the spellsinger that had so confounded my memories.
Stanley Ryburn, MD. - 13th Floor.
I had no reason to distrust Eira and her information but the paranoia had invaded my soul now. There was something deeply flawed by all that I was experiencing here, could I truly put my faith one hundred percent in the guarded intentions of a former rival, no matter her more recent actions? I could not rule out the possibility that I had been set up like a starving dog walking into a baited trap.
Even worse was the notion of coincidence that the information had come a matter of days after the announcement of Eira's next opponent; myself. Sadistic had beaten her in more than one sense at Trauma 178 and I couldn't vouch for Eira's state of mind after such a torturous experience. Could he be filled with the kind of fury that would make her turn her back on me? Could The Order have taken advantage of her weakness to arrange a back-stabbing? I didn't know, but I had come anyway because I had nowhere else to go.
Ping
The second set of elevator doors opened and I walked over, my tattered boots sending echoes through the room as I went. A faintly golden light gleamed down from the roof of the car as I stepped inside and the button gave a reassuring note as I selected floor thirteen as my destination. Swiftly the doors closed behind me and car set off with a smooth and slightly disorienting motion.
Upwards I began to travel and the passing of numbers gave me an unnerving sinking feeling. Closer and closer I can to possible knowledge and understanding, possible remembrance of what had caused the terrible pain I felt within. And yet closer I came to the undoubted possibility of capture or even death at the hands of The Order.
My mind turned to Eira again, the myriad possible motivations she could have had in sending me here. Of course I wanted to believe she had given me the name in good faith, knowing I would never have been satisfied without an answer. She had seemed so genuine, actually concerned for my safety when she had no need of such worries and emotions. I was no ally of hers, I had damn near killed her lover and partner once, and yet I felt she had seen some kind of kinship in another tortured soul.
She couldn't have been in peak shape after her war with Sadistic. Physically and mentally she would be exhausted and injured so perhaps this was a bargaining chip. If she wanted leniency she could have hoped the information would buy her a less painful night at Trauma 179. I didn't think she was the type to take the easy road though, and she wouldn't expect me to accept either.
Eira was a hard woman to read, a hard mind to work out when so many people were one dimensional, simple people with simple wants and needs. A normal person could be relied on to act on base human instincts, but Eira was no normal person. A former PCW World Champion, she had fought the best and come out victorious. She was now the North American Champion, following in my own footsteps but capturing her titles incredibly faster than I had.
Some may have looked at us and seen no resemblance whatsoever, but I had seen more than a semblance of familiarity in Eira and myself. We were pained minds, haunted by our pasts and reminded of them constantly. We struggled to show ourselves to be the warriors others expected us to be. We never took the easy path, for the one less travelled gave us the opportunity to say to our critics ”You cannot take this away from me.”
She'd fight me with speed, with pace and agility that I could not match even if I tried, and I would fight with my own unmatched resilience and grit. The malice of our battles with The Black Hand would not be present, no titles would be on the line, but the matters of pride and respect were all the motivation we needed to give our all in the match.
Respect, that is, as long as a trap was not waiting for me when the needle hit thirteen.
Ping
Floor thirteen opened up to me with a flood of fresh, blinding light. The sun bounced off blank surfaces everywhere, gleaming floors, glass and pitch black obsidian. I knew the look from my memories, I knew it as the style of The Order, or at least the rooms in which I had been held after my capture.
There was nothing to be seen here though, only the empty space of a room used as a front. The Order had used it to hide their operations from the world under the guise of a psychiatrists office to explain the obviously suspicious look of the people who required access.
I was about to leave, about to abandon the empty facility as another dead end and leave a fictitious Stanley Ryburn, MD to his vacant domain, and then I saw the man standing by the window, looking out over Manhattan like a king surveying his lands.
“Mr. Rhodes, I'm going to take a wild guess that you didn't just wander in here looking for a little psycho-analysis?” His voice was that of an old English stage actor and his appearance did little to dissuade the image. He wore a fitted three-piece suit, mauve with a faint pinstripe and the white hair that whisped around his head was matched by a fashioned goatee.
“Are you Ryburn?” I stepped forward from the elevator, tentatively as if expecting the floor to swallow me up at any moment. There were no echoes now, in fact barely any noise moved around the room and it seemed to fill with an unpleasant stillness.
“You find your way here and you don't even recognise me? I don't know whether I should be impressed or offended.” His voice betrayed the ageing body it emanated from, commanding the space and my attention. I felt like I should apologise for my not recognising him immediately, like I should leave for causing him this inconvenience. Yet it was then that he broke his stillness and turned to face me fully, walking away from the huge panoramic wall of glass. “Yes, I am Ryburn.”
“Then you're the one who did this to me, aren't you?” My words felt hollow as they came out of my mouth, wishing I hadn't wasted time by asking what I knew to be true. Whether it was this room, this building or some other facility The Order kept, Ryburn was the spellsinger that had done this to me.
“Mr. Rhodes, you'll have to be more specific.” The calmness in his voice was disarming, though I couldn't help wondering if this was just another facet of his unnatural gifts.
“You messed with my head, changed my memories so I wouldn't remember The Order.” No matter how I tried, my words seemed to lose any venom with which I intended to deliver them. Instead of an accusation, a demand for truth, it felt like a limp statement. My body began to feel languid and heavy against my will.
“Yes, I did that. And judging by your appearance here I assume that hasn't worked out quite as well as I'd hoped. I suppose it was to be expected...” Ryburn spoke as if there was no threat in the room, that I was an interviewer asking him the most routine of questions. His voice, word by word, became more hypnotic and my body slipped further toward a kind of sleep.
“What the hell does that mean?” I attempted to shout from my growing stupor.
Nonchalantly Ryburn began to pace from side to side, still keeping a safe distance though something about his demeanour told me he wasn't afraid of me becoming violent. “Cleric Calder warned me of your... illness in the past. It wasn't to be helped though, we had to do something to make you forget.”
“Forget what? What happened to me?”
“Oh you haven't even begun to scratch the surface, have you? My dear, poor boy. You're unravelling but there's still so much left to pull away.” He shifted back and forth on his heels, not out of discomfort but out of tedium. “It's like a woollen sweater, isn't it? It's starting to fray and you know you shouldn't tug at the thread because everything will fall apart, but you do it anyway, don't you?”
I tried to take a step forward, to try and force him to speak in some kind of sense and give me answers. I tried but all I could manage was the stagger of a drunkard. He had me now, he'd had me from the moment I'd stepped foot in his domain. “I don't care about your cliches. Take it away, undo it. I want to know what happened.”
Finally, now that he knew I was beaten and broken before him, he took a step forward and knelt slightly to look into my eyes. In doing so I looked back into his and discovered their abyssal depths. He knew of wonders that no mortal human could have known, had performed feats that were the property of comic book characters. When he spoke, his words carried with them the wisdom of ages untold. “Don't tug at the thread, Mr. Rhodes, what lies beneath all those layers I tied you up in is not something you want to relive.”
“I need to remember, Ryburn. I need you to give me my old memories back!” I choked, trying to claw myself along the slick ground toward him and failing.
“If only I could.” A wry smile crept across his aged face then, perhaps a hint of regret that he couldn't. Did he want to help me but was unable to because of his bond to The Order? Or did he simply wish to inflict more pain on me by breaking the levy on the dam. He answered that with a subconscious action, bolting upright from his position of sympathy and continuing with a carefree tone of voice that told me he didn't give a damn about what I wanted. “What I did to you, it is a one-way ticket I'm afraid. Or at least it is for most. I can cast spells on you, build layer upon layer of falsehood until you no longer remember a single moment of your life. But I cannot undo what has already been done.”
He began to wander aimlessly now, aloft with the knowledge that he had driven me to the floor, helpless and at his whim. The old man who I had thought quaint and curious revealed his true nature; a spell-smith and a manipulator of all things worldly or not. “Your mind though, I didn't expect it to be so scarred. There is a darkness living inside that head of yours, and not even I could plan for it. That is why your mind unravels my spells even now. That is why you remember what little you do and will remember more... over some torturous time, of course.”
“So all I can do is wait? I can't, it's killing me from the inside out. Something happened when I was with you. It's why you made me forget, isn't it?” He stood above me, while not an imposing me he seemed a colossus from my position. I was an ant, staring up at god. “There has to be something you can do? Some magic, some spell, something?”
“There is one thing I can do for you...” He knelt again, but still I cowered in his shadow, desperately trying to push myself from the floor in defiance of my weakened limbs.
“Anything.” I gasped, and he furrowed his brow as if looking down on a child.
“I can make you forget again.”
My head dropped. I didn't come here to forget, I came to remember. I wanted answers and not more vague falsehoods. And even if I had said yes, wouldn't my scarred mind, the one I had spent my life fighting for control of my own body, be the unlikely reviver of the truth again? “No, no I can't do that. I can't. As painful as this is, I need to find out what happened and make whatever it is right.”
“That cannot be done. I can cover over the gaps one more time, shelter your mind and block off the memories. Your mind will fight back, the unruly beast that it is, but we can help you control it.”
Words had almost escaped my mouth, pained and desperate words that were all I had. And then Ryburn's replayed in my mind. He was an arrogant man, this was clear in his manner as he barely acknowledged a threat in my presence because he knew he could overpower me in an instant, but he now referred to others. “We? What do you mean, we?”
Ryburn smiled, and he returned to standing upright. I could barely catch a glimpse of his face now, he stood over me so blatantly, but I knew by his motions that he'd stared off to the side of the room and into an area I had not paid attention to until now.
“Hello, Sean.” So familiar was the voice that I knew it immediately. I felt the shock course through my body even as I lay on the ground and I looked up to see the charcoal-suited Angular Man glide into sight.
“Calder?” My neck strained as I pushed myself hard to get some kind of motion. The Cleric of my dreams, my memories, was alive and in the flesh before me and all I could do was drag myself along the floor. I felt the pain of my memories flash through me, thoughts of anger and violence pulsating through my every fibre as he stood there.
“Come with us, Sean. We can make sure you're safe. You don't have to remember what happened, you can't possibly begin to understand what pain it would cause you if you did.” His voice was as calm as I remembered, patronising but placid in a disturbing combination of tones.
I was at his mercy and yet he wanted to reason with me, talk me down and attempt to get me to comply. Why would he need to do such a thing, unless he was afraid I would unravel right in front of him and be of no use. “You don't want to help me. You still need me, don't you? You still need to protect me in case Murdoc goes rogue again and you need a contingency.”
By now Ryburn had backed away, aware he was in the presence of a Cleric and a direct hand to the upper echelons of The Order. His arrogance was of no use now as Calder bowed to my level and was even so bold as to reach down and lift my chin so that I looked him straight in the eye. “How much do you remember? Know how painful is it right now, and then consider you know so little of what happened before. Imaging how excruciating that pain can become and know that we can stop that.”
“No, you're trying to cover something up that I need to remember...” I pushed harder and harder still, somehow managing to claw myself to my knees through the torrents of anger and pain flooding my system. Did I know, deep inside my shattered mind, that Calder was involved in what had happened to me, or was this all residue from the real pain?
“As far as the world is concerned, there is nothing to cover up. They go on living as if not a single soul was lost, not a single soul was wrenched away from the light and into the darkness. Tell me...” I was pushing even further and now had become aware than Ryburn was looking unlike the arrogant, unworried man of when I arrived. But more important was the look on the face of Calder. Ever the manipulator of humans his mind was whirring with hundreds of possibilities, all knowing that I would always eventually remember what had happened. If they screwed with my mind again I would find a way, just as sure as I would now. “Tell me... have you remembered his face yet?”
The mere mention of it sent a wave of pure anguish through my body akin to a thousand needles being driven through my skin in unison. My mind erupted with visions of a younger man, no older than twenty-seven, and a picture of unadulterated suffering on his face. He was a beautiful man but the pain in his eyes made even his fair face turn ugly.
“Such beauty never deserved such a cruel fate.” Calder murmured and at that moment I felt the surge of anger within me that overpowered anything Ryburn had been using to hold me down. I forced myself up against his magic, the aged Spellsinger helpless to stop me as I reached my feet. Now even Calder, who had unwittingly spurred on this reaction, retreated from me.
A door opened somewhere and from it walked the far-too-silent steps of a number of individuals. I barely registered their presence as the image burned in my mind. That young man's face, youthful and innocent with the marks of suffering draining it of life, causing me to double over in pure despair.
The figures now stood to the side of Calder and Ryburn and their faces were eerily familiar. Their grey suits, the business-like demeanour, they were the few patrons I had seen in the lobby, the ones I had shunned at the elevator. They'd been watching me since I stepped foot in the building, and for how long before that?
I began to back off, knowing that no matter how strong I felt now, how much power I thought I could wield, I was no match for all seven of these individuals. All I had wanted was answers, and now the only people that could give them to me were seeking to deny them for good. I had to leave, to try and coax my mind into giving up more of it's secrets, but how? The elevator would be too slow, they would drag me kicking and screaming from the car before I would even be able to close the doors. There was only one option.
“Come with us!” I heard Calder shout, his calm manner broken by a horrible understanding that he had lost control of his prize student.
“No!” I screamed back, and as soon as I had the first of the assailants made a charge from his side in an attempt to secure me.
I turned and ran for the door than led to the emergency stairwell, the only escape left. I'd just reached the door when he grabbed me, a light-grey suit with an emotionless shell of a man inside it, and instinctively I turned. Those few moments were a blur, not only because of the blinding images in mind but the raw power that coursed through me then. Without thinking I struck out, slamming a fist into the man's chest. Only when I replayed the events in my mind later did I remember what had happened then.
The man had flown from my punch, propelled backwards at immense force. No human could have struck so hard, but I had thrown him backwards with such power that he skittled over the others, even Calder and Ryburn and carried on to smash into the windows. By sheer luck they were made to withstand the impact and he hadn't pierced through into the stifling city air to fall to his death.
Before I could wait for another to attack, I bolted. There were thirteen flights of stairs to descend but in my state of shock I didn't remember a single one. I flew down them unfollowed and fled the scene, out into the packed midday streets where, at least for a while, I could escape into the bustling crowds.
They would look for me soon, they would hunt me down like a dog. Calder had sparked in me a new image of suffering that day, one that threatened unravel me. Why would he knowingly inflict that pain on me? Why would he throw me into that maelstrom of agony and turmoil when he needed to protect me?
He knew me all too well. He knew that I would never give up searching for what happened while I could still fight the pain. So he gave me what I needed to feel the intensity rise to another, more excruciating level. He gave me a reason to turn to them, and if not now then surely I would the further I got down the treacherous path I was headed on.
Second by second I felt the power that I had somehow accessed leech from my bones. I was no longer what I had been then and had no idea of how I could tap into it once more. The memories, perhaps, would hold some clues but for now all I had to go on was a face. A handsome young man seared into my mind, his hair the same shade of silver as Eira's.
And yet there I stood in the middle of New York City, chasing the information that had finally come through from Eira in true cloak-and-dagger form. An envelope slid under a door by some silent, invisible hand. Maybe it was Eira herself, but more likely some anonymously purchased hired-hand, a courier that asked no questions. Whoever it had been, they were gone when I opened the door to check.
The envelope contained one slip of paper and on it was written a name and an address. That address lead to Manhattan and a high-rise tower that looked nothing like I had imagined. For a shadowy organisation hiding behind the fabric of civilisation the building was a complete contrast, a beaming obelisk in the midday sun. It was with not inconsiderable anxiety that I made my way into the lobby... and immediately felt like I'd made a mistake.
I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong but a feeling of paranoia set in as soon as my boot hit the highly polished, obsidian black floor. And not the everyday paranoias of the sick, the crazy and the deluded either, this was all too palpable. All too real.
My footstep echoed throughout the room and the eyes of the assembled few at the elevator turned in unison. All middle-aged business types, decked out in their suits that covered the whole spectrum... of grey. Three discerning men and two women, all with stern gazes focused intently on my out-of-place appearance.
Ping
The elevator arrived at the ground floor and opened with the heavy clunk of expensive mechanisms. Mirrored walls and an air of luxury conspired to hide the darkness I knew was all around. Rather than walk forward, I hung back in the centre of the lobby, boots squeaking on the buffed floor as I shifted uncomfortably. All ten eyes remained on me, beckoning me in my denim-jacketed dishevelment to join them.
“I'll catch the next one.” My words echoed in the hall, bouncing off surfaces hewn from lavish materials. For a moment there was only silence in the room, the five imposing figures only continuing to stare, until sharp footsteps broke the stalemate. One by one the paranoia-inducing stares disappeared into the lift and soon the doors shut with a smooth, well-maintained bump. Off the elevator went, to some floor far above, and I pressed the button for another. While I waited I checked the floor plan on the wall nearby for my destination.
Every floor had been rented out to some organisation or individual with all manner of businesses represented. Up the floors I traced my path until I found the name that Eira had provided, the spellsinger that had so confounded my memories.
Stanley Ryburn, MD. - 13th Floor.
I had no reason to distrust Eira and her information but the paranoia had invaded my soul now. There was something deeply flawed by all that I was experiencing here, could I truly put my faith one hundred percent in the guarded intentions of a former rival, no matter her more recent actions? I could not rule out the possibility that I had been set up like a starving dog walking into a baited trap.
Even worse was the notion of coincidence that the information had come a matter of days after the announcement of Eira's next opponent; myself. Sadistic had beaten her in more than one sense at Trauma 178 and I couldn't vouch for Eira's state of mind after such a torturous experience. Could he be filled with the kind of fury that would make her turn her back on me? Could The Order have taken advantage of her weakness to arrange a back-stabbing? I didn't know, but I had come anyway because I had nowhere else to go.
Ping
The second set of elevator doors opened and I walked over, my tattered boots sending echoes through the room as I went. A faintly golden light gleamed down from the roof of the car as I stepped inside and the button gave a reassuring note as I selected floor thirteen as my destination. Swiftly the doors closed behind me and car set off with a smooth and slightly disorienting motion.
Upwards I began to travel and the passing of numbers gave me an unnerving sinking feeling. Closer and closer I can to possible knowledge and understanding, possible remembrance of what had caused the terrible pain I felt within. And yet closer I came to the undoubted possibility of capture or even death at the hands of The Order.
My mind turned to Eira again, the myriad possible motivations she could have had in sending me here. Of course I wanted to believe she had given me the name in good faith, knowing I would never have been satisfied without an answer. She had seemed so genuine, actually concerned for my safety when she had no need of such worries and emotions. I was no ally of hers, I had damn near killed her lover and partner once, and yet I felt she had seen some kind of kinship in another tortured soul.
She couldn't have been in peak shape after her war with Sadistic. Physically and mentally she would be exhausted and injured so perhaps this was a bargaining chip. If she wanted leniency she could have hoped the information would buy her a less painful night at Trauma 179. I didn't think she was the type to take the easy road though, and she wouldn't expect me to accept either.
Eira was a hard woman to read, a hard mind to work out when so many people were one dimensional, simple people with simple wants and needs. A normal person could be relied on to act on base human instincts, but Eira was no normal person. A former PCW World Champion, she had fought the best and come out victorious. She was now the North American Champion, following in my own footsteps but capturing her titles incredibly faster than I had.
Some may have looked at us and seen no resemblance whatsoever, but I had seen more than a semblance of familiarity in Eira and myself. We were pained minds, haunted by our pasts and reminded of them constantly. We struggled to show ourselves to be the warriors others expected us to be. We never took the easy path, for the one less travelled gave us the opportunity to say to our critics ”You cannot take this away from me.”
She'd fight me with speed, with pace and agility that I could not match even if I tried, and I would fight with my own unmatched resilience and grit. The malice of our battles with The Black Hand would not be present, no titles would be on the line, but the matters of pride and respect were all the motivation we needed to give our all in the match.
Respect, that is, as long as a trap was not waiting for me when the needle hit thirteen.
Ping
Floor thirteen opened up to me with a flood of fresh, blinding light. The sun bounced off blank surfaces everywhere, gleaming floors, glass and pitch black obsidian. I knew the look from my memories, I knew it as the style of The Order, or at least the rooms in which I had been held after my capture.
There was nothing to be seen here though, only the empty space of a room used as a front. The Order had used it to hide their operations from the world under the guise of a psychiatrists office to explain the obviously suspicious look of the people who required access.
I was about to leave, about to abandon the empty facility as another dead end and leave a fictitious Stanley Ryburn, MD to his vacant domain, and then I saw the man standing by the window, looking out over Manhattan like a king surveying his lands.
“Mr. Rhodes, I'm going to take a wild guess that you didn't just wander in here looking for a little psycho-analysis?” His voice was that of an old English stage actor and his appearance did little to dissuade the image. He wore a fitted three-piece suit, mauve with a faint pinstripe and the white hair that whisped around his head was matched by a fashioned goatee.
“Are you Ryburn?” I stepped forward from the elevator, tentatively as if expecting the floor to swallow me up at any moment. There were no echoes now, in fact barely any noise moved around the room and it seemed to fill with an unpleasant stillness.
“You find your way here and you don't even recognise me? I don't know whether I should be impressed or offended.” His voice betrayed the ageing body it emanated from, commanding the space and my attention. I felt like I should apologise for my not recognising him immediately, like I should leave for causing him this inconvenience. Yet it was then that he broke his stillness and turned to face me fully, walking away from the huge panoramic wall of glass. “Yes, I am Ryburn.”
“Then you're the one who did this to me, aren't you?” My words felt hollow as they came out of my mouth, wishing I hadn't wasted time by asking what I knew to be true. Whether it was this room, this building or some other facility The Order kept, Ryburn was the spellsinger that had done this to me.
“Mr. Rhodes, you'll have to be more specific.” The calmness in his voice was disarming, though I couldn't help wondering if this was just another facet of his unnatural gifts.
“You messed with my head, changed my memories so I wouldn't remember The Order.” No matter how I tried, my words seemed to lose any venom with which I intended to deliver them. Instead of an accusation, a demand for truth, it felt like a limp statement. My body began to feel languid and heavy against my will.
“Yes, I did that. And judging by your appearance here I assume that hasn't worked out quite as well as I'd hoped. I suppose it was to be expected...” Ryburn spoke as if there was no threat in the room, that I was an interviewer asking him the most routine of questions. His voice, word by word, became more hypnotic and my body slipped further toward a kind of sleep.
“What the hell does that mean?” I attempted to shout from my growing stupor.
Nonchalantly Ryburn began to pace from side to side, still keeping a safe distance though something about his demeanour told me he wasn't afraid of me becoming violent. “Cleric Calder warned me of your... illness in the past. It wasn't to be helped though, we had to do something to make you forget.”
“Forget what? What happened to me?”
“Oh you haven't even begun to scratch the surface, have you? My dear, poor boy. You're unravelling but there's still so much left to pull away.” He shifted back and forth on his heels, not out of discomfort but out of tedium. “It's like a woollen sweater, isn't it? It's starting to fray and you know you shouldn't tug at the thread because everything will fall apart, but you do it anyway, don't you?”
I tried to take a step forward, to try and force him to speak in some kind of sense and give me answers. I tried but all I could manage was the stagger of a drunkard. He had me now, he'd had me from the moment I'd stepped foot in his domain. “I don't care about your cliches. Take it away, undo it. I want to know what happened.”
Finally, now that he knew I was beaten and broken before him, he took a step forward and knelt slightly to look into my eyes. In doing so I looked back into his and discovered their abyssal depths. He knew of wonders that no mortal human could have known, had performed feats that were the property of comic book characters. When he spoke, his words carried with them the wisdom of ages untold. “Don't tug at the thread, Mr. Rhodes, what lies beneath all those layers I tied you up in is not something you want to relive.”
“I need to remember, Ryburn. I need you to give me my old memories back!” I choked, trying to claw myself along the slick ground toward him and failing.
“If only I could.” A wry smile crept across his aged face then, perhaps a hint of regret that he couldn't. Did he want to help me but was unable to because of his bond to The Order? Or did he simply wish to inflict more pain on me by breaking the levy on the dam. He answered that with a subconscious action, bolting upright from his position of sympathy and continuing with a carefree tone of voice that told me he didn't give a damn about what I wanted. “What I did to you, it is a one-way ticket I'm afraid. Or at least it is for most. I can cast spells on you, build layer upon layer of falsehood until you no longer remember a single moment of your life. But I cannot undo what has already been done.”
He began to wander aimlessly now, aloft with the knowledge that he had driven me to the floor, helpless and at his whim. The old man who I had thought quaint and curious revealed his true nature; a spell-smith and a manipulator of all things worldly or not. “Your mind though, I didn't expect it to be so scarred. There is a darkness living inside that head of yours, and not even I could plan for it. That is why your mind unravels my spells even now. That is why you remember what little you do and will remember more... over some torturous time, of course.”
“So all I can do is wait? I can't, it's killing me from the inside out. Something happened when I was with you. It's why you made me forget, isn't it?” He stood above me, while not an imposing me he seemed a colossus from my position. I was an ant, staring up at god. “There has to be something you can do? Some magic, some spell, something?”
“There is one thing I can do for you...” He knelt again, but still I cowered in his shadow, desperately trying to push myself from the floor in defiance of my weakened limbs.
“Anything.” I gasped, and he furrowed his brow as if looking down on a child.
“I can make you forget again.”
My head dropped. I didn't come here to forget, I came to remember. I wanted answers and not more vague falsehoods. And even if I had said yes, wouldn't my scarred mind, the one I had spent my life fighting for control of my own body, be the unlikely reviver of the truth again? “No, no I can't do that. I can't. As painful as this is, I need to find out what happened and make whatever it is right.”
“That cannot be done. I can cover over the gaps one more time, shelter your mind and block off the memories. Your mind will fight back, the unruly beast that it is, but we can help you control it.”
Words had almost escaped my mouth, pained and desperate words that were all I had. And then Ryburn's replayed in my mind. He was an arrogant man, this was clear in his manner as he barely acknowledged a threat in my presence because he knew he could overpower me in an instant, but he now referred to others. “We? What do you mean, we?”
Ryburn smiled, and he returned to standing upright. I could barely catch a glimpse of his face now, he stood over me so blatantly, but I knew by his motions that he'd stared off to the side of the room and into an area I had not paid attention to until now.
“Hello, Sean.” So familiar was the voice that I knew it immediately. I felt the shock course through my body even as I lay on the ground and I looked up to see the charcoal-suited Angular Man glide into sight.
“Calder?” My neck strained as I pushed myself hard to get some kind of motion. The Cleric of my dreams, my memories, was alive and in the flesh before me and all I could do was drag myself along the floor. I felt the pain of my memories flash through me, thoughts of anger and violence pulsating through my every fibre as he stood there.
“Come with us, Sean. We can make sure you're safe. You don't have to remember what happened, you can't possibly begin to understand what pain it would cause you if you did.” His voice was as calm as I remembered, patronising but placid in a disturbing combination of tones.
I was at his mercy and yet he wanted to reason with me, talk me down and attempt to get me to comply. Why would he need to do such a thing, unless he was afraid I would unravel right in front of him and be of no use. “You don't want to help me. You still need me, don't you? You still need to protect me in case Murdoc goes rogue again and you need a contingency.”
By now Ryburn had backed away, aware he was in the presence of a Cleric and a direct hand to the upper echelons of The Order. His arrogance was of no use now as Calder bowed to my level and was even so bold as to reach down and lift my chin so that I looked him straight in the eye. “How much do you remember? Know how painful is it right now, and then consider you know so little of what happened before. Imaging how excruciating that pain can become and know that we can stop that.”
“No, you're trying to cover something up that I need to remember...” I pushed harder and harder still, somehow managing to claw myself to my knees through the torrents of anger and pain flooding my system. Did I know, deep inside my shattered mind, that Calder was involved in what had happened to me, or was this all residue from the real pain?
“As far as the world is concerned, there is nothing to cover up. They go on living as if not a single soul was lost, not a single soul was wrenched away from the light and into the darkness. Tell me...” I was pushing even further and now had become aware than Ryburn was looking unlike the arrogant, unworried man of when I arrived. But more important was the look on the face of Calder. Ever the manipulator of humans his mind was whirring with hundreds of possibilities, all knowing that I would always eventually remember what had happened. If they screwed with my mind again I would find a way, just as sure as I would now. “Tell me... have you remembered his face yet?”
The mere mention of it sent a wave of pure anguish through my body akin to a thousand needles being driven through my skin in unison. My mind erupted with visions of a younger man, no older than twenty-seven, and a picture of unadulterated suffering on his face. He was a beautiful man but the pain in his eyes made even his fair face turn ugly.
“Such beauty never deserved such a cruel fate.” Calder murmured and at that moment I felt the surge of anger within me that overpowered anything Ryburn had been using to hold me down. I forced myself up against his magic, the aged Spellsinger helpless to stop me as I reached my feet. Now even Calder, who had unwittingly spurred on this reaction, retreated from me.
A door opened somewhere and from it walked the far-too-silent steps of a number of individuals. I barely registered their presence as the image burned in my mind. That young man's face, youthful and innocent with the marks of suffering draining it of life, causing me to double over in pure despair.
The figures now stood to the side of Calder and Ryburn and their faces were eerily familiar. Their grey suits, the business-like demeanour, they were the few patrons I had seen in the lobby, the ones I had shunned at the elevator. They'd been watching me since I stepped foot in the building, and for how long before that?
I began to back off, knowing that no matter how strong I felt now, how much power I thought I could wield, I was no match for all seven of these individuals. All I had wanted was answers, and now the only people that could give them to me were seeking to deny them for good. I had to leave, to try and coax my mind into giving up more of it's secrets, but how? The elevator would be too slow, they would drag me kicking and screaming from the car before I would even be able to close the doors. There was only one option.
“Come with us!” I heard Calder shout, his calm manner broken by a horrible understanding that he had lost control of his prize student.
“No!” I screamed back, and as soon as I had the first of the assailants made a charge from his side in an attempt to secure me.
I turned and ran for the door than led to the emergency stairwell, the only escape left. I'd just reached the door when he grabbed me, a light-grey suit with an emotionless shell of a man inside it, and instinctively I turned. Those few moments were a blur, not only because of the blinding images in mind but the raw power that coursed through me then. Without thinking I struck out, slamming a fist into the man's chest. Only when I replayed the events in my mind later did I remember what had happened then.
The man had flown from my punch, propelled backwards at immense force. No human could have struck so hard, but I had thrown him backwards with such power that he skittled over the others, even Calder and Ryburn and carried on to smash into the windows. By sheer luck they were made to withstand the impact and he hadn't pierced through into the stifling city air to fall to his death.
Before I could wait for another to attack, I bolted. There were thirteen flights of stairs to descend but in my state of shock I didn't remember a single one. I flew down them unfollowed and fled the scene, out into the packed midday streets where, at least for a while, I could escape into the bustling crowds.
They would look for me soon, they would hunt me down like a dog. Calder had sparked in me a new image of suffering that day, one that threatened unravel me. Why would he knowingly inflict that pain on me? Why would he throw me into that maelstrom of agony and turmoil when he needed to protect me?
He knew me all too well. He knew that I would never give up searching for what happened while I could still fight the pain. So he gave me what I needed to feel the intensity rise to another, more excruciating level. He gave me a reason to turn to them, and if not now then surely I would the further I got down the treacherous path I was headed on.
Second by second I felt the power that I had somehow accessed leech from my bones. I was no longer what I had been then and had no idea of how I could tap into it once more. The memories, perhaps, would hold some clues but for now all I had to go on was a face. A handsome young man seared into my mind, his hair the same shade of silver as Eira's.
