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As is wont to do, a town grew up in the shadow of this stone monstrosity. As ages piled atop one another like the very stone skin of the great keep in question, the peasants wondered. Rumors started in taverns and inns, wherever the bored and weary gathered to officially let their unoccupied minds wander. One voice claimed it was a holy site, built in the days when the world was young and man was close to his creators. Secrets, said he, were laid to rest inside those stout walls, secrets men shouldn’t know, and daren’t seek after.

Still others called it evil, the last stronghold of a foul-minded demonologist, some perverse librarian with a predilection for parleying with ominous powers and malicious intellects from worlds beyond.

None of these, of course, was right. I know, because I’ve been inside those aching grey walls. I’ve strolled along the ancient corridors and inhaled the soothing dust of centuries. Yes, I’ve seen what’s inside, though I must admit the personal cost was significantly higher than I’d anticipated…

Of the two men sitting atop the stair, one was a horseman, the Baron of D’liesse. His warhorse, a roan he called Thunder, had been killed days ago by a volley of quarrels from archers in hiding. The Baron was of medium build and wore his jet hair short. Normally considered handsome, his face was a motley collection of scars and bruises, jagged tears of soft flesh, and deeper lacerations he’d hand stitched in the brief respite moments not unlike this one.

The Baron’s companion was a scribe, a historian and archivist, raised in the Great Temple-Libraries far to the south. His skin was golden by nature and his eyes dark, like his hair. The scribe was called Masuria, which meant collector in his native tongue. He too, could have been considered handsome by his civilizations standards, were it not for the bandage around his head, his split lip, and both blackened eyes.

Neither man said a word as they sat. The fall air was brisk, but a welcome relief after their seemingly endless exertions. Both had their backs to the heavy iron bound double doors of the temple called God’s Rest.

Drums beat in the distance, shushing the cautiously chirping morning birds, sending them fluttering in the sky.

“Again?” the Baron asked wearily.

“So it seems, Baron.”

The Baron took a deep pained breath. “Let just rest a bit here. They’ll come soon enough.”

The scribe, Masuria, just nodded his head.

“We had a good accounting for our selves.”

“That we did, Baron.”

“Look there.” The Baron pointed to a corpse some ten feet down the steps, still oozing rapidly freezing blood.

“Your Lordship?” Masuria turned his neck with a grimace.

“That man. There. The yellow tabard and blonde beard.”

“I see him, Baron.” The scribe nodded slowly as he spoke.

“I do believe that’s Alfrieg of Millor.”

The scribe nodded. “Indeed, I do believe it is.”

“Well, he was a cousin!” The Baron shook his head. “This has been some nasty business. Nasty indeed.”

“Agreed, Baron. I wonder how the armies fared?”

“I can see smoke in that direction, a lot of it. More than just a flag from horse.”

The scribe nodded. He understood all too well what that smoke meant to the town besieged.

“My God! That there!” The Baron flung his right glove down the steps, it landed next to man who’d been run through and brained by a heavy flanged mace, not necessarily in that order. “That’s the Viscount of Bellanor’s son!”

“Are you sure?” The scribe, despite himself, was somewhat flummoxed at the thought of dying in such prestigious company.

“Sure as sure. He used to fancy my sister and pay these gruelingly awkward visits to my family’s estates.”

“Then it’s a shame things came to this. He might have been your brother in law. And an ally.”

“’Tis true, but I never liked him much. He was hesher, through and through.”

“A hesher, Baron?”

“A mouth breather, scribe. He had no sense of how to comport himself in the company of his peers and betters.”

Masuria frowned inwardly. He’d dispatched easily fifteen or twenty invaders, defending this holy place. Though not a swordsman by trade, he was a quick study and found that his desire not to die in a horrible and messy way aided his technique significantly.

“Up, up, lad.” The Baron stood, slowly, working his stiff shoulders and knees as he stood. He groaned and raised his gore-covered saber. So tired was he that he’d neglected to wipe it clean after their last skirmish. “They’re coming again. Third?”

“Fourth wave, Baron.” Masuria stood and stretched likewise, taking a deep breath to try to still his quivering hands.

The sun was a flaring yellow-white, spearing its first few rays over the nearby hills, the eye-stinging shafts shot straight through the palisades of naked trees on the bluff. Moody clouds slid around above, splotches of grey and off-white.

The sound of boots and jangling armors rose up between the rumbling drums. Masuria and the Baron assume their stance and made ready to hold the curving staircase as long as they could. Resting on the carved stone banister next to them were two flint-lock pistols each.

The Duke of Geoffre led this next charge, supported by twenty quick-footed dragoons, who’d long ago expended their ammunition and lost their mounts. The Baron and Masuria drew their first pistol, each shooting a dragoon square in the chest. The shots punched right through the brittle breastplates of the dragoons and the men tumbled backwards, sending a handful of their compatriots sprawling. Upon seeing this indelicacy on the part of their enemy, the Baron and Masuria rushed forward, sword and drew their second pistol, spearing the men on the ground almost two at a time, and firing their second volley, such as it were, into the men charging towards them, then ran back to the top of the stairs.

“More yellow and green tabards.” Masuria commented, absently, between labored breaths.

“Aye, I noticed.”

Then, at once, the rest of Geoffre’s men, and the Duke himself were upon them. Sabers flitted about and men yelped in pain as the ragged edges of the now worn weapons tore and nipped at their flesh. Here and there, the scribe would thrust through an opponents leg and as he buckled, kick him down the gore and filth covered staircase. The Baron, for his part, was a trained soldier and relished the moment as only a superior swordsman, who is proving it to the world, could.

“Twist the blade when you land a good thrust.” The Baron said as he easily dispatched another dragoon, scouring out the man’s eye, and holing his brain with a rapid thrust.

“W-what? Why?” The scribe was struggling to hold his own, thankfully, the Baron was still wearing his colors and was not only seen a more dangerous target, but a better prize.

“The screaming will scare the piss out of the next charge.”

So, the scribe named Masuria began incorporate a little twist with each solid thrust, eliciting a scream of agony from each of his victims.

Finally, Geoffre himself stood toe-to-toe with the Baron.

“Warren, Baron of D’liesse, I presume?”

The Baron tilted his head and saluted with his dripping blade, flinging tissue and blood onto Geoffre’s spotless tabard, leaving a splotchy, jagged line from shoulder to hip. Geoffre frowned.

“Are you ready?” Geoffre raised his sword.

Masuria shot Geoffre in the face, who crumpled and spilled across the stairs like a torn sack of potatoes.

The Baron nodded and slid down to a seated position, as did Masuria. The morning was getting old, the winds unheard and the scent of so many freshly slaughtered corpses began to rise up, clinging to clothing and circling the nostrils of the two men.

“How much longer can this go on?” the Baron asked, rasping.

“Surely not much longer, Baron. Reinforcements for us or them must arrive.”

“Might I asked you, how a scribe so vicious and without ruth might have come to be one of the last defenders of God’s Rest?”

Masurai shrugged and reloaded his flint-locks. “Bad luck, really. I was just passing through. Delivering letters, really, when the whole countryside lit up with cannon and flame. I even think I saw a caster!”

“Bah! More like one of Gildenhern’s lords run awry.”

“What about you, Baron? Is it your holy duty to defend the Spire of God?”

“Me? No. I’m an atheist.”

The scribe was shocked, but clearly too tired to demonstrate his emotions using his body or face.

“But, then, why aren’t you fighting on the other side? Aren’t Gildenhern and his lot always on about the Truth of Man?”

“Yes, that’s right. They espouse a belief in mankind’s own freewill, our reliance upon one another.”

“And you think they’re wrong?”

The Baron laughed heartily, which rolled into a coughing fit. His face crunched up as he coughed, and a splatter of blood colored the back of his hand. He looked down at a wound in his torso and shook his head.

“No, scribe, they killed my horse.”

He went on, “the hot nights are the best. A stinking breeze rolls over everything, gets stuck in back of your throat. Makes you want to puke, but you can’t because that can of pseudo-meat is the only thing you’ve put in your belly for two days. When it’s hot they scrabble faster, you know? Like the warm limbers them up. They get more mobile. When you’re sweating something awful, desperately trying to find out how they know you’re there… wondering if the it’s your scent? Body heat? Something else? You’re tucked away in a bolt hole, listening to them moan aimlessly, peaking out your shadowed peep hole, watching them devour your buddy…”

The Sarge got real quiet then, for a long while. It scared us to see him drift off like that.

Suddenly, he perked up and inhaled deep through his nose.

“Smell that? Looks like Junior is right. It is a good night for zombies…”

The technicians cleared away from the cocoon in the center of the room. That’s what the techs had taken to calling it. They’d inserted a fully grown but heavily modified human being into stasis chair and over the weeks rebuilt him. His eyes were mostly flesh, or at least pods of protein jelly, like they were at his “birth” (uncorking), but millions photoreceptors had been built in the place of retinas by swarms of nanotech viruses. The nanites were injected through any intravenous port and swarm like salmon upstream, up the blood stream, to their destination to create and then die; broken apart by the subjects existing augmented white blood cells. What they left behind was then patched into an ever growing lattice of subcutaneous neural networks, data highways, also paved by nanoscopic engineers.

Outside the laboratory, Janet Hilden twisted a cigarette in her fingers. She sat in front three monitors, each feeding her graphic representations of data she could have rattled off while sleeping. Her work with synthetic tissue growth and nanite reconstruction was nothing short of miraculous.

But that was all child’s play compared to what she was about to do. She knew it would work, of course, or she never would have attempted it. The process was simple – translation of human thought, that is, chemo-electrical signals to electrical signals, base machine code that could be run through any one of her numerous peripheral processors. The Subject would control machines with thought. As the designated moment became clearer and closer, she continued manipulating the cigarette.

“Going to light it?” asked Paul.  She turned her pale green eyes to regard him, spinning her body slowly in her chair with a deft motion of her foot.

“Paul, do you have any idea what’s about to happen in the next room.”

“Some.” He shrugged. She despised him when he played stupid. He was handpicked from a catalogue of researchers, grad students, mumbling PhDs, and god-knows-who-else. The experiment in the room next him was as much his baby as it was hers.

“So, you’ve nothing witty to say when we break down the last barrier and free humanity from the greatest bottle-neck of traffic we’ve ever seen and will ever know?”

“You’re referring to the ability to interface with computers as fast as thought.”

“Obviously.” She sighed, rolling her eyes. She spun the smoke one last time and lit it.

“I’ve some thoughts, I suppose.” He said, waving the smoke from his face.

“Well, Pauly, care to share?”

“Yeah. Um… Maybe we shouldn’t?”

Her torso was nearly bare except for a golden chain bra that barely covered her three full breasts. Her legs were muscular and ended in talon-like feet. Around her neck and head hung several delicate chains made of gold.

Across from Kali sat a female parking cop. She had short-cropped black hair that stood up in all directions. It was cute in a boyish sort of way. She watched her feet as we rode the train, looking up only to steal an occasional glance at Kali the Destroyer. The meter maid had boring eyes, brown or maybe they were brown. Her hands were delicate, thin. Her skin was pale. I followed her eyes to her shoes. She wore matte black boots, clean, freshly oiled. Her whole body was straight, angular. Compared to Kali, she was like a small boy. She fidgeted with her book of parking tickets, flipping them like you would a deck of cards. Something about her said “desperation”. I named her Rita. I decided I liked Rita.

Next to the meter maid was a proctologist. I could tell her was a proctologist because under his coat was a name tag that read “A.S. Ore – Proctology”. I surmised it stood for Arthur Samuel or even Assisting Surgeon. Part of me wanted to believe it stood for Ass Searcher. He looked tired. Cranky. His blonde hair was perfect, oil slicked back. Around his neck was a small silver chain with a small cross dangling vulnerably. He tapped his feet and fiddled with his cell phone. As if handling it would make it work better, or make that important person call him back even sooner. I followed his gaze to Kali’s three golden breasts. He stared blatantly, as if it were his right. Considering his occupation, maybe it was. His hands were big, rough. I always imagined a proctologist would have soft and nimble hands. I did not like this impatient proctologist. I named him Anal Satisfaction.

So there I was, trapped on the train with Kali, Hindu Goddess of Destruction, Lovely Rita, the Meter Maid, and Anal Satisfaction, the pissed off Proctologist.

I decided I would see what sort of conversation I could start off between the four of us.

“I like your bracelets.” I said awkwardly to Kali. Her eyes flicked open and she turned to face me.

“Thank you.” Her voice was deep and melodic, “They are gifts from a demon who proclaims his love for me.”

“They’re lovely.” Rita piped up, her voice squeaky.

“Did you say Demon?” Anal Satisfaction asked.

“Yes.” Kali replied. “A Demon. Kolvatarynya, Lord of the Seventh Hell and the Burning Plains.”

“He sounds successful. How long have you know him…?” Rita asked, leaning forward.

“Many thousands of years.” Kali replied.

“So it’s a pretty serious relationship then?”

She pulled a hit from the swirled-glass creation, the acrid chemical smoke drifting lazily from her upper lip, curling around, obscuring a tiny mole before sneaking into her nostril to run through her pulmonary system again. Each pass the smoke grew weaker, thinner, as her body absorbed it instead of precious air.  Eyes half open, once pale-blue now blazed a noxious red. Her ears rang.

It was a painful need, that nagging desire always in the back of her mind, always chewing away at her dreams and goals, a dull blade knocking chips, spark and all, from so fragile self-respect.

As the pain receded and she slunk back into the warm arms of Forget, she was betrayed by her eyes and a tear fell.

My crackpipe has grown, transformed over the years, from simple knowledge to data to rampant seething, patterns. The crack pipe shattered and shivered when knowledge wasn’t enough. The patterns began to go wild, expanding and growing growing like interlaced vines. A fractal that cannot be mastered, cannot be wholly viewed in instant. As she wished for the pattern, I wished for the smoke.

The moon watched as I devoured a Nutroll, the nuts cracking and shattering as I chomped, crumbs piling around me, landing on the slick surface of my grim obsidian desk.

I hunkered down and she crept up higher in the sky to keep eyes on what I was doing. I devoured the candy.  The salt from the Nutroll was making me lick my lips. The goo in the center of the candy bar was sticking in my teeth and I was moving my mouth and cheeks in an effort to dislodge the tooth decayer. But I couldn’t give up the salt, so both efforts, the salt removal and the sticky candy-goo removal took twice as long.

The moon watched while I feasted like a dog.