302) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 66 — An Enemy Outside of Time

As they explained everything that had happened in Graxia’s cavern, Grok not only listened, but watched with keen interest. There was something off about them; it was subtle. It was like at some deep subconscious level, they were all emotionally disconnected from reality, and didn’t know it. They were telling her about terrible, terrifying things, but they were taking it in stride in a way that just wasn’t…normal. She had seen this sort of disconnection in survivors of war, but this was…deeper somehow. In their souls.

She had seen “something off” the first time they were here, but she didn’t know them well enough then to be sure. She cursed herself inwardly for not listening to her intuition. But now she was sure. Some Thing had penetrated their Being, and twisted their very experience of reality.

But as they told her about the sword and their utterly absurd, even suicidal decision to steal it, she thought maybe, maybe there was a larger reason she had missed their — possession, she decided to call it. They were all somehow possessed. But as a result, they had stolen a weapon of unfathomable power, a weapon that could change the very fates of the world.

The gods do work in mysterious ways, after all.

At the end of their story, she walked over to one of the many drawers filling her hut, brought out a small silver tuning fork and, with no explanation, hit it with a small silver hammer, releasing a surprisingly deep, resonant baritone that washed through the room.

Kohra leapt violently backwards, falling onto the floor, clawing at her ears like they had suddenly filled with boiling water, utterly unaware that the others, except Grok, were also convulsing in agony.

The sky was splitting, screams filled the air, as though the Reaper had returned. Kohra felt herself…breaking.

Moments later, it was over. She picked herself off the floor, surprised to see that she had fallen. The silver hammer drew back to strike the tuning fork again. Everyone screamed, desperately, for Grok to stop.

Grok looked at her sympathetically, and the silver hammer struck again.

But this time, it was astonishingly beautiful, and they all stood, transfixed. This was the most beautiful sound they had ever heard, like a choir of gods, like the voice of Ancient Ones carrying the entire meaning of all the worlds in its resonance, like the Song of Creation itself.

As it faded, they found themselves straining, actually leaning forward to get closer to it somehow, willing it to last even one second longer.

Silence washed through the room like a healing salve. Kohra felt…herself again, fresh, whole, like she hadn’t felt in a long time. It was like waking up from a nightmare.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do this earlier,” Grok said. Her eyes looked terribly sad. “I would never have let you suffer if I had understood.”

“What in d’Light arrre ye talkin’ about?” Gorb asked. “Can’t ye just hit dat t’ing again?” His entire face hung slack, overcome with awe. “I neverrr hearrrd anyt’ing so…beautiful.”

She smiled tenderly, like a mother tending to her feverish child. “You were infected. Your minds were infected. I had a strange feeling last time you were here, but I never thought.… I should have known better. You must have encountered a multi-dimensional creature recently.”

“The Reaper!” Devona exclaimed. “Yes! We did! We….”

She never got to finish her sentence.

First, everything went cold, instantly, like summer becoming winter in one second.

Dominic gasped, eyes wide in terror. Kohra opened her mouth to scream, but sound disappeared, like the entire world had become a still-life painting.

Then the air disappeared and they clawed at their throats, frantic for breath, eyes bulging with pure panic. As Kohra collapsed, she dizzily noticed Grok reach out with one arm, and from across the room, a little paper fan zoomed toward her, unfolding as it flew.

Suddenly, a fierce wind tore through the cabin, flinging papers and all sorts of objects into the air, extinguishing the candles and plunging the room into darkness while unleashing a glorious cacophony of SOUND, incredible, pulsating, ringing, piercing, reverberating SOUND, as wind-chimes, dozens and dozens of wind-chimes throughout the cabin, rang out.

Instantly, Kohra could breathe again. “LISTEN TO ME!” Grok boomed, like a military commander. “We have only seconds! Take these!”

Musical instruments flew into their hands, zooming from out of the piles of stuff strewn through the cabin: banjos and flutes, hand-drums, a triangle and metal bar, a guitar, tambourines, and shiny brass horns. Kohra found herself holding a tambourine.

“Now PLAY!!!” Grok screamed. Terrified and confused, they obeyed, busting out the most absurd, off-tune, terrible-sounding, spontaneous jam that surely has ever been heard in all the worlds.

Simultaneously, water blasted out of casks that were sitting against the wall, and metal bowls of a dizzying variety of shapes and sizes flew into the room, landing all around them, filling with water. From the back of the cabin, a barrage of shiny, sparkly crystals flew in, finding perches anywhere and everywhere, until the room looked as messy as Melkorn’s laboratory. Grok began drumming, her arm-stumps banging on a purple-and-orange hand-drum she held between her legs, filling the air with a fast, powerful rhythm, helping them all to synchronize the insane “song” they were skill-lessly creating.

The water in the bowls rippled as their “music” bounced around the room. The crystals started to glow, first faintly, then picking up strength like they were lit from within by internal flames. 

Grok began to sing, and Kohra gasped (although she didn’t stop shaking that tambourine, not for one damn second). It was the Klliik song, the special one. Gorb paused in his own banjo-strumming, gaping at the handless woman in astonishment. Then he added his gravelly baritone, initially hesitant, but growing in confidence as they built a resonant, multi-layered soundscape together. Kohra even joined in, adding her own tentative but rich alto to whatever parts she could remember from those nights that felt like a hundred years ago.

Icy tendrils clawed at her heart, like the dead fingers of ten thousand corpses. She could see the others’ eyes glazing over and rolling back into their heads. Melkorn fell. Then Reilly, Devona, Dominic, and finally, Lenny, succumbing to a soul-sucking inner enervation.

Still Kohra sang, not even trying to remember anymore, just giving herself over to the song. Her voiced blended with Gorb’s and Grok’s, becoming more nuanced, fuller, until she felt like she was singing with her whole body, the sound coming straight from her guts instead of her throat.

Her heart felt cold, like it was dying.

Her mind filled with fog.

In her last moment of consciousness, as her body hit the floor, “Kohra” disappeared, replaced by a Song.