Beyond the Shroud of the Universe Read online

  Entrance to Grendel’s Cave, Fredensborg, Denmark, October 2, 2021

  “That is the entrance to Grendel’s cave,” Captain Nightsong said. “The passage leads to a large cave below sea level.”

  “I still think this is a mistake,” Master Chief said, looking at the fissure in the side of the cliff. The shuttle had landed on the plateau above, and the soldiers had climbed down the cliff to a narrow beach on the Oresund Bay. “I think we should transfer both groups in at once,” he added.

  “Each of the control rods only lets us take three people in at a time,” Captain Nightsong said. “Since we can’t go in with enough people to make a difference at the start, we should go in small so there is less of a chance the Efreet will see us. They may have some kind of monitor or sensor that lets them know how many people are around, and three people are a lot less suspicious than six. While three people could be friends on a walk, six people are likely to be conspirators up to no good. It’s just the way the Efreet think.”

  “Okay,” Calvin said, coming to a decision. “Here’s the plan. I’m going to jump in first with Captain Nightsong and Lieutenant Knaus. We’re going to make sure everything is still the way Captain Nightsong remembers it, and then we’ll come back and get the rest of the platoon.”

  “Do you really think that’s wise, sir?” Master Chief asked. “Captain Nightsong and two aviators?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that every time you go somewhere without me, you always seem to get into some kind of trouble I have to come rescue you from. Wouldn’t it be smarter and save us all a lot of time and trouble if we sent in some combat troops first? If nothing else, wouldn’t it be better if I went with you now, instead of the lieutenant?”

  “I’ll be fine, Master Chief,” Calvin said. “Captain Nightsong has been here before and knows the way. K-Mart has more experience with the Sila race than anyone else we have. If there are Sila there, he’s the best person we have to interact with them. We’ll just take a quick look and then send Captain Nightsong back to get everyone else. It makes sense to find out what’s going on over there before we bring in so many people that we can’t get back out again quickly. It also lets us find out from the start whether we can wear our combat suits or not.”

  “You know sir, I’ve been thinking,” Master Chief said after a pause.

  “Damn,” Calvin said. “Master Chief’s been thinking? Now I really am scared.”

  “That’s funny, sir,” Master Chief replied; “it’s just fucking hilarious. Seriously, what if the damn Psiclopes got it all wrong? What if I’m actually the hero, and you’re just one of my sidekicks? Have you ever thought of that? I seem to have to save the day all the time; wouldn’t that make me the hero? Perhaps you should let the hero lead on this one for a change. Besides, I’ve got a bad feeling about this jump.”

  “Now Master Chief, if you were the hero, you’d be the one to have to go to all of the press conferences and do all of the media interviews. Is that what you want? To be in front of the press all the time?”

  “Screw that,” Master Chief said. “Okay, you got me there. You can go, but please be careful for once, won’t you?”

  “I will,” Calvin said with a smile.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Captain Nightsong. “He’ll be with me. What could go wrong?”

  Captain Nightsong led them into the tunnel opening, turning on an Aesir lantern as he entered the narrow passageway. The troops followed him into the shaft, turning on their flashlights as they reached the darkness inside. The passageway sloped steeply, forcing the soldiers to carefully pick their steps, and after a few minutes Calvin knew they were well below sea level. The passageway eventually leveled out, snaked back and forth several times and then opened into a large chamber.

  Captain Nightsong walked to the center of the cavern and turned around to face the group.

  “Ready?” Captain Nightsong asked. He held out a hand, and Calvin and K-Mart made skin-to-skin contact with him. Seeing two nods, the Aesir pressed a button on the transportation rod he was holding in his other hand. With a flash, the three vanished.

  Chapter Four

  Anti-Denmark, Anti-Earth, Unknown Date

  The trio reappeared in a cave complex similar to the one they left on Earth, but one that was substantially larger and showed signs of habitation: a sword was mounted on one wall and a table sat in the far corner, with a small golden rod on top. The biggest differences Calvin could see were the addition of a second room, visible through an open archway, and that the chambers were lit with some sort of light emitting strips stuck to the walls.

  From what Calvin could see through the archway, the new compartment looked like a workshop, although one that didn’t appear to be in use. A bellows sat next to a cold fireplace, and empty tables and barrels were scattered throughout the room. An enormous anvil bolted to a massive wooden block stood as a lonely sentinel by the fireplace.

  “Wow, it’s so clean,” Calvin said. “It doesn’t smell musty at all, and there’s no dust or dirt anywhere. It’s almost like someone was living here and just moved out yesterday.”

  “Three days ago, actually,” Captain Nightsong said.

  “What do you mean?” Calvin asked.

  Both aviators turned to look at the Aesir, and they saw he had drawn his laser pistol. Without a word, Nightsong shot K-Mart in the center of his forehead. The aviator fell backward, dead before he hit the floor.

  Calvin paused in shock, then started to draw his pistol in reflex. Before he could get it clear of its holster, Captain Nightsong picked up K-Mart’s pistol, turned and leveled both weapons at Calvin. “Don’t do that,” he warned. “I’d hate to have to kill you, too. This soon, anyway.”

  “What the…?” Calvin asked, looking down at K-Mart’s body. “Why the hell did you kill him?”

  A wicked grin crossed the Aesir’s face. “Why?” he asked. “Because he was unnecessary to my plans. You are the only one who matters.” He crossed the room and removed Calvin’s laser pistol from its holster. “I’ve been looking forward to having a real hero soul to experiment on for centuries. To finally have one given to me so freely is simply divine providence.”

  Captain Nightsong pulled the battery pack out of Calvin’s pistol, inserted something into the battery well and reinserted the battery. A high-pitched whine filled the close confines of the cave. He made the same alteration to K-Mart’s pistol, and the whine doubled in volume.

  “I moved out three days ago,” Captain Nightsong said. “I had to remove the rest of the equipment I left here; I didn’t want it destroyed in the explosion.”

  “What explosion?” Calvin asked.

  “The one that’s going to destroy this workshop, of course,” Nightsong said, looking up. “We certainly wouldn’t want your people to follow us. I’m overloading the batteries so they will detonate. When they do, I expect this cave will collapse. Anyone who follows us will find themselves under 50 feet of water…assuming they don’t materialize within the rubble. If they can’t breathe water, I expect they will die.” He chuckled.

  “Let’s go,” Nightsong added, motioning Calvin through the doorway into the new chamber. As he entered the room, Calvin saw a familiar figure off to the side.

  “Father Zuhlsdorf!” he cried, running to where the priest was zip-tied to a chair. The priest had seen better days and, judging by the wounds and bandages, had been subjected to an enormous amount of torture. Father Zuhlsdorf’s head was on his chest, but when he heard his name, he lifted it and tried to focus bleary eyes on Calvin.

  “But…you’re dead,” Calvin said.

  “Nothing so exciting…as a return from…the Existential Peripheries,” the priest replied. “The truth is…much more mundane.” His gaze turned to Nightsong and turned into a glare. “He kidnapped me.”

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Calvin asked. “What the hell is going on?”

  Captain Nightsong laughed. “Did you really think I cou
ld stay undetected by the Psiclopes for as long as I did? You obviously have no idea how good they are at spying. Those busy-bodies have reconnaissance devices that can go anywhere and remain undetected. I’m good, but they’re better. Arges caught me a long time ago and offered me a deal. This is all just part of the plan.”

  “Arges caught you? Caught you doing what?”

  “Rather than tell you, why don’t I show you?” the Aesir asked. He put his hands over his face. When he removed them, he looked completely different. “My real name is Wayland, or “Wayland the Smith” as I was often called on this planet. For a time, I was also known as Beowulf. What you choose to call me matters not. You can continue to call me Nightsong if it simplifies things for you. I have lived long enough with that name I am used to answering to it.”

  “So if Arges caught you, he obviously didn’t turn you in,” Calvin said. “What did he get out of it? Nothing is free with him.”

  Nightsong barked a short laugh. “No, nothing is free with him.” He shrugged. “I did some odd jobs for him. Does it really matter? They were things I was good at. An arch-duke here, a president there…”

  “You…you killed people…for Arges?”

  “Indeed. Arges and I had similar plans although our ultimate goals diverged in the end. He was looking for hero souls to study; I was looking for them to continue my experiments.”

  “How many people did you kill?”

  “For Arges? Many. He was always trying to foment some kind of revolution or civil war, something that would cause heroes to come to the forefront of society.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Calvin said. “Next you’re going to tell me you’re the one who killed President Kennedy.”

  “Was he the one with the top hat or the one that kept the United States on the gold standard?” Nightsong asked. “They all kind of run together after a while.” He smiled. “Oh, wait, I’ve got it. Kennedy was the one in the convertible, right? You’ve got to give me that one. It was a great shot, even with heat-seeking bullets.”

  “You really killed Kennedy?”

  “No, the man in the car wasn’t Kennedy; it was just a doppelganger…someone I had modified to look like him. I’d actually been posing as Kennedy for a while.”

  “If Kennedy didn’t die, where is he?”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Nightsong said; “I almost forgot.” He crossed the room and took the sword off the wall. He turned and held it up. “Here’s your president. Arges was watching him because the Psiclopes thought he was a hero spirit. When the Psiclopes decided he wasn’t a full hero spirit, I got to have him.” He smiled. “You may find it interesting to know Marilyn Monroe said I was the best she ever had.”

  “Didn’t she die before Kennedy was assassinated?”

  “Yes she did. The Psiclopes were watching him for quite a while.” Captain Nightsong looked down at the sword, lost in thought.

  While he was distracted, Calvin looked at his watch. Seeing the movement, Nightsong looked up. “Yes, it is time we left. It wouldn’t do to be here much longer.” He crossed to where Father Zuhlsdorf was sitting, motioning Calvin to step away from him.

  “Testing a hero spirit’s helpers is always so much fun,” he said as he cut loose the zip ties. “It does, however, take something out of them. You may have to carry him if you want him to come along with us.” Nightsong motioned for the Terrans to precede him up the passageway. “Let’s go.”

  Calvin reached down to help the priest to his feet and found him greatly reduced; the cleric was nothing more than skin and bones. He pulled the priest’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him easily from the chair.

  “Let’s go,” Nightsong repeated. “We don’t want to be here when the pistols explode.”

  Grendel’s Cave, Fredensborg, Denmark, October 2, 2021

  “Damn it,” Master Chief swore. “I told him not to run off without me. Now look!”

  “What?” Night asked.

  “They’ve been gone too damn long, sir,” Master Chief said, pointing at the watch on his wrist. “They should have reported back by now.”

  “Yes, they should have.”

  “Well? Aren’t we going to jump in and find out what went wrong?”

  Night looked at his watch. “Yes, we are,” he said. He turned and started back toward the tunnel leading out of the cave.

  “I thought we were going in after them,” Master Chief said.

  “We are,” Night said, “but I’m a naturally suspicious kind of guy. I don’t think I want to jump into the same place where they went in. Whoever got the CO may still be sitting at the jump point waiting for us to show up so they can bag us too. I know it’s dangerous to jump in somewhere that hasn’t been surveyed, but it’s less dangerous to do that than to jump in where we already suspect there’s a problem.”

  A smile crossed Master Chief’s face. “I like your thinking, sir,” he said, nodding. “Let’s go kill some damn lizards.”

  Chapter Five

  Anti-Denmark, Anti-Earth, Unknown Date

  “I don’t get it,” Calvin said. “I thought you said you killed Wayland.”

  “You’re really not very smart, are you? I am Wayland. Nightsong came to kill me, but the sentimental fool just couldn’t do it when it came time to pull the trigger. I killed him, instead.”

  “What? He let you go?” Calvin asked.

  “Oh, no, he shot me,” Nightsong said, lifting up his tunic so Calvin could see the scar in the center of his chest. “His mistake was in caring too much for me. He flinched as he pulled the trigger and hit me too high.” He pointed to a spot about three inches below the scar. “If he’d shot me here, he would have hit my heart, and I might not have been able to save myself, nanobots or not.”

  “Obviously you had the nanobots, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Indeed. As awful as you are at your own history, even you have to realize how horrifically primitive medicine was on your planet at that time. I mean, really. Leeches? How is a leech supposed to cure anything? Praying to your peoples’ miserable gods wouldn’t have helped either. I had to come up with a better medicinal plan, or I would have died from their treatments if I had ever been wounded in battle.” Nightsong’s eyes lost focus as he went back in his memories.

  “So, what did you do?” Calvin asked when the silence had gone on for several seconds.

  “I made a deal with Arges to supply me with medicinal nanobots and taught myself how to be a life-based Eco Warrior. I became so good at healing the locals believed I could speak to the gods. I refused to worship their pathetic gods, though, so one day I made up my own pantheon on a whim. Odin, Thor, Freyr…” he stopped to laugh and then continued, “I gave them a better religion, even though it was completely made up.”

  “Wait; you said Arges helped you?”

  “Of course he did. He was always there to provide me with whatever I needed, as long as I did what he wanted.” Nightsong picked up the rod from the table and again motioned for the Terrans to precede him through the fissure. “When I first met you, I told you I knew two others who had been given progenitor’s rods, and that both died before accomplishing their task,” he added. “That much was true. What I didn’t tell you was how they died. I killed them.” He held out the rod so Calvin could see it. “You only had two of the symbols, but I need one of them. I imagine it was the one for the Psiclopes’ home world.”

  “You didn’t have Olympos?” Calvin asked. “I would have thought getting the Olympos symbol would have been easy. They were your allies, after all.”

  “Yes, I could have gone there on several occasions, but I could never stand the little twerps. They’re always spying and trying to find out your secrets so they can use them against you. Go to their planet and let them inspect all my belongings? No thanks. I nearly left your planet when I found out there was a Psiclopes outpost on it; however, by then I had the Efreeti control rod. Since it let me turn invisible and change my appearance, I decided to see ho
w long I could outwit them. That was my mistake, as Arges eventually caught me.”

  “What did he want for not turning you in?” Calvin asked.

  Nightsong shuddered. “Victims, usually.”

  “What do you mean, ‘victims?’”

  “Arges is, and always has been, a sick and twisted creature. The reason he was always trying to cause international conflicts was he loved finding hero spirits’ helpers. He would happily follow a hero spirit around for days…but what he enjoyed even more was seeing how long the hero spirit’s helpers would last while he tortured them to death.”

  “You mean, like what you were doing to me?” Father Zuhlsdorf asked. “Coming from you, that’s really saying something.”

  “Sticks and stones,” Nightsong said with a smile. “Unlike his experiments, mine have a purpose. I am trying to advance the science of sword-making; Arges just does it because he likes it.”

  The group paused as Calvin switched Father Zuhlsdorf from his left side to his right. “I digress,” Nightsong said as the group started forward again. “You asked about Nightsong. He didn’t know I was a functional Eco Warrior, and took me for granted. Nightsong was already an Eco Warrior and should have killed me with his fire. He could easily have done it; however, it wouldn’t have been a good way for me to go. Instead, he decided to go for the clean kill of a laser. When Nightsong flipped me over to see if I was dead, I shot him through the head.” He sighed. “Salvan Nightsong and I really were best friends when we were young. Still, when Arges told me Nightsong was coming to kill me, I knew I only had one choice. Believe it or not, killing him really was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do…but then again, it was either him or me.”

  “So you killed your best friend.”

  “I did,” Nightsong agreed. “The irony of it all was the real Nightsong was a hero spirit himself, and I was one of his helpers. Nightsong never realized it, and I didn’t figure it out until it was too late. I spent all that time trying to find a hero spirit and then killed the first one I met without being ready to catch his soul. The gods must have been laughing at me that day.”