Mhaieiyu

Arc 2, Chapter 20

His Name was Jack

“Sprung-come sparrow, here and there he sits. Anxiously. Undoubtedly, wretched his circumstances may be. The lame. The poorness. I feel, I truly do feel. I mourn and salute your cause, Celestial!” he said almost theatrically, the rustle of fabrics made audible as he dropped his head forward and put one hand over his chest; the other lingering in the air. The voice of he was one drunk-sounding; slurred and uneven. He was sober, however. Well, sobriety barely counted when he was under the influence of an entirely different substance: the nature of himself.

Here and there, to and fro, this man, the Maddened Magician, treated life itself like a mindless play. Corvus could only sit in silence until the man had spoken his last. Once finished, Corvus nodded, and spoke. “For this reason, I implore you, o Jack. Could you deliver swift justice on our behalf?”

Isosceles, or Jack, raised and dropped his chin exaggeratedly. “Jack, Jack, Jack!” He teetered his upper body left and right with each spelling of his older name, “What is this?! I notice error in your speech. Not only are you tired, weepy, unhappy, anxious. You are also failing to name me. I am not Jack. Jack was once, I am now. This, here, I insist, I beg, call me Isosceles! Isosceles indeed!” He raised his arms high and shouted into the heavens. “AND OF COURSE! You shall meet my assistance for how I loathe unfairness and sadness and unhappiness! I shall, indeed, I shall! You have swayed me in fifty ticks of an iron clock! Sung to me with guilt and purpose — oh benevolent Goddess how your angels duly sing. Dutifully…”

A mix of words and emotions. The Magician, now aptly named Isosceles, likely by himself, could drag himself up with giddy and down with bitterness like the swing of a pendulum. Unnatural. Uncanny. Ungraspable speech with barely comprehended talk. This man. He was the embodiment of eccentricity. An exacerbation to all that was in this eerie place. After all, the chaos of this fabricated land unbathed in Victus’ light or Mortos’ darkness was a mere extension of his own.

The Celestial whose age could be placed, in human terms, around the late thirties had the luxury of tasting some of this land’s only distinct tasting materials. A leaf brew of a plant Isosceles had lovingly named Quesseltszbryne, but unfortunately, the taste was a clash of flavours that didn’t blend well together; mostly bitter. It did have a curious aftertaste that might compel you to sip further. It was more a case of lacking alternatives. With nothing else to do but listen, Corvus took a sip and cringed, before settling the cup down again.

“You there, sitting so smug and snug as a bug on merry dew chug, tell me hastily and fast, but be sure I understand you. You look depressed. Miserable. Bemoaning and sad. You don’t look very motivated. Celestials are indicative of hope for the Victus prayers, correction? So tell me hastily, tell me fast!” Isosceles brought himself eerily near, drawing his face close by climbing the table so suddenly. Corvus felt his breath from this close. His entire sight became his teeth-ridden grin. He stayed silent. “Why do you cry so inwardly? Release the tempests and let them pluck the fruit of sanitation! Why do you singe yourself with self scorn? Uncork that bottle and fly! Fly, like Ryven chasing brood-thieving Owilyn!”

The Celestial had to push his neck and head firmly into the backrest, feeling the pressure hurt his skull. Isosceles knew not of the social intricacies standard of modern living. Such things as personal space were as known to him as the colour on Victus’ face. Collecting his thoughts into words, Corvus replied with displacency.

“We Celestials, and especially those assigned to the Guardian, are to remain steadfast and able. If we sunk time on emotional hardships…”

Before he could finish speaking, Isosceles shook his head violently from side to side and grabbed Corvus’ shoulders with much vigour; shaking him about like a child’s doll. “Nonsense! Avast! To dwell with those troubling thoughts is to ask the great beyond to welcome you sooner amid hopefullyeversparceviolence…!”

The Magician spoke faster and faster with each of his words, bringing a hand to his chest and standing up atop the table; magnetising all the attention of this forlorn dimension towards himself. Unusually, the table didn’t creak from his weight, though that could be chalked up to the many nonsenses Isosceles had magicked here. What Corvus couldn’t fathom was what came next. Slowly, the madman’s body crumbled and vanished into ash, leaving behind only his coat and hat, which flung violently into the horizon with a noisy thunder. Corvus stared in awe, covering his eyes reflexively despite the absence of wind to drive dust into them. He just looked onwards to that pinkish-purple atmosphere that stretched endlessly in front of him like an ocean of strange clouds; if they could even be called ‘clouds’. He looked left and saw the same. He looked right, and more. In a strangely deep way, the view was worthy of praise — though so different from what he knew.

Suddenly, the booming voice of a god smacked into the whole of the dimension like a gigantic whirlwind — so loud that Corvus was certain the volume alone should have flattened the city below him. Still, due to The Other Place’s natural laws—or lack thereof—not even the parasol was blown from its stand.

The voice said, “IF ONE IS TO FIND HOPE IN GRIEVANCE, THEY MUST FIRSTLY MAKE DO WITH THE EXTENT OF THEIR PUNISHMENT!”

“Punishment…?” Corvus repeated, still baffled his eardrums hadn’t burst.

“INDEED! MIGHTILY SO! HAVE YOU SUFFERED, CELESTIAL?!”

“Have I suffered?” he said again, looking down at his palms. They were cut and bruised. “I have suffered, yes. But enough?”

“DO YOU DESERVE NO MORE?”

“Perhaps.”

“CERTAINTY.”

“I hope.”

“CERRRTAINNNTYYY!”

“Yes. Yes, I’ve fucking suffered enough!” Corvus finally yelled, standing up to confront the heavens themselves. “I’ve suffered enough, goddamn it! I suffered enough when I lost Lyth!”

The ground rumbled, even if there was no ground to speak of. The whole of his vision shook, and soon, the silhouette of a being so large that it over encompassed his sight’s reach drew near. A giant of immeasurable proportions. A giant with a now eclipsing tophat and a wide, open smile that could devour islands like pastries.

“I CAN MAKE YOU RUE FURTHER IF NEED BE!”

“Why, by every bar of Her Gates, should I pain more?!”

“BECAUSE!” The colossal hand of the Magician raised high and dropped low, smashing into the small platform the table stood upon and destroying it in an instant. Corvus’ floating floor vanished then, forcing him to plummet with a panicking cry. He was right. His wings wouldn’t work here. “YOU HAVEN’T SHED A SINGLE OUNCE OF SORROW IN YOUR SPEECH!”

The floor felt so distant now that the angel fell. Surely, his doom would soon be met. Corvus had never undergone such uncontrolled freefall since his earliest training days; and even then, the fall distance only felt great due to him being a child. Somehow, however, with his iron senses, he managed to bypass his panic and screams to process the booming voice’s accusation.

Even in decent, Corvus roared. “I haven’t poured my heart? What, because I haven’t broken to tears?! Are you insane, Magician?!” Of course he was. It was in his title. “Don’t even dare assume you understand the compromise commitment has cost me you old bastard!” he continued to shout, reaching deep into the recesses of his being to rip out and explode his darkest emotions.

Isosceles adored the display. The colossal shrunk — enough for the entirety of his body from the abdomen to his head to be visible, but still enough to tower over the skies. He guffawed and giggled giddily as a child during the holidays, clapping his hands together in tiny little bursts that, at such immense mass, would surely level mountains with their shockwaves. Still, nought but reverb was made a consequence.

“Brilliant!” the giant mad man said, “Tear away at your walls and present me, unbound, the inner crevices, the meaning, the very fabric of your name!”

It wasn’t mockery. Isosceles brimmed with overwhelming curiosity; one that could only be sated forcefully. Even malice could be discarded in his intent. While his approach was brash, the Magician was blissfully ignorant to the distress he caused. And such wouldn’t cease, either. As Corvus plummeted, not even wind restrained his fall, and so he just kept falling faster. Terminal velocity became a suggestion as those laws that should restrict the speed of his fall simply didn’t exist here. And so, he kept falling. Faster and faster. The land below him drew nearer yet distant at the same time; like trying to approach a rainbow. It’s as if the earth was just a visual illusion.

And then, something even more nauseating happened. The world, the skies, and everything that wasn’t Corvus began to turn. Slowly, in a dragging rotation that drove the keen avian’s senses bonkers, the skies repositioned to become the new floor, and the floor became the ceiling. And so, he kept falling. Would he fall forever? Into a spaceless sea of smoke-like clouds?

The voice thundered once more, and the spectre born from Isosceles’ being grew faster than the angel could sink; stretching and stretching until he overshadowed the endless void ahead of him. “CELESTIAL!”

“Isosceles!” Corvus cried back, teeth gritting, flailing, unwilling to relent.

“HAVE YOU SPILLED TEARS FOR YOUR DAMSELS?” Even as the Celestial dove, the spectre kept growing to match. The giant brought itself closer to him until the skin of his chin was made visible through the eclipsed shroud. “IS IT NOT WRONG TO WED TWO AT ONCE? ARE YOU GREED…?”

“Of course I have grieved for them! I never vowed to two! Don’t be foolish, Magician!” Corvus shouted as harshly as his vocal cords would allow. “You are Greed!”

The colossal was taken aback. He withdrew his head with a reverbing gasp and brought a hand dramatically to his lips. For a few more seconds, Corvus kept falling. He looked up. The ground had returned, perplexingly, to where it should be. He barely managed to breathe a reflexive grunt before colliding into solid earth at a speed that would make him duck pâté.

“Victus save me——!”

“Gentleness, geeentleeeneeess!”

Corvus had ripped himself, sweating like a chicken in the oven, from the most unrestful nap of his life. He blinked feverishly, seeing dots in his sight, and threw his head about to scan his surroundings. He had stood up quick possible from the table set; refusing to acknowledge anything but his safety. To his complete bewilderment, he was back on the floating platform. The planet hadn’t tilted. He wasn’t in freefall. His nose smelled something other than lavender.

“You drank much too fast. The palate must be trained! You’ll waste the leaves otherwise, my little beating heart!” Jack, nay, Isosceles said, taking the teacup to his lips for another sip before refixing that plastered, uncomfortably welcoming showman’s grin again.

Having experienced the Magician’s more exotic spells once more, the shook bird just breathed deeply, taking a shaky seat in front of the man once more. He looked down and noticed the concoction. The thought of taking another sip made him feel sick.

Isosceles bobbed his head down briefly to indicate the tea. “Your lips barely kissed the water.”

“I don’t want any more of your messed up narcotics. Isosceles, lend me your aid and let’s be done with this.”

“But you don’t remember? I am your host. Allow me to entertain you!”

Corvus snapped. “I want no more of your absurdities delivered my way! Comply! That is an order by the Goddess’ name!”

Isosceles slammed his hands on the table too excitedly. “The bold and brazen angel becomes nigh-on sinful! Is that Wrath buiiilding in your throat?! Perhaps Vainglory? To call by the Saintess’ name is——!”

The Sword too smashed his hand into the desk. The difference in strength was in that when he did it, the wood splintered around his fist. “Don’t accuse me of Sin when you are a Manifestation yourself, Jack!”

Isosceles choked up then, his grin fading instantly, replacing with the quivering lips of a scolded child. “Jack… is Isosceles,” he muttered, bringing a few fingers to the scarred tissue on his face. “And he, I, am Sin… Uncanny…!”

Corvus said nothing, eyeing the Magician with a face scrunched in frustration. The Celestial’s eyes had watered suddenly, and though he tried to stop it, fat tears soon dropped like dollops of honey to splash on the waxed-wood table — or rather, the imitation of such that Isosceles had conjured in this world.

Though Corvus was quiet, the Magician stood up to truly weep. Loudly he did, all as if in a play, as theatric as humanly possible. As he did, he and his coat spun a few times in place, clockwise and then anticlockwise. The edges of his gown—which covered his legs and feet—twirled rhythmically, and so did he. Before Corvus recognised his intent, the owner of this world grasped the Corvus firmly by the collar and truly cried right within an inch of his face; sputtering saliva and a running nose with all. His eyes could just barely be discerned under the hat. A bizarre blend of magenta and green.

“Forgive us, o Celestial, for I was a bad man! I sinned, yes, I did!” Isosceles bemoaned uproariously, shaking his shoulders. “Find it in your mercy, in your goodwill, in your sanctity to find hope for this lost sheep for I… I am without guidance and, and, and…!” Suddenly, his crying stopped. Though his face was still a mess, his wrinkles had returned to their neutral state. He looked fairly well-aged for a man in his centuries. One could place him at perhaps forty years of age. Whispering, he said, “I. Am. Honest.”

Corvus’ eyes scanned what little he could see, his pupils darting from left to right with a slack-jaw and beading sweat. He felt as if he were staring back into a hungry shark who gave him less than breathing room.

“Do you hear my plea, Victus-sent?” Isosceles said, enunciating each of his words with utmost clarity and shifting his scarred lips excessively for each syllable. It was imperative to him that he be heard.

“I…” Corvus muttered, his head shaking involuntarily. “I hear it.”

That smile grew even further somehow. His whole face, what could be seen of it, was covered with wrinkles from his excessive expressiveness. “E-Ri-Ca. Erica.”

“Erica…?” the Sword whispered with hopeful intrigue.

“Erica,” Isosceles whispered too.

“What are you trying to say?!” Corvus shouted in the Magician’s face, his breathing becoming as manic as the madman he faced.

“E-RI-CA! The lass you bludgeon your mind for, she, she, she…!”

“Speak you buffoon!”

The entire world shifted slightly with a bang as if something had struck it from the side. Corvus fell onto the table with a winge. Isosceles’ madness only continued to manifest. Ignoring everything but his inattentive indulgences, the Magician raised his arms high, and soon, a staff materialised into being. A thin pole topped with a reversed triangle; an isosceles. This symbol was alarmingly similar to that which the Crimsoneers flagged, but Corvus knew not to panic for this. There was no doubt in his mind that this abomination of mental decline was incapable of good or evil. He just was. Isosceles acted with absolute impunity.

And thus, he did.

Striking the featureless end of the cane into the inch of ground they somehow stood upon, Isosceles breathed a contented sigh, rivetted with a mixture of joy, excitement and goddess-knows-what-else, before cranking it forward from the triangle’s end — treating it like a lever. And then, the skyscraper from earlier shot into the sky once more. It would take less than ten seconds to travel miles into the air. During this brief window, Corvus noted, his head still dropped on the table, that Isosceles’ feet, which should be visible through the crack between his gown and the floor, were completely absent somehow.

Corvus felt so nauseous he could hurl. But somehow, not even the act of vomiting seemed feasible in such a place. It all felt like one massive drug trip. Did the events of his fall even happen? His head hadn’t exploded upon impact, and his body hadn’t been made into a paste, nor did he ache. So surely, none of it did. And yet… This man…

“Hop along then, dearestest Celestial comrade! Let us venture! Will you join me? Or would you drop once more?!” Isosceles said this with a roaring, uneven laugh. He knew. So how?

“I’ll join you. Just spare me a minute to soothe this migraine,” Corvus chided, stumbling about like a drunkard himself until his shoes met the ‘elevator’. At elevation, it did succeed, indeed. And descent too. It fell so fast that it should kill anyone that used it to travel. But still, Corvus’ feet didn’t unglue from the platform.

“I have reached a conclusion,” the angel said, grasping his head.

Isosceles turned to him, dropping his face forward and arching his back. “Don’t be Greed! Share your discoveries——”

“This place is fucking bonkers and I wish never to return.”

“——with moi. Hapless.”

Watching Isosceles upright himself, losing that ridiculous grin for a full second, Corvus’ angst only grew. “Why did you say Erica’s name?”

“I would wager that the flock has dwindled,” not-Jack said, teetering his head from side to side. The skyscraper dropped down low enough for its roof to become the plaza once more. Once the ‘building’ stopped moving, Isosceles and promptly Corvus stepped off. The Magician kept on his everlasting smile, his arms folded behind his back, his body and dress swaying from left to right rhythmically as he hummed a tune that probably didn’t exist either.

By the Goddess, Corvus’ brain felt like it should just melt and seep from his skull.

“Have you had the time to admire the scenery, friend?” the host asked with another bout of giddy. Stretching a hand forward and up, he said, “Here I was, in a space with too much space and not a smidgen of even dust! All I had to invest was time and effort to build this marvel! Isn’t it pretty, oh isn’t it?” he giggled and snorted, arching his back backwards to a cringe-worthy angle. “Splitting image of reality, is it not?”

“Like staring in a mirror,” Corvus added.

The sarcasm went right over his head. “Mm! Indeed! Of course, always with a touch of other. ‘The Other Place’, is what your fellow and dame called it? A satire of the norm, that is humour to me. Oh, stillness.”

Suddenly, the oddity came to a stop and put a hand out to Corvus. His warning came soft and nonchalant. The oversized triple-decker train came loud, quick as a bullet and was gone in two blinks. Right in front of Corvus. It might’ve even skinned his nose with its aura.

“It seems to me the wagon is timely! Of course it is. Onwards!” With a gait of a commoner, Isosceles continued his hum and advanced; the taps of his footwear not making noise. Everything was normal here. Was there such a thing as ‘strange’ in such a place? Anything was possible. Might as well start breathing lead, too.

Corvus stood stiff as a rake. His wings had popped out of place and a feather dropped from its stem; his eyes were wide as could be.

Isosceles, on the other hand, straightened up in front of him and tilted his head towards the path. “Celestial, onwards!”

The Sword blinked and then flailed his arms in anger. “Are we going to ignore the fact you waited until the last goddamned second to warn me there are vehicles travelling fast as light here?!”

“You did so nearly step on the rails. Weren’t you taught against that back in homelier land?” Though he didn’t mean to, not-Jack sounded so patronising.

Corvus grunted, rushing past the tracks that littered the common street and poked the Magician in the chest with his sword’s scabbard. “Let’s move. I don’t need a second longer in here than necessary.”

Isosceles just cackled some more, allowing himself to walk side by side with the frustrated Celestial. Always curious, he asked, “Is flight so captivating that it has claimed your feet?”

“I can walk just fine,” Corvus hissed between clenched teeth.

“Why, heaven-sent, do you feel inclined to rush? The ticking clock tick-tocks not here. Not the same as the tick of yours.”

Corvus opted for silence then. They were leaving the city block behind them quicker than normal. As the angel had long come to know, perspective was a fickle concept in this embodied headache.

With his query ignored, Isosceles looked no close to offended. He simply shrugged his shoulders, took the act as normalcy, and continued his song in whistles. “Twenty the flock, six for the jam. Four left in socks, two did in… Did in… Ring-vow? Sprung with marriage, wedlocked, singled out, a third one…!”

Corvus’ eyes grew. “Erica…” he muttered.

The Magician heard that. He leaned in, putting his back at a terribly perpendicular angle once more with his feet somehow not dropping from improper weight distribution. “Erica. E-Ri-Ca. What a lovely name.”

“You mentioned her name earlier. I asked you. What did you say?”

“The flock thins,” Isosceles said simply with a nod. “Why must you inquire?”

Corvus’ face muscles tightened, as did his grip on the handle of his sword. “What does that mean?”

Isosceles chuckled some, sniggered some more, and then just faced forward. “Lackadaisical. Imitative. These… emotions… They feel feigned. So little passion. Are you in denial?”

“For the Goddess, please, answer me coherently!” the Guardian’s Sword shouted once more, becoming desperate. “What does that mean?!”

“Why. Should I. Tell ye?! Half the spice of life is discovery!” Isosceles shouted back, his anger faked and littered with drunk-like giggles and snorts.

“Mortos damn you!” In a rush of hysterics, Corvus drew his blade and in an instant struck it against the Maddened Magician. A swipe so fierce it could cut a man in half, and yet it rebounded as if impacting against stone.

Isosceles giggled again. “What is this play, now?”

“Life isn’t a play, you madman!” Corvus said voicefully. “Explain to me or I will cut you down!”

“Oh, that reminds me!” not-Jack suddenly exclaimed and turned away, as if ignorant to the situation at hand, to point towards somewhere in the distance. “The mountains that mark my homestead, the sierra in all, is under construction! Sierra! A cutting name, I do say!”

“ENOUGH!” Corvus drew himself back and then sprung forth with a mighty cry, bringing his sword skyward to then drop its edge upon the foe without thought. The impulsive aggression was denied by a sudden jet of wind that knocked him clean off his course and dropped him with a harsh crunch.

Isosceles either hadn’t noticed or pretended not to. He just turned around, simple as could be, with that massive smile still glued to the lower half of his face.

“Well then, shall we go?” he said, tilting his head curiously.

Corvus felt defeated. He was powerless here. On the floor, deflated and without kindle for spirit, he pleaded, “Isosceles, please, answer me.”

“Let’s!” Jumping up with a clap, the Magician disregarded the plea and extended a hand for Corvus.

The angel had no choice but to take it. He thanked the heavens his cold hands were gloved. The world fell apart and all he could see through the blur of lights was that same, tooth-ridden grin. They hadn’t reached the exit yet, but still, they were leaving. Corvus felt sweat bead on his forehead. They weren’t going back to the forest.

Smoke raised from the destroyed, crisped hole that had formed been violently punched into the sand a few hours earlier. The explosion was so fierce that it had made even the tiny fragments of stone turn briefly into lava and harden into volcanic rock. Ash and embers riddled the rings that surrounded the aftermath of Vermillion’s actions. Pieces of flesh from the hundreds of lost, charred soldiers, including halves of disembodied arms and whole legs still attached to a portion of waist were strewn about. A good bit of the blood that didn’t boil away had coagulated or dried on what remained of the bodies; the process likely made faster with the smouldering heat. The trees nearby were fortunate not to catch fire. Yet.

Corvus fell on his knees and took an offwhite feather from the sand. And then, he took a third of a wing into his arms and embraced it, uncaring of the golden-silver plasma that it still dribbled.

Isosceles came to his side and stood firm, still grinning, admiring the scene of the open ocean just ahead. The sky was dark blue and littered with stars. A sight to behold.

As if all but the beauty of the scene never existed, the Magician took a deep, long breath and asked, “Celestial, I’m sure you’re well acquainted with the heavens. So do tell me, who is they, the painters of such artistry?”

Another question was left unanswered.

Isosceles made a dissatisfied noise, dropping his fascinated, outstretched arm to look down at Corvus. “Celestial, indulge me?”

Isosceles grinned still, but he saw that Corvus did not, and so, he stopped grinning. He frowned, stood straight again, and watched the ocean. The sea was calm.

Isn’t he funny?