Nightside. I've spent lifetimes walking up and down it's streets. All roads lead here sooner or later, though most people stop well and truly before they can follow the path all the way, to which they should be grateful. It's always four in the morning. It's always dark, and usually drizzling with rain. And the streets and allies lead both to places real and places that might have been, should have been, could have been, and never where. It's growing bigger all the time as more and more are lured into the cracks in the pavement, and it's all a man can do to keep up.

Michael was walking with me. I like Michael, he's a good, righteous, virtuous and benevolent man who could kick me up the street and back if it came to it, or just lay my soul bare with a gaze in a pinch. He was pulled out of retirement in strange circumstances, and his conviction was then tested with a quest only previously completed by two people in all of history. And with it, he's changed. The years have fallen away, the wrinkles are gone, and they took most of the grey with them. The limp is still there, but all but unnoticeable, certainly not more then a nuisance at most, and he seems more. More alive, more there, more vital, more. I can't explain it better then that.

Even to me, and I have quite the reputation myself, he seemed like an immortal, divine paladin, a faultless living legend, and strength, majesty and faith radiated from him with such force that even the perpetual gloom of Nightside could not dispel it. When he walked, you almost expected to see the clouds part above him and a single sunbeam to shine down directly onto his face and bathe him in gold. It didn't, but I got the feeling that was only because it was physically impossible.

His armor was simple, functional more than anything, but shone like silver, and a shimmering cloak of blue lined with white fluttered behind him, held in place with a heavy golden crucifix. And it was all pristine. Dirt, mud, whatever, it slid off it as though it couldn't find purchase. My white coat was almost grey.

I probably sound as though I'm resentful. Let me assure you, I'm not. Michael is one of the best men I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and if I could see that, it should be no surprise that God can see it too. I hear he's fairly perceptive. I'm who I am, and he is who he is.

The two of us were traveling together because company is a wonderful thing, and because the others had jobs of their own. We were getting that a lot, now with the ongoing shadow war between us and our enemies (all of whom are yet to reveal their hands directly) is underway. Time doesn't really pass here, but periodically we'd drag in their men, and ours would go missing, occasionally for bits and pieces of them to later be found scattered all over the place.

Eddie took care of the actual questioning, but was yet to get answers, which was past cause for concern and well and truly into outright baffling. What was worrying was the sheer variety they dragged in. Low-men, vampires, little people (not so many now that there maker was dead and buried and they had no way to replace them) machines, faceless, shadows and demons and ghouls, oh my. Whatever it was that we were facing, it had more resources then I was entirely comfortable with anyone having.
And so we followed leads, thwarted them when we could, and otherwise did our best to increase the size of our organization and discourage people from The Tower.

I glanced over at Michael and cleared my throat. Sometimes an awkward, painful subject has to be breached. It's never easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. "So, your family?"

"Safe." Michael said, his deep, comforting voice. "Charity is well, the children are growing up into fine young men and women. I'm proud of all of them."
"And Mollie?"

For a moment his eyes tightened. Then he hangs his head. "No. She continues her path."

"You know it's not your fault."

"Then who's fault is it? Who was to protect her if not her father?" He sighs. "I only hope. There is little else I can do, it is not in me to raise myself against my own flesh and blood." He stops walking, and I continue a few steps before I stop as well. He indicated the 'Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill', the perfect psychedelic monument paying tribute to the absolute best and worst of the sixties.

"Enough. There's enough darkness in the world." He said. "Better not to dwell on it. Have the serenity to accept what you cannot change, and the courage to fight what you can."

"That a prayer?"

"It might be. That wording was from a fortune cookie, but as an old mentor of mine said, it's all different ways of looking at the same thing."

For a moment there was silence, and then I laughed. I couldn't help it, and a moment later he was laughing too, and the two of us were leaning on each other. When I finally wiped my eyes and stood up, I couldn't keep the smile from my face.

"This wasn't the man who got you started on your quest, is he?"

"No. The man who did that, was nothing more than a STRANGER."

The world is full of enigmas, the unexplainable, the incomprehensible, the plain bizarre but none were quite so resolutely so then the man who had just appeared. He wore a blue fedora that shadowed his eyes, and a blue suit that gave of a more then faint operatic vibe, particularly thanks to the heavy cape and medallion. We'd met.

"John Taylor. Michael Carpenter. You look well." he said, in a tone nothing at all like the pronouncement he'd made a few seconds before.

"And you seem to have satisfied the requirements for a suitably dramatic and appropriate entrance." I replied.

"That is so." He opens a gloved hand, and I see six little shapes that look like they'd fit together snugly in an almost limitless amount of ways. "But I come not without purpose. These are instrumentalities, and they link you to each of the myriad of worlds, in both time and space."

I knew what they were. They were at once incredibly risky and incredibly convenient. They tended not to last too long, however, and they were not without considerable risks. I took them somewhat apprehensively. "Am I going traveling?"

"Yes."

Well, couldn't argue with that. Lucky to get that much out of him, really. "What am I looking for?"

"Your destiny." Then he was gone, fading away in a moment leaving me with the six little shapes in my hand. I sigh and check my pockets, finding everything was in place and that I was as prepared as I'd ever be, then looked up at Michael and shrugged. "I'll have to take a raincheck. It looks like I have a quest myself." I then began fiddling with the Instrumentalities, trying to fit them together in a way that felt natural, and hoped this wouldn't turn out to be too complex. It was probably a forgone conclusion, but what's wrong with a little hope?

The bottom dropped out of the universe.

I was a living spark, sucked through an endless, serpentine tunnel of light. On it's subtle walls flashed endless images of other realities, moving so fast they were a blur. And beyond that shaft, I could see an even more breath-taking actuality: A limitless canopy smothered in countless billions of stars.
But I was in no position to appreciate this. My only sensation was of hopeless falling. A ceaseless and unremitting plunge into the black maw of the unknown.

Then, after an eternity, I dropped towards a particular chasm, a stomach-turning tumble into a whirlpool of sallow, churning light.
It swallowed me whole.

I landed hard. The collision with solid ground, or what seemed to be solid ground, was bone-shaking. Normally I'd take a moment to roll with it, but I had no leisure to recover from the impact. Wherever I was, it was hostile. Murderously so.

The place was in the grip of a violent sandstorm. Trillions of grains of sand lashed at me like shards of glass or tiny needles, bathing me in pain wherever my skin was exposed. The sand not only pummeled me, it all but blinded me, so that I could see practically nothing. It was hard to stand, let alone walk. And the heat was terrific, and in no way mitigated by the never-ending, roaring wind. Make no mistake, I consider myself as tough as they come, but this was intolerable.

The sand filled up my mouth, and I could feel myself evaporating, as though I'd stepped into a walk-in oven and turned up the heat. The cluster of instrumentalities was still in my hands, but I couldn't see what I was doing, so was battling to re-arrange them. After what seemed an agonizingly long time, choking on the sand that filled my mouth and nose, I managed to slot them together into another random assembly.

I was pitched into a blizzard, exchanging insufferable heat for unspeakable cold. All I could see was white. Stinging snow pricled me, and the temperature was so low I found it difficult to breathe. My fingers froze instantly, and it was all I could do to manipulate them again. Teeth chattering, hands shaking uncontrollably, skin so cold in burned where it wasn't completely numb, I finally altered them.

Once more, the cosmic trapdoor flipped open. I was standing in torrential rain in a landscape that seemed to consist of mud that was nearly liquid itself. The air was uncomfortably humid. What's more, said rain was corrosive. It nipped at my flesh and singed my clothing as though the sky was dropping vitriol.

This time I wasn't careful. I forced them together as quickly as I could. A jungle embraced me, lush and velvet. At first it seemed more then tolerable, even pleasant. Then, just as I was letting my guard down, a low droning buzz filled the air, and gigantic swarms of insects appeared, tenacious and hungry. The dived towards me, fibrous wings beating, stingers dripping venom and seeking unprotected skin. I maneuvered the instrumentalities and was gone before any of them could touch me.

This time I was deposited on a vast, featureless plain, the only variation being a distant range of blue-black mountains. Three suns beat dow, one of them twice the size of the others and a deep, bloody red. Of more immediate concern where the two armies I was caught between, like a nut in a vice. One consisted of creatures resembling giant lizards, albeit with purple hides and flicking barbed tongues. The other was made up of beasts that seemed to be a cross-between bears and apes, looking unsettlingly like the bouncer at Honest Johns. Each horde numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and were moving rapidly forward, with myself standing squarely between the two of them like an idiot. I didn't wait around to see if they were friendly. I fiddled with the instrumentalities again, and hoped I wouldn't be sent even further away from the center.

Icy salt spray splashed my face. I was on a tiny rock in the middle of a turbulent ocean, battered by winds and towering waves, beneath an angry sky. The rock was jagged and slippery, and I clung on for dear life as the first wall of water hit, hoping to avoid being swept away. For a moment, i was tossed about, battered and with no sense of direction, then it was over and I lay gasping as another wave rose. I acted quickly.

I kept on readjusting the instrumentalities, as I was transported from world to world in dizzying succession, trying to find somewhere bearable.

I flashed in and out of worlds of startling diversity where the only constant seemed to be of terrible danger, including some I found incomprehensible as well as hostile.

In one, I was attacked by carnivorous birds. In another, the environment had noxious gas for an atmosphere, and I only just escaped in time. I witnessed man-sized fish emerging from a huge lake, revealing not just legs but jaws bristling with fangs, and snakes as big as elephants devouring each other mindlessly. I saw a land of perpetual earthquakes where enormous fissures opened and closed with frightening rapidity, a world stifled with sulfur and riddled with blue lava flows, a mighty river wider then the eye could see inhabited by enormous multi-tentacled beasts with the faces of rodents (I'll admit, I wasn't in any obvious danger there, I just found the place was creeping me out); flies the size of apartment blocks that supped on struggling spiders in in sticky webs that spanned entire valleys, a place where great sentient prides of felines waged a war amongst themselves; rampaging worms the size of mature oaks, dominions ruled by plagues of rats. Seas of liquid fire and skies of boiling skin. Terrible creatures with eyes that had beheld the first night of the world. And beyond, I feared I was lost forever, like a handful of sand tossed into a stormy sea. It was all I could do to keep on going.

Eventually, I landed somewhere that didn't seem immediately threatening. It was a dead world, which says all you need to hear about the day I've been having. Normally, I find them depressing, but after all I'd been through it was a welcome relief. I couldn't tell if the devastation was the result of war or natural disaster, give it time and it all looks the same, harsh though it sounds, but it seemed fairly complete. I could be wrong, it could just be this part and the rest of the world teeming with life, but I trusted my instincts on this one.

Not far away stood acres of debris and twisted uprights, just recognizable as the ruins of a city. There was no signs of life anywhere, not even vegetation, which the soil looked incapable of supporting in any event. Everything was grey and spent, as far as the eye could see.

I collapsed onto a half-melted rock, doubling up as I struggled to catch my breath, and spent the next ten minutes or so recuperating and getting my head straight. This place might only be fit to break hearts, but at least it wasn't trying to kill me. It was about then I realized I had no idea how to set them to get me home. For a moment I wanted to throw them away in a fit of pique, then with a weary sigh I pocketed them and glanced around. Finding a doorway to Nightside might be tough, but there would be one. There always was.

I was just getting up and mentally groping for my gift when I heard faint sounds, on the very edge of my senses, and a chill crept down my spine, making me shudder all over. A terrible premonition grabbed me, and wouldn't let go, but it wasn't needed. I knew. God help me, I knew. I'd been here before. To make matters worse, apparently I did this.
"No." I said softly, my voice sounding so very lost and weak and alone. This couldn't still be the future. So much had changed. It just couldn't.

I turned as I heard a scuff of a foot against the ground, expecting to see one of the giant insects making its way towards me in order to string me up and lay eggs in me, eat me from inside out so as to incubate their young. Instead saw something both infinitely relieving and considerably worse then any insect.
The demon was almost close enough to touch me. I'd thought my instincts were better then that, but apparently my ordeal had him me worse then I'd thought, because I'd had no idea it had been there. The thing was taller then me, but thanks to it's hunched, twisted build it didn't look it. It' head was lower then it's crooked shoulders, and it's back was curved like a bow. It looked like a cross between a reptile and a toad, with a bit of ape thrown in for good measure. It's overlarge head nonetheless seemed too small for it's mouth, which bore too many sharp teeth. It's hunched, twisted shoulders were gnarled like the branches of ancient oaks, knotted with masses of muscles and thews built to the point of over-development, every sinew and tendon standing individually distinct, like an iron cable. It's head was decorated with scales and horny protrusions that put one in mind of a dragon, and it dressed in a tunic and tattered cape.

It had wings, black, tattered wings like some immense crow, but they were upside down, which was possibly the most terrible aspect of the thing. This wasn't any demon, this was a bonafide fallen angel.

"Men who did uproot where worlds begin,
And read the name of the nameless sin;
And sought the final war to win
Are lost beneath the sky."

"For the old world is sundered, none know when,
By gods, or beasts, or what things then
Now walk the world instead of men
And plot how God shall die"

Etrigan then threw back it's head and burst into laughter, mad, rolling laughter, but it was tinged with a hint of hysteria and desperation, as though this empty world could drive even a demon to madness.
Then suddenly he stopped with a choking noise, and I noted the chain fastened around his neck. It jerked back again, dragging the demon scrambling of his feet, and I heard footsteps, heaving, sedate footsteps drawing closer. After a few moments, they rounded the corner of one of the ancient, rusted hunks, and the master came into view.

I would have sworn, except language hasn't kept up with me enough for any word to do my situation justice.

He was a tall, hulking being who towered over me, with cracked rock-like features, and eyes that glow with a deep, throbbing red light. His features were set into a stern, hard expression, bleak and pitiless as the slopes of hell. But the harsh physical look was contrasted by a stillness, a soft-spoken bearing and speech pattern, and a supreme self-confidence. It was a simple look. Not one worthy of a power mad tyrant or a god. But it was one known and feared even in Nightside.

"John Taylor." He said, his voice deep and powerful, but constrained. This was a being who let nothing escape his iron control. Certainly not something like his speech. Etrigan struggled against the chain, spittle dripping from his jaws as he franticly tried to get at me, but Darkseid was unyielding and the demon couldn't make any progress.

"I've heard of you."