In the Azarath of the past...
Raven released a hard-held breath once she could see the familiar stone field of Azarath surrounding them, the Pinnacle of Solitude towering to the left. She pinched her nose at the stench of the smoke and waved at Rinzen, who was waiting for them.
"You will become accustomed to the smell, little one," Azar said without bothering to wave it away from her. "Now, we shall examine the actual magic involved. Do you remember the lesson we had last week, where we talked about using numbers to describe one's current location?"
"Co--coordinates?"
"Monsieur Descartes gave us quite the gift when he created an easier way to teach this particular skill. Do you remember this?" With a faint chant, she drew in the air with her finger, a plus sign hovering in front of them when she finished, glowing with its own inner light.
"Yes," Raven said, remembering drawing grid after grid the week before, scratching them out with a quill on parchment until her hands cramped. Now they were as impossible to forget as her own name. She pointed to the point where the lines crossed. "And that is zero. The Origin."
"Very good. And if I move from here to here," her teacher continued as she traced a diagonal line across the grid, going through the zero point, "in how many dimensions am I moving?"
"Two. Across and up."
"And what if I add another axis to our grid?" Azar traced another line, going through the zero point yet again, but this time from front to back. "Then I move from here to here." She drew a line from the space just before Raven's nose, through the middle and to the other side, ending with her arm high in the air.
"Three! Across and up and forward... no... back... I..."
"'Three' is good enough," Azar smiled briefly. "Forward or backward depends on where one stands. So, if we call across, left or right, a name, like x, and up-down y, and forward or backward z, we could describe where we are here with three numbers, could we not?" And she drew "3,2,1" in square brackets next to the grid.
Raven stuck the tip of her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she thought, remembering that part of the previous lesson. "Yes," she answered with a bobbing nod. "Each number tells you how far you are from the Origin."
"Could I still use three numbers, even if I just moved up and across, not forward and backward?"
"Ummmmmmmmmmmmm..."
"Think, child. Think. Does that last number ever need to change, if we move that way?"
"Yes! I mean, no, it does not need to change. As long as the third number is always zero, we can do that."
"Precisely, my girl. Precisely. It is very important for this skill, to keep in mind what should change, and what should stay the same. Except with what we learn now, you are the zero point. You are the Origin. You move in relation to yourself, knowing the point that you to which you wish to go, and what you need to change to get there. But these-- " Azar waved her arm, erasing the glowing lines from existence. " -- these are very, very primitive matrices. The actual universe can be described with many more numbers. The fourth one, as you know is..."
"Time," Raven yelped, filling in the blank. "And forbidden," she added quickly.
"Yes," Azar nodded, her tone serious. "That is one of the things you must never change. But the actual list of elements is not even limited to four. The number is actually infinite." She paused to watch Raven's eyes grow wider at the thought of remembering that many numbers. "We are only aware of ten, directly, and that is only among the members of the High Council. Most here only work with the first five, leaving the fourth alone, naturally. As you move from here..." Azar disappeared in a puff of acrid smoke, to reappear at the top of the Pinnacle, fifty feet above them, and she had to shout to be heard. "...to here, I have only changed the first three elements. Yes, I have gone backward, up, and across! And now --" She reappeared next to Raven again. "-- I have come forward, down, and across. I stayed in the same dimension, Azarath's dimension. What does that tell you about my fifth element?"
"That its number did not change?"
"Ah, yes. And the fourth?"
"No real change, either, Teacher. It was-- was-- instant—instantaynus."
"Instantaneous. Say it again."
Raven repeated the word three more times, trying to get her mouth around the syllables. "So how do we get to Earth?" she asked, then popped her hand over her mouth when she realized she had said it out loud.
Azar looked at her gently for a long moment, then muttered something under her breath to the still-waiting Rinzen, whose soft gray hood bobbed along with his nodding. Then, more loudly, she said, "How do you think, my darling?"
"Change the fifth. You just... just have to know what the number is. How far away the frequency is from where you are now."
Azar nodded. "Good. And the spell to change it --"
A loud crack interrupted her. A boulder rumbled around the top of the Pinnacle as a figure appeared in a haze of smoke where Azar had been just a few moments before. The rock that he had perched upon had broken free and nearly taken him down with it, but he leaped to the one behind it just at the last moment.
"Andreus?" Azar shouted up to the tower of stone. She turned to her attendant. "Rinzen, can you see him?"
Rinzen pointed at the loose scrabble beneath the young man. It was beginning to slide under his weight.
"Azar! Goddess!" Andreus called as scree melted away beneath his perch. "Heed me! Do not reveal the path to Earth! Please hear me--"
"Come to us, Andreus," Azar called out to him, "Use the skill to come to us! You are in danger! The rocks! You miscalculated--"
He leaned forward, heaving a great rock above his head, and Raven could feel the panic shooting out from him, like shards of fire. She tugged at Rinzen's sleeve. "We have to bring him down, Rinzen, he will fall, he will fall... he is so afraid! Rinzen!"
"Andreus, come down this instant!" Azar shouted at him once again, and Raven recognized the sharp edges in her voice. "You know this is not our way!"
"Juris – my brother – I cannot let more die if she leaves – " He pushed the rock higher into the sky. With horror freezing the breath in her throat, Raven finally realized his intention. She froze, unable to move, unable to believe that someone would want to smash her with a rock.
"Rinzen – take her--" Azar began, but before she could finish her command, the stone beneath Andreus's feet gave way, and he began tumbling and bouncing, skeleton cracking and skin tearing before he finally landed in a splash of blood and exposed bone at the bottom of the Pinnacle.
Raven was wracked with echoes of the man's agony, and she felt drawn forward to him by her empathic powers, pulled to his pain. Strong arms suddenly wrapped around her and held her back, and she struggled in Rinzen's grasp until the scenery faded into roiling black smoke. When it cleared, the silent man released her and stared at her for a moment with eyes filled with both sadness and understanding. Seeing that she was where they had started this lesson, in the hallway in front of Azar's chambers, she shook herself until she stood up straight and looked from him to the tapestry she had been studying only a few hours before. She looked up at the picture of the gently smiling Kwan Yin with tears dancing in the edges of her eyes.
She could not feel the broken man's pain any longer. But that did not make her feel any better.
In the present...
The cramped living room was a far cry from the cozy den at his mansion. The smell of smoke that clung to the walls oozed from months of stale cigarettes instead of the warm fireplace that Slade preferred. He stood over the chipped and scarred coffee table, hands behind him as he studied the ancient-looking tome laying upon it. For a moment he wished he were in his usual work uniform – the swashbuckling boots always gave him a bit of a boost – but he had decided to stick with a more nondescript pair of jeans and white oxford shirt for this particular mission. His eyepatch made him stand out enough. He and Wintergreen had departed as soon as the Calculator had called with the address of this particular coffee table.
The tenant of the apartment curled up on the couch, which Slade thought had seen better days in the seventies, and continued to talk around her roll-your-own. "No, I was never a Mother, too much responsibility. But I was a Sister for a good while. I needed three hots and a cot. If he wanted to give me a place to live for just chantin' some words and burnin' some stinky weeds, who was I to say no?"
"But it turned out to be more than that," Slade said, urging her to tell him more.
She looked away and took a long drag on her cigarette. She blew the smoke out between pursed lips, the way he remembered his late wife doing when she had to think about things she'd rather not think about. He blinked his eye and pushed thoughts of Addie out of his head.
"Yeah, after a while, it did. I put up with all the stranger crap for a while, even took a pilgrimage to Zandia, but when I saw all those demons flying around in the woods when he tried to marry that gal, I knew that my ticket to ride had been punched. I ran like a scalded dog."
"Not empty-handed, though," said Slade, pointing at the book on the table, careful to not jostle Wintergreen's perch on his shoulder.
"Well," she said, her gravelly voice floating lazily through the smoke, "I felt I was due some compensation for services rendered, don't you know. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say your little butterfly friend there was coughing." She put out the cigarette with a firm jab and grind in the overflowing ashtray. "I thought maybe I could get a good price for it from one of those archaeologists, you know, one of those Tennessee Pete types with the leather fedoras."
"Not too many of those around."
"No," she replied with a sigh. "I called people as far away as New York. A few weeks ago, one place even told me they already had one! The one pencil-neck I could convince to look at it told me it wasn't even the real deal."
"A forgery?"
"Pretty recent copy, especially those pages in the back. Y'know, the ones about where the little bastard was supposed to bang that gal he was gonna marry, the daughter of this demonic dude, what's his name, Hexagon or something, and take over the world?"
"Trigon's daughter, you mean?"
"Yeah, yeah, Trigon, that's the name." She tapped another cigarette out of the pack, stuck it between yellowed teeth, and lit it. "Never heard of the Triangle-guy before the kid came along. When we had the old Blood, we just were supposed to worship him, not this other bum. You know, sleep, eat, chant, burn a little incense, brainwash the noobs when they came in, the usual. Pretty sweet deal, if you could keep your mouth shut, even if the outfits were a little over the top. When this pale kid took over, though, everything changed."
Slade trailed his fingers through his goatee, considering her words. Muddy mysteries were suddenly clearing up for him. "So you think he made it up? Why do you think he brought the young lady into this, then?"
She twisted her fingers through hair that was far too short and choppy on her to be attractive, as if it were struggling to re-grow in several spots on her head. "I guess because his old man wanted to bang her, too. I remember, Big Blood tried to marry her a few years back when I was still an acolyte up at the Buzzard's Bay sanctuary back East. I'm guessin' he tried to make it look like he was doing what dear old dad couldn't."
"And to legitimize his reign."
"You could say that. So he wrote up the whole thing and tried to pass it off as gospel." She snorted, the cigarette just barely hanging on in the corner of her mouth. "Oh, please. The little asshole didn't even bother to use a quill. He used a Bic, for crying out loud."
"So there really is no such prophecy?"
"More like a plan. A very sick, twisted little plan."
"You have no love for Blood, then?"
"Gimmie a break. I don't even think of him as the real Blood. When he took over, I had to shave my head," she said as she pointed to the sparse patches of hair. "And it doesn't want to grow back. Watched him eat the face offa two different Mother Mayhems. Not what I'd call ideal working conditions. And when the Titans took him down, I lost my meal ticket. I actually had to go get a frickin' job. Puh." She gestured at the book. "I got no use for this, either. I wouldn't use it for toilet paper!" She narrowed her eyes, plucked the cigarette out of her mouth and pointed it at him. "But is it worth somethin' to ya?"
Slade chuckled and reached for his wallet. The relief he felt was more than worth Calculator's finder's fee. "Answer a few more questions for me, my dear, and you'll be able to take a nice, long vacation. One that doesn't involve shaving your head."
Bart adjusted his fake mustache and studied the colorful boxes in front of him, bathed in the light of the morning sun streaming through the pharmacy's windows.
"Did you really have to wear that thing?" Conner asked, averting his eyes from the shelves laden with latex.
"I need to look like a mature customer," Bart quipped as he pushed the center of it back into the space beneath his nose. "Besides, I have to protect my secret identity."
"Oh, like I blend in," Connor growled, pointing to the red symbol on his chest. He glanced around them, making sure that the were still the only ones on the aisle.
"You're wearing your glasses," Bart pointed out without looking up.
"They don't hide the shirt, Bart. If Cassie hears I was here, looking at these, she'll put me in a hurt locker. And when you girlfriend's an Amazon, hurt takes on a whole new meaning." He started ramming his forehead into the one shopping bag they already had, with a tuft of green fur poking out of the top. "And I don't want to even think of what Raven will do--"
"Calm down, big guy," Bart replied. "We're just going to give them straight to Gar and leave the rest up to him. And don't worry about your shirt. They'll just think you picked it up over at Goths Galore." He waved in the direction of that particular store, still not taking his eyes off the rows of merchandise. "They've sold 'em by the pound for months now, even if they didn't pay for the marketing rights. Besides, we're here on a humanitarian mission."
"Humanitarian?"
"Yes! If Gar goes shopping for these, and someone sees him, one call by the pharmacist's assistant to Bill Betterman and --" he made a slashing motion across his throat "-- it's bye bye sweet romance, hello tabloids. Believe me, I've worked too hard for this relationship to let that happen." He picked up another box and read the back. "No, not this one. Too fancy. Let's start simple." He scanned the next two. "By the way, got any sewing skills? There are a couple of shirts we'll need for the teddy bear--"
"Not that I would admit to. Not even to Tim."
Bart finally looked up. "You wouldn't have to admit it to Tim. He'd already know."
"Speaking of Tim, why didn't you lasso him, too?"
"He wasn't available. His school started this week, poor guy. Besides, you're the better shopper."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, can't you go any faster, fleet-feet?"
"No! This decision-making process is a very delicate procedure! This is not something even I can rush through."
"I'd rather be looking at the teddy bears again. Less embarrassing."
There was almost an audible 'ping' as Bart held up his finger, jaw hung open as his brain seemed to whir inside his skull. Suddenly Conner held cash in hand where he didn't a moment before. "Speaking of teddy bears ..."
Conner groaned. It was going to be a long day.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Raven whispered the words again, savoring each one. Sitting in the sunshine of the Galileo High School courtyard, she ran her fingers across the page of her literature book. The literature teacher had read "Invictus" aloud to the class just a few minutes before, as a way to start the new school year, and the poem had sent a chill of delight down her spine.
She rifled through the pages, coming across another poem, this one by some gentleman named Eliot:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
She closed the book and hugged it, wondering what other treasures were hidden in its pages. She carefully set it down on top of the trigonometry book beside her. She cringed as she remembered her panic upon first hearing of the subject and her subsequent embarrassment when Bart informed her that it was simply the study of triangles and not her father. She opened the brown paper bag that Garfield had handed her that morning as she had left. She had not had time then to ask what was in it, but now she discovered a small tub of hummus mixed with roasted red peppers, a round of pita bread, a bag of baby carrots and a tiny after-dinner mint. She discovered a slip of paper in the bottom of the bag, and a quiet smile crept across her face as she read her beloved's handwriting: For my favorite vegetarian-- have a GRRRRREAT day at school, miss my witchy-boo, love you Gar XOXOXOX".
"A love note. How sweeeeet." A low voice dripping with venom rippled through the air around her. She jerked her head left and right, looking for the source, wondering why she had not sensed someone close by, close enough to see the contents of the note. A lone figure, back to her, hunched over in the bench directly behind her. The hood of a sweatshirt was pulled up over the speaker's head, which soon turned around to look at Raven.
She found her own, older face, staring back at her. Raven froze, unable to breathe or think, not even able to move enough to drop the note that was still clutched in her fingers. Unlike the copy of herself Joseph's soulscape, this one did not smile.
Author's Notes:
When she first started high school in the Geoff Johns run, her student id card stated that she went to Galileo High. I know that in current canon she has hopped around in different high schools, but I decided to stick with the original,since I did branch off right after the Galileo High introduction.
Buzzard's Bay: The main American East Coast Church of Blood in the Wolfman/Perez days was in Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts. Blood seemed to split his time between this place and his headquarters in Zandia.
Includes quotes from "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot