Chapter 14 - A Long Story
"It's a long story," Jacob warns me.
"I'm not going anywhere," I remind him, trying to get comfortable without looking threatening. He's not as scared as he was, but he's a long way from feeling safe.
"Well, the question is, where to begin?"
"I always found the beginning a good place," I reply, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice.
"Yes, you're probably right."
He takes a deep breath, then starts. "Well, now, the beginning of this story was a long time ago, before this world was inhabited by the people who are here now. At that time, people, I suppose you'd say demons, like me, used this world. It wasn't our home or anything, but we visited. We had long been able to travel between worlds, and we used those without, well, intelligent life, for our own purposes. Of course, we didn't do anything to harm them. Our society was based even then on principles which required that we do no harm. Inevitably, while most were happy to live within these restraints, one of our number was not. He was called, well, I don't know what he was called originally, but he called himself Blar. In our tongue, that means pain, agony, torment, or some combination of those ideas."
"I'm guessing he wasn't a friendly chap," I comment, wondering what this has to do with the present.
He gives me a look which shows clearly that he doesn't understand the concept of sarcasm.
"So, what did Blar get up to?" I ask, and I know I sound impatient.
"Well, he wanted this world for himself. If he lived now, he could simply make a new world, but that's something we've only been able to do more recently. He wanted to destroy everything here, and make it up to some design of his own. He generated an energy, and it was designed to do just that. He had already set it to work when his plan was discovered, and stopped. Well, when I say stopped, it was more, paused. The energy couldn't be destroyed just like that. All we could do was contain it. A number of vessels were used, but none lasted for long. Eventually, we found a way to contain the energy for sufficient time, and that was done. At the same time, work to find a means to permanently neutralise the energy began. We started to generate an equal but opposite energy to do that task, but it was going to take aeons to achieve."
This is all sounding remarkably familiar to me, but I'm not about to let him know that.
"If this Blar could just make the energy in the first place, why did it take the rest of you so long to make this neutralising energy?"
"Well, yes. Now, you see, that's why he took on the name Blar. He used the suffering of the creatures of this, and other worlds to create the energy. He destroyed life, even intelligent life, on many worlds, killing the creatures in the most horrific ways, to generate the energy. The more the suffering before death, the greater the energy generated. We, of course, couldn't do that. We've had to use the background levels of emotion, in our case, both positive and negative emotion, to produce the energy. Add to that the fact that we had to hide the receptacle, so that it wasn't close to anything living, and you can begin to see why it would take so long."
"Ok, so, what happened?"
"Well, now, we buried the two receptacles. One, we named the Orb of Fire because of it's appearance. It was the essence of pure evil, and it had an intelligence of its own. That was buried where we believed it couldn't be found. The other, which was to gather the positive energy, we named the Key. It was buried elsewhere, although close enough to ensure only a small amount of damage would be caused before neutralisation."
He's looking at me, as if expecting that I wouldn't believe him. "So, what has all this got to do with you and me and where we are now?"
"To understand that, I'll have to tell you a little about me. I'm a scholar, of sorts. Very junior, of course. I'm fascinated by ancient history, and have studied the whole Blar incident in minute detail. It was obvious from some ancient notes I uncovered, that the time for the neutralisation was close. I suppose it was foolish, but I wanted to see it for myself, to be a part of history. So, I hid the notes I found, and obtained, in a less than approved manner, one of the devices we use to travel between worlds. I came here to see the final end of the Blar episode, and to record it for history."
"That explains why you're here, but not anything else."
"Yes. You see, when I got here, I found things very different from the projections made at the time. This world was expected to remain at a low level of advancement. It was never checked, due, I believe, to the acute embarrassment felt by our kind that one of us could be as Blar was. Instead of the rather basic emergence of intelligence that was expected, I found a society which, although primitive compared with my own world, was really quite advanced. That made what I was trying to do much harder, since I had hoped to remain hidden from the inhabitants of this world."
"Ok, so how did you get involved with the Initiative?"
"You use that word strangely. Initiative?"
"The uniformed gits that put us here?"
"Oh, I see, you use it to indicate an organisation. That's not the name they used with me. They called themselves the Defenders of Humanity."
"Different name, same ideas, I suspect."
"Perhaps. So, in order to avoid being seen by the people of this world, I generated another universe - not this one, the one I generated was quite a bit .. bigger. The device that brought me here could do that, of course, as well as transfer me between worlds with little effort. Whenever I was in danger of being seen, I simply left."
"Something tells me you slipped up."
"Well, no, not exactly. I was hiding, in a more mundane way, watching while a human fought against one of the aggressive demons which seem to congregate in this area. He was losing, so I decided to save him. I managed to grab him and take both of us to my manufactured universe. While we were waiting for it to be safe to return, he told me about the situation on your world. Or, at least, he told me how he saw it. I've since discovered that the Defence of Humanity has aims other than those he shared with me."
"Let me guess. He told you the people of this world were in daily danger from demons, and their only purpose was to ensure the safety of humanity."
"Well, yes. So, naively, I thought I could help. It seemed, well, rather romantic, helping an inferior race. Exciting. So, he took me to his superiors, and I did what I could. The first thing I did was to allow them to use the universe I created. I retained the main device I had brought, but I was able to make some smaller, restricted-use units which I gave to them. They said they needed a base which couldn't be over-run by demons. They didn't restrict me in any way, and I thought I was doing the right thing."
"I set about the task of finding the Orb and the Key. I found the Orb easily. It was where records showed it should be, and I was able to sense its presence. The Key was a different matter. The way I can sense these things is rather like sight. You can see something, but only if you're looking in the right direction, and there's nothing in the way. The Key wasn't where it should have been, and I only found it by chance. It seems that, at some time in the past, the energy was taken from its receptacle, and placed in a human. Very tricky thing to do, well beyond the expected ability of your race. So, once I knew the whereabouts of the two energies, I prepared to wait for the inevitable. Of course, since the Key was a human, it moved around a lot, but its movements were predictable. Then, I lost the Orb. It disappeared from where it had been, and I turned my attentions to finding it. While I was doing that, I started to notice things that were going on in their base. It seemed that demons were being brought into my universe and kept there for reasons I couldn't understand. I was distracted from looking into that by tracking down the Orb of Fire. Of course, I hadn't mentioned it to the humans, but it turned out that they had unearthed it, and were trying to understand its nature."
"I only discovered its new location moments before it disintegrated. The very people I had helped, had destroyed the Orb and allowed the neutralisation to take place before balance was achieved. I felt the changes caused by the partial neutralisation of the evil, and I knew they were responsible."
"After that, I started watching the DoH people closely. That's when I made this universe. It's actually within my first manufactured universe, and it was to be a hiding place while I snooped around the base they had developed out there. It was while I was doing that, that I found out what they were doing to you. Unfortunately, they caught me. You see, the access I gave them was to the first universe I made. The problem was, that as this universe is completely within that one, they have access here too. They were able to come here, and took me back to their base."
"As a result, they took the master device, and tried to make me give them command of it. It soon became obvious that I had been duped. They had allowed me to believe that I was a valuable ally only for so long as I could be of use to them. They always intended to kill me, but only wanted complete mastery of my device. They had hoped to make me trust them enough to give them full access. It's keyed to me, of course, so no one but I can operate it. The remotes I provided for them are very simple units, programmed to do only what I wished them to do. I refused to show them how to use the main unit. They tried to use pain to persuade me, but gave up after a while. I'm not very brave, but I have got some simple defences. I can block pain in a limited way, but my tolerance is finite. I can't allow them access to other worlds without restraint. Sooner or later, though, I fear they'll succeed. We, my people, are peace loving. We haven't had any aggressive tendencies for so long, and our methods for blocking out pain are rather basic. I think they hoped that threatening to put me in here with you was going to make me change my mind."
"So, we're in a universe within a universe which is part of the one I'm used to?"
"More or less, yes. They've been taking samples from you, did you know that?"
"I'd guessed as much."
"Do you know why?"
I shake my head.
"I believe they want to clone you. They plan to obtain an army of creatures like you. They claim you appear human, and could pass for human under all but the strictest scrutiny, but that you possess a number of advantages which would make you very useful as a soldier. They plan to clone an army of creatures like you, but to ensure, either by training from childhood, or by some sort of control, that they are all completely loyal to their creators. Even now, they're trying to find a species of demon which can carry cloned embryos to term."
An army of me. It's an uncomfortable thought. They obviously don't have any plans to control me directly, just to use me as a source of the DNA. It's a depressing prospect.
"Let me guess. We could get out of here if we had one of the remotes, or better still, the main device?"
"Yes, of course. But, I don't believe they're planning on allowing us anywhere near either."
We're both silent for some time. Jacob eventually breaks the silence.
"You don't seem surprised at what I've told you."
It's the moment of truth. Do I tell him my half of the story? Throughout the time he was talking, I've been monitoring the signals he's been giving out. He's either extremely adept at controlling those signals, or he's been truthful.
"Tell me, is there any way someone outside could know what's going on in here?" I ask.
"No, there isn't. Even if they'd put some sort of transmitter in here, the signal can't leave."
"Good. Them, I'll tell you what I know. I knew about the Orb and the Key."
He looks aghast at me, as I explain my own involvement with them.
When I finish, he looks closely at me. Jacob's face changes, his expression becoming almost, reverent.
"W..were you present when, when the energy from the Orb was neutralised by the Key?"
I nod. It's a painful memory, even now, even knowing that she's coming back. In some ways, it's even more painful than it was because of what I know now.
"You are honoured indeed. To have witnessed that .. It's what I came for."
He shakes his head in an attempt, I assume, to get back to the matter in hand.
"So, you know about the Key. How did it become human?"
"As far as we've been able to work out, a group of Monks did it. They were trying to hide the Key from a Hellgod called Glory. The most recent information we have is that they took someone out of the future, and put the energy into her body. That someone was given to the Slayer, Buffy, as a sister, and she and I were given the job of keeping her safe."
"Do you know who she was? In her own time?"
"We knew she must be a blood relation of Buffy's. We didn't know anything else."
I pause. The dream was so wonderful, so personal, that I'm loath to share it.
"Is it possible that this human is the offspring of the Slayer?"
"It's possible," I admit, wondering how much he's guessed.
"And you see it as your job to keep this Slayer safe too?"
I nod. Never was too good at hiding my feelings.
"You love her."
He doesn't expect an answer, because it wasn't a question. I don't know if he's thinking along the lines of my dream, but I'm still not willing to share that.
"So, with you out of the picture, this child, whoever she is, has less chance of being born and growing to become the Key. I assume you still see it as your job to protect her?"
"Promised I would, till the end of the world."
It's been niggling at the back of my mind as I listened to Jacob, but now it pushes forwards, and I decide to mention it.
"Doesn't it seem to be a bit of a coincidence?"
"What?"
"Well, these soldier boys were responsible for destroying the Orb. And, they've got me here where I can't keep Dawn safe. What happened to Blar? I mean, he's no doubt long dead, but did he have followers? Could someone be pulling strings?"
I'm not an expert at recognising facial expressions in various demons, but one glance at Jacob's face, and I know he's initially disbelieving, then giving the idea serious consideration.
"There were rumours," he admits. "Rumours that Blar had followers. Blar himself died, and the followers were never found, and it was generally assumed to have been a false lead. Of course, over the centuries, myths have sprung up. You know the kind of thing - stories to scare the gullible. One of those stories involves exactly that - followers of Blar."
His expression changes again. The look now is undeniably one of fear, and it's matched by the feelings he's pushing my way. The prospect that this organisation exists frightens him even more than I did. And that's worrying.
