Chapter 42: Present, Future and Past
Perspective: Claw
Claw's laughter echoed between the now empty buildings of the village after he appeared in the central square. The village looked like it had undergone a fair amount of changes, not that Claw could be sure since he had no previous memory to compare with. It just looked different from what his image of a typical village was. The area around where Dr. Mercury had found the anomaly had been bulldozed by the Tower's geomancers, around it a rudimentary but steadily improving research setup had been built. Most of the activity in the village was centered around it. While the central square was devoid of researchers, several commanders stood around and discussed.
Claw turned to the enderman who had teleported him away from the hill, he said: "Good work Steelborn."
Steelborn gave a respectful nod in reply and teleported back into battle.
Claw reflected on his personal contribution, showing up at the hill, assassinating the Prophet and his… servant? It didn't matter now, they were both dead. He had also had one hell of a fight with the general, Kay, one he would have won had he finished off the mage, Astro. It was something Claw could live with, incapacitating Astro had been enough since at that time his true target had still been alive.
It had been exhilarating, much more so than any of the hunts he remembered. Back then he was only a beast, now he could enjoy battle fully with all his senses and a mind able to comprehend it in its entirety. Of course, Claw didn't only find joy in fighting, seeing the plan he had laid out with the Ender come to fruition was equally satisfying.
Claw paused, a thought had suddenly appeared in his mind. Wait a damn second, I can heat up my muscles for increased strength? Why didn't I know that five minutes earlier?
Clenching his fists, Claw felt a heat rise up inside of him. Not rage but actual heat. He looked down at his body that was now significantly less covered due to Kay's silver-purple flames having burnt away his armor. An orange glow was emanating from between his scales. So, it was true. Claw threw a few punches at the air, testing out his newly increased speed and strength. With this he could have ended the fight much more quickly.
Claw let out a sigh as his body cooled back down. He could have gotten angry but what was the point? His main objective was complete, the Prophet could no longer divulge any vital information, so what if the general lived? There were plenty more opportunities for killing him in the future.
He spent the next bit of time walking around the square talking to various Tower commanders about how their respective soldiers fared and their estimated losses. In truth Claw was just killing time waiting for the Ender to return, she was the only one who mattered in this respect. The people lower down in the chain of command were good at their job but at the end of the day they were not the ones to write the battle plans, they were the ones to execute them.
Some minutes before the Ender returned, Claw felt an enormous shift in the nearby ambient energy, as if it was drawn to a point near the village. Not long after he felt that the Entity had left its throne room. That could mean only one thing, the mage that created the scar had returned. Claw knew that whatever fight was currently happening outside of the fortification was a couple of orders of magnitude above his weight class. Physical fights he could do but he hardly stood a chance against a mage of this caliber, especially since this was not exactly normal magic. As Claw thought, more and more loose threads of information unraveled in his mind. He'd pull on them as soon as he had time but now was not that moment.
Finally, the Ender arrived. She was clearly battered but had a victorious smile on her face, a rare expression for her, the smile that was, not the victory. Claw immediately walked over to her with swift steps.
He asked: "So, how would you say it went?"
The Ender took a few deep breaths before answering. "According to plan," she held up a hand and counted on her fingers: "we know the approximate strength of their soldiers and mages, we killed a good portion of their forces and we managed to lure out Shadow so the good doctor can gather more data. Our own losses are nothing we can't replenish. How did it go on your side?"
Claw mirrored her previous smile. "Also according to plan. Prophet's dead, his guardian too. Kay and Astro are badly wounded, wouldn't surprise me if they bled out on that hill but we shouldn't assume that. They most likely have healing supplies."
The Ender asked: "Speaking of Kay, how much of a problem was he?"
Claw said: "Not much of one, the only bit of his magic that was useful was that flame that burned through the bindings in my armor," Claw gestured to the sad remains of his underclothes that still clung to him, "I sensed his portals. Heat, cold or electricity can't harm me, at least not in the amounts he could produce. I know that this body is a product of deliberate design, and I must say, whoever came up with it really thought of everything. Just one bad thing, apparently the other one told Kay about the silver."
As soon as Claw had found out about his weakness to silver, he had shared it with the Ender, there was no reason to treat it as the secret the voice in his head made it out to be. Besides, as long as the Entity lived, he would not die either way, it seemed that the Entity needed him alive. The reason for this would probably become clear at some point, Claw wouldn't be surprised if it was buried somewhere in the other one's mind.
Before the Ender could answer, Glibby appeared next to them about two meters up in the air, flailing before he hit the ground in a heap. The Ape was in bad shape, deep cuts seeping blood on several parts of his body. But above all, Glibby was furious.
He screamed: "HELIX YOU MODS-DAMNED BRAT! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU OR YOUR GREEN, FURRED FRIEND!"
There was silence, heads turned and then awkwardly turned back.
The Ender used the opening: "So, Glibby. How many of the rebels will you have to fight to actually win one? The shepherd didn't count by the way, I'm pretty sure even Bul could have killed him if he had some endermen with him. I don't think there are many other escapees left for you to prove your mettle."
"SHUT UP YOU-" Glibby began, but instead of the expected barrage of insults, only blood and gibberish came out of his mouth.
Claw only shook his head, too appalled to add his own thoughts. It didn't take him long to spot Freak lurking in the shadows, or more correctly, rolling on the floor laughing in the shadows.
The Ender sighed, then shouted: "Get him a medic, as funny as this is, I think the Silhouette would rather have him not bleed out."
Claw turned to the Ender. "If there is nothing more to do here, we should go back to the Tower. I'm sure the Entity has a bathhouse somewhere there, I think we can afford some relaxation."
The Ender gave Claw an oddly pained but otherwise unreadable look, then took him by the shoulder and they both teleported back to the Tower. Just as they arrived Claw thought: Right, endfolk, water. Shouldn't have suggested that.
It turned out that there really was a bathhouse somewhere within the Tower, and apparently it was used for relaxation by a variety of staff. The Ender had neglected to tell Claw this, both in their initial tour and after he brought it up. Claw spent a brief moment speculating on why and ended up somewhere between her being disinterested in it due to her physical nature or simply due to her strictly-business attitude. It didn't matter, Claw felt refreshed.
He was currently walking the Tower's corridors, halls and staircases, mostly without aim but with a concrete goal in mind. He wanted to have a better look at the portions of the Tower he had only seen briefly. One such place was the prison, he'd walked past many times since its entrance branched off one of the major staircases, but he had never actually taken a look inside.
A short distance into the entrance corridor was a heavy gate that had apparently been significantly reinforced after the recent prison break. It was guarded by two endermen and four humans. Claw nodded to the guards, and they let him through. After the gate there was a corridor lined with the magic-suppressing lamps that were ubiquitous in the Tower but especially dense in the prison sections.
Soon after there was a three-way fork in the corridor, the leftmost one leading to the more comfortable cells that were used to house high-importance prisoners, the middle one leading to some sort of arena and the rightmost one leading to the more traditional prison. Claw decided to pick the latter first.
Claw found the lamps slightly annoying since every time he passed one, he felt a slight tingle all over his body from the ambient magic gradient that they created, however he recognized that they were absolutely required to contain some of their prisoners. A thought appeared in Claw's mind on the topic of imprisonment, the other one had to be somewhere in his mind since he obviously was neither absorbed nor dead. Claw had also noticed that he had changed over the time he'd been the one in control, he wasn't the exact same person he was on the first day.
Claw found that he was calmer now, he had a certain distance to everything happening around him that he didn't have after he woke up. How much of this was just him developing from the beast he had been and how much of it was the other one's memories influencing him? Claw figured that he'd have to answer that question eventually, but for now there were more pressing concerns.
While contemplating, Claw had arrived in the prison proper, a multi-layered structure with each layer consisting of a grid of smaller corridors, each of them bordered by barred cells. There were few prisoners near the entrance but there were some, mostly humans but there were the occasional endermen. Very rarely there were species that Claw had never seen before, even the voice in his head had nothing to say about them.
Claw spent a while walking the corridors, when he passed some prisoners would shrink back into their cells, others would hurl insults at him, others only looked at him with broken indifference. These weren't the ones they needed anything from, the prisoners here were the ones they just needed out of the way or as a means to exert pressure on someone.
As Claw turned a corner, he spotted a door at the end of the corridor, apparently a staffroom for the jailers. He approached it and looked inside. The room was not very different from other such rooms, a table, filing cabinets, flowing water, food storage. This room was currently empty save for a single large figure: Glibby the Ape.
Glibby was currently sitting at the big central table, very intently studying an old, leather-bound book.
While Claw didn't particularly like the Ape, animosity would lead nowhere. Even without the voice's help, he'd have figured that out on his own simply from watching Glibby interact with the Ender. From what he knew Glibby had history with Kay and since Kay was now the leader of the rebels, anything Claw could dig up on him would be helpful.
Claw cleared his throat, he had also realized that people usually needed some kind of hint that he was there. Apparently, it was not common for someone of his stature to move as silently as he did.
"Hello, Claw," Glibby said tersely. "How may I help you?"
He didn't look up and began flipping pages in no particular direction.
Claw took a closer look at the illustrations that were visible. It turned out that Glibby was reading about demonology, which made sense in the light of his recent defeat. Useful information.
Claw said: "You're reading about demons, aren't you? I happen to know a few things about them, maybe we could arrange an information exchange."
"Sounds lovely," he said without any convincing attempt at emotion beyond contempt. "What, might I ask, am I exchanging?"
"Some interesting bits about that general of theirs, Kay. I hear you two have history."
Glibby seemed energized by the opportunity to talk about himself. The book flopped shut and was tossed onto the table with little regard.
"Oh, history's a generous word. He's the reason I got the original Gray Ones - stranded poor Silver and his brothers in my world - but then we didn't interact for over ten years. His friend British - a detective, you wouldn't know him - considered me a rival rather undeservedly, so we ran in the same circles for a while I suppose. And, of course, when Kay took an interest in the Silhouette's identity, I was sent to silence any sources that might talk to him. I was, however, around during the final days of his kingship and, of course, his death. My role was no more than that of a bit player, though - a handsome footnote in the tragedy of the Court of Righteous Protest."
Claw nodded. "And since he's dead, who's the man leading the rebels? A past version of him?"
"Oh certainly, he lost an eye in the years between our first and final encounters - some terrible feud he got wrapped up in, unimportant - our rebel still has both. From what I can gather, I'm the reason he's here. Sorry, this requires a little context.
"The man who was, at the time, the Silhouette, tried to sell a powerful artifact known as an Eye of Ender to the Entity. Turned out it was all a trap, the Entity absorbed him and stripped him of knowledge - fair play, I never liked that one - then let go of his vessel and left a few Endlings to kill the rest of us. Kay must have been watching, because he swooped down and stole the Eye. He ran around a while as our two, warring factions tried to secure the artifact and finally hopped into a portal to Nexus. I got slightly too excited and hurled a firebomb at the portal as he entered, managing to shut it off. The Endlings were stranded, and I graciously brought them into the employ of the new Silhouette, and Kay was nowhere to be seen. Obviously, he got back somehow, but I have to assume he comes from some point between my destroying that portal and his return to the Sane Realm."
Glibby decisively slapped the table.
"And there you have it. The origin of our problem."
That was rather interesting, Claw admitted. He replied: "I know better than to try to unravel the ways in which the Kay that died relates to the Kay we have now, messing with timelines in that way only leads to headaches. However, this provides us with a very interesting possibility. Were there any… flaws or weaknesses Kay showed after he returned?"
"Ah, a psychological profile. How dull," he groaned. "I think I'll tell you an anecdote instead - I think you'll find it quite revealing as to his character.
"He had an enemy - he's dead now - called Hamish. A colleague of mine. They had some feud going back to childhood, and Kay just could not forgive him. And the Silhouette exploited that. He leant Hamish to a group called the Family - some black ops group in the employ of the Realm of the Seven Kingdoms - to ensure that once they started killing Kay's friends, we knew exactly who Kay would devote his efforts to killing.
"And, when the Family's gambit - a complicated little affair involving magical wells and souls and demons which I won't bore you with - finally failed as expected, Hamish had orders to run off and meet us in a secluded cellar. Kay, of course, followed him. I slugged him in the head, and when he came to, he was presented with Hamish in chains, and the Silhouette offering him a gun.
"The terms were simple. Kay would take the gun and shoot Hamish, but he had to do something else first. An ascetic monk was presented - some adversary of the Silhouette, I assumed, though perhaps not. If Kay wanted to kill his enemy and finally scratch the itch of revenge, he had to do the Silhouette a favor and kill the monk, some stranger he'd never met and who seemed for all intents and purposes blameless."
Glibby leaned back and grinned.
"He hardly even hesitated."
He stood up and began to pace excitedly.
"Now, the Silhouette had staked a lot on the Family's employer winning the war against Kay and his masters, and that did not happen. Indeed, many of the Silhouette's allies in the True Court were either dead or awaiting trial for treason thanks to Dominus' folly. So, he hoped that by this mechanism he would both do Kay a favor and gain some dirt on him. Kay was, by this time, ruler of a large nation on the winning side. Swapping out Hamish for him would be a perfect trade."
He paused, and Claw heard the straining of his gauntlets as the Ape clenched them tight.
"Astro and a few others burst in. Hamish had blabbed about his orders to one of the Family, and he blabbed to Kay's friends with his dying breath. Kay suddenly realized how this looked and, in a desperate attempt to save his reputation, rounded the gun on the Silhouette, shot him in the head. I just about escaped, carrying the Silhouette's body away.
"A few weeks later, the network appointed a new Silhouette, who decided the first order of business was killing Kay to reassert power. We cornered his carriage on a bridge, expecting a fight. We'd even brought the Grey Ones in. He surrendered immediately, saying he needed to pay for his crimes. Silver was livid. We burned Kay on a pyre."
He stopped and lifted a gauntlet to his face in what Claw recognised as an attempt to look ponderous.
"The moral of that story is, Kay is more than willing to disgrace himself to settle a grudge, but he hasn't any stomach for shame. Antagonize him into doing something horrid, and he'll destroy himself trying to prove he's still noble at heart."
He bowed.
Glibby sure liked to talk a lot. However, this was immensely helpful, and the Ape deserved the information Claw promised him. Claw would think over what he heard about Kay later, but so far this was good news. With the other one gone, Kay obviously lacked someone who could dampen his tendencies, so it was only a matter of time until he did something. As for creating a "nemesis" like this Hamish, Claw believed he was already well on track with that.
He sat down in a chair and gestured to Glibby to sit down as well, opening the demonology book.
Claw said: "So, as for your demon problems. You're probably looking for a weakness too, one that'll help you in the future. Demons as a whole are as varied as they come, the forms they take are only the parts of them that can reach into our world, which is why killing a demon is near-impossible. All you can do is banish it to wherever it came from. Different demons have different weaknesses, which are either dictated by the demon's nature or by the summoning ritual used.
"For instance, there could be a demon out there that for some reason loses its grasp on our reality if it ever comes in contact with large amounts of cedar wood sawdust. On the ritual side, demons are always bound to a contract of some form, breaking this contract immediately ejects them from reality, which can be used to give demons artificial weaknesses. A ritual could specify that the demon may never cross lines of salt.
"However, all of this gets difficult if you take demonspawn into consideration. They fully belong to our world, what sets them apart from regular people is that they retain some aspects of their demonic parent. This also includes their weaknesses, which now harm instead of banishing. If our sources are correct, Helix is second generation, so his demonic heritage will still be very strong."
"Well, what's his weakness, then?" Glibby grunted. "Why tell me he has one and not what it is?"
Claw flipped through the pages of the demonology book until he found the section that listed various demons.
"The main issue is that if you want to know Helix' demonic weaknesses and strengths you need to know who his demonic ancestor was. A demonology book like this one will help you understand which traits to look for, since those are passed down as well. Some demons may have horns shaped in a particular way, if they have horns that is. They may also have certain skin markings or other features like non-standard numbers of fingers. These traits reflect on their offspring as far as they are applicable to humanoid shapes.
"Now, most demons never produce offspring with anyone from our world, it's a rare thing overall. Naturally there are demons that have countless mortal children, those demons are usually denoted succubi or incubi, if they don't have another even more defining trait like an aptitude for killing or deception. Most of those are known and listed in books like this, their names are often 'submitted' by their own children, sometimes even volunteered by the demons themselves.
"The real problem are those demons who only have a single mortal child, they may be listed but the fact about the child is often unknown. Still, the method of using distinctive traits to determine lineage applies."
"Distinctive horns and hoping he's not an only child… not much to go on," Glibby muttered, eyeing a skin of wine he'd left on his seat. Claw could tell he was losing the Ape's attention, and so continued before any opportunity to communicate something useful had passed.
"Your best shot is either trying a couple of common weaknesses that don't make it obvious what you're doing. If you don't want to do that, I suggest doing a lot of reading, perhaps questioning some demonologists that we have employed or captured could also help you. Different worlds will know different demons, the more you look at the more likely you are to find something. Sadly, even with all of this a weakness is not a given, usually the best way of killing demonspawn is plain-old murder."
"Murder! If only I'd thought of that!" he snapped. "The damned kid always starts spewing purple fire or getting rescued."
"If he transforms or forms a body of flames those are additional things you could look for." Claw paused. "And believe me when I say this, that was not an accusation, I don't mean to be hostile to you like the Ender is. You may have made a fool of yourself repeatedly and publicly and I admittedly haven't thought highly of you in the past, but that kind of animosity only leads to problems. And problems are the last thing I want in this operation."
Glibby fell very quiet.
"How big of you," he laughed suddenly. "Don't worry, I'll ensure I'm the least of your worries."
He lifted the book.
"If you'll excuse me."
With a tip of his hat, the Ape left.
