METALCHEMY - quantum witch © 2008
see chapter 1 for warnings, rating, and summary
2 : ALBEDO
The final day in Lillehammer was more of the same. And none of it good.
"Goddamn it!" Murderface shouted as he stabbed his knife over and over into a table already scarred from the previous two days. "We've been shtuck in this shtinkin' town for three days, eatin' fuckin' Norkwegshian shit that'sh tearin' up my gutsh. And we've lishtened to about sheven million guitarisht and haven't heard a shingle goddamned good one yet…"
Skwisgaar cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.
"…Beshidesh this vain pusshy."
"Yeh, I gotta agree wit' Murderface," Pickles hiccupped, well into his fifteenth beer of the hour, "You'da thought we'da heard one that sounded good enuff. Man, I thought Scandinavians were famous fer metal." He pointed unsteadily at the Swede.
Skwisgaar grunted. "Uh, we's are. Buts we not findings anyone here, so's it must being a sign from the gods we don't needs no more than one guitarist." He smiled smugly, confidently fingering his guitar.
"Or maybe the right one just hasn't shown up yet," Nathan grumbled, though he too was losing hope. "Really wanted a fifth guy, just seemed right…" He frowned with heavier thought than he usually managed. "Hey, I think I had some kinda, something, a dream last night about music. Something about music coming out of a hole in the ground and something being made out of gold… I don't remember it all. It was weird."
"Hey, I had a kinda weird dream too," Pickles said, "I think I was drinkin' outta some copper pot or somethin' and then pukin' up a flood, somethin' like thet…"
"Sounds like a normal day for you," Nathan chuckled. "Except for the copper pot thing."
"Yeh, guess so," Pickles shrugged and lifted his bottle again.
"I dreamed shomethin' too, but it wasth probably the schitty food that did it," Murderface muttered. "Becaushe all I remember ish taking a crap on a whole town. And it wash all molten lead. Hurt my assh… But it wash pretty cool." He looked more disturbed than impressed.
"Dat's is pretty gross, actually," Skwisgaar sneered. "I hads a dreams too. It was…" He frowned a bit because he was remembering far more of it than he'd have liked. "I dreamsed of flying and playings guitar and turning into…" his eyebrows twitched, and he decided to lie, "…the guitar turning into tin, but stills sounded prettys good of course, and deres was women crawling alls over me…"
"Again, sounds like a normal day to me," Nathan rolled his eyes. "Except the tin guitar thing. That would make a sucky sound."
"Soundeds good in my dream, dat's all what matters," Skwisgaar huffed, turning back to the real guitar in his hands.
"Whoooa," Pickles said softly, where no one heard him except Offdensen, "we all dreamed about metal… thet's cool…"
Offdensen raised an eyebrow but knew the drummer was, thankfully, in the process of drowning the memory of that statement in booze. He spoke aloud. "Well, if we don't find a fifth man tonight, we will have to give up the search for now. If you'll recall, you do have a series of engagements coming up, back in the States. Small gigs, yes, but it's money. Which you are quickly running out of. And this tavern will soon be open for regular business hours. We don't, ah, have use of this room for much longer."
"Someone's gonna come. I know it," Nathan muttered, a little doubtfully.
They all sat in stiff silence in the tavern backroom, waiting for the elusive someone. It was beginning to feel like that part was only a dream.
Toki Wartooth hugged himself tightly and dreamed of his own discomfort.
His grey-skinned eerie parents, older than the earth and as feeling as stones, frowned down upon him. They were ancient icons, faces gaunt and artificial and crackled like aged paint. He shuddered under their piercing eyes, knowing a harsh judgment was coming. Skeletal arms in tattered shrouds rose and pointed away from their home in the hill, toward the city below. Their hollow voices droned a dirge, telling him that listening to the devil music played in the city, and attempting to hide his growing hair under the hat he wore while working on their nearly barren homestead, were sins beyond their tolerance. If he chose the path of evil then he must follow it to the end, and leave their pious home lest he taint them.
Toki felt fear in the pit of his stomach stirring like he'd swallowed a live insect. He was young, not even a year out of school, had no money, no place to stay, no friends. And he also had no choice in the matter of leaving. He stumbled blindly through the snowy hills and down into the town below. He cried wrenching sobs, his tears falling like drops of silver, sitting hard and bright atop the snow. If only he could use them as coins…
Time blurred into an eon confusion. He saw himself eating what he could beg. He saw himself in a dark scrap yard finding a hollowed out car to sleep in. And he saw shadows creeping in every corner in every part of the city as he wandered around, knowing things watched him with hungry eyes.
But he also saw himself standing in the center of the dark dream city, hearing the death music that felt more alive than he did. The beautiful, dark and angry music that he'd come to love. He closed his eyes and felt it throb through his body like a violent heartbeat.
His soul was a black metal butterfly trying to awaken, and the music reached into him, making it unfurl. He opened his eyes to see he'd risen above the clouds. The city lay far beneath him, glittering with snow. He had grown so giant he could have stomped the
buildings flat, and he didn't resist kicking a few over, laughing with brutal, childish glee.
But he saw a stronger light in the distance, a black light, and he must follow it .He spread his new wings and floated on the cold winds until he had passed beyond even the hills of his childhood. It was farther than he'd ever been in his life. The world fell away but he was not afraid.
And he realised his own skin had grown white as the moon that shown down upon him. It was silver. It was metal. Instead of tarnishing his soul, the harsh black sounds had polished him to a gleam. Laughing with joy, he spun in the air and gradually came to land gently in a snowy meadow. When his giant feet hit the ground the snow blew away like smoky powder. And underneath it was a line of glowing silver to match his new skin. It sang as he walked along it, without hesitation, without question, knowing he was moving toward his destiny.
Finally, in the distance he saw four moving shapes the same size as himself. Sparks of light shone from their skins, and music throbbed visibly in the air around them. He knew they were his metal kindred. Heart fluttering, he half-flew half-ran toward them. They were slowly converging at a point and he couldn't miss them, couldn't be late. Shivering, his stomach rumbling with excitement and a little fear, he wondered what would happen when…
Toki awoke with a slight moan, as his stomach growled loudly. He was truly starving, having not eaten for a whole day.
The first part of his dream was harsh reality, and he gave a sighing sob when he opened his eyes and saw the inside of the trashed car he often slept in. Fifteen days now he had been on the streets of Lillehammer, having run from his parents. He had been as much kicked out as he had fled in fear of punishment for lying, hiding his longer hair, and for listening to vile music while at school (even that he would have been denied if the government hadn't mandated it). True, he'd often fantasized about running away, but usually it involved being rich and living in a huge castle with countless servants. At the moment, he'd have settled for a hostel, and didn't even have money for that.
Now he rubbed his eyes and saw that he'd overslept and it was afternoon already. He snuck out of the scrap yard before the owner could see him. Glad he was wearing his warmest long wool coat and heaviest work boots, he trudged off through the slushy snow into the streets. There were a few places, restaurants and taverns, where a sympathetic employee sometimes took pity on him and snuck food out. But those individuals people weren't always at work. Sometimes he was lucky with American tourists. His broken English, delivered with such an engaging smile, along with his innocent big blue eyes and long honey-brown hair, and even with his face was getting a little scruffy from being unshaven, made him worth a few kroner here and there. Toki, being utterly clueless about his appearance, just thought Americans were nice, and considered himself fortunate that school required learning some English.
Today he was lucky with food. And unlucky shortly thereafter. He'd managed to get a sandwich from one of the little restaurants. But he had barely finished eating it when a group of four rough-looking young men surrounded him. He gulped the last bite and looked fearfully from one leering face to another. This was not good.
"Oh look," said the obvious leader. "A little baby has wandered away from home."
"Should we send it back to mama?
"No fun."
"He's in our territory. Liten gutt…"
"Slik en pen barn…"
"Hm, yes very pretty… What should we do with the baby?"
"Aw, we should be nice or we'll make it cry!"
"Little cry baby. We should… spank it!"
"Yeah, spank it," grinned the leader. "Spank this baby good… make it cry all night..."
Toki wasn't sure if they meant what he thought they meant… but when he saw hands reaching out, he ducked under their arms and ran like the wind. He was stronger than he looked thanks to years of hard work at home, and wasn't above fighting when he had to – he'd done it at school when picked on – but he wasn't strong enough to handle four big boys who wanted to… do whatever they meant to do.
He ran like demons chased him, knowing that if he was in a very public area the gang chasing him wouldn't be so inclined to attack. He could hear them behind him, shouting and laughing, but not yet gaining on him.
The streets were less crowded than he'd hoped, and afforded little human cover or help. Panicking, he realised he might yet be caught. Then he saw one of the taverns where he'd occasionally gotten food when he had a few kroners, and lunged through the doors. There was a light shining in a back room and he fled in that direction. People must be there. He would be safe then.
Coming through the door, he saw the room was smaller than he'd thought and there was indeed a group of people already there. He yelped and tried to stop running but his damp boots skidded on the floor and he slammed into one of them. Hitting the large body was like hitting a slightly spongy wall. Toki grunted as the wind was totally knocked out of him, and fell to the floor. The big man barely swayed.
"Oooh, dude, ten points for entry. We should hire him jus' fer that," a seemingly good-natured American voice said.
Toki got to his feet, looking in wide-eyed confusion at the slightly scary occupants of the room and wondered if he should go back out and take his chances with the gang, whose voices he could hear now in the tavern.
There were five men in the room, and four of them worried Toki. The big man he'd run into had long black hair and an stare intense enough to scare away Skoll and Hati at once. The man who'd spoken first had red dreadlocks and goatee and pierced eyebrows, and was drinking and grinning woozily at him. A man with a face like it had been smashed inward by multiple fists (and possibly it had been) was fiddling with a knife as long as Toki's arm. Another man with long blond hair sat with a guitar across his lap, looking both bored and greatly annoyed, and was watching him with casual dislike. But it was the man in glasses and business suit, an alien amongst freaks, who finally gave Toki a pause for breath. He might not die today after all.
The big man looked down at him with a smile that seemed a bit unnatural on such a grim face. He put out a hand – with black-polished nails, no less – two times the size of Toki's and helped the younger man to his feet. "Whoa, guy. You might be a little late but you didn't need to run," came the deepest, most rumbling voice Toki had ever heard. It was like the man had spent a lifetime swallowing crushed glass.
Still rather breathless, Toki said, "I's late…?"
"No problem," said the tidy man in the suit. "We've only got another ten minutes before we need to clear out. But I suppose we have time for one last audition."
"…Odds-dishes?…" Toki cocked his head in confusion.
"Try-outs," the big man translated. "For the band."
"… Band…" Toki finally noticed the room was crowed with musical equipment. His heart throbbed in his chest. He didn't know these strange American musicians, most of whom looked as rough as, or rougher than, the gang he'd been fleeing, but he felt safe anyway.
"Ah, didn't's he even brings a guitars with him?" the blond snarled in Scandinavian-accented English. "Greats, I guess nows I got to gives him one of my guitars to be desdo-cratered with his dildos playings…"
"Just shut up and give him a guitar, Skwisgaar," Nathan growled, then turned back to Toki and tried smiling again. "Go on, play."
Taking the guitar shoved into his hands, Toki looked like he felt – bewildered and lost. But something deep inside was fluttering insistently. Slowly, he removed his thick coat then pulled the strap over his head and settled it on his shoulder. His left hand curled gently around the neck, and his right hand dropped down, brushing lightly over the strings.
A soft hum of music floated free… and he closed his eyes in rapture. The music filled him to the brim and then could not be contained. The butterfly flapped its silver metal wings, and his fingers flew over the guitar like they'd been flying forever.
He played madly for several minutes, blindly letting the music have its way. And when he stopped, he opened his eyes as though waking from a dream.
He saw the faces of the musicians, the approval and smiles. The big man came over and enthusiastically thumped him on the shoulder, saying he was perfect, just the one they were looking for. The redhead and the pug-faced man were saluting him with a bottle and a knife respectively, expressing in accents that baffled him words that sounded like agreement. The blond had stopped glaring and sat in shock.
In a matter of seconds, they'd all taken to their own instruments and were free-form playing, in a way that seemed like they had been together for years. Toki fit in like the missing piece of a puzzle.
Unseen by the others, Offdensen furrowed his brow. Being what he was – a manager, a lawyer, and very keenly observant – he'd watched far more than he'd listened. And what he'd seen was a young man being chased by thugs and running to hide in the tavern. He'd seen the confusion and fear on the boy's face. He'd watched as the band was overwhelmed by some kind of magical force that was clearly very real. And most interesting of all, he'd seen the faces of the thugs and the tavern employees and some early patrons of the tavern. They had all been just as overwhelmed. They were rapt. They'd had had an epiphany. And now, after the music stopped, they were slowly coming out of the trance and chattering excitedly to one another. Every single one of them, including the boy's former enemies.
Eventually, as Offdensen expected it would happen, the tavern owner approached him and requested the band to play that evening. He nodded.
After getting the new boy to sign a bit of paperwork – he found himself only marginally surprised by the young age, and knew it would take some legal finagling to accomplish his aims – he sent them all back to the hotel and secured a room for the young man.
Toki seemed childishly delighted with the attention. He had a long-overdue bath, shaved all but twin bits of hair at the corners of his mouth (he thought it would look stylish when it was grown out) and put on clean clothes loaned to him by Pickles who was the closest in size. And he ate like a wolf in the dead of winter, with triple helpings of dessert. He was even more overjoyed when given a new guitar – though it was actually one of Skwisgaar's old guitars, which the Swede said was too dildos for him to play anymore anyway so why not give it to the charity case.
Offdensen arranged for them to use an empty warehouse for a quick rehearsal, just enough for their new member to get the hang of things. Skwisgaar, determined not to be outdone, instructed Toki on rhythm playing only, first demonstrating then watching as the boy copied him. Toki was also fascinated with the corpse paint they wore, and Pickles helped him to apply it to himself. They all knew he was fresh off the streets and had never been in a real band before, but this only fueled their own excitement over their discovery. They had a found a prodidegeny, as Nathan tried to say, and which no one attempted to correct.
They returned to a surprisingly packed tavern, played a dozen songs (it was all they had in their repertoire just yet), and before they'd finished, the state of things was clearly serious. People were virtually trampling one another to get into the tavern, they were screaming in multiple languages how much they loved the band, and the manic devotion in their eyes was unmistakably the truth.
Offdensen smiled stiffly, knowing the path before him. He tapped into private funds the band didn't even know he possessed, and spent an hour making calls. He hired as many bodyguards as he could find in the immediate area, secured a private jet and made flight plans, then arranged a safe house for them to stay in together while further details were hammered out. He could tell it was far bigger than any of the band members would even comprehend, and far too big for any of them to cope with without his aid.
After the crowds had been forced out of the club by the newly hired guards, the band retired to the bar and started drinking with a vengeance.
"Picklesh, have you ever shtopped drinkin' long 'nuff ta have a hangover?" Murderface slurred.
"Once," Pickles snickered over drink number even-God-stopped-counting-years-ago. "What a hangover feels like… Do ya know what it feels like bein' drunk?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Have ya asked a beer what that feels like?"
For a moment they all paused and their booze-addled brains puzzled that out – not very hard – and eventually caught the joke.
They laughed madly, falling around on the bar top, and then started babbling about how great everything was, how brilliant is was to find a fifth guy. But when Murderface starting insinuating that it was his idea and Nathan began threatening disembowelment with a swizzle stick, Skwisgaar sighed and excused himself.
The Swede went to the restroom to clean off his corpse paint and Toki followed, as the makeup was beginning to itch. He was gingerly wiping the black from around his eyes with astringent when he saw Skwisgaar staring at him in the mirror, studying his face carefully. Toki, still afraid, and hoping to find some common ground, ventured a question. "Er du Norsk også?"
The blond scoffed and sneered, "Dum unge. Jag er Svensk."
The two languages were close enough that Toki got the meaning. English would have to do. He scowled right back. "Well, you don'ts gots to be rude about it. I just asking."
"Ah, it nots matters anyway," Skwisgaar said more softly. "We's both betters than the rest of the band, just because we's Scandinavians."
Toki smiled, more relaxed, and finished with his face. He lifted up his long hair with both hands, tying it back so he could start on his neck. They both reached simultaneously for the cold cream jar, and their hands overlapped. Suddenly the Swede grabbed both of Toki's hands and turned them over, eyes roaming over them in disbelief.
"What's de hells is dis?" he gasped, "You's gots smooth little baby fingers, no grooves on dem!" The boy's hands were obviously used to work, but the fingertips were missing the clear indentations of a seasoned guitarist. Skwisgaar rubbed his own calloused fingertips over Toki's, studying them with bewildered expression.
The boy paled in fear and pulled his hands away quickly. Skwisgaar stared at him with something like fear himself, and then whispered, "You's nevers played a guitar until now. Hows in the name of Odin does you plays like that?"
Toki shivered, eyes wide. "I… I really don'ts know, I don'ts. It just happened. It's likes… something else made me do it. I swear… Don'ts hit me…"
"I wasn't goings to…" Skwisgaar took a deep and shuddery breath. He looked into eyes even bluer than his own and saw the truth. The kid was a natural guitarist in some supernatural way, damned near as good as he was, nearly as fast. It pained him, but he also felt strangely protective toward the boy. They'd both clearly been mistreated, and this one probably far more recently.
"Oookay…," Skwisgaar said carefully, "Okay, so it was like magics or inskinks or something. But… you… needs lessons maybe? Just to be sures you can keep going? So I teaches you, for real, whens we get back to Uniteds State. What say you, my little friend?"
Toki's eyes sparkled like silver. Not only was he going to another country, but he would be taken under the wing of this amazing musician (and later come to regret thinking that to be a good thing). He yelped in agreement and in a fit of joy, flung his arms wide and embraced the tall man, nearly breaking ribs.
Skwisgaar stood for a moment, stunned but oddly pleased, then patted Toki on the back gently. But when it was clear Toki wouldn't release him, he struggled away, blushing and flustered, with the excuse that he needed to finish removing his own makeup. After that, he dragged the kid back out into the bar.
Neither noticed they had been followed and watched closely all the time by Offdensen. He had seen and overheard everything. And knew for certain how unique this situation was, and how dangerous things were swiftly going to become. But he was prepared. He would take care of it all.
NOTES:
- Toki is silver because it is nearly pure and easily used for electricity. It's symbolised by the moon. I only used the butterfly as a personal metaphor for him. His age is meant to be between 17 and 18. And if Toki seems smaller than he should when compared to other band members, keep in mind that men keep growing until they're about 20-21.
- The entire sequence of the trashed car, Toki being chased and threatened, then playing guitar like a natural came directly from a dream I had at the time I drew the first comic about Toki. From that dream, this whole story grew.
- The Norwegian and Swedish phrases are likely not grammatically correct. I use an online translator program, InterTran, for most languages. Yeah, I cheat.- Skoll and Hati are two Norwegian wolf demons who help bring about Ragnarok. The first eats the sun, the second eats the moon. Their father is Fenrir, and in tales he is often given the same tasks.
- The drinking joke by Pickles is borrowed liberally from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, something Ford Prefect tells Arthur Dent. Look it up.
Also... "Offdensen" is how Brendon Small spells it, not the fandom.