Chapter 16: Nowhereness

Huffing as he trotted up to the apartments on Nathan Street, Victor took one look around him to make sure he wasn't being followed before going inside. Taking the back stair case to avoid the one they'd ruined the weary knight was relieved to not have any more monstrous company on his way up. Entering the apartment he stripped off his greenish armor on the way to the bathroom and left the stained metal where it fell. Avoiding looking at his reflection in the mirror he knew that he had taken a vicious beating at the hands, feet and other random body parts of the mannequins. Peeling sticky clothes from his body he turned the shower's faucet on and was grateful to have clear water come out of it. It was cold but better than nothing as he stepped in only to wince from the stinging. Various wounds and gashes seared under the relentless stream but he knew it was necessary to clean them out.

After scrubbing himself as best as he could Victor brought his clothes into the shower and did what he could to rinse the blackish blood from them. Wringing out inhuman fluid from his clothes as he'd done a million times before he hung them to dry on the shower stall and dragged himself out into the living room. Picking up his scabbard and blade from the floor the knight retired to the bedroom. Aching all over he crawled onto the bed and laid the sword down beside him where his girlfriend should have been. It did not take long for him to drift off even as he realized that he had not bothered sweeping the rooms before laying down.

It couldn't have been more than a couple of hours but he felt much better on waking then he had earlier. The soreness of the day's combat was just beginning to set in and he knew that it was only going to get worse from here. Rising to get water and double checking that he was alone the knight returned to bed for another hour of half sleep before getting up for good. Ingesting a MRE he set to work cleaning his armor and making sure it was all in once piece still. Despite the rough treatment he could barely find a nick in the master crafted metal that fit him like a glove.

The task did have the unfortunate side effect of giving him time to think. The more he thought about it the more Victor began to regret his decision to come back here without Julia. So many things could have gone wrong and already had when they last saw each other. Maybe she was just fine and was on her way back even now. Maybe the both of them were dead already. It was the second possibility that kept the knight awake long after the ineffectual light of the sun gave way to darkness. When he was finally ready to fall asleep for the night he was troubled with images of Julia being torn apart by the town's barbaric residents.

The next morning brought no dark-haired, green eyed women and his anxiety began to grow with the passing hours. Trying to ignore his discomfort Victor laid down on the couch with a book and attempted to dismiss the urge to go looking for her. The day rolled on with no sign of Julia and he could hardly concentrate on what he was reading. Looking at the words in front of him but thinking about putting his armor on the knight saw a flash come in from the windows. Bolting upright he stared at the curtained glass for a few moments before a loud peal of thunder rattled them from outside.

Victor searched his mind for an incident like this one but could not recall a single instance of lightning and thunder in all the time he spent in Silent Hill. Even more strange the light coming in from outside began to dim and somewhere in the distance a medieval, crude sounding battle horn blew one long, undulating note. It was striking similar but completely different than the familiar siren horn that accompanied Silent Hill's change into its true form. Something was wrong and the hair on the back of Victor's neck stood up as the room descended into impenetrable gloom. Briefly lit by another brilliant flash from outside the ensuing thunder came much sooner and louder this time. It was the last thing he heard or saw before he was plunged into total darkness. The book fell out of his hands as he realized something very strange was going on.

One, two, four drops and then a steady beat of rain fell on him and Victor was now very confused as he thought he was indoors just a second ago. Feeling around for his sword he was shocked to find cold, wet stone where the coffee table should have been. The sword had been an arm's reach away but was now gone along with any semblance of the furniture that had been there a moment ago. Feeling along the edge of the stone slab he discovered that it was roughly the same size and height of the table but was one solid piece joined to the floor. The room had gone and morphed right under him, quite literally.

The couch seemed to still be the same and he continued to sit on it as he listened for something, anything. It wasn't easy with the patter of drops hitting stone all around him but he discerned what had to be wind blowing in from his right. That was where the bathroom should have been but he had no illusions that it was still going to be there when everything else seemed to have changed. Standing up he tapped his way with one foot towards the sound. When he struck something he put his hands out to touch a slick, chilled stone wall identical in texture to the stone table and floor. Moving his hands across its surface he found a straight, carved crack that ran up higher than he could reach. Not sure what he had found he swept his fingers in every direction until he hit an object protruding from the wall. Outlining it with his fingers he realized that it was a door knob. Twisting and pushing on it the wall gave way and became a door.

From the opening he made in the room wind and faint light came coming rushing in from wherever he was going into. Back lit from the other side he could see the door's outline as he was let out into an area much larger than the tiny bathroom that should have been there. The wind kicked up at a frantic pace the more he opened it and the rain was much heavier as he opened it. Stepping fully out into this new area it took him a few moments to perceive what was around him in the extremely limited light.

Far, far above him was the top of a mighty tower with a pulsing beam bright enough to show up on the stone under his feet. The tower, as far as he could tell, was made out of the same dark stone as everything else. It was hard to be sure with the beating rain soaking his clothes and blurring his vision but even in these poor condition he could be sure of another disturbing fact. He was on a semi-circular platform with a railing that ended out in the open air looking over a city of some kind currently being torn apart. There were light so far away they might as well have been stars but he could see flashes, flames and occasional explosions so distant he couldn't hear them.

Despite the ambient noise of the storm Victor was unnerved to hear something beating wings nearby. Whatever it was it had to be big enough that the act of flying produced the racket needed to overcome the deluge pounding the stone around him. Looking up at the murky sky the knight was wholly unprepared for what happened next. A bolt of lighting – a river of lighting – far bigger than anything he'd ever seen on earth erupted from halfway across the horizon to connect to the pulsing orb on top of the tower. The flash, like the entirety of creation erupting into existence in a black void, was only a second long but lit up the dark night almost to day and exposed things Victor could barely comprehend.

The grand balcony he was currently standing on was indeed part of the impossibly tall tower he assumed he was near the bottom of but wasn't even close. The buildings of the city in the distance were so minute he had to be miles in the sky but that was patently absurd. Lastly, and by far the most unsettling, the sky was full of avian shapes, planes, zeppelins, large birds and what appeared to be sailing vessels from the days of conquistadors moving through the darkened firmament. As it turned out the creature close enough for him to hear was so large it blotted out a quarter of the sky with its massive wings. It was, but couldn't have been, a gigantic dragon circling above.

The following thunderclap was so loud he had to cover his ears and cower from it even as he mind tried to make sense of the boggling sights he had just taken in. Previously the grenades in the alley were the loudest thing he'd ever heard but this was of greater magnitude in every way. He felt the rolling thunder reverberate in his chest and all around him for several seconds like a airborne earthquake while he huddled on the balcony. The ceaseless rain took over when the thunder abated and it was a welcome change even as it chilled his body and began turning his extremities numb.

Two things were painfully clear both figuratively and literally from the buzzing in his ears: one, he was no longer in any place known in Silent Hill for sure. The area was simply too large, too different, too unlike the town in any version he'd ever seen. He'd spent seven years climbing through the rusted steel and darkness to be wrong about this. The flora and fauna born of a thousand nightmares he'd memorized, fought, killed and ran from many times he knew all too well. This place had nothing he recognized in the slightest.

Secondly, he was woefully out of his element and completely unprepared to deal with any possible threats. The flying creature – he refused to acknowledge that it might have been anything real – was much larger than a modern 747 jet liner. He wouldn't even know how to begin fighting it other than running away for dear life. Staying low to the cold stone Victor went directly backwards from where he came in. Eyes readjusted to the gloom he used the outline of the balcony to judge how far he was moving. It did not take long to find the wall he had come out of but he searched in vain for the exit. Only after minutes of searching in both directions without finding so much as a chip in the wall did he realize he escape route had vanished.

Slumping against the wall as the uncaring rain showed no signs of letting up Victor at least put his back to safety. Soaked, cold, alone and clueless about what to do next he could only sit there and pray that the dra- that the flying beast did not come for him. He never thought he would wish for the familiar danger of his home town but he did now. At least those were evils he knew how to combat.

There was no way to tell how much time had passed as his rear began to get sore and his toes went completely numb. Lightning again flashed but it was far enough away that he did not have to cover his ears from the aftershock. He did however see for the briefest of seconds a glimpse of a door directly across the way on the other side of the balcony. With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go he decided that he would at least try to get out of the cold.

Keeping one hand in contact with the tower's exterior wall at all times he worked his way around in a semi circle towards where he saw the door. The balcony and the outer layer of the tower all looked like one solid piece of darkness in the the low light and his fingers could barely feel the texture of the stone but he continued until he was almost on the other side of the balcony. As he closed in on the railing he thought perhaps he had just imagined the door but then his fingers struck the threshold and he almost cried out in joy. Feeling around for any kind of handle he discovered a heavy ring that served as a door knob. Pulling first with no results he then pushed and the surprisingly wooden door cracked open.

Light rushed all around him as he stepped into a long hallway with a high ceiling well-illuminated by rows of burning torches set at identical intervals into the walls. The knight had to squint as he hurried inside and shut the door behind him. The rain dripped off of him as he stole towards the heat of the torches that began to slowly warm his goose-bumped skin.

The hall was made of the same black stone as everything else in this accursed place and seeing it in the light did little to change his perception of what it looked like. It was a deep, matte obsidian color that was smooth but not perfectly smooth that made up the passage he was in. The vaulted ceiling was some thirty feet up and was made more impressive by the mural that covered the walls right up to where it began to curve. Ancient in style and condition the mural depicted massive battles and events in a war between blue, winged heroes and green eyed demons. Every ten feet or so elaborate, wrought iron scones were set into the walls and Victor noticed now that the flames burning on the torches set into them were moving in slow motion. Unable to see to the end of the hall and not particularly keen to return outside the knight decided that he would at least be warm if he was going to be attacked.

"Folio..." someone said in Latin after he'd gone ten feet and Victor almost jumped out of his skin. Whirling around he found himself still alone in the hall.

"Show yourself!" he demanded to the thin air while privately hoping whoever it was wouldn't.

"Caelum supra, vox infra..." the voice said again in its accented tone but he did not understand the words. Looking all around and finally up the knight was shocked to find Nothing laying on the ceiling directly above him. Resting on his back with eyes closed apparently oblivious to the concept of gravity the Fater was still in the black straightjacket they found him in.

"Nothing." Victor said. "Finally. You better have some answers for me."

The long dead shade opened his good eye and suddenly the world was plunged into total darkness. Victor blinked in the lack of light and then found himself kneeling on a large stone circle with intricate carvings along the outside circumference. Surrounding him was a carpet of bright green leaves extending a hundred feet in every direction. He was now in a gigantic chamber with a rows of at least 25 steps directly in front of him. At the top was a highly decorated and carved throne made of skulls, bones and metal from species both human and very inhuman. The metal was the same greenish substance his armor was made from and Victor subconsciously gulped at the possible source of the ore. The back of the bone chair was made of skulls which went up so high he could barely see it at the top of the room. Lounging on the throne was the Fater with his straightjacket and a bolt of silken black cloth wrapped around the left side of his head over his missing eye.

Somewhat bewildered Victor still had to marvel at the completely alien environment he was in. None of this was like Silent Hill in the slightest and he had a feeling as to why that was now that he had met Nothing in his natural habitat.

"So Fater, not only have you shed your mortality but you've also managed to warp Silent Hill itself into something of your own image." he said.

"As educated a guess a conventional hahdrim could muster." the phantom croaked with a voice that seemed to emanate from all around instead of from the man himself. "Yet flawed like your weak flesh begging for a Sacrament."

"What is this place then? It's not the misty land anymore, not even close."

"'Tis beyond your ken, little leaf. A fragment of the divine in solid form. An aberrant wish made real through the revivification of Xuchilbara."

The Fater never gave a straight answer but the knight at least partially understood what he was saying. "I'm not fully getting it but...are you saying this place was made...by your ascension?"

Shaking his head sadly Nothing looked up and spread his hands as if asking the heavens for guidance. "Incognizable is its nature, much like the beauty of the mists to unworthy supplicants. Mine face doth be unknowable to thee, flosculus."

"Your face..." Victor echoed. "This place is a part of you...or it is you?"

The ghost spread his arms again and laughed frantically like a chainsaw grating against solid rock. "Now we are come to the end, Victor Rosencrantz. At last into the grave you go. Into Nowhere, you stand. Each breath you take, mine to give. Each step you take, by my will be done. Thus from me, unto me, for me."

The knight's mind reeled at the implications. Everything he'd seen to this pint made sense now, the similarities to Silent Hill's change, the foreign and impossible landscape, the apparent omnipotence of the Fater. It wasn't just a part of Silent Hill he had managed to usurp and rule over. It was a place completely of his own make and if he was to be believed, composed of the Fater himself. As Victor struggled to make sense of this revelation he was haunted by one looming question, one that had bothered him for years: if this place was the doing of Nothing then who was behind the otherworldly nature of Silent Hill itself?

The knight had so many questions he didn't even know where to begin. How was this even possible? What was behind the change from the real world to either Nowhere or the rusted version of Silent Hill? How did the Fater traverse realities between both versions of the ghost town, here and the real world? "I...I don't...I can't even..." he stuttered.

"Now it understands. Silly meat, grasping at the wind. Sooner you'd catch the air in your paws." Nothing said unhelpfully.

"How did you do this?"

"Continue I do, explaining what cannot be explained yet you ignore the obvious. Stick your head in the sand a little longer, dying leaf, if you wish to remain among the ignorant."

He wasn't being very clear and that suggested to Victor that Nothing expected some of his earlier gibberish to have already made everything clear. Thinking back to what he was saying the knight reviewed some of the nonsense more closely in his mind. The 'revivification of Xuchilbara' part was bothering him. Rarely did the Fater offer a complete fabrication; most of the time his words only made sense in hindsight but they did make sense eventually.

"Xuchilbara...this is possible because of the Descent isn't it? Some kind of unexpected side effect of your death and resurrection? Or did you plan this from the start?"

The mad king only stared and Victor assumed he was on the right track. "All right...I think I'm beginning to understand. You stole the ceremony from the Order and raised yourself up to this...form of yours. Instead of staying here though, wherever this is, you cross over to Silent Hill to battle them and do...whatever it is you do there. But they found a way to beat you after all these years of you hunting them. How? How did they lock you under the ice?"

"An equal resonance, if lesser in all other statures." the shade spat. "An old friend of ours gathered a storm and dropped it on my back. But even this, a mountain on an anthill, was not enough, no. Clever stones contrived a cage no combatant could cripple."

Victor had to think about this a moment to decipher what was being said. "The blade." he deduced. "It was made to kill spirits. I see it couldn't finish you off though."

"That which is divine cannot wholly be suppressed. But a killing tool that triangular silver is not. Physical may never eradicate ethereal, only debilitate."

It was getting slightly easier for Victor to decipher what he was saying when they talked about events that he was actually present for. "I see. It wasn't meant to kill, just to banish you. But what's this 'other resonance' then?"

"Ah, now we come to your part in this tale, Victor Rosencrantz. When you fled the holy land you left a treasure trove of tomes in your abode guarded most feebly. Your one time mentor and mine raided it in search of you but found something much more dangerous."

"Marcus Stone..." Victor breathed.

"In the lore you so carelessly gathered for him he found that which men should never know. A shadow reborn in the guise of a man with the deathlessness of the old gods. Without your knowledge, none of this would have been possible."

Victor's heart skipped a beat. In his old apartment were shelves of books that were as ordinary as water in the real world. When the change happened to Silent Hill they transformed as well. Usually the words were nothing but nonsense like someone had put random sentences together but just sometimes the books became tomes of magical instruction or manuals on unholy rites. He was always careful to keep his home a secret for that very reason. Was all of this his fault for not being more careful? He thought he took all of the books that changed into something useful. Victor never dreamed that Stone would be searching for him after almost ten years of freedom. No, it couldn't be only his fault.

"They used my books against you...who is this deathless one? Stone?"

"No, a wandr'ing horror bringing his sins to the misty land. Like bread crumbs in the fable Stone left the Red Book, the Black Cup and the White Flower for this pretending charlatan to find. Bound in blood, scattered to the four winds. His Ascent, carefully crafted by Stone with your knowledge, will lead to disaster for all. To the Descent, completed."

"Oh my god...the Holy Mother ritual! He's going to try to finish it again!" Victor exclaimed.

"Doing so may spell doom for all, even I." the Fater sighed. "This pretender is close, oh so close. Twenty and one Sacraments there be. Seventeen and one he is already done."

"This is bad." Victor fretted. "Can't you do something? Stop this from happening?"

"His Descent edges closer to completion. He will enact the final Sacrament if allowed. I will never do so. In eternity I will remain at ten and one."

"Wait, what? You never finished the ceremony?" Victor gaped.

"Dull boy, this brings about the end of all things when finished. Do you see reality before you or not?"

"I...see a reality." Victor said, a little lost.

"Find Stone. Separate his hands from his wrists and obtain the location of his well hidden candidate for flawed godhood. Then we will fulminate upon him, striketh with furious anger and end this parade of atrocity." the Fater snarled.

"Wait! What about Julia? And Chuck? Can you bring them here? Are they in danger?"

"Danger? Always." the Fater nodded. "But those leaves are not yet lost in the wind. I feel their heartbeats like breath on the glass. As for the Order, defoliate every last one of them from Yggdrasil's bounty."

Nothing waved his hand and the lights began to dim in the room. Victor felt the air rumbling around him and cried out, "No, wait! Where is Stone? What is the ash you left for us? How did you contact us in our dreams?"

He heard his own voice slowly drowned out rumbling of reality around him. The room shuddered and closed in so tightly that for a moment he was unable to see or breathe. Sitting up on the couch Victor was stunned to be awake and alive. His mouth was hanging open as he stared at the dark room that was oddly familiar. Sweat had broken out on his forehead and it took him a few moments to realize that he was no longer in the large chamber with the Fater. He was sitting on the couch he had been reading on in their safe house apartment like he had never left it.

Reorienting himself the knight realized that he was still soaked from the downpour of Nowhere. Confused as to whether any of that place or his meeting with Nothing even truly happened Victor swung his feet to the floor and they gratefully touched carpet instead of wet stone. Sitting forward he noticed that something was on the table that wasn't there before. It was a stack of pristine, perfectly cut paper so meticulously formed that it would have looked like a single white box to the untrained eye. He knew what they were though and here was enough to last him for years. Nearly overcome with excitement Victor could hardly breath as he looked over the stack of Oblivion sheets. Each one would support a single of the runed spells the Order had taught him and there had to be enough here to start a land war.

He would need a metal tipped pen, a cutting tool and a carrying case but this was good news indeed. Knowing that Julia was at least alive for the moment he got to work immediately crafting runes to find her.