Garuda glides silently above the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
It’s local night. Only Manny, Jason, and Vermillion are awake. The cabin is dim, lit only by the red-tinted running lights and the glow from the instrument panel. Outside, the sea and the night sky blend together.
Manny has two functional arms and the faintest glow of a torso. Previous visits have reawakened other memories. Now, a more recent memory makes him sing softly.
“Brandy, you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be, but my life, my lover, my lady is the sea…”
He looks out the viewport in contemplation. “That be the way of it for a man of the sea. At night, stars above us and beneath us. The grand disc of the galaxy. Every color, like a rainbow at night. Not the mere pinpricks of light ye can see in the bright cities of this modern era. And the sea, having no stars of its own, would answer the sky with the blue of the algae and the light of the tiny creatures that swam there. Then squid would come, or whales, and eat the light.”
“Ye cannot hear it up in the air, but aboard ship, the sea would sing to us. The creak of the wood as it flexed, aye. The whip of the sails as the wind would change and catch them anew, aye. But, ye would hear the ocean life, singing through the hull. The clicks, the calls. I know the name of it be ‘sonar’ now. There be other noises. Whales hailing each other. The eaters herding their prey.”
“During the day, the dolphins, the whales, the creatures of the sea. Mermaids? Faugh. We saw such marvels aplenty, yes, but the ordinary life was a wonderment all its own.”
The skull looks at his companions. “It be no mystery to me why men of the sea cannot escape its presence even after returning to land. More’n a single man was lost, looking into the wake at the stern and feeling its summons, climbing the rail and then…”
Vermillion’s laugh is a sardonic chuckle. “The ocean is a vampire too, the way you say it. Seducing mortals to their doom.”
Manny’s skull “grins” grimly. “Cap’n said there be a term in the Frenchmen’s tongue for it. L’appel du vide. The call of the void.”
Medea Quill woke up on the shore of a lake.
Waiting there was a familiar-looking figure: Jason Quill. She’d seen her gender-flipped self before. Now, seconds after being zapped by an Eigendrake, she was in this strange place, being greeted by him. Or a version of him?
Medea was zapped at the same time as Harold the Fleet in “405 - Attack On the Multiverse!” – Ed.
Now she walks with him through a deeply green, darkly shadowed forest, under a perpetually starry sky.
Jason walks ahead, following an unseen path with an ease that announces familiarity. How did this cognate of hers get here? And how long has it been? He’s been skillful at evading direct questions, only promising to take her to a safe shelter.
There’s a thundering sound, closer and closer. More than a noise - the ground itself shakes. Medea turns this way and that, trying to judge the source of it.
An enormous glowing stag, tall as a double-decker bus, breaks through the trees. Literally - the sturdy trunks are snapped effortlessly or explode into wood shards as the beast charges.
It sees Jason and lowers its - its antler? A single antler, rising upwards toward the sky - no, the stars - no - Medea can’t properly make it out.
Suddenly Jason is some kind of black bird, just as large as this freakish stag, and suddenly Medea can’t remember anything–
Even Mini-Jason needs sleep. Since nobody else feels qualified to operate the ultra-tech aircraft, that means they set down and make camp at their next objective: the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.
The nation of Chile is associated with many things. Easter Island, Augusto Pinochet, and Antarctic bases are only the tip of a rich and deeply complicated iceberg. Even the origin of the country’s name is uncertain; one theory is that it comes from an indigenous word meaning “the ends of the earth”. Looking out across the desert, even from afar, members of the crew can believe it.
“It looks like Mars,” breathes Daph.
“You aren’t the only one to notice. It’s been used as a double for sci-fi movies.” Maury Jones is reading facts off her tablet. Even here, she’s able to make use of Chile’s extensive telecommunication system, though roaming charges mean she doesn’t want to do so for very long.
Manny floats about the camp site. Mini-Jason is napping inside, but even so he speaks quietly. “Perhaps we can investigate the site without the lad. This is… one destination he’d be better off not seeing.”
“Grim business?” Maury asks curiously.
Manny nods. “Aye. That and much more.”
The approach of sunlight means either stuffing Vermillion into a black body bag and hauling him bodily across the desert, or leaving him inside with the sleeping Jason. Given this choice, the vampire immediately opts to stay behind.
The trek will take an hour. Before setting out, Manny cautions his fellow travelers. “Bring no water into this place. Naught in thy canteens. Empty thy bladders. Spit until thy mouth be dry. Ye will suffer in this desert, but I promise ye this be important.”
Once these baffling precautions are completed, the skull leads the way into the desert. Manny’s adventures may have grown in the telling, but there’s no disputing that the ghostly sailor has a head for navigation. The centuries and weather haven’t eroded his memory of the landmarks concealed in the dry South American desert.
The site is ringed by an enormous crater. Something fell from the skies, so long ago it’s impossible to guess, and punched a hole through the desert into an underground abyss.
“Another cave, huh?” Maury asks with a mock sigh.
“A dangerous one,” Manny cautions. He floats down, into darkness. Daph, flying, carries Bodark and then Maury down after him.
Charlotte had asked about Medea Quill, but neither Harold nor Leah had seen her. Now, all three are surprised when the Stag wanders upland from the lake, carefully carrying an unconscious Medea in its mouth. The creature dips its head low to the ground and lets go, and the woman slumps down.
The three heroes rush forward and begin their examination. It takes a few minutes, but Medea regains consciousness.
“Hey blondie,” Leah says softly. “Run into a tree head first?”
The words are sarcastic, but both Leah and Medea are from the same universe. Charlotte can feel the deep camaraderie of teammates behind the question.
What she doesn’t feel is any reciprocity from Medea. The woman stares blankly up at everyone, Leah included. “Who… are you? Where am I?”
They discover Medea can walk with assistance, and so escort her to the Archetype’s tower.
Inside, question after question is met by helpless ignorance. Medea seems unable to remember anything that happened to her - ever. Even her own name is unfamiliar.
Leah finds no physical signs of trauma that would have triggered memory loss, although in this metaphysical place that could mean anything or nothing.
The Archetype takes a break from her inscrutable studies to examine the situation. “The Magpie has taken her soul,” is her conclusion.
It takes only a glance from Charlotte to prompt her to elaborate.
“The Magpie is a being that haunts the forest. It is comparable in power and scope to the Stag, and I believe they are enemies. The little I have been able to learn is that it steals and hoards memories. Whether the Stag holds it here, or whether it came here for its own reasons, I know not.”
“How do we get them back?” Leah demands.
The Archetype shakes her head. In a quiet voice, she breaks the bad news. “I am not equipped to contend with the Magpie, and I don’t believe you are either. If it cannot be compelled to return what it was taken, I doubt it will do so on its own.”
She turns back to Charlotte. “There may be one way. You will not like it. But if you are ready to face the lake again, perhaps we can talk about it.”
The sinkhole is the driest place Maury has ever visited. It doesn’t help that the heat of the desert is still oppressive, even down here in the relative darkness. It’s like being smothered in a cotton blanket.
There’s a depression in the rock, and what looks like a pool of dirty quicksilver at the heart of it. Unnervingly, the stuff is bubbling. There are eddies on the surface with no clear cause.
Manny holds up a ghostly hand to the others, and takes a single step forward.
Like a predatory snake sensing the passing of a rodent, the liquid rises out of its depression. It takes on a sinuous aspect, with a brief shroud of wing-like extensions, and tries to strike - but the effort is enough to make it collapse again, and the substance splashes back down into the hole. It roils and churns in frustrated impotence.
“Hei hei,” Manny calls softly. “Hiram. Be you still here?”
The pool bubbles, and a voice comes with effort from its depths. “Manny… Devil take ye… How long has it been… me old fellow…”
The pool is still forming other shapes - slithering pseudopods, creeping wave fronts, criss-crossing vine-like networks - in a vain effort to leave the hole. Each attempt is definitely directed at a member of the team. Yet the voice Maury hears seems friendly.
“Been centuries, Hiram,” replies Manny. He speaks quietly, with the same friendliness, and Maury can barely hear the undercurrent of fear and horror there.
“Centuries…”
The voice cogitates. “And the Argo… Ye sailed? Ye found… treasure?”
Manny’s skinless face can’t show the emotions he must feel, but Maury can hear them welling up in his voice.
“Aye, Hiram. The Cap’n steered us true. The men made it back. Not all, but ye know the ways of the sea.”
The frustrated pseudopods show no sign of ceasing their efforts to get at the team. Maury understands now about Manny’s precautions. This thing is liquid. When its tendrils reach their longest extension, there’s simply no more liquid to sustain it, and whatever it’s made of threatens to evaporate in the heat. If it had more to feed itself…
The voice of Hiram coughs its way out of the center of the violently swirling stuff. “Ha ha… well do I know… Touch not… what ye know not… And here… I am…”
Manny has been hesitant to speak. At first, Maury assumed it was out of caution. Now she has some guess as to what he’s feeling. Yet his courage doesn’t falter.
“Hiram… Things have changed in the world. I know not if there be a way to free you from this beast. But perhaps… there be a way you can be released… to follow the Cap’n on his last voyage…”
The pool surges. “Aye, Manny… What a gift… that would be.”
And then, the surface of the pool itself vibrates like an audio speaker in an entirely different, entirely alien diction. “HE IS MINE. YOU ARE MINE. ALL IS MINE.”
It screeches out these words, over and over and over again, as Daph flies the others up and out of the sinkhole.
The team needed no encouragement to leave and resume their journey.
Mini-Jason, awake again, receives a reluctant briefing from Maury. He, too, is quiet for a time, and seems to calm himself by appealing to science.
“We know that amino acids - the building blocks of life - can form in cold interstellar molecular clouds. Hayabusa and Rosetta brought back clear evidence of amino acids even on remote comets. It’s possible… I guess… for a hypercycle to form… self-replicating protocells… and Leo’s work shows how easily neural systems can emerge…”
He looks at Maury with haunted eyes. “An alien mind, trapped on a comet or meteor or something, making a silent voyage across the universe, with nothing to do but think. And then to crash here… I can’t imagine anything more lonely.”
They hear Manny’s voice. The skull is staring down at the half-glimpsed hints of a leg, on which is a new tattoo: a hand, reaching up out of a puddle and toward a sun shining overhead.
“I thought… I had remembered him properly. In ink, to last as long as I would… It was not enough. And to think I had forgotten him…”
“We won’t forget this,” promises Daph, and does her best to pat him on what shoulder he has. “And we’ll do what we can to make good on your promise to him.”
Maury nods in solidarity. She returns to her note taking.
This is what she can do here. She can’t fight monsters or fly or build amazing gizmos.
But she’s a journalist.
She can remember.