Slumrat Rising

Chapter 140: Man Makes Plans

Truth was sitting in the little chapel in Nag Hamadi, the same one he had found Etenesh praying in before the duel. He wasn’t sure why he was sitting there. He hoped some sliver of explanation would come to him. Some divine revelation.

He had finally found love. Loved. Been loved. And his very existence was poison to the person who loved him best. To know him was to be unable to love him.

The thought kept going around and around. He poisoned Etenesh. It was the slums. It was all the things he ranted about on the mountaintop. Slumrats were poison, and even the smallest taste of their flesh would fuck you up. And he fed himself to her with his own hand.

He could feel Etenesh inside of him. Warm, confident, loving. Devoted to a “him” he was certain did not exist. He had proof that the “Truth” Etenesh loved existed only in her imagination. What was she even talking about at the end there?

Did she think he wanted to replace God? Did she want him to replace God? Is that what she understood cultivation as? He knew it was all about moving up the material hierarchy, becoming more in tune with the cosmic rays. He knew, now, that opening the nine apertures wasn’t the end of cultivation. It was the end of the initiation.

He really didn’t imagine his first time would be like that. How could he have imagined that? He had fantasies, of course, but he figured that fucking someone over the trash cans out back of a bar would be more his style. Maybe a quick fumble and a tumble on the plastic-coated mattress in a short-time hotel, probably with someone whose interest was measured by the quarter-hour.

Not “making love,” having a powerful spiritual experience, or feeling that the union of two people could be more than just mutual masturbation. Just fucking, quick and dirty, and meaningless. Purely for his own pride and gratification. Using someone already poisoned by the world. Can’t infect the infected, right?

Given his current success rate, you probably could, actually.

“Psst! Buddy. Are you praying? Because I’m not allowed to talk to you if you are praying, but it doesn’t look like you are praying, so…”

Truth jumped so hard he nearly hit the ceiling. Which was a neat trick, given how high the ceiling was.

“Ohh, so close! Next time.”

“Not a great time, Nag Hamadi!”

“Aw, don’t be like that. You know I love a good gossip sesh. Word around the temples is that on your very first time having sex together, you gave it to her so good she called you God, and then when you traded heartstrings, she had the fury to make it happen. High five!”

Truth left the stone statue hanging as his vision slowly went red.

“She went insane. She took a piece of me into herself, and she went insane. And you come in here talking this trash…” Truth didn’t realize that he was starting to draw until he felt the blade stick in the sheath.

“Makes you furious, huh? Of course, anger is a secondary emotion. Do you know what the primary emotions are in this case?”

The sudden change in attitude gave Truth whiplash. He tried to breathe and figure out what the hell this Heretical Temple was on about.

“Primary emotions?”

“Yes. Anger is a response to other emotions. When you are hurt, you feel pain. You don’t want to feel pain. It’s painful. So you react to that pain. A common way is with anger. Same thing with fear. You see something that scares you, and you want it gone. You want it to not scare you anymore. So you get angry. Angry, as the old saying goes, gets shit done. It feels good too. Your brain pumps you up on all kinds of fight chemicals. Anger is a free, natural high. Self-medicate the pain away.”

“So you are saying that my sudden need to find out if a temple can be stabbed to death is a result of my fear and pain.”

“Yep. You don’t have an obvious productive answer to the source of your pain, so you lash out. Super common; see it all the time. I expect I’ll be seeing it a lot more in the near future. Gonna be a lot of that going around.”

“Is there a reason you are here, Nag Hamadi?”

“I’m everywhere in my temple. But talking to you specifically? I really am here for the gossip. The counseling is just a, yanno, freebie.”

The giant stone statue leaned in, its painted face grinning. “You know your little lover will recover, right?”

Truth stopped with a jolt. “She will?”

“You dumped a ton, one might even say a load, into her. She’s processing it. It’s all pretty alien to her right now. She was already in a delicate emotional state, obsessed with you, and had been channeling her aspect of God as the Divine Consort. Not to mention she had just been taken up to heaven by the man she loved.”

“She was emotionally vulnerable, and dealing with even a fragment of my shitty emotional health was enough to drive her into temporary psychosis.”

“Psychosis is a strong word, and honestly, I’d not medicalize it. Leave it for the professionals, like the ones who are with her right now.”

“So she’ll go back to being how she was before?”

“Haha! How could that be possible? She just integrated a piece of your apparently horrible life into her nous. Just like you integrated a bit of hers into you. You just haven’t really been feeling it yet. Believe me. It’s going to throw you when it hits.”

“But you said she will recover!”

“Eventually, yeah. From the, let us say, unsettled emotional state that she is in right now. Given some time and support, she will be more conventionally rational. She will come to understand what emotions are really hers and what she’s getting from you. But how could she possibly be unchanged from the experience?” Nag Hamadi tisked. “She’s going to be a lot better equipped for the collapse; I will say that.”

“When the whole world turns into a slum.”

“Yep.”

Truth buried his face into his hands.

“Sex was fun.”

“That’s what I hear. Tell all.”

“It was my first time, you know.”

“Bullshit. I can believe a lot of crazy crap, but you were a virgin into your twenties? Get fucked. Again.”

“Really. Wait, I know you heard me talking about this with Etenesh and Merkovah.”

“I’m not allowed to listen in on Merkovah, and I figured you were just seducing Etenesh!”

“Why? Why would I even want to do that?”

“Humans are into some weird shit. How am I supposed to know how a committed pervert like you gets his jollies?”

Totally against his will, Truth started to laugh.

“None of the other temples will believe me when I tell them. None of them.” Nag Hamadi sighed.

____________________________________________

Merkovah had commiserated with Truth, but was clearly distracted. After a bare few minutes, he shoved the conversation onto his preferred track.

“Look, the plan was to get you up to Level Four, give you some basic proficiency with The Sword of Moshe… very basic… and then insert you as a tourist. Obviously, that’s not possible anymore.”

“Right. No tourists around, if nothing else.”

“And our time manages to be even shorter. I don’t know when the world is going to collapse, but the Black Ships don’t tend to hang around long. If they are here now, we can assume the collapse is likely very soon. A year or less.”

“Well. That’s not great. I don’t suppose there is anything we can do to slow it down?”

“Oh we are. The embargo is going to be the biggest help there. As we speak, there is a frantic global effort to set up cosmic ray attracting arrays, in the hope of permeating the planet with more energy. It might have done something noticeable in ten or twenty years. Maybe even reversed some of the damage in half a milliena.”

“Got it.”

“This situation is centuries in the making. It cannot be repaired in a matter of months.”

“Got it.”

“So we will do the best we can.”

“To go down with our teeth in each other’s throats.”

“Yes, exactly.” Merkovah nodded approvingly. Then violently shook his head.

“Mr. Wells- Truth, did you know you have the damnedest way of pulling people into your logic?”

“Blame Incisive?”

“I blame natural talent and the inherent sadism of the world.”

“Hell of a take from a Teacher.”

“It’s canon!” Merkovah bellowed.

“‘The world is sadistic, and by extension so is God,’ is cannon?”

“No, obviously-” Merkovah cut himself off, his hands clenching. “My end of the world gift to me is going to be never discussing philosophy or theology with you. In fact, I think I set you a little assignment on that front.”

“Yes, not much progress there, I’m afraid.”

“I am shocked. Shocked. Well, keep at it.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

“And while you are doing that, how close are you to Level Four?”

“I’m about half way. I’ve been cultivating hard every day.”

Merkovah nodded lightly, then frowned and took a hard look at Truth.

“Check again.”

Truth did. System?

For once, I didn’t want to say anything. It’s been a hell of a day for me too. And Merkovah’s right- you are sitting at closer to eighty percent, and even with the… new guest… your soul is looking damn fit. A big notch up the reality hierarchy.

“Huh. I guess the ritual did something there.”

“Yes. It looks like you absorbed a great deal of cosmic rays and were able to process them safely.”

“From Etenesh?” Truth asked, the horror in his voice rising.

“What? No. Don’t be silly. You were in a ritual that temporarily created a holy land, and you were in a state of religious communion. By all accounts, you were displaying aspects of some powerful figure yourself. It’s not too surprising you absorbed and processed a great deal of cosmic rays.”

Truth opened his mouth, but Merkovah cut him off again.

“If you ask, ‘Then why doesn’t everyone cultivate that way?’ I will drop you back in the well. How many people do you think are like Etenesh? For that matter, how many people do you think there are like you? You absorb cosmic rays like they were nothing. It’s uncanny.”

“Might not have asked that. Might have been asking something completely different.”

“You weren’t, though.”

Truth disdained to answer.

“Well, the good news is that, since you are so close to Level Four, we can get you the rest of the way with what is now a merely priceless and irreplaceable elixir rather than an actual National Treasure.”

“That does sound good.”

“Yep. Knowing you, it won’t take more than a night to absorb and for you to break through. Speaking of cosmic ray gathering arrays.”

“Eh?”

“Going to feed you the elixir and stick you in the middle of one, up on the roof.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

“Sure.” Merkovah nodded. “I want you to know that if anyone tells you that it was a technique originally used to execute false Teachers, you can ignore them.”

“Not true?”

“No, it’s true. I just want you focused.”

Truth thought it through. Overload the tiny channels, explode the apertures, and make someone die with a shredded soul and in agony. Nasty. On the other hand, with an elixir to protect him- “Okay.”

Merkovah snorted. “Tonight, up on the rooftop. As for the Sword, that’s a bigger problem.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I think I told you the Sword is really a toolbox of angelic magic. That is actually a pretty literal description. The killing spell you are familiar with is not even a fraction of one percent of what you can, and should, actually use the spell for.”

“Sounds awesome.”

“It is. Of all my spells, it’s easily the one I use the most. It’s just so versatile. The thing is, though, it relies on channeling energy from a specific angel to accomplish a specific task. The meat of the spell is basically an index of angelic names to recite.” Merkovah made a series of little boxes with his hands.

“Cast the spell form while reciting the formula, then invoke a specific series of angels. Their power drives the spell, then result.”

“Still not seeing the problem.”

“Why is the world ending?”

“God looked away, and we have been exporting all of our… reality anchoring materials.”

“Close enough. Why is the Sword suddenly a bad fit for you?”

“Because the angels are increasingly inclined to tell our planet to get fucked.”

“Correct. Imagine my joy at figuring out that one myself.”

Truth nodded. He could barely imagine it.

“Solutions, alternatives?”

“Alternatives. One that happens to gel nicely with Incisive, actually, and the nature of your mission.” Merkovah looked uncomfortable, then slightly ill.

“I’m suggesting this because it’s a fantastic fit for the mission profile and because we both believe you are very likely going on a one-way trip. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll throw open my library to you. No need to be precious at this point. You can have your pick of Level Four spells, and I will do my best to teach you them in the little time available.”

“And after that hard sell…”

Merkovah reached into a pocket and pulled out a palm-sized shard of crystal. Clearly brand new, the etched words and symbols still perfectly crisp. Truth tried to read it and quickly got a headache. It didn’t seem to make the least bit of sense.

“It’s been a quiet project of the Temple’s office of Temple Security for a few hundred years now, and I think they finally cracked it. A way for a mage to replicate the magic-destroying power of the Anti-Thiests. It is called Obliteration, and I think it suits your needs alarmingly well.”