FROM THE VOID

A ringing, crescendoing droning sound, like the ebb and flow of a siren pulsed through my senses. Soft at first, then building to alarm clock status and just as my conscious mind began to register, to reach out blindly for that snooze button, the noise would subside, allowing me to settle and drift back down, deeper, relaxed, into comforting endless bliss, peaceful in a safe little cocoon. It was a false sense of feeling safe. The truth was that I wasn’t safe at all.

“Pieter Blignaut!”

The voice was harsh, sharp, and gripped my attention immediately. The sounds from before leading me on the rollercoaster ride of semi-wakefulness dispersed like shattered glass to this new reality.

It wasn’t just because the voice was commanding and terrifyingly severe, although that did have something to do with the shock I felt. No, the main reason it gripped my mind so thoroughly and caused my heart to beat like a drum was because it was my real name. The one I had been given at birth. The one I had not used or heard in over 30 years. The one I had buried in the hopes of a new life and a new beginning. The cobwebs of clouded sleep vanished and adrenaline honed my thoughts.

I struggled to open my eyes though, I felt like they were open, but there was nothing to see, the lids perhaps weren’t responding.

I tried harder and after what seemed like an age, the periphery of my vision got a grey tinge, as if passing from midnight black to early dawn. The sun's first rays barely a whisper in the cool dawn breeze. Tinging the distant sky. Except there was no sky, no horizon and no stars or sun to ground me.

“Aaargh” I grumbled, not yet fully aware of where I was, and what I had been doing before I slept. And …. I paused. The events of the expanding sphere played back into my mind.

“Who?” I called out, still unable to see more than a grey smudge beyond the end of my face.

“Pieter Blignaut!”

The voice called out and this time drums began to beat, fast, rhythmic, deep bass resonance vibrating through me. I felt disorientated. Then a bright focussed beam of light pinpointed on me alone. A spotlight on center stage, my shadow cast infinitely long behind me.

Then I felt something tearing. It started at the crown of my head. My skin seemed to be flaying off, my pain unyielding. I cried out. What else could I do? I had no bearings on where I was or what I was standing on, just the unbearably white light which seemed to be shaving my skin off from the top of my head down my face, neck, back, chest, arms, torso, and finally legs to feet. The last part ripping out from between my toes was particularly memorable. I writhed and screamed and tried to move but I could not lift my feet. They were glued to the floor. I squirmed and wiggled wildly, desperately. I must have looked like one of those drunks you see in a nightclub. Too drunk to dance, but trying anyway, making absolutely sure not to move because that would mean falling. My whole body was writhing to a beat that only I could hear. It was a song of absolute agony.

Then just like that the resounding drumbeats stopped, and it was over. The pain gone as if I had never been in any discomfort whatsoever, and behind me my long shadow disappeared, slinking off like a fleeing jackal.

Has it just been torn from me? Intuitively I knew it was mine and it was gone. It was bizarre. I felt a huge gaping hole where it had left me. An intangible place that was now an empty space. I had no time to mourn its loss however because for a third time I heard the voice.

“Pieter Blignaut!”

“Thrice stated and heard, do you heed my call?”

Now I was afraid. I had never really believed in God or the Gods, no matter which pantheon, especially being an orphan. What God would abandon a child to live under a State's care? Without the love and nurturing that so many other kids get and take for granted. What God would let humanity destroy itself without stepping in and righting wrongs, easing pain and suffering. What God would let me live, having done the things I had done in the name of good?

The silence seemed louder than the drums. Louder even than that all pervading voice. So loud was the silence that I could literally hear myself thinking. And my thoughts seemed to be screaming that I was dead and it was Judgement day.

Okay, I knew some scripture, and sure, I had believed in God at various times. Mostly when I needed Him. Those had just been minor flirtations however. I must be hallucinating. This really can’t be real.

“Answer!” said the voice. A calm cadence resonated undeniable as water quenches thirst. I drank it in. I took a knee and said one word.

“Yes!”

My vision blurred and then things became clearer. I looked up and around to see a garden. A beautiful garden. Filled with birds, insects and plant-life. Strange flowers blossomed everywhere and the fresh fragrant air was full of their heady alluring aroma.

A path led off between the shrubs and I felt compelled to walk along it. At each step I took, a chime resounded into the air around me. I quickened my pace and the chimes sped up. I slowed my steps, taking careful guarded steps, but every time, as my foot touched the ground the chime would sound a key, a tone, a different note. I was tempted to try out “Mary had a little lamb” with my steps, but fortunately the path ended before I could be so foolish and I came upon a glade.

In the center of the pristine clearing sat a blue skinned man, levitating cross-legged. He had four arms. One held a trident, the other a drum type instrument. The other arm was held up rigid as a traffic officer would stop traffic. The last arm was holding his cobra.

Okay, it sounds bad, but it’s not as bad as you think. The cobra was wrapped around his neck and leered over his right shoulder. It’s beady serpent eyes fixed on me, hood flared, tongue flicking to taste my scent in the air. It’s entire body was restrained by that one caressing hand. I had no doubt that if the blue person wasn’t holding it, I would be in a lot of trouble.

I had had enough of snakes these past few months and hoped that he had a firm grip on it. I didn’t want his snake anywhere near me.

I looked at the crossed-leg pose and realized he was hovering above a tiger pelt splayed upon the floor of the glade. There was a gush of water cascading from his hair into a pond that meandered and overflowed into a stream behind him. At least I hoped it was from his hair.

The dark hair was long, matted, arrayed in fashionable dreadlocks to a high bun with a crescent moon hairpin holding it in place. The extra flairs of errant dreads clumped over his massive shoulders where the trickles of water ran around his torso to pool in the stream behind.

His eyes, two horizontal normal eyes plus the one vertical eye in the center of his forehead were all closed.

Oh! and I should mention that the person was not a human at all, nor was he Scalar, although the resemblance was clear. This person was probably a God. And he was massive. Easily three meters tall in his cross-legged sitting position.

I now thought I knew whom I was dealing with and went down on one knee again.

“Lord” I intoned, with as much respect and reverence as one can muster under these circumstances. I was before a veritable God. THE God in Hindu culture. My heart which had been playful and serene in the garden, was now a thundering herd of buffalo. I waited for some sign of being heard.

Nothing moved, nothing stirred, only that restrained snake twitched and writhed, tongue still flicking and hate-filled eyes arrowed in on my every movement.

Then He opened his eyes. Thankfully not the middle one. I had read somewhere that if He opened his middle eye, all that came into contact with his gaze was sundered.

While I had known a Sergeant back in the Sandpit who had a similar effect when opening his brown eye, I was pretty sure it wasn’t quite on the same scale nor near the same level of devastation.

What was up with me? Toilet humour at a time like this while in the presence of a God? If anyone deserved to be smited, it was me.

The eyes might have crinkled slightly as they bored into me and I was beginning to sweat. Was he reading my mind? Then just before I could say something that I would probably regret, He spoke.

“Petros Arkansas is your new moniker? Why did you choose it?”

Caught off guard again, I blurted out the truth without a single conflicting thought,

“It was close enough to my real name to feel familiar, but different enough to not be found easily. At least that was why I chose ‘Petros’. The ‘Arkansas’ part was from my favorite song at the time; ‘Achy Breaky heart’ by Billy Ray Cyrus. It kind of captured my mood about having left my country of birth without being able to go back. The song kind of goes on about all the things an ex-lover could do to…” I looked up, puzzled. I was speaking so freely and uncharacteristically that it gave me pause.

“How did you do that? I didn’t want to tell you any of that. It can’t be a truth serum, I know what that feels like.” I asked Him and then too late, wanted to take those words back. It was uncanny. I was becoming Bruce the loquacious Necromancer.

He smiled then, and it was a terrible smile. Because he could read my mind, and he could see past the quirky one-liners and other things I did to myself to avoid facing how I really felt. I suddenly felt very naked and completely exposed.

Shame and horror filled me that someone, a being of this majesty, could see directly into me, through all the layers of subterfuge, through all the layers of guilt, deflection and shame at the terrible things I had orchestrated or personally done in the name of good, and sometimes for not so good reasons throughout my fifty odd years on Earth and I just prostrated myself because I couldn’t face that kind of scrutiny without bowing my head in abject mortification.

When I had been abducted it had been uncomfortable and at times painful. When I had been upgraded, it had been painful beyond measure, and when I had my finger severed, arm broken, body exploded, and compressed, all had been filled with excruciating pain and torment. I had met all of those situations with a grim determination, because I was being wronged, and I wanted more than anything to bring my vengeance upon those who had wronged me.

Now as this being, this …God, rifled through my memories of assassinations, targeted strikes, kidnappings, torture, and dare I say it, murder, all in the name of one government or another. I had no way to hide, no rationale to hide behind. No refuge.

One thing I was sure of, was that I wanted very much to disappear into nothing. This raw exposure was almost too much to bear. I had carried these burden for so long. It nagged at my psyche and this last intrusion and exposé forced all the emotions to the surface into a massive turbulent whirlpool. Into one tightly focussed searing beam that would allow me to die in one inglorious implosion of self-hatred and loathing.

I looked up and willed that third eye to open. I wanted it to smite me. I wanted it to rend this internal strife right out of existence. I wanted to be nothing. To be free of self-torment and self-recrimination. I had a long and checkered past, with many wrongs that I could never put right and he knew them all.

The being sifting through my soul wasn’t smiling now. Instead I saw a tear form in his left eye, it pooled wetly in his tear duct and then brimming over, spilled out. At first a trickle, then a drop. Then another, and the serpent around his neck wriggled free of his restraining hand and caught those tears as they dropped from His face, drinking in each tear with audible slurps. It made me pause when I saw this and the turmoil and hate, depression and self-loathing seemed to ease a little.

“Forgive yourself Petros Arkansas, formerly Pieter Blignaut, for you have heeded my call. I had to use your ‘real’ name to bring you back from the void. You were exposed to my third-eye. Harnessed through a void crystal. It is a last measure of defense that all my peoples’ cities have. May you never have to see it again.”

I heaved a sigh of relief as the huge burden of my past lifted from my soul and I felt clean for the first time in many years. Joy and happiness filled my awareness and tears sprang unbidden. I felt all the guilt, the self-remorse and the anger that I had not done more to help others, and the angst that perhaps in some instances I had done too much. It shifted to something more manageable, to something more forgivable. I learned right there, to accept myself for the very first time. Not the pretense of self-acceptance that I had smothered myself in, like successive coats of paint used to cover up a persistent mold. This feeling meant the mold was gone, right down to the very fungal spores. As I revelled in my new me, my new unblemished me, He continued.

“Know that you have been damaged. Your magical abilities are formidable though. So perhaps there is a way for you to heal. I have extracted my price. I have expressed benevolence. I wish now to mourn for all my followers and curse once again the evil that fouls my world. Would that I could walk its wonders again, but I am unable until the scourge has been sundered.”

“In that I have foreseen you are an integral part. You are one of my Chosen. Here I am Avihs, and all who know me tremble. You will be my wrath.”

What? A God’s chosen should be a priest, a monk, someone who deserved it. At the very least someone who actually revered the God concerned. I looked up at Lord Avihs, denial on my lips. Rejection of the possibility in my heart, and his knowing gaze stifled my objections before they sprouted. I also knew an anagram when I heard it.

Then a wondrous thing happened. He snapped his fingers and a hornet flitting around the garden heeded his call and landed on his hand. He brought it close to his lips and He whispered a message into its fragile mind. The insect turned and at the speed of light flew straight onto my naked chest. It hit with force and I immediately flinched. Expecting agony. These types of experiences had never been comfortable.

Instead of the agony I expected, it was just a mild tickle. Where it had arrived on my chest it was busy hustling about as if searching for something. It ran past my nipple to my sincere relief and settled roughly in the center of my chest. Then, as I began to relax, the little beastie began to sting me. I cried out, hands rushing to brush it off.

“Shit! what’s it doing to me?” I called out. Not wanting to insult Avihs, but definitely not okay with what his pet was doing. My hand rushed to brush away the offending insect.

“Patience Mortal!” Intoned Avihs with a compelling voice, and I quickly restrained myself as the little creature stung me over and over. It was quick though, and the sharp pain of the stings stretched to itchy uncomfortableness. It took all my considerable self-control to not swat the little bugger flat. When it was done, it flew off, back into the garden. What was left was a palm sized inflamed area above my heart.

“Ooooouch!” I said, the word long and drawn out to express both my disdain and incomprehension as to why I had been forced to endure this.

“You have been marked as my Chosen, Petros, and those who look, will know. It will shield you in pain, Aid you in strength and enhance you in Agility and lastly boost your Endurance once you pass the threshold. I expect my chosen to deliver my will upon my worlds. To speak for me and to represent my interests. So it is and so it shall be!”

I looked down again and saw the swelling subside and a type of tattoo of the hornets’ shape in very exacting dimensions was impressed upon my chest, the sting punctures had marked me as a tattoo needle. The colors were almost lifelike as if the tattooed creature could take on a life of its own. Who knew hornets were so artistic? I gingerly touched the area that had been so ruthlessly exploited. I really hoped its stinger was sterilized.

“I have three points of salient advice. Some would call it wisdom to heed my words.” His smile was rueful, almost condescending, as if he knew something which I didn’t. Well, he was a God, of course he knew something that I didn’t.

“Be mindful of your Ring, it is my link to you. You will have difficult times ahead. It will be invisible to everyone else except you. I can only work through conduits at this time.”

I looked down at the dark ring on my index finger. My gift from the Elves, the Ring of Storing, and it glistened with a wash of colors, then like the glaze that covers a dead eye, the colors vanished and the black void of its surface returned. I shivered.

The Elves had bugged me, and I had never known. I wondered whose idea it was to pass the ring to me that way all those weeks ago as a quest reward, such that I would accept it so willingly. But then I didn’t have to wonder too far, I just had to look up. The culprit was before me. Sneaky sneaky.

Avihs continued, “Understand that you are not alone in your plight, even though it may seem so. The symbiotic machine that clung to you so desperately and as a result allowed me to save and restore you was removed, so that we may converse in private.

It will be returned. It too, is damaged and may or may not recover. Learn to use its benefits more. It simulates interactions in my world, and other worlds not of Earth. Not exactly, but close enough. You have benefits there that you will need. I also bestow upon you essential skills which will make themselves apparent upon need. The advantages will make a big difference in how you confront those who would be your enemy. Also note that it is not only the Reapers who you need fear. There are many who buckle against my design, many who would ruin our worlds.”

I thought of my shadow then as it had been ripped from me. A mechanical symbiote? Had Avihs ripped out the nanobots from my body? Well, he was a God, and I was in his place of power. He could probably do anything. He had already brought me back from the void so anything was possible. But he spoke of it as if it had a life of its own? Was it sapient? So many thoughts were buzzing through my head.

Avihs continued, “My serpent has devoured your past deeds. Some few may linger still, some few may haunt your thoughts in the coming days. Those are the ones that you need to address personally and relive them. They will come to you in dreams, and by reliving them, you will once again form the emotive bonds within you that define your chore characteristics so strongly. Those are the pains you held most dear that I would not extract, because well did they shape you. You have a diabolical past, with many Karma debts. Vengeance though, is a poor mistress and her fare less than appetizing. I would caution you to dampen your vengeful nature lest you wish to collect more poison for my pet, but that would be like asking a wolf not to hunt. Be that as it may, my pet has added to her venom, concentrating it. She thanks you, and owes you a boon. Her poison will render any living being directly to me here that they may face me. I give you one drop, it is all you will need. Call upon it in your moment of need. It will be in your ring.”

With that he grabbed his serpent, and forced her mouth open. Her fangs sprang forward, arched and dripping venom. He then used the trident to push the fangs gently forward so that they would pierce over the lip of his drum into the drumhead. Then pulling and twisting her head, he milked her venom into the drum. Then releasing her, she wriggled, hissed and twisted back around His neck indignantly. Her body coiling once again to nestle sulkily across his shoulders, her interest in me forgotten.

Avihs then took his drum, which had a drum skin on both ends, the poison sloshing inside and He began to beat out a rhythm. It wasn’t going to get into the top of the pop charts, but it was passable, catchy and tribal in nature, with a strange cadence due to the poison within. It began to lull me. I wanted to ask questions though. Most pressing was why was I here? and why me? but I barely had time to think about them vaguely before the mesmerising drumbeat caused me to drift off to sleep. It was true what they say, “A soldier could fall sleep anywhere” Even while on my feet apparently, with a God playing his drum to “the rhythm of the night”.