Chapter Twenty-Four - Choices
'For me?' said Fenton, horrified, 'why me?'
'Because you're special, Mark; unique. I found you in his mind. I thrive on chaos, terror and despair and your fear is beautiful, it shimmers in its incandescent perfection. You've been afraid all your life, haven't you? You've been running from the start. You had every material advantage, wealth, privilege, the right schools, the right university. You could have done so much. You could have been like him, like her, achievers all. You could have used your gifts, your talents, could have done some good. But you couldn't face up to it, could you, Mark? You couldn't bear the responsibility, the guilt. So you ran away to skulk in the darkness, grovelling and prostrate, weak and miserable. You lacked conviction. You were afraid, so afraid you cleared the field for the lesser ones, the pygmies and the mediocrities, those who had the passion you lacked. You gave up. You've been running from me all your life. You've been waiting for me all your life.'
'That's a lie, it's not right,' he protested. A sick feeling of recognition was seeping through him.
'Argue as much as you like, Mark. It won't do you any good. It's not me you need to convince but yourself and you'll never do that because you know it's true, every word. You can run as far and as fast as you like but it won't get you anywhere, you're just running from the one thing you can never escape, your sweaty self. The one thing that never changes wherever you go is you. Which way I fly is Hell; my-self am Hell. You've always known it. Dezlin knew it. He knew you so well.'
The thing looked like Graeme. But it wasn't him. Fenton knew that for sure. It was no joke, no act.
'Why Graeme? Why him? Why did you…..?'
'Possess him? Steal his form? It was the first available to me. He set me free. I was held fast in adamantine chains and penal fire, confounded though immortal. He unlocked my prison, released me to work my secret, black and midnight magic, my necromancy. He doomed your race to darkness, to destruction.' It waived its hand. There was a sharp crack and then a hiss as the shutters slid open revealing space behind it and the fracture, the fracture in the firmament Graeme had opened. The lightning raged and burned in silent fury, blossoming and dying over and over again, infinitely more violent than before. 'Behold my afterbirth. The centre could not hold. At my nativity the front of heaven was full of fiery shapes of burning cressets, and at my birth the frame and huge foundation of the cosmos shak'd like a coward. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.'
So, Graeme had been right all along. It was a door and he'd opened it, but a door to where?
'You came out of there? From where? From Hell?'
'Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it. Hell hath no limits nor is circumscrib'd in one self place, but where we are is Hell, and where Hell is, there must we ever be.'
It was almost like talking to Graeme, cryptic half answers, odd confusing phrases that might be quotations. But it wasn't Graeme.
'That's no answer. Where did you come from?'
'I am from everywhere and nowhere. I am not of this time, not of this place, not of this dimension. I am not of an age, but for all time, all places. I never was. I have always been. I will always be.'
'But you came from there, you must have done. You said Graeme rescued you. You were trapped there, imprisoned? Why?' He had to know, had to understand.
'There was a war, war in Heaven between the Gods, between my people and me. It has passed into the myths, the legends of your culture.'
'War? Over what?'
'What are wars ever about but ideologies? Their evil was my good. I fought valiantly but I was outnumbered, betrayed, defeated, captured, paraded like a common criminal. They had no rights over me, no authority but they tried me all the same, convicted me. They had no stomach for my execution so they banished me, casting me out of my dominion into this, your twisted realm. Even here they would not let me have my freedom. They imprisoned me, abandoned me, consigned me to a sealed room, a cell, an oubliette to languish in forgot. They could have thrown away the key, condemned me forever to a deep, dark well of despair, but they did not have the courage. Instead they gave me a slither of light, of hope. They tore a passage through the flinty ribs of my hard world, my ragged prison walls. It was the merest crack, a fracture, a window overlooking the universe, your universe. It framed a tantalising glimpse of freedom, a view of new worlds, new souls to conquer, to enslave, fresh toys for my amusement, my entertainment. But there could be no escape by just my hand alone. The portal to my dungeon could only be opened from without; I would need a champion, a saviour from beyond to redeem me. It was a mighty challenge. They erected a raging perimeter of chaos around the door, a no man's land, a maelstrom of destruction. Your people called it Hell. It would take a very special talent to get close enough just to uncover the lock. Once there they would have to probe it, converse with it, decipher its mysteries, seduce it. It would take a genius. I waited and waited an eternity of eternities for my rescue, brooding in my melancholy, laying plans for your fragile cosmos, dreaming of dark deeds yet to come.'
'So it was Graeme's fault. He released you.'
'Don't think too harshly of him. He was ambitious, used his time, tried to achieve something with his life. He didn't waste it like a worm in the earth like you. And as you said, he had no choice.'
'No choice?'
'It was his fate, his destiny. Destiny. Devil. Dezlin.'
'That's rubbish. There's no such thing as fate.' He was sure of that. He had been sure of that.
'There is only fate, Mark, and I make it.'
'How can you make fate?' he scoffed. 'You've just told me it was Graeme who released you. How could you have influenced him while you were imprisoned?'
'Dezlin set me free millennia ago, Mark. Time has no meaning to me the way it does for you. In your time frame he freed me but thirty-one short hours ago. He liberated me to roam and roam I have. I have been everywhere, to all times, to all places, right to your race's very beginning and back again. I have haunted your history. Mankind has an innate desire for violence, cruelty and destruction that thrills me. It is wondrous to behold. It has fed me, nourished me. I have delighted at every step of your barbarous story, revelled in it. I found this,' he held up the gun, 'during my wanderings. Your wars and weapons were endlessly fascinating. I prised this from a cold, stiff hand in the mud and rain at Passchendaele. You always wondered how it had survived so long, still in working order. I made sure of it, made sure it came down to Dezlin, I knew he would appreciate it. I knew I would need it. Need it for you.'
Fenton shivered.
'I've helped your species so often, given them ideas, a few gentle pushes in the right direction, my direction, increased the scale of the destruction, the misery. I was there at all the landmarks. I engineered the Great Collapse. It was I that whispered in Merrius's ear, inspired him to the purges, the deaths. I was the circuit that blew when your parents' ship went into hyperspace, I scrambled their atoms for you. But most importantly of all I guided your technology, guided your science to make certain he would have the tools he would need for his great task, my liberation. I have nurtured, cosseted and protected his line. I have ensured there will always be a Graeme Dezlin to release me for he had already done it. It was inevitable, his destiny. There is no escape from me, from fate. Everything that will happen must happen. It already has.'
'No,' whispered Fenton, appalled, 'I don't believe it. I won't believe it. I have a choice. Everyone has a choice.'
'As you had a choice about your feelings for her? Think on it. You have no choice. You never had. You've never made a decision in your whole life, your existence has been just a waking dream; you've drifted through it, a spectator. The future is set. Choice is only an illusion. The options may appear infinite but the ones actually available to you at any one time are always much narrower, more limited. And any choice you think you make is the result of what you already are. You have no choice at all. The path you take is preordained. You may change detail
s, but nothing more. There's a divinity that shapes your ends, rough-hew them how you will.' It waved its hand and Fenton was wearing the green tunic the corpse had been dressed in. 'Everything has already happened.'
They were walking together through the labyrinth, the bowels of Pandemonium, through the corridors and tunnels. The light was changing, brightening then darkening, the temperature too. One moment the passages were streaked with ice the next they were clear. It was like a dream. He was walking. He had no control. They passed a junction. He could see in the distance, in the half-light, a grotesque bulbous monster standing like a statue. It was him, frozen in the spacesuit. On either side Brozmam and Javer hugged the corridor's walls, guns pointing towards them.
They were gone. When that had happened they'd only picked up one life-form. Him? Of course, Dezlin was already dead. He could see the goggled face next to him. It was blank and empty as it had been from the beginning. They continued on their journey. They walked up and down corridors, past security cameras. In a freezing passageway they passed Fenton, sprawled on the floor in the ice, thrusting the torch out in terror. More tunnels, more corridors then they were back in the office.
'What did I tell you, Mark? It's all already happened.'
The future was set. That was the most terrifying thing of all. He had no choice, never had. So why had the body gone? It had vanished. That had been his one slender hope, that its disappearance signified it was only a possible future, that there was a chance to change things. It was a hope he had to cling to.
'What about the body? What happened to it? Where is it?'
'Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing of nothing. Just like you Mark.' He raised the pistol. 'You're worrying about trivia. You've seen the future. Your death is inevitable. I mapped it out an eternity ago. I have looked forward to it for aeons. It is the glorious resolution to all my works and deeds. Nothing will deny me of it, nothing. Be absolute for death.'
Fenton sank back down into the chair, horrified but resigned. 'Alright, so you've won. You've got me. I can't escape. But what about this place? What about Pandemonium, your palace? You know the administration is about to destroy it? You won't let that happen, will you? This place is too important to you.'
It laughed, a hollow, empty, echoing laugh. It was a laugh he had heard before, down in the catacombs.
'Mark, I've already warned you about that misguided loyalty, that devotion. It's not touching; it's pathetic. I told you to forget about her. You can't save her. You can't save any of them.' It had seen through him, instantly. 'You still don't understand, don't appreciate it. It ends here, everything. I'm bored with your species. I've had enough. Oh, they were an entertaining diversion while I was waiting for my seed to flourish, to grow into him, into Dezlin, but their usefulness to me is now over, their time is over. They end with you, every one of them. I don't need them anymore. It is time for me to return to my own dimension, to my own people. My vengeance awaits, it has festered in my mind long enough. I'm sorry, but my time and patience for your race have run out. I am not so cruel as to leave you alone to your own pitiful devices. Mankind would be lost without me. It's best for everyone it ends here.'
Fenton stood dumbstruck.
'This mighty citadel, this little world,' it waved its hands again, 'will serve its purpose and then will dissolve. It was the place where all history began but soon that history will end and you with it. Your story is over. There will be no need of monuments, of memorials to mark your grave for there will be no one left to appreciate them, no one to remember. This is your scaffold, your stage, the scene of your reckoning, your last ordeal. It awaits. It will be soon. Depend on it.'
It was gone. Fenton was alone.