The Spaces in Between (13 page)

He formed this question and almost immediately all of the other bar patrons burst into flames. He noticed that he couldn’t even smell the burning hair spray.
Yep, this is a dream.
A door formed in between what was the house band whose screaming for the first time tonight was in key. Cameron walked through the door and further out into the Astral.

It was only in retrospect that he realized that this was probably not one of the best tests when he could now do that in the Physical as well.

2

His boots sunk into the soft carpet on the other side of the doorway. Each wall was covered in bookshelves that stretched far into infinity. There was no ceiling so the room was illuminated by the sunlight. Great granite stairs spiraled into the sky to follow the books.

This was the Akashic records where all the knowledge accumulated by Man is stored. The library does not exist on the physical planes except in rare instances. Anyone can access this library, but most do not consciously seek it. The library appears differently for everyone. For some it appears as the library of Alexandria. To others it appears as a collection of computers or giant quartz crystals. How the library appears depends on culture and expectations.

The appearance doesn’t matter, since it’s all just an interface like visiting a website. The links and objects are the site help you navigate, but the real information you need is accessed from the server. The library is infinite so all of Creation could access it from their very own private interface.

Cameron dropped the tablets from seemingly mid-air on a nearby table. He glanced around and grumbled that Noremac was nowhere to be seen. That was very odd usually there is a guide here to help. He shrugged and tapped the table. A terminal like a laptop materialized in a goo seeping through the wood finish. He pressed one of the tablets against the monitor and watched the hourglass spin around in the middle of the screen.

Screaming, darkness leapt across the room. Cameron turned and traced a flaming, blue pentagram in the air and the spirits crashed against his barrier.

“Every portion of this room is a part of me,” Cameron said, “Did you really think it was possible to sneak up on me?”

“Surrender the tablets,” the man dressed in all black said from across the room, “And I’ll leave. Our quarrel ends there. Do you know what you hold? Those are fragments of Creation’s source code – parts of the Ark. In the hands of a pirate no less.”

“Well, shit.” Cameron drew the cutlass from his belt. “Now I can’t let you touch them. See I aim to collect them all.” The man stood a good foot over Cameron’s head, but the Astral body is not always a good indicator of physical appearance. Out on the Astral any appearance can be taken. The man’s face was concealed by a wide-brimmed hat that he knew would never move because here its part of his body like an arm is on the physical.

Not many knew of the Ark. Or at least few believed that it was a relic of any value. As far as sacred relics go it is the least sought after with the
Sangreal
, and its brother in pronunciation the Arc of the Covenant. Countless books and movies are out there about the history and search of these items, but the Ark is far more valuable that both combined. See the Ark is a copy of all things – including a copy of the Holy Grail and the Arc. In fact any item sacred or profane of Christ’s is held within the Ark.

There was a secret organization in search of the Ark across the universe. They were an order of code-monks from the Atlantean Empire that applied the scientific method of Atlantean technology to the spiritual science of the Lemurians. It was from this order that Cameron had first learned of the Ark, and he was certain this man was from its ranks.

The man in black gestured and the spirits flew at Cameron again. He focused on a symbol in his mind and murmured words of power. He siphoned the energy from the spirits until they were no more. Bristling with energy Cameron saw himself standing behind the man in black, and then he was there. The man in black flung curses at Cameron that bounced back off a hexagram that he drew in the air.

The man in black prepared another spell and suddenly found himself trapped in darkness. His fingers brushed against cold steel – some kind of metal cylinder. He could climb upwards, but some instinct told him that would be incredibly foolish. There was a deafening click as Cameron pulled back the hammer on his flintlock. The gun was now so massive that the barrel could easily engulf a fully-grown male, and Cameron was certainly the correct size to wield it. In the Astral any physical trait is negotiable.

The man in black was suddenly outside the gun barrel at sizes proportional to Cameron’s. A solid right connected to the Dread Pirate’s jaw and his sword fell from his fingertips to crush a table below them. His concentration faded but he did not snap awake in his body. Both were experienced combatants on the Astral, but in all honesty the worst that can really happen out on the Astral is waking up. However, that was enough time for the man in black to steal the tablets and run.

He raised his gun, but the man in black was too close and too fast. They wrestled for the ownership of the gun crushing the world below them in their giant footfalls. He suddenly felt concerned about the condition of the tablets, which he prayed was not astral powder in the grooves of his boots. Cameron had a trump card – the Mehmet talisman. He could make himself a solid object, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he would require oxygen once that happened.

If Cameron was wrong about the nature of the Mehmet talisman he would freeze to death before he asphyxiated. On the other hand with that advantage it would probably only take a couple of seconds to bring down the man in black. Cameron relinquished the grip of his gun with his left hand. What could the man in black really do with it anyway? He traced the Mehmet talisman on his chest and planted his fist into the man in black’s chest.

The gun was back in Cameron’s possession, and now there was a giant man shaped hole in the walls of the Akashic library. Cameron heaved his chest desperately and gasped for air. Nothing was coming. He fumbled with peeling the talisman off his astral body.

Thirty seconds later he realized that he was not dying almost with a tinge of disappointment.

The man in black lied on the grassy fields outside of the Akashic records. The branches of a great willow that dwarfed even him now dominated the sky overhead. He blinked his eyes under his unmoving hat.
That was one hell of a punch.
He thanked his blessings that Cameron didn’t have the sense to come in and finish him off. That blow alone almost woke him up. The hole in the man in black’s chest slowly reformed.

Shit. He must be using the Source Code. I didn’t want to use this, but I don’t have the resources to face him head on like this.

Cameron pointed the barrel of his flintlock in the man in black’s general direction. That would be enough. The man’s leather gloves squeaked as he traced symbols in the air with blazing speed and screamed a mantra that Cameron didn’t quite catch. He balled his hand into a fist and shouted a word of power.

This part Cameron did catch. The man in black invoked the power of Lam.

Before he could squeeze the trigger the floor fell out from under Cameron.

3

Ryoma stormed through the walls into the
Soulforge
’s bridge. His hands were clenched over his ears despite the fact he knew damn well that wouldn’t work for the exact same reason he can pass through walls. Cameron was slumped into his chair and snoring loudly.

“You’ve got to do something about that menace!” Ryoma said. “Cast a silence spell! Jettison him from the airlocks! I don’t care! Just make him stop!” The disease spirit trapped in the next room raised the volume of his screaming in response. Cameron, however, was very unresponsive.

“God dammit! Wake up and take some responsibility for once!” Ryoma moved to shake Cameron’s shoulders, but of course his hands passed right through him. Still Cameron’s body lurched back and shook. Ryoma suddenly remembered that he isn’t able to do that. Cameron’s body convulsed in the throes of a seizure and his tongue hung from his mouth.

Ryoma knew something should be put in Cameron’s mouth so he doesn’t bite off his own tongue, but as a ghost he could only stand back and watch. The bright white aura that surrounded Cameron vanished and he went limp. Ryoma plunged his hand into Cameron’s chest and found everything was completely still.

The body was empty.

4

A hot wind scrapped Cameron’s face with all the gentleness of sandpaper. He stood in the center of a vast desert. The two suns glared over the red sands devoid of life, water, or vegetation. It would be of no surprise to Cameron if this environment would immediately render him to no more than a flaming skeleton flailing and screaming for a minute before he realized he didn’t have lungs or a voice box anymore.

However, Cameron was just a spirit that happened to be solid at the moment thanks to the Mehmet Talisman. He grasped the edge of it and pulled. There was no sense in being noticed wherever the man in black had stranded him. Another amateur mistake on the man in black’s part – he was in no real danger here without a physical body.

Odd, the Mehmet Talisman was not budging.

Cameron concentrated on his body.

Nothing.

He tried reaching out to his ship. His stash of plunder. Anywhere, but here. All were silent. He grinned nervously and turned to spot his Silver Chord. The Silver Chord was a connection from the Astral Body to the Physical Body that was always present. The only time that the Silver Chord could be severed was at the moment of death. Unfortunately for Cameron this was exactly the case.

5

Ryoma clasped Cameron’s dead heart in his hand. With all his might he pumped Cameron’s heart for him, but he knew his strength and influence on the physical was running out. He climbed into Cameron’s body. This was the first time that he had done so without permission. Ryoma had seen countless spirits try, but they were all repelled by Cameron’s aura. This was completely absent now.

Cameron opened his eye and gasped for air. His lungs felt like he inhaled fire, and Ryoma really wasn’t sure whether this was normal. He made a quick checklist of bodily functions that he was pretty sure were required for Cameron to stay alive. All of the things we take for granted like breathing and circulating blood that usually go automatically until we think about them.

He felt a strange sensation like a rock resting on his abdomen.
Oh, I have to pee.
Ryoma has a little amused by this and let that build up for something fun to do later. Been over a century since the last time he had to do that. Fortunately, he caught the body before it had emptied its bowels.

Cameron was dead, but surely he had not crossed over yet. Ryoma was pretty confident that Cameron could use the body again if he got back to it. His chances were probably hurt if any damage came to the brain. Cameron might be able to restore the body to an earlier version, but that might be hard with brain damage.

This whole procedure was purely guesswork. How long before laws of nature would step in against this atrocity?

6

When a person dies the Physical body dies, and the Astral body breaks its connection. The Astral body continues to roam until it eventually run out of strength and a second death occurs. That’s when the soul passes into the Afterlife - whatever that means to the recently deceased. The whole process takes about one to three days.

Cameron was confident that he would at least have a month.

This seems like a long time, but once traveling at the speed of thought is taken out of the equation space travel can take forever. He could be possibly light years away from his ship. There was a spell binding him, but he could not detect it. Magic always left a trace it has just a matter of finding out where the man in black hid it.

His feet were firmly planted on the ground. Cameron picked an arbitrary direction and trotted that way. He heard flapping overhead and glanced up. A flock of what Cameron would call birds flew overhead. But these certainly were not birds. Bird was just the closest word he could think of to describe them. From the center of black cotton ball a lidless eye stared at Cameron flapping leathery bat wings. They disgusted him.

He didn’t understand why, but their very existence wanted him to smash them all under the heels of his boots. His trot turned into a run to avoid their sight. Hatred welled up inside him, and he wasn’t sure that he could stand to run into another flock of those hideous things. If Cameron was a mind reader, or least a passive one, he would have noticed they felt the exact same way.

Intruder.
Barked their instincts from the base of their tiny brains.

Cameron marched forward trying to wrap his brain around this situation, but there was nothing really in his head now. Not a brain, just the memory of a brain and how it used to work. An illusion that he still used his brain to think or that he had ever truly used it in the first place. He rubbed his temples to ward off the oncoming headache, but there was absolutely no reason for that headache outside of him believing that he should be having one.

His thought process we’ll call it was clouded with his concerns over his physical body. He had gone over a contingency plan with Ryoma before that if he had died Ryoma would control the body until such a time that Cameron could return to it. He had no real reason to believe that this would work outside of believing that this would work. That was ninety percent of the effort when magic was involved.

But now there were doubts in his mind whether Ryoma did not get to the body in time or even notice that Cameron was dying. If it took him a month to get back there wouldn’t be much to salvage. The way the human body works when it dies there wouldn’t be anything remotely useful if the corpse was left to its own devices for a single day.