Chapter 8 - Odd Connections

In an ancient book’s torn pages, a line at the bottom of a page simply reads - time is a stream. You can build a dam on a stream, but the water finds a way...sooner or later. But sometimes, you can trap a small pool of time while the stream around it keeps flowing.

Sybil was feeling like a fish in the water right now. A fish in a stagnated and stinking pool of water. And it was getting difficult to breathe. She turned around and ran towards her house. The door swung open even before she could touch the handle. Her husband stood there with a sleepy look on his face. He took one look at Sybil. Then he saw the sword in her hand. His mouth opened in slow motion and he asked the one thing Sybil was dreading to hear.

“Where is Jorah?”

She touched her forehead with a fist. Her son was gone. He was out of the time loop and they were all here. If the stranger who just arrived was telling the truth, she’d been stuck here for years. Who had taken her son out then? She had a slight idea. And knowing what she knew now, she had an inkling what was coming for her next.

“Jorah is safe,” she lied to her husband. “Go back to sleep. I will wake you up in morning.”

He looked again at the sword in her hand and the strange colors in the sky outside.

“Maybe I am dreaming,” he murmured to himself and closed the door. She heard him walk towards the bed and slump down it. He’d fall asleep soon. She had more killing to do.

She turned around and looked at the man who said he was her son. “Jorah, what is the earliest thing you can remember?”

“A ghost, mother. It was a vile looking but the kindest demon and it was by my side for as long as I can remember. All my life, it told me I had to be ready for this moment. And two nights ago, it woke up me and told me to reach here. He also gave me this sword and said it’d help me get into this place.”

Pieces started to click in Sybil’s head. “Show me the sword,” she said.

Jorah handed her the sword. The scabbard was worn out and old, but she’d know the make of the hilt anywhere. She was holding a similar sword in her hand right now.

“Son, listen to me carefully. I need to defeat those things out there and I can’t have you standing in the way of harm. You’d only worry and distract me. Do you understand?”

“But I can’t let you just fight that thing on your own, mother. I know how to fight. You saw me take down that thing just now. Did you see how quick I took off its head? I am good with the blade and I can help.”

“No, you can’t. This was just a small taste of their power. There is much more where that came from.”

“We can fight it together, mother.”

“Not tonight and not ever. You will sit this one out. You have many other battles to fight yet.”

“So what do you want me to do? Just watch?”

“Yes. And learn.”




She kept her own sword against the door and grabbed the hilt of the sword in her hand. She twisted the pommel once, then twice. In one direction, then another and pressed a small lever that appeared in the hilt of the sword. Without a sound, the blade slid from the hilt and clanged into the ground. She handed the pommel back to her son. “If you can fix that blade back in, you’re most welcome to fight alongside me.”

Jorah’s mouth opened and he gasped for words to say. He took the pommel from her and then picked up the blade. He looked at both things in his hands once more. He had no idea that was even possible. In all his years with blades, he’d not seen such a thing happen. His mother picked up her own sword, ruffled his hair and headed out to meet the thirteen once again.

The sword in her hand stirred. “That was heavy. Are you sure you’re a good parent to let your only son play with a blade of such power.”

"He’ll be fine. What he does not know cannot hurt him.”

The sword made a snorting sound. “We could have used another blade in the next fight. Kid is talented.”

“I don’t think I can handle two of you talking around me.”




Above the periphery of the sky, the hive mind of the thirteen was deep in discussion with itself.

Something made it through.

The time stream was supposed to be impenetrable.

Nothing is ever impenetrable. You just need the right key and enough motivation.
Thought we’d seen the last of that wretched blade.
It keeps coming up again and again.
We need to take her down. We need to take her down. We need to take her down.
Call the Nephilim? Call them. Enough is ENOUGH. 

We’ve stretched this out long enough.

IT'S TIME

Below them, Sybil took the blade and started drawing the patterns she was going to need for whatever was coming next. It’d been a long time since she’d done this and her memory was sketchy. But once she started, the lines and symbols came to her on their own. Like wolves called to the battle with the promise of blood. She heard the sky crackle above her with a dark energy. And she knew, the thirteen had played their final card. The Nephilim were coming. Sweat broke out across her brow and her fingers tightened on the sword’s handle. There was urgency in her strokes now and she checked if all the symbols and wards were in the right places. They looked alright to her, but she knew one mistake and it’d all be over for her and everyone trapped in this time field.


She walked into the pentagram she’d drawn on the ground and took her place in the middle of it. Her sword held at ready, she waited for the sky to split open and vomit out whatever the thirteen had planned next for her.

The sky above her cracked open with a thunderous noise. The colors of the sky melting and amalgamating into something unknown and fierce. Darkness lept out of the sky and struck the boundaries of the time field and for the first time, Sybil gathered the shape of the dome that was above her and her house. Bright lights emerged from the cracks in the sky, blinding and horrible. And from the lights, a figure floated on the currents of an angry wind. Robes fluttering in the air, hair haloed by the light behind it, and in a face dark as obsidian two red eyes glittered with the promise of violence.

One look at that figure took the breath from her chest and made her want to fall down on the ground and kneel in obeisance.

The figure turned slowly to look somewhere above and behind it.

“I was summoned for this shit?” It had a voice like crashing of a thousand drums, of waves smashing themselves to death on the shores of alien beaches, of anger and rage boiled down to their most basic essence. “I was summoned for this!” the voice of the figure repeated.

It looked down back at Sybil. “Human, forgive me.”

Sybil grit her teeth and held tighter on her sword.

“No. I hope you will forgive me for what’s about to happen to you.”

The figure’s eyes belayed any sign of shock or surprise. There was simply a curious look on its face as it stared down at Sybil and slowly started to piece together her intentions.

“You’d not dare, human. Are you going to sacrifice the fate of humanity for your life?”

“Do you really want to wait around and find out?”

“I would not need to,” the voice boomed and a shard of light struck forth from the figure’s hands like a javelin and made its way straight for Sybil. It was fast, but her sword hand was faster. She moved to a side and swatted away the shard of light with the flat of Wraith’s blade. The steel singed and went black where the javelin touched it.

In her head, the sword’s scream of pain was unbearable. She needed to do it quick. But only when the Nephilim was close enough. Another bolt of lightning struck too close and Sybil felt the heat sear her eyebrows. The sword’s blade was slowly spreading with the blackness and soon the blade would be fully black and useless for her. Another bolt shot for her and this time, she was not fast enough. The bolt struck her on her arm, spinning her around where she stood as she fell down on the ground, the sword clattering down but still within her reach.

Watching her prone state, the Nephilim gained enough confidence that Sybil was not going to act on her intentions that it reached closer for a final strike that will obliterate his opposition. It flew right above where Sybil was lying down. A javelin of light appeared in its hand, ready to strike down with all the force of heavens behind it.


"Now," the sword said. Sybil rolled from the path of the javelin to her knees and raised her own sword above her head. She slammed the blade point first into the ground and twisted it.

And so she opened the gates to hell. 

And hell came out to meet her with open arms.

-----

Not dead. Just been very very busy. 

Chapter Seven - An Unwelcome Guest

The story so far - Sybil is a mother, a retired warrior, and her past has come knocking on her door. The past, a cabal of ancient gods known as The Thirteen, wants her son for their nefarious schemes. But they will have to go through her to get to him. Now, trapped in a time stasis field, armed with a chatterbox mystical sword, Sybil is the only thing standing between The Thirteen and her son. But forces are moving in the background and things are getting a little complicated as more powers join in.

This is the story so far, and now, Chapter Seven.

--------

There are guests that you can welcome in your home any day and then there are guests that make you want to burn down your own house and move to another country. And then there is the third kind of guests, that force themselves upon you.

They are simply the worst.

Sybil was facing the consequences of encountering one such uninvited guest. The man on the horse simply slammed into the flow of the fight, interrupting and distracting both Sybil and the demon she was trying to kill.

The demon with two bleeding stumps of his arms, stared at the large animal that was now heading towards him. The man on the horse was screaming himself hoarse with a war cry that sounded more like a gargle amplified through arcane magics and the sword he held in his hand was curved and much simpler looking than anything that was involved in the fight so far. It was going to get messy and quick.

Sybil sighed. The poor fuck was going to get himself killed.

As the man approached the towering demon, two things happened. His horse finally gave up under the exhaustion of running through the storm and finally getting through the time field. The animal’s front legs buckled. It fell face first into the ground. Second things that happened was that the fall sent the man flying over the horse’s head and through the air all the while he screamed his stupid gargling war cry.

The demon stood there looking at the whole spectacle with a dumb look on his face. Everything happened too quickly. It raised its swords in the flying man’s path to simply cut him in many different pieces on the account of his own momentum. At the final moment, a hair’s breadth from the two sharp blades, the man spun in the air and executed a perfect flip landing with two feet on the demon’s sword blade.

Shit, Sybil thought as she looked at the drama unfolding in front of her. The man jumped up from the demon’s sword blade, closing the gap between his sword and the demon’s neck. A single swipe from his curved sword and the demon’s head vanished in a mist of blood and flesh. The man flipped once and rolled onto his shoulder to break his fall. He rolled up and landed on one knee and other foot, sword still held by his side as the demon’s head dropped down, followed by his body.

In Sybil’s hand The Wraith snorted. That was impressive. I’d love to know this kid’s teacher or teachers. The man got up and started walking towards Sybil.

“I hope I was not too late,” he said as he sheathed his sword. “The time field around this area is too strong otherwise I would have reached here sooner.”

“How did you break in?” Sybil asked, a bit suspicious. In her experience, time fields were nearly impossible to break through. The only way things returned to normal is if the source of the time field was destroyed. And in her case, that would be The Thirteen hanging above her like demonic angels.

“I cut through with my sword,” the man said. Sybil looked at him again. There was something familiar about the man. His face, his eyes, the cut of his jaw and the way he carried himself struck some ancient memory in her mind.

“Do I know you?” She asked. “I feel like I know you.”

A smile lit up the man’s face. “Of course you know me. I am your son.”

---

YIKES! What? How? Why?

Ok, I'll tell you all this tomorrow.

Chapter Six - Four to One

Once, in a time long gone and lost, The Wraith had faced a minor god. Wielded by an insane necromancer who'd used the lives of his followers to bolster up his strength, just to fight the god. In a battlefield littered with bodies like flakes of snow, the necromancer had challenged the god and the god's fury rained down upon the battlefield like a torrent of starlight on a dark night.

For a few moments no one could tell the difference between night or day and if any eyes in the field had been alive, they'd have gone blind in horror. Noise like the beating of death's wings, thunder like the screeching of dying banshees, and rain, oh, the rain.

And as the god's sword arm came down from the sky like a meteor gunning to destroy civilizations, The Wraith met it. The blade, infused with the souls of a hundred thousand dead, clove through the sword arm like the inevitability of certain death of everything in the universe. The necromancer rose from the battlefield on his own power and attacked the god with a rage that was unlike anything that The Wraith had experienced before. And he had been used by some pretty fucking angry individuals in the past.

When the god's head hit the ground, the necromancer also fell and used the wraith to carve out his own heart. As he ate his heart on the battlefield of a hundred thousand dead, he had tears in the eyes and he discarded the sword like it was some stick he had picked up on an evening walk.

In all, it was a glorious evening.

But it paled compared to the ruckus Sybil was causing right now.

She met the demon's swords with a ferocious speed and as the blades clashed, the sound of steel on steel filled the night air like the buzzing of a swarm of bees. The demon gave no quarter and the thing was relentless in its strikes, swipes, and shoves.

But Sybil was propelled by an anger and rage that someone threatened her family. She had everything to lose in this fight and the victory would only put her one step closer to whatever fuckery the thirteen cooked up for her next.

The blades in the demon's hands came at her like whirlwind of steel and she ducked, spun, jumped and met the blade with The Wraith. The blade in her hand, speaking softly in her mind and guiding her hands and movements for the maximum damage she could inflict.

Her attack pushed back the demon and it staggered for a moment. That was all that Sybil needed and she moved in within the range of blade and with a fell swipe chopped away the right arms of the demon. The demon let loose an almighty scream and the blades of the left arms came thirsting for her blood.

But Sybil had already moved from the path of the blades.

Then, with the precision of a surgeon, she set about dismantling the limbs from the demon. With four blades facing her, she might have had some difficulty, but as she lunged and struck her adversary, she knew the fight was falling in her favor.

That is, till the man on the horse decided to interrupt the battle.

---
I was gone almost a month from this. Sheesh, you guys, wake me up next time I am missing.

Chapter Five -- Try, she said.

"I was once wielded by a priest of the nameless order. He was a crazy motherfucker. Said he killed for religion but in fact, he only killed because he liked killing. Had a hardon for murder, that guy."

"Shut up."

"Then, there was this general. I don't remember how I landed up in his hands, but he used me to stage a coup and slit the throats of the whole royal family with my sharp blade. Pretty ironic that years later, he also died at my edge."

"Shut up."

"Did I tell you about the time I killed a god?"

"We're here. Stay sharp."

The sword sniggered at this.

"But you have to hear about this one time at a battlefield..."

Sybil walked into the clearing with the sword jibbering in her head. She needed to clear her head of thoughts if she was to handle what was coming for her. But the sword's chatter was non-stop. She thought about her son. Her husband. The things the thirteen would do to them if they got through her and her focus slowly returned to the task at hand.

They would send someone to negotiate first. Always sound and fury, them. Never the ones to confront. But she was counting on it.

Of the thirteen lights, one light broke away as Sybil walked towards them. It slowly drifted on silent air currents and floated to where she was standing. She gripped the sword a little tighter and rotated her shoulder to be ready.

The light materialized in a humanoid form as it came near her. It was a man. Dressed in white flowing robes. An angelic look on his face. His hair glowed with a golden glow and his face defied any attempts to decipher his age. 

He was smiling.

Sybil wanted to cut his head off.

"Sybil," the man thing spoke. "It's been a long time."

"Say your piece. I have no patience for pleasantries."

"Ah, well. Never the one for riff-raff. I'll come to the point then. Give us the boy and we'll lift the hold from your house and your life."

"Can't do that."

"Then we'll take the boy."

"Try."

A sliver of anger flashed across the man's face. Quick as it appeared, it was gone and the shark-toothed smile was back.

"You will regret this, Sybil."

"Not in a million years."

"As you wish. It's your family's funeral."

"I have a proposition for you, too."

The man smiled and raised his eyebrow.

"Fuck off from here with your cronies and I will not kill you all."

The man laughed. "Oh, Sybil. We're coming to take the boy, whether you like it or not. It's just you here. Who's going to back you up?"

"All hell will."

The man said nothing. He kept smiling and floated back to his circle of thirteen.

"Nice talk," The Wraith spoke in her head.

'I was taking their measure. They're afraid. If they'd the ability to take Jorah, they'd have done so already."

"They will come anyway and we'll have to handle them. My plan will hold."

"I sure hope it does. We don't have anything else to bank upon anyway."

"It'll be enough for these thirteen. That much I am sure of."

Above them, the lights started their slow dance, strobing and flashing in colors that made Sybil's eyes hurt.

"Don't look!" the sword warned her.

Lights broke away from the circle and clumped together in small pools like bacteria gathering around an idea or a thought. Through shut eyes, Sybil felt the dance of lights on her eyelids. The storm was a distant sound somewhere, but for a moment she thought she her a horse.

With a loud boom of thunder, the light show stopped. Sybil opened her eyes and what stood in front of her defined the word terror to the T. A behemoth of a figure, easily standing to the height of eight feet, arms holding mean looking blades of different shapes and sizes. The striking feature of the figure was two additional arms sprouting from its waist. Two more sharp blades were held by the hands of its extra arms. Its skin was a dirty green color, almost black and a single red eye shone in the middle of its head. It stood there. Observing Sybil as she took the thing's measure, too.

"Can I throw you at this thing's eye?" She asked the sword.

"And lose the opportunity to enjoy my stellar company? Bah!"

"Any idea on how to go about it."

"Engage and I'll think of something."

"Four blades against one."

"I've fought worse odds before. Did I tell you that story?"

"Ah, fuck it." Sybil said as she took a running start at the figure.

---
I need to write more!

Chapter Four -- Cold Steel

"Hello, Darling. Shall We Dance?"

The Wraith's voice sent frigid fingers of ice crawling down her spine. She had to grit her teeth to stop herself from screaming incoherently.

"Help me out. Just this once. And I'll owe you one."

"You? Owe me one?" The sword's voice was a sharp fingernail on the blackboard of her mind. "Listen, now. I was once a warrior. The best there ever was. I killed men, women, children, animals, tribes, and even one or two civilizations. And then I fucked with a god. A living god. Which is how I got here. I've seen suns set in places you can't even imagine and I've thrown away riches the kind you can't even dream to accumulate in seven lifetimes. I've won. I've lost. I've lived. Do you really think, I'd help you just because, you'd owe - me - one?"

"Please," Sybil begged. The fear and desperation almost drove her to the brink of her patience. Outside the house, the storm raged on while the 13 figures hung in the sky like satellites waiting to fall to earth.

"Ah, now how can I say no to a woman like you saying please to me?" The Wraith's voice calmed down from its shrill crescendo. "Fine. I'll help you. Update me on the situation here."

"They've come for my boy. There is a timestorm happening outside and the house is stuck in stasis. The clocks don't move. My son and my husband are asleep. I don't even know if they'll wake up again. I need to go out and face them. Parley with them, if I must. And if worst happens, I'll have to kill them all or die trying."

"A noble plan,  to die trying," the sword snorted. "Now shut the fuck up and listen to me. I have a plan and it just might work."

---

Outside the sphere of the storm, a man on a horse raced towards the storm as fast as his horse could carry him. The strong winds buffeted him and threatened to throw him off his mount, but the man dug in with his heels and the animal raced with foam hanging from its lips. He knew the horse was not going to make it, but he only needed to get as close to the storm's edge as he could.

The real struggle was after he reached there. He'd have to find a way to get inside the stasis.

A ragged tree branch flew towards him in the storm and he ducked to save his head from getting shorn off his neck. The branch crashed behind him somewhere with a loud bang. He didn't turn to look. Arcs of lightning lit up his path with random strikes to the ground. He could sense the horse's fear and tiredness, but there was no other way. He dug his heels in the horse's flanks once more to make the animal run faster. He had to be there in time. He prayed to any gods that would listen, to let him be there in time.

---

"That's a dangerous plan," Sybil told The Wraith.

"Safe plans are not worth the effort. It's all or nothing, Sy."

She took one look towards her bedroom where her son and husband slept like dead bodies. She closed her eyes and shook her head once.

"All or nothing," she whispered to herself.

With the sword in one hand, Sybil opened the door and walked out to face the 13.

---
Next: Showdown!

I am so sorry I didn't update this sooner. I've been busy, oh so busy. But I wanted to write this.