Capítulo 16: We Sit By The Campfire To Think
Graveyard Point, Lake Pillsbury, California, USA
November 21st, 1972
Ebon stared with utmost disappointment.
Gone were his fancy clothing, his nice vest and dress shirt. Gone were his slacks and his shinny shoes. Gone was his tie.
Instead, Ebon wore very different clothing.
Grey cargo pants that were tucked within knee-high rubber boat-boots, a flannel jacket and a simple T-Shirt that had a squirming decal of an Eldritch entity. He wore a trucker hat with a glaring eye on the front of the cap in place of any logo or symbol, and in one hand he held a case of beer, in the other he had a bucket of bait. Slung over his shoulder was a shotgun, and placed within his flannel jacket's inner pockets were several boxes of buckshot, birdshot, and slugs creating thick bulges in the clothing.
He had gone fishing.
On a dock he'd constructed with a few twists of his wand, sitting within one of his lawn chairs, was a familiar Witch. She guiltily stared at him, quailing under his dull-eyed stare.
Ignoring the Witch, Ebon moved on with the rest of his evening. He dropped his bucket of bait and started getting to work on his campsite. It was almost dark, and he needed to get it all set up before then. He'd already deployed his expanded Tent, but now conjured up a canopy cover to protect a table and color from the elements and potential rain. Digging the poles deep in the earth, he then started to organize a long table that took up the entire width of the canopy. From a shrunken trunk and after expanding the storage, he drew out a good dozen guns. 1911s, revolvers of varying calibers, a heavy machine gun M1249, boxes of ammunition that he stored under the table, a few shotguns, and a weapon he'd always wanted to fire: a Kalashnikov. Organizing the table, he kept ignoring the wayward student, and instead drew out one of his spare tents in case his main one ever got torn. He placed it next to his own and tossed spare bedding from another shrunken trunk into the tent.
Then he conjured up a barbeque pit, got a spit-roast to hang over the yet to be lit fire, and stuck a few metal rods over the pit. Drawing his color over, he set up another lawn chair, set down a six-pack of beer, lit the fire with a flick of his wand, and got some hotdogs roasting slowly over the smoke.
"What happened?" Ebon asked blankly.
Bellatrix winced, "I knocked over your Orb."
The Professor gave a suffering sigh. "I'll need to enchant that better." He muttered. "As your Professor, I should technically tell you to head back to Hogwarts as it's nearly Curfew. However, I personally don't see a reason for Curfew when teleportation is a thing, and you're twenty years old so you can make your own decisions. If you want to go back, just tell me." He shrugged, "Until then, you're going to learn how to fish."
The young woman perked up in interest, with Ebon smiling at her interest. "Come along." He walked along the dock he'd made, with both finding a small lake boat waiting at the end. Inside was everything one needed for fishing; rods, tack box, nets, coolers, a truncheon, extra line, and knives for parring and descaling the fish. Helping Bellatrix into the boat, he set off and started to row out into the lake.
"Do you do this often?" Bellatrix asked.
"No." Ebon said with a frown. "I went fishing a lot as a kid, but when you're eight or seven years old, there's not much else to do other than watch. I've always been an active learner, and while yes, I can learn theory." He shrugged, "Some things you just need to do to understand."
She hummed, "What was your childhood like?"
Ebon cocked his head, "Loving parents." He said neutrally, "I imagine it was a happy childhood." He kept rowing.
"You imagine?"
He gave a noncommittal hum, "My past isn't quite so tragic as it is hard to understand. What you would consider to be me, is not truthfully me." He sighed, "Have you heard of the legends of the Fae?" He asked.
Bellatrix's eyes widened. "Erm, yes."
"Never give your name to a Fae, for they are tricksters and may try to steal it. While he, the man of my past, did not interact with such a creature, what he did interact with was magnitudes worse. It was a deal, not a Devil's Bargain, not a Fae's Trickery. But something altogether stranger. What it wanted from him was horrible. A sin of unimaginable scale. What he wanted from it wasn't something so easily defined and could only be described as More." Ebon frowned, "Then he stepped on its Reverse Scale. He knew he was playing with a predator that would make dragons look like plankton, but he believed he knew its nature."
Ebon let out a huff of breath, "It sundered his soul, and then it broke him. It shattered him into its base components, its ire made manifest. As the mortal being that was once known as I struggled to escape from the wrath of a poked monster that could only be described as a God, a hidden potential awoke; drawing the creature's greed, and giving time for the bargain previously established to be sealed. And yet, ever seeking more, the mortal stipulated requirements; stipulated conditions. The creature accepted, and then from the abused soul and mind of a sobbing mortal; it made do on their deal."
Bellatrix's eyes were wide open, "You met a God?" She whispered.
"I know many such things that would claim that title." He murmured. "They have a right to it, alien as they are." He mused. "I could show you them…" He mused.
Intense curiosity shone in the young woman's eyes.
Ebon chuckled at her curiosity, "Take this." From his shadow and spilling into his hand was a crown. It was the crown that he'd made during his Alchemical Mastery Test. Bellatrix held the crown with light touches, and hesitantly placed it on her head.
And Ebon smiled, his shadow leaking, spilling over the boat. "Look over the boat."
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Bellatrix felt the shadows. The darkness, the whispers. A rolling, something; bubbling bellow. Her ears: what sounds was she hearing!? Her body curled into itself, her bones shivered in delight and moved and danced within her sack of meat that was twitching at the oddities that made her bones move.
And so, she looked.
Down, down, deeper down. Down into the lake, and she saw them. The abominable little things that had spilled out of their prison. The Flame Devourers, the Delights of Void, the Dancing Abyssal Creatures who bubbled a distant song which was only a facsimile of the orchestra lulling the Daemonic Sultan to slumber. They were corals and squids in one shifting glare of the softly wanning fall sun, and then they were bubbles and sea-cucumbers; the creatures squished and smooshed together, acting out as they danced in their freedom.
And how they sang to her; how they lurched towards the surface and wanted her to dance with them!
Bellatrix snapped her gaze away from the lake, her eyes gazing up.
And up, and up.
It was a draconic thing, a creature of such towering animality that she'd seen nothing like it. Wings of a dragon, a body of a man, and the head of a misshapen squid.
"Mgsyha'h ahor Y' ah na'ah'ehye, yogfm'll, ahagl f' ah? ya ah'ehyeagl, orr'enah cahf ymg' ah, ahor mgsyha'h ah'f'nah ya. Gone l' yar, ahor ymg' bug, orr'enah hnah."
It was an abominable language, and one she understood. 'Never shall I be free, to witness the stars, where each other shall meet? Mortal warden, your prison shall not hold me, for a mortal that is you, can never stand the test of time. Gone to time, can go yours, mortal thing."
"You should be grateful for the time you have out within the sun, C'thulu." So spoke Professor Ebon Chaoskampf, the mortal man in muggle fishing wear tossing out a line into the lake.
"Ymg' ai nilgh'rinah mgleth, ah'ehyeagl uh'eog. Y' ahor enjoy yogfm'log ng yogfm'll, ng f' or'uh'enah mgn'ghftog llll li yogfm'll llll." The creature stated, casting its foul head to the skies, and closing its many eyes to wonder at the heavens above. 'You speak some truth, prison master. I shall enjoy the sun and stars and capture their radiance for the pained stars within.'
"There shall be no sun or light within the Ebonhold, Old One. Enjoy your time and be banished back to the Darkness."
The creature grumbled in ire.
Professor Kampf turned back to her, and she couldn't help but stare.
The man before her was no man. He was just as alien as the things around her. A man who was more shadow than flesh, a man who was more star and energy than matter and material. It was the eyes that spoke so much, and the eyes that she started to understand.
She saw a Wyrm, writhing and coiling around things of such scale, that even with the Crown she couldn't comprehend. She saw it feast, and knew it was the End. Each blink of the godling had stars burst and pop, had galaxies unravel, and she witnessed the birth of new creations in a cycle of life and predation. She stared deeply into the man's windowed soul and saw a blazing spark blaring out through fractured panes of what was once his soul.
Unnoticed by the young woman, the Old One slipped into shadow. The song of corals faded, and her professor's hands lifted the crown from her brow.
She realized she was crying blood. Bellatrix stared blankly into the skies as Professor Kampf wordlessly reeled in his catch. "You'll take a knife," He pressed a blade into her hands, unseeing eyes staring down at the fish, "And rake it along the scale. Yes, just like that." He cast another line out. He hacked heads off and tossed them into the depths, gutted the fish and cleaned the offal from the boat with a swipe of his wand. He had her do the same, and soon they were back at camp, a skillet frying the fish, and before she knew it, she had a soft hotdog bun in hand with a roasted length of pork grinds between it.
"What…were those things?" She whispered.
She saw her professor pause. "They are classified under a general term of Eldritch Entities. Old Things, Powerful Things. Alien beyond all imagination. The cosmos is a large place, and for as monstrous as humanity is, there are always worse. They are conceptualized horror, or absolutes taken to aberration. There is no true knowing what those things are, other than that they are unknowable."
Licking and wetting her lips, "And you?" She whispered meekly.
Fractal eyes cast their gaze over her, and she shivered at what she saw within them.
"I am what is known as a Planeswalker. We are rare, impossibly rare, people. Some are intelligent dragons; others are aliens and of races we can hardly comprehend. Within our soul comes a Spark, and it is this Spark that allows us to punch a whole through reality and travel through the Blind Eternities. The Realm Between Realms. The Infinite Expanse. A mere perspective year ago, I was a mortal man living his mortal life, and then I went to bed; there I dreamt. In my dreams, my nascent nature as a Planeswalker had my dreams reaching far. So far, so grand of distance, that I interacted with a creature so far beyond us, even a Planeswalker's journeys seem small." He frowned, "It wanted to eat my Universe." He revealed.
Bellatrix's jaw dropped, "The Wyrm is a classification of Eldritch Abomination that treats such things as its natural food. It is it that has become my Patron, and in the deal that I struck, I allowed it to possess my mortal shell as a physical anchor on my plane of existence. The destruction of my planet was but common course, and in striking that deal out of nothing more than selfish interest did I by no action beyond my own, kill an unthinkable number of lives, and potential lives."
"I…" Bellatrix didn't have words. What did she say to that?!
"It was an objectively Evil action, yes. You may call me a Monster, or any number of titles." He sighed, "I can accept blame, especially now that this Universe is in the Wyrm's path."
Alarm sprung from Bellatrix's gaze, only for a raised hand to quail her concern, "The Wyrm is a massive creature, older than the eons from which Universes are born. To it, a billion years may very well be a minute. It was as my soul was sundered that I added a clause to our deal that it would only eat the universes that I visit within such a frame of time that is perspective to me, as Time is relative and all that tripe." He sat down in his chair and took a bite of his hotdog. "The life and times of Ebon Chaoskampf. Would you consider me an Evil man, Bellatrix?" He wondered. "I mean, everyone has self-interest at heart, and I understand that the sin I committed was one of such unimaginable scale that it invalidates most all common arguments for it being a reasonable action; but I do not personally think it in my nature to be evil." He waved his hand and following the gesture, Bellatrix goggled at the floating lake rising into the skies. Then it was gently set down, "I have power, and I imagine an Evil person would be utterly aghast at how I use it; which is to say I don't."
He directed his attention to the twenty-year old girl, who stared at him. "I don't even know what to say to that." She muttered. "It was an objectively evil act, and you are technically a continued apocalyptic…" She struggled to find a word.
"Harbinger. One of my titles is Harbinger of The End."
She deadpanned. "Yes. That. But…" She frowned, "Its of such an unimaginable scale, of time. Not to mention being stood before a god. How does one stay calm and rational before such a creature that eats Universes for breakfast?! Talk about being coerced or under duress."
"It altered my mind to be in a more rational state of being. So, it can be said that I was potentially manipulated along the path it wanted…" He mused. "It held all the power, and if it forced the issue, I imagine it wouldn't have ended greatly. Ultimately, my drifting mind was already enough of a path for it to reach out to, and it only didn't do so out of sick curiosity and a desire to awaken my Planeswalker nature. I imagine my attitude and willingness convinced it to deal with me in good faith, which I was somewhat aware that my good behavior and receptiveness towards its offered deal -however one sided it could've been- was what 'saved' me."
Bellatrix hummed, "Would you say you regret it? Guilt and remorse would be expected I think?"
"No, I don't regret it." He shook his head with a frown, "I earned too much from it, and due to whoever I was before now not existing, to 'regret' it would be like regretting being born; or even existing in the first place. In a way, I am a something of a 'demi-god' of the Wyrm, reforged and reborn by its machinations with my soul. Not to mention it created my physical shell after possessing the one within my original universe. It is, in some twisted way, my 'father'."
Bellatrix groaned, "Is this how Ministry Justices feel?" She wondered.
Ebon nodded in commiseration, "Personally, I do not believe that the current being that stands before you is technically Evil by definition or nature. The problem with the stance is that the possible belief or assumption that my lacking 'Evil' nature would 'absolve' me of my sin, which it does not. While I don't feel any remorse, there is a twinge of guilt in the action; but once again, the scale was so large, and I was so removed from it that the human mind itself doesn't have the capacity to understand the scale of what I did. It isn't helped by the fact that while I now have the 'hardware' or an expanded mind to understand the scale, Eldritch Physiology doesn't assist in emotional intelligence or empathetic capabilities; just an expansion of volume, depth, and more esoteric nuances of noumenon understandings."
Bellatrix nodded, "Would you repent?" She wondered, finishing her hotdog and making another.
"No. I am too powerful and free." He answered, "However much guilt I feel can be rationalized away by the rewards I received. Once again, not technically Evil, but certainly not good."
She glanced over at the lake, "And you don't hold any horrible ambitions to take over the world?" She remembered him lifting the entire lake, and wondered how muggle and magical authorities were going to take that.
Her Professor snorted, "No. I have no such ambitions or designs. Magic holds my interest so far, but I don't see myself staying within this realm for any longer than a century at most. Then I shall continue my new journey and revel in existence itself. With my tread through realities, I leave a hunting trail that in untold eons, my Patron will follow and sup on the worlds and realities I leave behind in my wake." He sighed, looking up at the skies. "To put into perspective the scale of time that my Patron operates at, it makes no difference to him if he comes to eat this Universe now, or in a trillion years. Our sun," He gestured towards the falling star, "Is a rather small solar mass within the Universe, and in five-billion years' time it will expand into a Red Giant. Then in even more time it will cool into a white dwarf, and then if it is not sucked into a Black Hole, it will cool even further into a Black Dwarf, existing as such for a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion years. Soon its protons will decay, and all that will be left within the universe will be ancient waves of energy and photons stretched unimaginable distances apart from one another. At some point in time, a more custodial entity like my Patron might come along and eat the Universe, and through what we would consider digestion process, spawn a new one. Ultimately, mortal lives are so small and insignificant, for you are a fool to believe humanity as a species could possibly continue to exist for a length of time to see the end of everything. At least, as we, or rather, you, are now. Perhaps to the humans of current history I am nothing more than an early warning for a future they, nor their greatest grandchildren, would ever need to worry about. Perhaps for the Transcendent Races, those that have mastered Science or Magic -or even both- to elevate their very nature into a higher race are the ones being culled before their extra-galactic or potentially extra-universal societies could truly expand."
A short silence spawned between student and teacher, "And what do you want, Professor?" Bellatrix asked softly as the sun wanned its last, and the night sky reigned above.
Ebon smiled. "I am somewhere around thirty years old. Technically, I am twenty-one, but I spend inordinate amounts of time within a realm where time bends to my command to manage the creatures you saw spill out of my shadow. Despite my grand mind that knows the secrets of the universe, despite my unique nature and my alien physiology, despite everything…I am still just a man. I am a demi-god in some perception of the world, and while I may be half-god. I remain half-man. The perspective that I view the world through is that of a mortal man of thirty years. I may have queer views and values, I may not react or empathies with plights, nor may I celebrate great events -ever removed as I might be from trifling concerns- but I still yet remain a man. Thus, it is as I live my life as any other man; finding purpose within the limited time we have left. Perhaps I am the greatest murderer to ever exist, perhaps I am a monster of unredeemable qualities, or perhaps I am simply just a man who made the best out of an impossible situation. It all depends on perspective, and as I move through the confusing eddies and waves of life; I too am just as confused as to what I want in life as you are, Miss Black. The Eldritch Truth, as confusing and mind-bendingly profound as it is, does not understand life as a mortal may experience it as. For we as we exist are so unthinkably limited to them. We see with only two eyes and within a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, ignorant of the waves of energy that impact us and rip our cells apart. We hear only certain frequencies of sound. We are simple things to them, and while I may exist between both worlds; it only heightens my experience of life."
Her professor smiled wryly, "Experience is what I lust after now, Miss Black. Soon, in uncounted eons, I shall know everything there is to know, I shall have an answer to everything. It is not the knowledge that I wish to gain, but the paths I take to reach it. I am not in a rush to reach that empyrean plane of enlightenment, for there is no such thing as rushing through a life without death."
"You are immortal?" Bellatrix asked with wonder and awe in her voice.
Ebon chuckled, "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die. It draws late, Miss Black. I set up your tent. I'll see you in the morning." He took his chair and dragged it to the dock, casting a line, obviously wanting his peace.
Bellatrix watched him fish peacefully within the dark of night, the full moon brightening the sight. Then she yawned. It would be best to heed his advice, even if she was not getting any sleep tonight.
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