"I fought in a war against that trash, you evil little shits!" the Old Man howls, heaving chunks of cinder at the source of the sonic disturbances, those same words over and over again: Ceaser of the West Coast! Ceaser of the West Coast! Down to the bottom, drownin', drownin'!
"This is classical music, codger! We're playing it for you!"
"Classical! you fucking cunts!" the Old Man yells, tugging a knife from his waistband. "I'll classically cut off your fucking ears! Shit in your fucking skulls! Wait til I finish classically scalping you!"
"Hey, try not to shit your pants when you waddle over here, grandpa!"
Just another blood-and-guts day in the Scrapyards. None of the combatants notice the faceless mutant watching from above, sharpened teeth glistening with oily saliva, hungry.
"To the magnecurious
discovered in the wilderness of forces
with these open and magnify the void."
Caelestis falls again, back down into the world. It is an uncomfortable repetition of action, a parting image of Ujuor floating in his memory, as it did in the first fall, the accompanying existential confusion still with him. What did it mean? What was the purpose of the ritual? Why had he been selected? Whim? chance?
Those words, repeated to him by Brant: "To the magnecurious discovered in the wilderness of forces with these open and magnify the void."
A generous spray of bullets phases through the ghost-form of the Lenisker Corpsman, a mass to no effect. Around him, startled creatures curse, calling out names of protection, and rapidly scatter themselves, abandoning their seemingly impotent weapons as they run.
Caelestis does not take notice, distracted by the repetition of his thoughts. Trapped in a paused cycle he does not fully understand.
"I have been trying to understand inversion," Ujuor continues, laying himself flat on his back. "I seem no closer now than I was at the beginning."
"What are the illusions and limits of control?" the Lady asks, sitting down beside him. "Are you the worker of the work?"
Ujuor closes his eyes, folding his arms as in a death posture. He draws breath in, inhaling deeply, exhaling deeply, repeating, shallower with each repetition. The body reforms as a conduit, quaking. His voice vibrates, heavy, pounding out from his core.
I am the bonded ego-loss.
I carry on in his blood,
in another name,
to serve another end.
I am the sword,
and the word,
and the word is war.
I am war of self,
struggle of the whole,
striving of the worker.
Ujuor's fist comes down hard on a skittering cockroach, its internal circuitry turning to gooey mush, splattering up all over his hand. Green and black bits, shaken off like grease.
"As I said," he continues, "we're no closer than when we started."
Grey spittle oozing from busted lips, fine hacksaw teeth jawing through long bone
to crack out marrow.
One dying eye,
gone almost pure white, vacant absorbing the scene,
fractures of terrible things done.
"What path did you take in returning to the house?"
"There is only one."