Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) (51 page)

“Who’s he?” Tiamat said.  Her real world voice, finding his real world ears.  Gilgamesh turned to where Tiamat’s butcher knife pointed.  A Crow approached them, an Eskimo Crow, bedecked in leather hides, feathers and ivory, and wearing over a dozen dross objects.

“I have no idea,” Gilgamesh said.

The ghostly Crow smiled and brought out a duplicate of Tiamat’s Monster carving to show them.  No, not a duplicate.  The actual Monster talisman; this Crow was its maker, a ghost sent to them by the Progenitors or conjured from their ghostly remains by Tiamat’s Monster talisman.  Gilgamesh’s symbolic use of the carved Monster had brought the maker, a part of the Progenitors’ shared whatever, back from the dead.

“Mystic crap.  I understand,” Tiamat said.  She studied the ghostly Crow, believing this was a modern Major Transform, someone fallen under the influence of the Progenitors.  “Can you talk to us?”

The ghostly Crow shook his head.

“You can understand us, though.”

The ghostly Crow waved his fingers.  Gilgamesh translated the finger wave as ‘perhaps, somewhat’.

“Do you support what we’re doing?

That elicited a nod.

“And the Hunters?”

The ghostly Crow opened his hands.  “I don’t believe he understands,” Gilgamesh said.  The ghostly Crow nodded after hearing Gilgamesh’s words.

“Take us to the Hunters,” Tiamat said to Gilgamesh, taking on her Commander aura, a laurel wreath above her butcher knife.  Gilgamesh did as asked; in the flow the Hunters appeared as their standard Hungry Hungry Hippos game.  “Them.  Do you support them?”

The ghostly Crow not only shook his head, he conjured up an illusion of a corpse crawling with maggots, worms and other carrion insects.  “If I became their leading Crow, could I save them?” Gilgamesh asked.  He had examined the question many times, and he always decided he would fail.  Was his reticence just his Crow fear talking, though?

The ghostly Crow shook his head again, and altered the corpse illusion to be Gilgamesh’s corpse.

“Well, that’s about as clear an answer as one might expect.”  Tiamat met the Crow’s gaze.  “The Progenitors had Arms like me?”

Nod.

“Chimeras?”

Nod.

“Many?”

The ghostly Crow held up one finger on each hand.  “Heh.”  Gilgamesh interpreted Tiamat’s ‘heh’ as ‘fuck you, Bass’.  Tiamat turned to Gilgamesh.  “Up for a gamble?  If you can stand it, take us to Patterson.”

Gilgamesh gulped and did as the Commander asked.  He took them to the twisted Candyland gameboard that marked Pittsburgh.  Patterson, Queen Frostine, wore her usual vampire fangs, with blood dripping down her face.

The ghostly Crow nodded and waved over a cloaked figure who had been studying the Candyland game board. 
You are playing a dangerous game
, the cloaked figure sent to Gilgamesh as he approached.  Rumor.  The ghostly Crow pointed at the Candyland gameboard and its warped Monster pieces, then pointed at Rumor, and beat his fists together.  Tiamat peered under Rumor’s cloak, at his face, recognized him and smiled.

“The Progenitors aren’t taking sides in this fight,” Tiamat said.  The ghostly Crow nodded.  “Then fight we will.”

The ghostly Crow nodded again, reached forward and touched Tiamat’s Monster carving.  Gilgamesh almost fainted from juice loss, and Rumor’s flow apparition fell to one knee.

Tiamat’s Monster carving woke up.

To be continued in

The Forgefires of God

(Book 3 of
The Cause
)

Fiction By This Author

Transforms Universe:

The Commander Series Novels

Once We Were Human

Now We Are Monsters

All Beasts Together

A Method Truly Sublime

No Sorrow Like Separation

In This Night We Own

All That We Are

The supplementary Commander Series Stories:

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio One

All Conscience Fled (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Two)

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Three

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Four

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Five

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Six

No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Seven)

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Eight

The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Nine

Focus

The Cause Series Novels

The Shadow of the Progenitors

Love and Darkness

The Forgefires of God

Beasts Ascendant (The First Chronicle of the Cause) (coming April/May 2016)

(more to come, later)

Indigo Universe:

Storybook Crazy

99 Gods Trilogy Novels

War

Betrayer

Odysseia

99 Gods Trilogy Supplementary Stories

Tales From The Anime Café (Part One)

Tales From The Anime Café (Part Two)

Author’s Afterword

Thanks to Randy and Margaret Scheers, Michelle and Karl Stembol, Gary and Judy Williams, Alex Farmer, and as always my wife, Marjorie Farmer.  Without their help this novel would have never been made.

Cover credit goes to faintsmile28 for the chrysanthemum, the Brooklyn Museum via Wikimedia Commons for the spear, and Shutterstock for the rest.

I hope you enjoy reading this novel.  More will be coming in this series.

If you enjoyed this novel, you can find out further information about the Cause series, the background mythos of the Transforms universe, and about other fiction, on http://majortransform.com.  Try the Author’s Facebook page for news and comments (www.facebook.com/pages/Randall-Allen-Farmer/106603522801212).  Interesting and helpful comments are encouraged.  Tell your friends.  Post reviews.

Provisional future publishing schedule:

Provisional future publishing schedule:

Beasts Ascendant (The First Chronicle of the Cause) (coming April/May 2016)

No Small Dreams (coming later in 2016)

An Age Without a Name (coming later in 2016)

…and more to come, later

Randall Allen Farmer