Royd Baker hissed as the executioner inserted the needle into his arm. That quick sting would supposedly be the worst of it. Wasted mercy, he thought to himself. Death as a means of punishment should be painful- a stain upon the soul of everyone involved.
Royd eyed the executioner. A multitude of straps held his body in place on a chair in a sanitized white room, making it difficult to crane his head to look at the hulking figure standing by his side. "You know, one day history will thank you for this."
The executioner's lip turned up in a sneer, the only show of emotion visible on a face half hidden by hood and shadow. "History has no shortage of killers. I'm not special, and neither are you."
"You kill for your nine to five. I kill for scientific advancement, hardly comparable."
The executioner shook his head. "Doesn't matter. The lives we've taken are raindrops in a hurricane."
Royd frowned. "That implies all deaths are equal. Maybe those you've killed before me were raindrops, but I'm a flood.
"Hmm. If you say so." The executioner turned away and began packing up his equipment.
Long ago we conquered our solar system and looked beyond. Life in abundance was discovered, but the void between stars was an impassible barrier. Humanity studied the great civilizations of the cosmos from afar, forever doomed to be nothing more than observers." He smiled faintly. "Until now, that is. I'm going to talk to aliens."
"Great, talk to them instead of me."
Rage seeped into Royd. "I'm about to embark on the greatest journey in the history of mankind, would it kill you to take me seriously?"
"Doubt it." The executioner leaned over his shoulder and stared directly into Royd's eyes. "After all, you only kill people who don't take you seriously. Isn't that right, Mr. Baker?"
Royd tried not to swallow. "The… The people I killed are fine. Everyone who ever died is fine! They're out there, in the sky. Bathing in the warmth of our dull star."
"Right. And this belief in an inoffensive afterlife justifies murder."
"Didn't say that," he muttered.
"So, you knew it was wrong," mused the executioner. "And you cut them up anyways."
"Yes, but…" They laughed at him. Didn't take his ideas seriously. Acted like a piece of paper on the wall that they had to pay for made them smarter than him. "…Their defilement at my hands was a sin. But that sin will create combustion within my soul." His extremities had gone numb. The chemicals were taking effect. "That combustion will create propulsion. Needed a lot of deaths to get to a certain planet, you see. I'm off to the Antares system."
"This is almost as good as the guy last week. Told me he killed people as an offering to a Greek god."
"Listen to me! I'm not crazy. I worked at the Olympus Mons Observatory. I learned what happened to souls after death by deciphering messages received from an alien civilization we've been observing. This is real, damn it!"
"You worked as a janitor at the Olympus Mons Observatory. And you think we've been getting messages from the outer races? An actual astronomer could give you a dozen reasons why that would be impossible."
"Well the last one who tried ended up in half a dozen rotting pieces!" hissed Royd. The numbness was approaching his chest. It shouldn't matter what anyone thought. Soon enough he would return with proof. "Not any of the races you know of! Secret civilizations, hidden from the public. More than you could imagine. The people of Antares call themselves the wanderers-to-be. Their transmissions revealed everything to me. I have to get to them. Cross the stars, tell them about us. I'll get humanity a connection to the galaxy and the afterlife!" He giggled. "Both final frontiers conquered in one go for the price of a few dead astronomers! You'll see. I'll show..." The numbness had reached his mouth.
"Thought you'd never shut up."
Royd could only glare in silence as his vision and mind fell into darkness.
…
Light. Like staring into the sun through closed eyelids.
Warmth. Like the tingling of a fond memory.
Royd wasn't dead.
…No. He was dead. And it wasn't the end! Excitement flowed through him – but what was "him"? He did not have a body. He did not have a body! He screamed without lungs. His eyeless vision was faint, and growing fainter. The familiar warmth was slipping away. And pressure was building, but what pressure? Building in what? This sensation…
Something snapped, and he was free. He could see, hear, smell, touch, and taste the world better than ever before. Like putting on a new prescription of glasses over every sense. But there were more senses he couldn't explain practically assaulting him! The emotion in the temperature. The tension of electricity. The viscosity of the Executioner's thoughts as he recorded the time of Royd's death. All of this registered to him in under a second, and he wondered how that was possible as he simultaneously realized the pressure he had felt building had shot him out of his body at a ridiculous speed!
Yes, he thought to himself. The wanderers-to-be were right. The more guilt, the more sin you have, the greater the power of astral ejection. As if… your flesh couldn't wait to be rid of you.
His velocity had already sent his formless body well into the Martian sky. Peering down gave him a clear view of the great plain of Amazonis Planitia, but not the view he had seen in pictures. No, it was not a view any living soul could have seen.
Creatures larger than the dome cities swarmed over Mars. There were dozens of them, mostly amphibian in form. These creatures were tearing each other apart with a ferocious speed that didn't reflect their leviathan size. They radiated a foreign ecstasy that was mixed with a familiar hunger, and the strength of this feeling emanating from the warring herd threatened to overwhelm Royd.
He realized he had a body again. No, not a body, not exactly. But a form. A comet, shooting in reverse, leaving his planet far behind. And he was not alone in that Martian sky. Many looked human, or at least human in some sort of aspect. They were dressed in all sorts of garments, and many more none at all. Some looked like they could still be alive, while others bore unsightly marks proving otherwise. Ghastly wounds, missing limbs, decapitated heads, charred skin. And then there was the human-adjacent. Beings that looked like religious icons. The variety was overwhelming. Animal parts, halos, multiple arms, glowing skin, cloaks of shadow and sunlight, crowns made of lightning and emotion, chains made of guilt, auras made of comforting fragrances, weapons made out of all the energies and forces of the universe, it went on and on. Their sizes ranged from that of insects to almost that of the monsters left far below on the Martian surface.
He tried to reach out to them, to alter his course, to do something, anything to get a grasp on what was going on. He cried to them for help and realized he did so with thought alone. But most of the beings shied away from him, and those that did not pelted him with jeers and curses.
A figure shrouded in a robe made of dark and turbulent waters flew over to him and began keeping pace. He had pale skin, and one of his eyes shone bright like a flame. Too bright! Royd winced and tried to look away, but still had no head, neck, or eyes to do so.
"Guilty comet," whispered the figure. "Your red glow warns all of the blemish on your soul. Your trail burns true, and I believe you will not slow for a good, long while. This is the force of your sins in life, propelling you from your abused corpse."
"I know!" screamed Royd. "I'm using the force to travel outside of the solar system. I need to get to Antares!"
The figure frowned. "You willingly wish to enter deep space? The void can be dangerous to the dead." He nodded to the planet below, which was now entirely visible from their altitude. "You may have seen the beasts fighting amongst themselves below. I assure you, great souls like that have taken refuge on this planet for a reason. Not even they in their aggressive revelry wish to match might against the endless dead that plague the universe." He tilted his head to one side. "Tell me, what does one so newly dead hope to achieve?"
"I know of a race that can speak to the dead, whom my government is monitoring. I will go to them, and have them send a message to the living for me," swore Royd. "I will change the course of mankind!"
The figure smiled, and as he did so deep cracks appeared in the skin around his mouth. A faint blue light shone through them. "Ah. If you wished to be the first to speak from beyond the grave, you are several millennia late. Did you not think it strange how closely some of us resemble figures of human myth?"
This revelation shocked Royd. He had never paid attention to such religious drivel and thought little of those who did. "If contact is possible, then why not tell the living everything? Why not give concrete proof?"
"Contact is possible, but never easy. And many among us work to ensure the world-before remains unbothered. It exists separately for good reason. We have no place in life anymore, and there would be... repercussions to trying to bother living souls with the petty quarrels of the dead."
The liquid robe stopped its tidal churning and became unnaturally smooth. Royd thought he saw something large swimming below the surface, in the depths of what should have little depth. Something that he thought he sensed cold and hostile emotions from. Fear coursed through him.
"I am of half a mind to cut you down here and now, would-be meddler," the figure said slowly.
"Wai– Wait," Royd stammered. He still could not figure out how to change his trajectory. His mind raced. Could the dead die twice?
"…But. I do not believe your task achievable." The robe resumed its churning and the thing below the surface faded away. "Millions of men have ventured beyond the light of this sun. Few have returned, and those that did were far stronger spirits than you. You implied earlier that you sullied your soul to gain speed. That makes you a fool. I doubt this meager velocity will push you past Jupiter, let alone out of the solar system and anywhere near… Antares, was it? And now that you have tainted yourself with the murder of the innocent, your red luster will signal to others what you are. Those whom you should seek help from will shun you, and those you would do well to avoid will be drawn to you like flies to a rotting corpse."
Still shaken from what he had seen in the robes of the figure, Royd wished only to be done with the conversation. "I will be sure to mind myself. Thank you."
"Your noncorporeal form won't grant you any great abilities, not initially. In time you will gain strength through self-reflection and understanding of the world around you. Remember, you are already dead. Malicious spirits will not try to kill you twice."
"Then what will they want with me?"
"The dead are more numerous than the stars. I cannot say who you'll run into, or what they might want with you. But there are pains worse than death, so watch your back." He turned away.
"Wait! How do I change my trajectory?"
"You can't, not until your initial velocity wears off. Your path in life creates your path in death. After that, I'd suggest heading to the North Pole of Saturn. There's someone there who might be able to help get you where you want to go. I warn you though, his services never come cheap. What's your name, man?"
"Royd. Royd Baker."
"Well, Royd Baker. I am Nykerium. I welcome you to eternity. Tread softly, for space is not empty in death." His robe and body collapsed in on itself in the swirl of a water spout, and he was gone.
…
Royd flew through space, a crimson light screaming in the silent night. But learned not to scream when he realized that others were attracted to it. A monstrous centipede with the head of a beautiful man and a red glow similar to his own followed his trail for what felt like days. The nightmare sent visions into his mind, showing him all the ways his spirit would be defiled once he caught up. But another soul appeared in Royd's path, a rotting woman who shared his red glow and an inability to control her motion. Her speed was nowhere near his own, and quickly he overtook her. The centipede cackled as he descended on her, and her screams stayed with him for a long while.
In the months to come, or what felt like months, it would be common for him to see other spirits. His new senses had grown sharp in the emptiness, and he could now easily perceive – not hear, not see, but perceive nonetheless – other souls dozens of miles away.
There were, on occasion, great wonders to observe. Beautiful souls of great size passed by him, whales of the night sky. Royd could sense their alien emotions, and through doing so caught glimpses of the worlds they came from and the lives they had lived. He tried to communicate with one, a great bear-like behemoth with porous stone halos revolving around its waist. Each halo was miles in circumference and filled with smaller souls seeking refuge, like fish making their homes in a coral reef. These small souls danced and made merry, and sent warm vibrations to the great bear-thing that carried them along. Royd called out, but they did not hear or did not care. And so he continued on.
The most common occurrence was running into the spirits of other species of earth. He wouldn't have been able to tell their origins from their appearances, for most took forms beyond recognition. But there was a sense of familiarity, and he had learned to perceive beyond the shell of a soul. The shape of a bacteria's spirit could be a perfect physical representation of an equation, or a plant could appear as a great flowing river through space. If there was a pattern to the shape of these souls, it was beyond Royd's understanding.
Many of the human souls he met were red comets, like him. Unable to control their path in death. Maybe it was cosmic punishment for choosing the wrong path in life. They would cry out to him, and he would cry out back, desperate for companionship on his lonely journey. But none shared a similar trajectory, and all eventually faded away into the quiet void.
Space was not empty in death, was what Nykerium had said to Royd. It hadn't been empty in life, he thought to himself. He remembered his father taking him out to the desert to camp out, to show him the stars and the stories attached to them. "Mars and Earth share little in common," he would say, as they lay on the roof of their dune buggy. "But we do share a night sky. These constellations have been alongside humanity since our very beginning. Whether it be telling stories of the gods that live in the sky, using them to navigate across the oceans of Earth, or gazing into them to understand the science of our universe, the night sky has always driven the human need for questions and answers." His father smiled at him.
Royd smiled back and realized he had been living in a memory again. It was not uncommon. How long had he been out here? Years, surely. He pictured his father again, this time his grieving face in the back of the courtroom, and he wept.
Royd wept long and hard. He wept for his father, for his victims, for himself. He wept for the choices he had made in life. He wept and wept, and begged for forgiveness for anyone that was listening. He wept until his form changed from a comet into a man, capable of weeping true tears. He wept until his velocity faded, and then he wept some more.
He did not know how long he lay curled up before another crossed his path. This soul had taken the form of a leaf, twisting and turning on an imaginary wind.
Royd sensed the tiny presence and went to investigate. But the leaf was cautious and would skirt away when he tried to approach. So he waited, and sent the leaf warm emotions. And over time the leaf came closer and closer, until eventually it was no longer wary of him.
He peered into the soul and saw that it had been in life a crab, scuttling through a mangrove forest. Royd could feel the leaf looking into him in return and felt great shame. How would this simple creature react to his life of mistakes?
"Is okay," said a little voice in the back of his mind. "I not care, I not judge." The words, not in any language of man, resonated oddly inside him.
"But I should be judged!" cried Royd. "I killed people. I hurt my family. I can't be forgiven for such crimes. How can you even look at me?"
"I knowed this," spoke the leaf. "Your red-glow is warning to all. Of what you are. But I dead many many, many lifetimes, and I not see before a red-glow making the crying." The leaf fluttered around him. "I sense well. I not sense enemy in you, only sad. Sad is a goodness."
And so the leaf stayed with Royd, in the solitude of space, and for a long time, the leaf taught Royd the ways of death. How to change shape and adjust his trajectory. How to dream after death to glean information. To sense gravity patterns to navigate across the void. He learned of the sacred laws of the dead, to not eat, reproduce, or interact with the living.
"But I must," said Royd. "I know of a species, very far away, who can communicate with the dead. I need to go to them, and tell my people that death isn't the end."
The leaf shuddered. "What you speak… Is not allow. Not smart. Why must bother the life with the death? They will be death soon enough, and for all time."
"Yes. But death is influenced by life, I know this now. I want to let people know the consequences of wrong choices, to help them avoid becoming like me. I must journey to Antares, I must! Or it was all for nothing."
"Not for nothing," said the leaf sternly. "Mistakes necessary. Even big ones."
"Maybe. Maybe not. If there is a reason to this afterlife, then maybe fate will stop me."
The leaf gave no response.
"A man on Mars told me that I should seek Saturn, that there was a being there that could help me travel to where I need to be."
"…Yes. Power on Saturn. A criminal. He change the planet, cause great storm. Affecting nature is not crime. But his storm... Too perfect. Too obvious against natural flow. Used by him as signal to life, along with dream-speak."
Royd thought on this. "I was told he could get me to Antares, for a price. Maybe I can share my knowledge with him, in exchange for passage!"
The leaf was silent for a long time. "I leave planet to travel. I want to see many new thing, to explore. In life, I die by exploring. By going too far in the deep. But… I still explore. I go with you to Saturn. I go with you to the storm."
Royd smiled and closed his eyes. He could sense the gravity of the ringed planet, twinged with hints of malice and warmth. That must be the criminal, he realized. Exerting his influence and will, trying to signal life. He wondered what such a foul soul wanted with the living. And he thought that maybe, now freed from his uncontrolled trajectory, he was once again choosing the wrong path.
…
The journey to Saturn had been several uneventful years. Altogether, he had been dead for nearly a decade now. He wondered how his father was doing.
The last few weeks of traveling saw an uptick in traffic. Red souls swarmed to Saturn, drawn to its aura. They came in all shapes and forms, reveling in their shared guilt. These souls wished to have the criminal in the storm grant their desires but had nothing of value to offer. And so they gambled and fought and bickered, trying to gain power over each other.
The leaf hid in the crimson glow of Royd, and they made their way through the orbital cluster of souls with relative ease. Descending on the North Pole of Saturn with a hurricane swirling below, forming a perfect hexagon larger than all of Mars. It frightened him to think that it was caused by another spirit. The leaf felt his fear and pulsed the warmth of courage and fellowship.
The sulfur-yellow planet was the antithesis of his Mars. Wind versus earth. The hexagon swirled with a hate that hammered at their souls. "This storm has double the fury and speed of any I ever saw on Earth," remarked the leaf. His human speech had improved vastly in their travels.
"Yeah. How does this criminal expect anyone living to get through this to meet him?"
"He doesn't, it was always supposed to be a sign from afar. The hexagon has been here long before living humans learned how to leave their planet. His six-sided storm, viewed in the middle of the natural circle made by the rings of Saturn, was supposed to represent geometry sacred to his ancient culture. And it worked, to a degree. When it was discovered and men realized that they did not have a fitting explanation for it, doubt crept into their minds. And that allowed the criminal's influence in, through the form of dreams."
Royd frowned. "People influenced by celestial observation and the intervening of the dead…" His eyes widened.
"Yes. Your actions were your own in life. But they may have been influenced by this man."
This revelation coursed through Royd. His mind reeled. "How… How much influence?"
"Hard to say. But for you to snap like that, killing your coworkers over data you barely glanced at? Likely a lot."
Rage boiled up in Royd. He trembled and felt his form slipping.
"Careful…" warned the leaf. "The hate of the storm is infecting you."
"So what?" spat Royd. His red glow had intensified, and his body was elongating into something thin and hideous. "My life and death, it was all set on course by his damned meddling!" He screamed, and extra sets of sharpened teeth began sprouting all over his face. He was losing control. He did not care.
"Quiet!" Hissed the leaf. "You'll draw attention. We need to–"
"You knew," hissed Royd. "You knew and you waited until now to tell me! Why?"
"I did not know, I only assumed. I wanted to tell you, but…" The leaf went still. "He's coming. Listen, you need to get control of yourself. Do not ask him for any favors, and do not mention Antares to him!"
Rage boiled over, and Royd lunged at the leaf. But the leaf was gone, its presence vanished.
Yet Royd wasn't alone. The hate pumping through him evaporated as chills ran up and down his back. He turned to find himself face to face with a crimson man in an ancient-looking toga, bearing a sickle that eclipsed the red light of the both of them with its own.
The criminal smiled. "Your guilt burns well, my friend. I am Cronus. Come, join me for supper.
…
Royd and Cronus sat on the floor of a great palace, with a small bare table in between them. Everything in the palace was red, and when Royd concentrated, he could perceive emotions from all around him. The table, the rug, the candles… And the palace.
He would have called it a skyscraper, for the building was narrow and descended endlessly into the depths of the yellow storm. Yet the excessive use of pillars, buttresses, and offshoot towers jutting out like tree branches gave off an impression of royal significance. The palace had many cracks and fractures in it that all seemed to fit together perfectly. As if it had been cut and carved from a single piece of material, split up into puzzle pieces, and then perfectly reassembled.
And each puzzle piece gave off separate emotions. He focused on one piece of the floor and was greeted with such a wave of anguish and regret that bile rose into his throat. "What is this place?"
Cronus was slow to answer. "A good question." He tapped his finger on the carpet, and the carpet became an empty cup. He put the cup to his lips and mimed drinking. He closed his eyes as he swallowed nothingness, and a faint smile appeared on his masculine face. "Hell."
"Hell?"
"I am not talking about the palace. I am talking about all of it. This entire afterlife. Eternal, meaningless existence. Maybe it is not so bad for those not cursed with our crimson fate. The glow of guiltiness…" he spat on the floor. "A foul term! We are marked not by our sins, no. If it was sin, then all of mankind would burn bright. And what would be the basis for it? If killing is a sin then all creatures would glow. No, we are not marked by guilt on some cosmic scale of right and wrong. We are just marked by the guilt we feel. We are cursed by our moral compasses!" Cronus stood up and began pacing. "I have been dead for a great long while. My power is great, and my following is greater. This palace is devoted to me and my dream."
Royd felt his emotions unnaturally swayed by the strength of what Cronus was saying. A vacuum, pulling him into the fiery passion shared by all souls making up the palace. It had taken him by surprise before, but now the teachings of the leaf came to him, and his pulse stayed steady. "Your dream?"
Cronus's aura flared up. "My dream is to give all the world guilt! Guilt is good. Guilt means we have regret for our actions. Those without guilt are only full of sin." He smiled. "This is why the millions of dead sworn to me focus their being on becoming tools for my use. They see things my way and use my dream as a means of redeeming themselves. Penance, if you will." He patted the bright sun that was the sickle tucked into his toga. "This palace is built in a pattern, and the pattern, fueled by the power of my guilty legion, creates the greatest show of strength in the known afterlife! A storm that surpasses planets in size, with perfect radial symmetry! Framed by the rings of Saturn, I have created the one true signal to the living. And for nearly four thousand years, I have used this to open a passage to their dreams. I whisper to them the truths of the universe, truths they remember only subconsciously after waking– but that is all it takes! The seed of my clarity is planted. And as their shame and regret grow in life, their red glare will surely shine in death. A cycle that will feed itself until all of humanity has finally gained a conscience."
Royd was quiet. There was no doubt in his mind now that Cronus had influenced his murders.
Cronus chuckled and shook his head. "My newly dead friend, your thoughts and life are like an open book to me here, in my place of power. Yes, it is possible you were subject to my influence. But what I see in your mind, of this foreign race across the stars… Hmmm. Yes, I could send you there. It would take only a fraction of the power this palace possesses. Fifty thousand souls would be enough, I bet. I could send you across space so you could speak to these wanderers-to-be." He appeared to be deep in thought. "Six hundred light years away, eh? We could send a message out and have all of humanity turn red in under a millennium." He walked over to Royd and offered his hand. "You have given me great information, my friend. Now, would you join my cause? Carry my message?"
Absolutely not, thought Royd. He had to get off this planet before he was turned into furniture. If Cronus would give him passage, all the better. "Absolutely."
Cronus pursed his lips, sighed, and cracked his neck. "I heard all of that." He gripped his sickle, and as he laid his hand on it the red glow grew and began to pulse rapidly. "The spirit that makes up this blade is named Tycho, and his lust for revenge is mighty. You will stay here until I have glimpsed all that I need from your memories, and then I will let you go. Step off of this path and I will have Tycho–"
Royd bolted. He flew as fast as thought, zipping out of the cursed palace and into Saturn's night. He could hear Cronus laughing behind him as he pushed his way out of the storm's eye and into the relentless winds of the hurricane. Could he lose the criminal in it? Unlikely. Panic coursed through him, yet the anger radiating from the artificial storm balanced out the fear and kept his mind sharp. Running was useless, Cronus was too powerful. But he would not have his fate influenced again! No giving in, no surrender. He would not become a cog in this horrible machine.
"I can still hear your thoughts, Baker!" howled Cronus from somewhere in the distance. "You could have been central to my plan. You could have gone to Antares, maybe further than any human soul has traveled before! You could have had it all. But you rebelled. You left the path fate had given you. The path I had given you! And for this, I will strip away at your very being, and turn you into a damned footstool!"
Royd gritted his teeth and flew faster.
…
After what seemed to be an eternity, Royd broke through the storm. Several moons lit up the sky. His spiritual stamina was rapidly deteriorating, how much farther could he push himself? Maybe he had really lost Cronus.
Lightning erupted from the hurricane, arcing up into the sky meters in front of Royd. It writhed into the pattern of a hexagon inside a circle, and Cronus stepped through it. "I assure you, I did not," he said.
His energy all but spent, Royd did not try running. Perhaps what little remained could be used to keep himself from trembling. "Ah. For a second, I… thought I had lost you," he panted between deep breaths.
Cronus shook his head. "I have kept my gaze on you the entire time. Would have teleported sooner, except I can only teleport from inside the storm–gate to outside of it. Are you ready for your torture?"
And before Royd could react, Cronus had crossed the distance between them, plunging his sickle into his stomach. He gasped. What followed was pain!– not physical, but emotional. The spirit-turned-weapon was infecting him with a foreign lifetime of regret, shame, and guilt. Worse than all of that was the delirium. Madness and paranoia invaded his being, whispering thoughts that shouldn't belong to him. He screamed, and cried out for his father.
Suffering consumed him as Cronus twisted the blade, grasping Royd's head in his off-hand while muttering in an unfamiliar language under his breath. His life began flashing before his eyes. Odd, he thought through a daze. He hadn't had that happen when he was dying.
The pain and insanity coursing through his soul almost stopped him from noticing a tiny object burst forth from the storm. Royd's senses narrowed through waves of delirium.
…The leaf?
His friend changed his form as it drew closer. It grew into a full branch, which turned into a tree, which then twisted and turned until it became a funnel of water, which warped itself into the form of a robed man. This form was… also familiar?
The figure from Mars charged at an unaware Cronus, performing a trick Royd had witnessed what seemed like a lifetime ago. His rippling robe became smooth, and this time the creature Royd had seen swimming beneath the depths of that strange attire burst forth. It was a whale, miniature in size, with a mangled lower jaw and underbelly of ruined intestines hanging out. It grew in size as it flew towards Cronus's back. A terrible shriek burst forth from the sea beast, catching the criminal's attention a moment too late. His eyes widened as the leviathan's mangled half-mouth overtook him. Pulsing red light illuminated the inside of the whale's body, and Cronus's red sickle flashed through the underbelly of hanging guts.
Nykerium held his hands up and began chanting. The words flowed together, in an unrecognizable and unrelenting torrent of speech that grew louder and louder. The whale bucked about, the glowing crimson inside of it pulsating faster and brighter.
The sickle slashed one more time, and a head and arm pressed out of a wound. "You worthless bottom feeder!" screeched Cronus. "I'm going to get out of this, and when I do I'll– "
Nykerium slapped his hands together.
The whale began to bloom. Colorful growths of coral appeared all over its skin and started branching out. The rapidly spreading reef engulfed a howling Cronus, soon leaving only a hand and sickle visible.
Nykerium snapped his fingers and the coral stopped. He wrestled the glowing sickle from a tight grip and tossed it away. "Where you're going, you don't get to bring friends." He clapped again and the reef resumed growing. He turned to Royd and smiled a cracked smile. "Speaking of friends…"
Royd was having trouble processing everything that had just occurred. "You were the leaf?"
"I was. I am."
Royd massaged his temple. "What the– How– Why the deception?"
"Not entirely a deception. I simply reverted to a form I hadn't favored in a long while, that's all. Changed my accent too." Nykerium shrugged. "Why? Cronus is invasive, and you were already exposed to his influence. I didn't want to waste this chance."
"What chance?!"
"Cronus needed to be contained." He patted the still-expanding reef. "His power was growing, and when you came along I decided to make my move. I needed to hide myself in a red glow to enter into his realm unnoticed. That horde in orbit could have been a real problem for me."
"So you used me."
"Our causes were intertwined. The angry soul I met years ago wanted to get to Antares. The power invested in this world was, and is, the quickest way to get you there."
Royd frowned. "But you won't let me go there, will you? The laws you taught me forbid contact with the living."
"Is that still what you want?" muttered Nykerium. "To interfere in their affairs?"
"I…" Royd thought about it. "No. I don't want to influence them like Cronus influenced me." He scowled. "Not that you'd let me, right?"
Nykerium shrugged again. "The moral path should be chosen because it is the right direction to walk, not because it is dangerous to leave the road."
"Whatever. I don't want to deal with the living world. But I would still like to go to Antares. I bet the dead there can teach me a lot about this universe."
"So be it." He gestured to the storm. "I am going to fix what Cronus did to this planet and these souls, but it will take a very long while. I can harness this energy in the meantime, in a way that will not do any more spiritual damage to these poor fellows. To apologize for my deception, I would like to provide you a path to Antares."
Royd hesitated. "What about a path to Mars?"
"Doable. But why?"
"My father. My victims. I want to make right what I did. I want to try and find them and apologize."
Nykerium nodded. "A fine path. And if your father still lives, what then?"
"I'll wait. I'll stand by his side, even if he can't see me. And when he passes, I'll be there to guide him into death."
…
Royd rested in the splintering palace. Souls that had made up its foundation had begun to wander off since Cronus's imprisonment. An empire thousands of years and millions of souls in the making would crumble in a few decades.
Weeks had passed while Royd had waited for Nykerium to master the energies of the storm. He had kept busy by fighting off invaders from orbit, who had sensed the change in authority. He traced his hand over the hilt of Tycho. The sickle soul had been put in his care. Nykerium had thought Royd might be able to draw out the soul inside, to try and help him get out of the vengeful state Cronus's influence had left him in.
He sighed, stretched, and stood up. Turning around, he found himself face-to-face with Nykerium. "How's it coming?"
Nykerium had grown tall and gaunt. His churning robe was now complemented with tiny storm swirls of yellow Saturn clouds. The single eye that had previously shone too bright was now a clouded dull gray. "The preparations are complete. I am now the commander of Saturn, its rings, and this eternal storm in the north."
Royd nodded. "Great. I'll come back when I'm done on Mars. Might be a while though."
"Take your time. You do have eternity, after all."
That got a laugh out of him. "I do, don't I? And for the first time since I've died, I actually think I'm looking forward to that."
Nykerium's cracked smile emerged one more time. "Goodbye, my friend. I hope you find what you're looking for." He put a hand on Royd's shoulder.
The power of the storm surged into Royd, an uncontainable force. The energy arced out of him in an electric surge, creating a large hexagon surrounded by a circle. Stars, suns, and planets flashed through the portal. Royd looked back at Nykerium and raised an eyebrow. "I don't think the location's set for Mars."
"I only provided you with the door. It's up to you to decide where it opens."
The portal focused itself, not on a red planet, but on a massive red star. A smaller blue star was visible in the background, along with a planet. A planet with visible light pollution. This was Antares!
He wanted it so bad. The secrets of the afterlife and the universe, one step away.
And then he thought about his father, grieving in the courtroom.
The portal shifted to an orbital view of Mars. "Eternity, after all," he mused. Royd stepped on through.