The Wyrms of &alon

153.2 - Stories


I immediately recentered my consciousness, moving both Mr. Himichi and the seat of my awareness to a little daydream alley I whipped up on the spot. Outside, I continued on my way, though from the vantage point of the daydream alley, my body seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Taking a cue from our surroundings, I built a mental replica of the Undergreen Galleria, restored to its pristine, pre-apocalypse state. A gentle breeze wove its way through the galleria's central area, down from the pairs of stairs up to the surface at either end. Footsteps and conversations murmured on the simple, tiled floor like sunlight on water. Pretzels and donuts sat in the kiosks at the central area's fringes, warm and fresh.

The hustle and bustle was calming, like a lullaby.

I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it.

Mr. Himichi and I sat on benches on opposite sides of one of the central tables in the middle, with a clear view of the glass storefronts that overlooked the rest of the octagonal space. The magnaka removed his black beret and set it on the table, freeing his gray-struck hair. He kept his eyes on me, and his lips were tightly pursed, accentuating some of the wrinkles on his high-boned cheeks.

"Have you finished your… contemplations?" I asked, though I already knew he had.

He nodded. "I have."

"Are you finally ready to talk about it? At the risk of stating the obvious, what happened to us and what we learned in the process… it's all kind of a big deal."

He nodded solemnly. "I'm aware."

"I know it's a lot to deal with," I said, "but, you don't need to worry, about this, I mean, your existence here, not the rest of the world outside," I gestured at the real world hidden beyond our surroundings, "which is still really really complicated and really really stressful." I smiled, only to then frown.

"What is it?"

"Fudge," I muttered. "I forgot to tell the others about the possibly impending nuclear attack against the city, courtesy of Trenton's now-headless military."

"That's, uh… going to be quite the conversation," he said.

I sighed. "Don't remind me," I said, but then I shook my head and corrected myself. "Actually, please, remind me, especially once we finish this. There's just so much going on; it's easy to lose track of things."

"I can imagine."

"Thanks," I said. "And, remember, it goes both ways: if you ever need anything, just ask. I'll be here to help you every step of the way."

Sighing, Mr. Himichi nodded in a way that suggested he'd been expecting me to say what I'd just said.

"Speaking of which," he said, clearing his throat, "in a way… that's part of the problem."

"What?"

"You've read my work, Genneth. I'm no stranger to fantasticality. Granted," he tilted his hand to the side, "I never expected it to reach out and pull me into its sphere of influence, but…" he looked into the distance. "…I find that it's easier for me to swallow recent events if I treat them as if they're part of a story that I'm writing."

I lowered my voice to a whisper. "I mean, we spoke with God. Even I'm having trouble accepting that, and that's before you even get to what the Hallowed Beast actually had to say!"

I bit my lip. I'd be lying if I said Mr. Himichi wasn't making me nervous.

"So… what's been troubling you?" I asked.

Mr. Himichi stiffened his back and crossed his arms against his speckled gray vest. "Many things," he said, "but, most of all… Cat. Cat and Andalon."

"How so?"

He looked me in the eyes. "The night you found Kurt snooping around for food to fuel his changes, you went to a restroom. There, you discovered that your own transformation had begun. Then, Andalon appeared, as did the first wave of the blue flames that carry the connection to her greater self."

I nodded. "Yes, I remember."

"If you don't mind, could I have the ability to manipulate things here, the way you can?"

"Easy-peasy."

I willed him to have that power.

Raising his hand, Mr. Himichi tugged at the empty air. Wisps of color twined around his fingers. The wisps flowed into the space between us, where they coalesced into an image; a memory—one of my own.

We saw Andalon on the ground in front of me, back in that restroom on that fateful night.

"In, uh… in Catamander Brave—the Time Wyrms," she said. "The Time Wyrms helped Cat get home, right?" She smiled. "It's just like in Cat. By makin' you wyrmeh, I save you. I give you my powers, and you use them to save everybody else." But then, her smile tapered down, and her gaze wandered off. "You use them to save everybody else before everything's… gone." She ended in a whimper.

The memory vanished.

"At the time," Mr. Himichi said, "you were stunned that your favorite manga could have had anything to do with Andalon, the plague, or what was happening to you, Kurt, and Merritt."

"Right."

But Mr. Himichi shook his head. "And there's the rub," he said. "Genneth, I think you asked the wrong question."

"What do you mean?"

Gripping his chin, he rubbed his forefinger through his goatee. "Yes, the connection to Catamander Brave is important, but there was another, even more important mystery staring you in the face that you didn't see."

That immediately got me agitated. My posture stiffened.

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"What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"The real question—the one I've been asking—is: why does Andalon know about Catamander Brave at all? It makes no sense!" He slapped his hand on the tabletop. "Her amnesia and her general ignorance of so many of the details of life that you and I take for granted—that makes sense. What you've been interacting with all this time is only a portion of the greater entity we know as &alon. It's perfectly logical that a tiny piece of that greater whole would fail to know things that most people—and, indeed, most story characters—take for granted. She had no concept of seconds or years. Simple concepts like emotions, relations, peoples, places, and things? She was clueless about each and every one, until you ever so patiently explained them to her. But… despite that, she started out knowing about Catamander Brave. Why? How?" He raised a crooked finger. "She knew about my manga before she knew what eyes were. That's absurd." He nodded. "It demands an explanation."

"I…"

But I was at a loss for words.

I swallowed hard. "You're right. Angel…" my voice dropped to a whisper. "You're right." I shook my head. I was really freaking out now. I tugged at my lucky bowtie. "Why didn't I notice—"

I stuck my palms out at him. "—Wait. Wait."

"What is it?"

"The first time she appeared to me, it was in that dream. There was nothing connected to Cat in that. But, the second time she appeared to me? After I had the grand mal seizure that marked the start of my transformation into a wyrm? When that happened, I dreamed I was reading the first chapter of Cat's first volume to my kids. Andalon appeared to me in that dream, and asked me if Cat ever made it home. She could have learned about Cat from that dream of mine. She heard the story, too!"

"Yes," Mr. Himichi said, "I know. Unfortunately, that observation doesn't explain the facts. We know Andalon recovers more of her memories and abilities with every arrival of the blue flames. After that first batch appeared to you in the restroom, she said: 'The Time Wyrms helped Cat get home'."

The moment in question played out before us.

"Yes."

"Genneth: that means she knew the ending! Moreover, considering that she only said that after that first batch of flames strengthened her connection to her greater self, it stands to reason that her knowledge of the manga's ending came to her from Ampersandalon herself."

I started to panic.

"Wait, maybe she only knew it because she read it off my thoughts. She's gained knowledge from my mind directly before. It could have happened there."

"No, it couldn't have." Mr. Himichi shook his head. "From the Incursion, Kléothag, and—most of all—from Andalon herself, we know that our world is not the first world the fungus has destroyed, nor are you and the others the first crop of wyrms that Andalon has ever made. It's all happened before. Whatever your relation to this is, Andalon's knowledge of Catamander Brave precedes it.

The hair on my neck stood on end.

"Fricassee me," I muttered.

"Don't blame yourself." Mr. Himichi shook his head. You were—and still are—under a great deal of stress, and this history has so many twists and turns. In something like this, we should expect there to be mistakes and oversights.

I palmed my forehead. "Just when I think I've solved the mystery, whole new holes start opening up!" I groaned. "Do you have any idea what her knowledge of Cat might mean? Or why she has it in the first place?"

"Don't rush me," he said, raising his finger again.

Next, he made a point of light appear between us. An image of the cover for Volume 1 of Catamander Brave hovered above that point.

"For your second question, I think Kléothag is the missing link that pulled Cat into this mess."

Moving his finger sideways, Mr. Himichi traced out a line of light from that first point, ending it in another point, over which an image of his kaiju alter-ego appeared, shells, feathers, and all.

"As you know, the ideas for Cat's story came to me in a dream. I now know that dream was, in part, the experience you and I had in the Noyoko of the other world: turning into kaiju, hearing my other self's words, seeing Kléothag fight that evil."

Mr. Himichi created another line of light, ending at a third point, over which the figure of the Hallowed Beast appeared in all His glory.

I lowered my head in reverence and made the Bond-sign

"Kléothag interacted with Kosuke. He gave that other version of myself a message to share with me and any other versions of me that might have been listening. My misinterpretation of that information is what led me to create Catamander Brave."

Himichi pointed his finger at the three points of light, one at a time. "Kléothag, Kosuke, Cat."

"Right," I said, "but where does Andalon fit in?"

Gesturing at the copy of Catamander, Mr. Himichi made two more points of light appear beyond it, causing the light-path to fork. An image of Andalon appeared over one of the points; over the other, a likeness of the Holy Angel.

Mr. Himichi pointed at the gap between Cat and Andalon. "It's this link that makes no sense."

"I was thinking that Cat's wyrms were, in some way, a depiction of Andalon's wyrms," I said.

"No." Mr. Himichi shook his head. "I refuse to accept that."

"Why?"

"Those flame-winged serpents Kléothag summoned, the urubi—they were what inspired me to create Cat's wyrms. I remembered them, even while I was still alive. But," his expression turned fretful, "from what Andalon told you, her wyrms were inspired by Cat's, not the other way around." He exhaled sharply.

"I'd considered that, too," I said, "but… it makes no sense to me. Which sounds more plausible to you, that Andalon created her wyrms to save souls from the fungus, and, somehow, your story divined that fact before she or the fungus ever arrived on our world, or that Catamander Brave existed before Andalon made her wyrms, and inspired her to do so? Obviously, it has to be the former. She's a piece of God, why would sh—…"

But then my jaw went slack.

"Oh fudge…"

"You see it too, don't you?" he said.

I nodded grimly. "Andalon must be either allied with Kléothag or working toward similar goals."

"I agree," Mr. Himichi said. "Considering the connection between Catamander Brave and Kléothag—however corrupted or tenuous it might be—it makes sense that Andalon would be drawn to it. Like seeks like, after all."

I lowered my shoulders, forcing myself to relax my posture. The effort met with middling success.

"Why do I get the feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg?" I said.

Sighing, Mr. Himichi furrowed his brow. "The rest of the iceberg is the other link." He pointed at the point of light next to the Angel's likeness. "If you asked me which better described Andalon's wyrms, my story, or Lassedile mythology, I'd pick the mythology, ten times out of ten. Both the wyrms and Lassedile Norms gather souls."

"So do the Time Wyrms," I said.

"Yes, but that's something I came up with." Mr. Himichi pressed his thumb into his gray vest. "It has nothing to do with the divine source that inspired Cat in the first place. Ergo, somehow, the Norms must be a reflection of Andalon's wyrms, not Cat's."

I raised my voice; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "But… Andalon's wyrms are a force for good just like they are in Catamander Brave, and Norms are evil, just like the fungus is—and that evil is recorded in Lassedile mythology. It shows the threat the fungus poses, and those silver-eyed wyrms are definitely a threat."

"Though I have no solid proof," Mr. Himichi said, "circumstantial evidence is in favor of the interpretation that the Angel came to warn us about the wyrms, fungus or no."

I groaned. "The problem is in communication itself. Messages aren't transmitted flawlessly. Things change. Ideas get transmuted as they pass from person to person, and that's before you take into account people who willingly alter messages. Knowing that Lassedile mythology was wrong about something as fundamental as the number of Holy Angels, all of its claims are now suspect."

Mr. Himichi nodded. "And you're absolutely right. But…" he sighed, "…still, my worries remain." He dismissed the images and lights with a wave of his hand.

I looked him in the eyes. "You're right. This…" I looked up. "Fudge, this is a lot. It's exactly what I didn't need, exactly when I didn't need it. Still," I managed to eke out a meek smile, "thank you for telling me." I paused for a moment to consider my next steps.

"Do you feel better, at least?" I asked him.

After some initial hesitation, he sighed and then nodded. "Better than before, certainly, and as best as could be hoped for considering the circumstances."

"I can roll with that," I said, as I got up from my seat.

"So… what are you going to do now?" he asked.

"To say my goodbyes."

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