Chapter Text

---

Miss Delmutt And The Wiltshire Dog

Present

---

Delmutt had grown fond of this world, in the week since coming here. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her home, but- everything here was so private . At home everything that grew lived and died on information, in one way or another. Every time she went into the forests around her house, every footfall, every blow of the axe- it was recorded somewhere , in some form, as a vibration or a change in a growth pattern or simply in the dumb light receptors that grew in some of the more exotic foliage. None of it codified , no part used to stimulate a coherent thought, but still. The forest watched her, kept her. She felt like a great beast trundling through fog, sending out ripples and eddies no matter what she did.

Here the biology of earth’s flora converted light into chemical energy, somehow- and yet, thought still existed! But it felt so much more polite, more demure. Like the world wasn’t watching over her shoulder at every waking moment. Wasn’t built from observations of her. She liked that- like some great spring inside her was uncoiling here, for the first time in her life.

Or it would have been, except for the people. Humans . Delmutt had always thought her people were unreasonable and violent. And perhaps she was being unfair. The humans she’d met were being driven beyond all reason by gods and monsters come to torment and exploit them. Their whole civilization was collapsing. But so is ours, and we don’t rise up against each other. We build and cooperate. We offer them no harm and still they threaten us- convenient patsies, for this disaster. She would not condemn the entire race- Sean and Haley fought for her, after all- but she suspected that once all of this was over, the only safe place for infomorph-kind would be a land far away from humanity. Luckily, she had a plan- had hatched it as soon as she’d seen Haley’s new world.

She waved goodbye to the other three, as they pulled away in their pickup truck. Then she turned to the Dog, who considered her silently. They still weren’t friends- she still wasn’t even comfortable in his presence- but she was glad of the company right now, in the blasted field outside their recent bunker-home. “Well,” she said, “let’s try to do this the easy way.” Thinking hard at the ring on one of her forelimbs, she instructed it- bring all of the infomorphs from the stadium to Haley’s dimension. It had been pointed out that the lifespan of even the long lived infomorphs in that greatly-accelerated place would be measured in hours, from the outside. But for a species apart, in need of a home- a century or two of isolation in a planet to call their own, with wishes to serve their needs? It did not sound so terrible to her. They were not so bound to this time, this dimension, as all that. And perhaps they could meet this world on more even footing, should they decide to reconnect.

Within milliseconds, the answer came back from Haley’s simulacrum assigned as her telepathic relay. Delmutt turned to the Dog. “Didn’t work. None of the ‘morphs in the stadium can be targeted by her magic. The Efreet said it was like reality in that location had gone soft.” She felt like these wish rings had been oversold a bit- sure, ultimate localized control over reality was nice, but there were so many restrictions!

The Dog nodded, completely unsurprised. “Stories and stories again. Your people declined to participate in Her story, once before. Now they have gathered in such numbers that they’ve thinned the walls of the world, and Aslan is using that to his advantage. You will have to steal them out from under him.”

Delmutt hated the way he spoke in riddles and roundabout suggestions, like he always knew more than he was letting on but was too superior to just tell anyone flat out. “So you’re saying we have to go there in person?”

The great blue canine paced away from her. “We were always going to have to. This story lacks a climax, otherwise.”

Alright, she’d had it. She stomped the three feet on her right side petulantly and stared after him. “ You! Just say what you know, damn it! I don’t care how clever you think you’re being! Real lives are in danger here, and I can’t trust you. If you know what’s going to happen, tell me and let’s prepare for it!”

He turned back, and what she saw there broke her heart. Pain, loss, madness and despair. “The problem with being metafictional,” he said, “is that there are boundaries one cannot cross. I am less constrained than any of you in some dimensions- yet more restricted than all, in others. I tell you what I can, when I can, and to know more might break your heart. Or worse yet, the narrative.” He looked away. “Trust me when I say there are some things we do better not to see coming.” Far in the distance, storm clouds flashed and the guns of war rumbled.

----

They Gated into the vicinity of the parking lot at what had been the stadium. At first Delmutt thought they’d made a mistake, because the building in front of her was not the human colosseum they’d left, once upon a time. It towered, rising story after story, miles into the air. It menaced with buttresses of inscribed stone. It stunned with parapets adorned with flags of every description. From every level, arches and windows and promenades and great balconies large enough to encompass the entire parking lot could be seen. At the base, a mile wide or more, great gates stood a hundred feet tall and here, at last, she realized where she was. The human soldiers were still here, the same that had fired on her some days earlier. They surrounded the building in makeshift fortifications, but they also manned its walls. Combat had already begun- to the East, on the opposite side from Delmutt and the Dog, a great army was sieging the palace. Fire streaked back and forth and the sound of gunfire, even through the bulk of the stone, was deafening. “It changed,” she breathed.

“Cair Paravel,” said the Dog. “He summons his seat into this world. He knows it intimately, they will not be able to hold it. We need to find your friends.” With a gesture, she layered both of them in invisibility and undetectability spells. While the rest of the people in this place might not be susceptible to direct magics, Delmutt and the Dog were, and nobody here should be able to see an object that scattered no light. With deft timing and one arm over his shoulders to avoid getting separated, she and the Dog were able to negotiate their way past the gates and inside. The fortress shook, rang with collisions as the thunder of great guns beat on it from without. Past the first gate, they found themselves in a maze of marble and stained glass. Soldiers moved frantically up and down the halls, carrying orders and ammunition. A stretcher rushed past them, carrying a wounded man- burns covered half his body. “Follow him,” said the Dog. “He’ll take you to your people.” He ducked from under her.

“And you?” she asked, still suspicious. “Where will you go, in our time of need?”

“Where I’m needed most,” he said simply, and then he was gone. She hissed in frustration but she had no time to cry out, to search for invisible canines- whatever treachery he had planned, it would have to wait. Or perhaps it’s time to trust him. Not everyone was an enemy, after all. Either way the burned man was being carried around a corner and out of sight. She rushed to follow. Sure enough, within a few turns they had emerged in a vast inner courtyard- it had warped as well, but it still looked suspiciously like the sports field she had last seen. Her people were gathered there. Their nests numbered in the thousands, breeding pits now bearing makeshift covers to shelter them from falling debris. The burned man was hustled into a medical tent to one side of the space, where casualties of the battle now raging outside were being held. The armed guard on the surviving infomorphs was very light- presumably they had all been drawn away to the disaster outside. No more than a few dozen looked out over the whole field from raised positions. She supposed it wasn’t as if the infomorphs had very many ways to escape, as far as the humans knew.

“Perhaps it’s time to fix that,” she said to herself. She dropped her cloak of invisibility, appearing among the teeming masses, just one more face barely even drawing odd looks from those around her as they scurried. She grabbed a passerby. “Ayen, Larmutt, Dainbex! Any of the three! Have you seen them?” Within minutes she was within their presence- which was good, because the war without seemed to be intensifying. As she was hustled toward them, she realized that all of the infomorph activity she’d seen was to a purpose- they were coordinating, streaming in and out of a makeshift encampment located next to one of the breeding camps. Inside she found Ayen, and Dainbex.

There was no time for greetings. “Larmutt is dead,” said Ayen, as soon as the three were alone together. “They found him with the phone this morning and executed him. They’ve killed anyone who resists, or questions, or simply moves wrong. We don’t think it is the soldiers- they seem ashamed of their actions. Their commander though, the one they call ‘Colonel.’ He is driven like a man possessed. He thinks we are demons of his religion. But he fights this so-called savior as well. Some of his own think he is mad. I’m not sure I disagree.” It gestured out of the tent where a line of infomorphs waited to distribute orders. “We are ready to move, but I hope you have more than simply yourself- we cannot hope to fight our way out of here, not with an army around us and another outside.”

She lowered her head briefly in mourning for a lost comrade. It’d been of the same clan, but she did not know it, not well. Still, a brave soul, taken too soon. Delmutt shook her head. “No need to fight. How many are working with you?”

Ayen clacked its mandibles in the morphish equivalent of a tight smile. Delmutt reflected, privately, on how long it felt like since she’d last talked to one of her own kind. “Oh. Everyone. Once they understood the stakes, they were all on board. They will do as we tell them, if you have a plan.”

Good, that was good. “Send out runners. Have them form a line and enter the tent. Keep it as disorderly as possible to avoid suspicion. I will open a portal here- get them through it, into the safe place.” So saying, she willed and a ring of light manifested in the air before them. The others muttered and stepped back, as it resolved into a view of a beautiful, empty light forest. It stood upright in the tent, ten feet across, with no visible means of support.

“What is that place?” asked Dainbex.

“Just a vestibule to a better world,” said Delmutt offhandedly. “We should all be used to those by now. Get them through the door. When they’re all in, I’ll bring us into our new home as one.” And avoid the time dilation issues from all of us streaming in one after another, she thought.

And they were used to it, to their credit. Delmutt stood outside and watched as runners raced out, and the field began to empty steadily. Her heart was in her throat- the end felt near- as one by one they entered that tent and did not re-emerge. The thunder and crash from outside sounded louder, and the stream of human casualties to one side of the tent did not abate. It was hard to think of them as enemy just then, even knowing the murders they’d inflicted on her people, would inflict again without hesitation. Right now they die to give us time, even if they don’t know it. “When did the stadium begin to change?” She asked Ayen, as they stood nearby and issued additional orders.

The infomorph cocked its head to the side, puzzled. “Change? What do you mean?” Delmutt didn’t know how to answer the question. Did he alter it in your memories, as well ? She remembered well enough how it used to look, but after asking around, apparently nobody else who’d stayed here could recall. They did not even think to question why an impossible castle would exist here at the edge of a modern human city. This must be what the Efreet meant by reality softening. It wasn’t just the present he was rearranging, but the structure of the world itself. She began to understand why a victory for Aslan was such a terrifying prospect for Haley and the others. It might be like none of us ever existed, she thought.

In their embattled state it took the humans longer than it should have to notice the prison break. But when the infomorph presence had thinned to just a few thousand, there were shouts from the galleries overlooking the great field. Delmutt willed again, and great screens of force sprang up on all sides of the remaining refugees. Absent the need to maintain the illusion of disorder anymore, they picked up the pace. Among those last to leave were the breeding pits, eggs carefully packaged onto pallets and lifted by 4-morph teams who did not flinch, even as bullets began to crack into the blue screens and soldiers began to storm onto the field proper.

Delmutt stood in the center, amid the streaming morphs and flying bullets, and kept the screens up. She watched almost idly as the soldiers tested the barricades. She had no real way of knowing if they would hold, but if Haley’s magic could make a world just this morning, surely it could stop a few bullets? There she stood still, head held high, when the Colonel finally made his presence known several minutes later. He walked straight out onto the field from the same entrance she had used, not even carrying a weapon. He had no fear at all- he simply walked towards her, until the screens stopped him closing any further. He tapped at them, looked at her. “So,” he said with open contempt. “Leaving after all? Our souls didn’t suit you, in the end?”

She looked at him with pity. He was collected, cool, and utterly broken. Something behind his eyes was just… missing, and she couldn’t tell if it had happened during the chaos of the last week… or long, long before. “They never suited us. You’ll note that even as we leave, we do you no harm. Whatever you thought of us, you thought wrong.”

He waved it away. “Come off it. You’re saying that thing out there isn’t harm? You brought that. You were spawned by this apocalypse. No amount of peaceful intent can wave away what you are. The ruin of half our species is tied up with your existence.”

She shook her head sadly. “You see enemies wherever you look. We were hunted by the creatures of Wonderland, we would be slaughtered just as readily by the Lion. Your own people offered us death at the end of their guns. So few humans have simply tried to help us, taken us for who we are, or even ignored us entirely- we would accept all three. I’ll be honest, Colonel, I don’t much feel like talking to you. We are leaving and you can’t stop us. I think, after all I’ve seen, that I should hate you. But I will simply wish you good luck, and goodbye.”

She turned then, and prepared to follow the last of her people as they streamed into the tent and gate. But he caught her with one final sentence. “I could, you know. Stop you.” She paused, turned her vessel’s head back to him. He was speaking in a dreamlike way, almost sing-song, staring off into nothing. Absolutely mad. “There’s a bomb. Right under this very field, just a few feet down, in the tunnels. It’ll take this whole castle and a good chunk of the city with it. The red-eyed man gave me the idea, in a dream. I could set it off any time, reduce you and everything else here to ash.” He came back from whatever fantasy he was in, looked at her, and she no longer felt any pity at what she saw in his eyes. “But I have to be sure. I have to be sure. ”

She turned and left him there, to whatever bleak victory he saw on the horizon. Her people would build, in another world, and they would come again.

---

Sean And Haley

4 Years Ago

---

“ Sean! You can’t run from this!” I called from my office at the top of the stairs. He was storming down to the kitchen, probably to make angry waffles. The man made the best waffles I’d ever eaten but he could only do it when he was pissed off. It was uncanny. I didn’t try to make him mad on purpose, but- “We have to talk about my Death Plan eventually!” -there were some things that were basically guaranteed to do it.

He shouted over his shoulder as he stormed down the stairs. “We don’t and we’re not going to! You’re thirty-three and I’m not even going to contemplate the possibility of your death for decades, at the least.”

I walked after him. “But what if something happens? You can’t account for everything, and I’ve been watching this mortician on youtube who talks about how important it is to have these plans and discuss them.”

He rounded the corner and stormed into the kitchen, where I head cabinets banging. Yes, come to me, waffles. “Then write your plan down and put it in a folder marked ‘Read in case of unfortunate brain hemorrhage.’ We’ll stick the will in there, and anything else that I never, ever want to think about.”

I came to the door and watched him work, but stayed out of his way. I knew this argument by heart, of course. He was paralyzed by the concept of death. I’d always found that a bit frustrating- I, as an aspiring rationalist, rejected the inevitability of death, and hoped that one day we as a species might overcome it. Sean agreed with me on that but he also feared it, on a personal level. He wouldn’t discuss it, wouldn’t consider it. He’d bury it in waffles if he could. I limited these conversations to once or twice a year, out of fear for his blood pressure if I got him stress eating too often. “Okay, I’ll do that. If you’ll write one too.”

He shrugged angrily, how do you even do that angrily, already mixing ingredients in one of our bigger bowls. “Why? We’re never having kids. We’re the end of the line. If I ever lose you I doubt I’m going to be sticking around long enough to-” he paused, realizing what he was saying. “I mean. Neither of us believes in an afterlife. But there are some things that I think oblivion would be preferable to,” he tried to justify.

I walked up and hugged him from behind. He continued stirring and I enjoyed feeling the movement of his back against me. “You lived twenty-five years without me, you could live the rest of your life if you had to. And I wouldn’t give up, if you went first. I’d want to know how you wanted to be mourned.” The stirring stopped. I couldn’t see his face, or his expression, but I wanted to continue. “Let me tell you a story.”

He put the bowl down, and I paced away from him. I did all my best long-winded ranting when I was pacing. “When I was young, I was still going to church with my dad- after mom stopped going, I think he went as a social thing. But the lesson that day was the second coming, how Jesus was going to come back someday and snatch us all up. And it scared me, as a little kid- I didn’t want some guy to show up and tell me it was time to die! I asked my dad, why is he going to come back? Why didn’t he set it all the way he wanted the first time?” I’d already made two loops around that tiny kitchen- we hadn’t moved to the bigger place, back then- and Sean finally came over and stilled my pacing, taking me by the arms.

I looked up at him. “It was the first time Dad ever contradicted the church to me. He said ‘I don’t think he’s coming back,’ and I asked him why not. He said, ‘I think it’s an excuse. It’s a thing we tell ourselves, so we don’t have to think about what we’d do if we only got the one visit. We’re pretty sure he already came and died to tell us how to live right, but we didn’t pay enough attention. So we say ‘It’s okay, he’ll be back,’ like that would fix anything. He could come back a hundred times, and it wouldn’t change us because there’d always be one more. One and done, honey. Live a good life like this, and love the people around you like you get one shot at it. Do it because it should be done.”

Sean stared at me as I teared up. He got that sheepish grin on his face, the one where he wasn’t quite following but was embarrassed about it. “And the relevance to your death plan is…?”

I sighed and leaned into him. “If our gods only get one, why should we get more? We can’t put death off, can’t hide from it, can’t plan to give up if it doesn’t shake out the way we want. I’d like to live forever with you. We’ll call that Plan A. But even if you weren’t coming back- I’d go on, because I have to pre-commit to that if I want to live now. Plan B is me committing to doing it right the first time.”

He held me tight so I couldn’t see the inevitable smirk creeping onto his face. “Live like you were dying?”

I smacked him on the chest. “ Tim Mcgraw? Really? You’re not sidetracking me so easily. Death Plan or waffles, mister, get cracking.” He laughed and turned back to the mixing bowl. I resumed my pacing, already anticipating the sweet scent of the batter meeting the iron.

---

Charles Kaur

Present

---

It had been at least two days since Charles Kaur had last slept for more than an hour at a stretch, a fact which was not helping his splitting headache. But he couldn’t risk another encounter in his dreams. Every thump of artillery and mortar seemed to throb in his head, making the world pulse and twitch in ways that had stopped feeling aggravating a while ago, and simply begun to feel like reality . The whole structure of the castle seemed alive around him. Like the guts of a great beast slowly waking up, with him on the inside. Voluntarily marching to our deaths in its bowels, he thought, and chuckled. The Captain, who’d run to his side as he stood on the now-empty field in the courtyard of the tower, looked at him worriedly. “Sir?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Nothing, Captain. Just… coping, with all of this.” I declared war on my own god . Does it really matter what happens, after that?

The Captain’s face expressed all the doubt that he was as-yet unwilling to voice. “Sir this position is compromised. They have paths into this structure that we can’t detect. I’m losing contact left and right, people getting cut off in the middle of our defenses. We have assistance from civilians but… we need to fall back.”

The Colonel was only half listening, but he caught this last and immediately dismissed it out of hand. “No, no. We hold here. He wants to be here . Nothing else matters.”

The Captain stepped away from him and, almost casually, half-turned away. Charles was no fool. He could see the man’s hand going for the pistol he kept on his hip. “Sir, you are asking all of us to commit suicide against an impossible monster and an army of fanatics and you still haven’t explained why. A week ago this city hadn’t seen a war in a century and a half. Religious arguments aren’t going to cut it. We penned up the bugs, we fought on the highway. My men have died to carry out your orders and I am starting to suspect your judgement is extremely compromised. ” Charles was quietly impressed- he’d begun to think that Captain Kitchener didn’t have it in him, to question the chain of command. How unfortunate that it’s come so late.

Charles turned from the captain. “The chairs, Roy.” He gestured upward. “In the highest room of this tower. Have you seen them?” Roy nodded, warily. Charles couldn’t quite remember when this tower had been built, or why . He knew they had to defend it. He had an enemy and a mission and his life made no sense even so. Maybe He just needed someone to fight against, in the end. Maybe I was convenient to him, and He’ll forgive me. But another part of him was still in rebellion. “He needs the chairs. He wants to put my kids on them. Needs to, to win. But I’ll be here, and I’ll blow them out from under him. I’ll bring the whole thing down before I let him have it.”

Captain Kitchener considered, for a moment. “And your kids, sir?”

Charles giggled madly. “We don’t negotiate with hostage-takers, Captain. They were dead the moment he got his paws on them.”

Roy Kitchener came to a decision. A man who was capable of bombing his own children to win an inexplicable war… Who could trust that judgement? He pulled his pistol and levelled it at Charles. “Colonel Kaur, I am relieving you of command.” With his free hand he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Haley, there’s a nuclear device in the service tunnels. You were right, the Colonel is unfit.”

Charles turned to him with a manic grin. “Will you kill me now, Captain? I’m not even sure where I’ll go, when this is over. God didn’t ask even Isaac to sacrifice all of his children, how could I not have opposed him? How could any righteous man not have?”

“A righteous man understands obedience, Charles Kaur,” came the rumbled words. A flare like the rising of a new day’s sun came from the field, and stepping from it to stand before them was the great Lion in all his terrible glory. He was twice the size of a man. He was a hundred feet tall. He was so bright and right and good that Charles fell to his knees and wept- even now he could not repent. Blood caked his side but he was whole. Around him armed men bearing his heraldry began to sweep out, securing the perimeter, the tent with the hospital unit. Shots rang out as the last of his soldiers died or were driven off, but still he lived. The Lion spoke to him directly for the second time. “I can understand your hesitation. Your children are safe. They move to the top of the tower.” An image formed, in Charles’ mind. A man in a black hoodie and cowboy boots was dragging a small procession of armed men and children up one of the many staircases in the tower. The children were struggling, unable to escape the grasp of the men who carried them, but they were alive .

Roy was shouting into his phone now but Charles didn’t hear his words. He wept openly. He’d never been an emotive father, but to see them one last time… and to know there was no hope, even now. How could he not weep? His children. He had never been a good father, or even a present father. But they were his, and he was theirs, and he felt a bond that ran deeper even than his love for the faith in which he was raised. Even as he watched them, his grip tightened on the trigger he kept in his pocket. Alive was not the same as free, and they would never be free while the Lion existed. At the very least, they wouldn’t feel it. It would be quick. “For Hunter,” he muttered.

But his hand was stayed, by a final flash of light- this time golden instead of radiant, like the setting sun. The walls of the tower around them were bathed in a warm yellow glow as a portal opened across the field from Aslan and the men on the grass levelled their weapons.

They didn’t even slow me down.