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Dreams are golden, and dreams are black, and in the nighttime,
when all is still and only the movement, almost subliminal, far, far,
below, is heard, then, and only then, dreams
are silver-
Not a color, no, a surface, mirror. Mirrors aren't a color, but this one is, almost, a wail of photons denied their straight and true path, slammed backwards by the wall of- what hue? It can be any, as long as it is smooth enough- this one is darker, onyx, black, nighttime, black with the winds of the Spinside cutting down from the heights and reaches of the City, and then it is also silvery, cutting, whispering, the roar (far away) of the Web and the thrumming call of the Angel's Ride, and Shan and Marren and those within Circles can feel the scream of TRUE LIFE-
The fragment ended there. Det. Sgt. Mtubi turned it between his
fingers, feeling the rasping touch of the coarse paper. Industrial,
no doubt- brown, and textured like a heavy wrapping paper. He turned
wearily in his chair to face his subordinate across the desk.
"Really, Harris...the occult? I thought you'd a bit more of a sense of class than that." The fingers parted and the paper fell to the desktop, a grand lifespan of nine inches before sighing slowly to a plane on the green blotter. The other shifted nervously in his chair.
"Sir, it's from...it was found, rather, on a Transit platform two nights ago. That same night, a passenger waiting on the platform swore he saw one Marren Kindart. She's a missing person, been open filed for...um, five months now."
Mtubi leaned slowly back in his chair and delivered an expectant and encouraging smile which fooled neither of them over the hands laced below his chin. "And you believe the two are connected in some way. Well, Harris, no doubt you'll explain to me in your own good time why you, with your finely tuned skills as a police observer, feel this to be true. Mmm?"
Harris fidgeted nervously. "Well, sir, this person...I mean, this passenger, only saw this Kindart for a few moments, but at the time, she was, ah, in midair. Behind a Transit capsule." He leaned forward, his rising excitement crowding out his observation that his Sergeant was leaning further backward in his chair with a sour expression. "Y'see, sir, the capsule didn't stop at this station, and as it went through, he saw Kindart suspended in the air behind it, almost like she was being pulled along. He said-" (the notebook rustled as it left its nest in Harris' pocket) "- he said that, quote, her arms and feet were glowing, and that she was wearing a leather jacket and pants, with large sunglasses, and I saw her turn to look at me, and she smiled,like I was something sad, and then she was gone, unquote. He, uh, picked out Kindart's picture from a random selection, sir. Said he was definitely sure." Harris ran down, and looked sheepish as he settled back into his seat.
His superior waited a moment with his elbow on the chair arm, one finger on his cheek, before answering. "Harris, this is a direct order:" (leaning forward, now) "forget it. Okay? There are no Circleriders or whatever you wish to label them, whizzing about underneath our streets and ways." He began to sort through the paperwork on his desk. "Now, go back to work. And-" he tossed the other the wad of paper he'd crumpled "-take this with you." Harris, about to reply, thought better of it and exited without a last word.
The Angel, now, it knows, and it knows the story of Shan its son and of the Trog who gave and the Circle which brings and the Web which holds. Beauty and the God of Mag, the Goddess of Celrator, and the singing speed of Ride that carves a glowing tunnel in the nighttime blackness of the Web, all are reasons. Reasons for the Ride, and the Circles, and the Web, and the Angel. Others, though, Planars, do not agree- each, they say, is separate, and some are not at all. Some are only in the dreamtime, and some are only in the nighttime, and some are Trog, and some are not. At all.
Shan sang as he waited, a wordless murmer of song and hum, perched atop the Web. The Dreams had not come for many hours, and a Ride was near. Far away, he could feel the thrumming song of the Angel as it approached to stir him in the Web. Ride was coming. Dreams came with the Ride. He hadn't seen Marren in many days, and he felt that this Ride, he would. Grinning, he tensed his knees and prepared to fall.
Mtubi hated Transit. He had been born far from the City, with a sky above him and room around him, and the walls and ceilings of cold earth and grey concrete never failed to irritate him. Usually he avoided Transit, but there were times, he admitted to himself with a sigh, when it awas unavoidable. A Meeting across City on department budgets, and no official Policars available to ferry him across, both contributed to his being here on the Transit platform, and thus, to his irritation. He stared across the empty skeletal tube of the Capsule Track, and idly examined the wall beyond. It was stained with water tracks, and with occasional smudges of dirt and with numerous stenciled and hastily drawn numerics which undoubtedly meant something to the workers who maintained Transit, but meant nothing to the irritated policeman reading them. Still no sign of a Capsule.
The Web was singing strongly, now, and the Angel was coming. Dreams worked within him, the yellow and silver and red and white coloring him softly as the brush of Light first touched his body, and then there was a bright high laughing crash as the Angel rushed by beneath him, and called to him as it went. There were words, now, words he hadn't been sung to with before, from the Angel especially, as it tore through the troglodytic nighttime with a will of Steel and a laugh of Dream silver. Shan, it sang. Shan Shan Shan Shan Shan will he won't he will he won't he come along come along come along.
The Web vanished from beneath him as he was used to, and the Floor rushed up towards him, but before he could reach it the Light caught him by the hands, and pulled as if it meant to have his arms, and as he ceased to fall the Ride reached his waist and his ankles and the Circles glowed there fiercely, the Light flowing across his body in sinuous curves of shimmering pearlescent improbability. Faster, now, the Angel growing before him as he watched the Ring steady down to its normal position just behind the grey circle of the Angel. Still, it sang- Shan Shan Shan Shan hear hear hear hear we we we we more more more more than one than one than One than ONE!the song went, as it forced it way from his head to his torso and thence on to his feet, causing him to feel his ankles throbbing with the power of it and the melody burned his soul. He cried out, perhaps, for he coudn't be sure, and reached for Marren with all his will and Light, and the grey circle of the Angel spun, exposing her face before him, frozen in mid-laugh, and as he reached for her, there was a rending within him, a breaking. His body fragmented and spun past itself in whorls of frozen time and broken Light, as Marren's face animated and turned towards him questioningly, alarm washing over her features as she reached for him and the vision faded- Shan smiled apologetically over four cubic meters of the Web, and looked ahead of him as the Ring of Light, impossibly, shattered, the shards falling outwards and back past him as he rushed along for a fraction of a fragment of a damaged second, and the grey Angel, with no Ring around it, sank quickly to the Floor of the Web, and a long tongue of Light, no, it was flame, poured from its bottom. Shan barely had time to notice the lights around him of the stopping place, which he had never ridden through as the Angel had never carried him. Then the Angel itself was fragmenting, and grey sections outlined in MagLight and DreamLight were pouring past him as he sank quickly towards the Floor of the Web, and before he could touch the Floor, a fragile butterfly of a creature without the Steel silkiness of the Light and the will of Mag to touch him lightly, he screamed and reached, and the Circle within himself flared into nascence before him, and before he could think it where to take him, he flashed through it-
The rumble had begun normally, a throbbing that began from far off down the tunnel. Mtubi blinked to rouse himself from the semidoze that had claimed his consciousness while waiting, and looked down the tunnel to the approaching light. As he watched, there was a subliminal shudder, and he instinctively stepped back from the platform's edge to nearer the back wall. With a shuddering scream of air and stressed metal, the Capsule shot into view at the end of the station. Much too fast was all Mtubi had time to think before it struck the bottom and began to tumble, tearing aside tube ring supports like matchsticks as it dove for the other end of the Station.
It was past in a flash of fire and shrapnel, the parts of the damaged rings fluttering in its wake, and Mtubi was just beginning his automatic duck, when the figure in the jacket flashed past after the disintegrating capsule. The Detective was so shocked he stood up straight again suddenly, staring after the figure in the air as it slashed through a white circle of light that hadn't been in front of it a moment before, and vanished. The Capsule was busily demolishing the other end of the Station, and Mtubi was still staring openmouthed at the spot where the figure had disappeared. He had time to think to himself How extremely fascinatingly impossible when the section of web that had been meant for him caught him in the back of the head and flung him headfirst into a much more reddish world of pain and fewer thoughts.
Speed is the wine, and the Dreams are the meat of the Ride, the endless singing aerial dance behind the grey multichromed smooth constant jagged random loving backface of the Angel, the face that the Riders see and come to know and revere as it pulls them bodily backwards through the artificial night that they have come to live in and to sing to. Mag and Celrator and the others that grab and pull and spin and turn and thrust and send the Riders whirling through the underdark, those are the ones who wield the power Below, where the Planars never come, and only an occasional Trog disturbs the perfect grey blackness of the nighttime in the Web which clings to it in a shimmering not-quite-seen curtain of impossibility.
That is not a word of Below, rather, it is a word of the Planars, when they see something they do not understand, cannot touch and feel and reason without thinking about in their slow and boring fashion. They use it quite often, for really, they are confused quite often, with no Dreams to part the silver curtain of the impossible and show them the chroma of the wonderful, and they shake their heads and go about their business Above or Below and say not a word about the Riders, disbelieving in those who are more fortunate than they.
Sometimes, however, a Planar will try to exercise power in the Below, in the Web, and it is then that the Riders of the Angel must rouse themselves with their Dream and go forth to gently take those who have brought the world Above to Below, and show them beyond the Curtain. Not all of them understand, some of them refuse to understand so vigorously they fall, asleep in the sleep-that-is-not-sleep, in the coma of unreasoning death and do not Dream, not one bit, not at all.
"Sarge, wait, don't try to talk yet. Here, they said you'd need to drink this when you woke up." Harris rose from his seat and offered a paper cup to the other, who took it with a (painful) nod of thanks, and sipped. It tasted awful, bitter and sour and sweet and salty and brown and green and not pleasant until the first sip washed down and he realized it was water, cool and clear and pure and filtered and wet, and he tossed off the rest in one gulp which hurt his head but made his stomach feel much better. Harris sat back down as he lay back against the pillow.
"What happened to the Capsule?" Mtubi finally managed to get out.
"I have the report here. Want me to read it to you?" Harris waved a red plastiform report cover. Mtubi nodded, grateful, and settled back again as Harris opened the folder. Before he could begin, however, the door slid back and a doctor swept in, trailed by two nurses who began to efficiently rearrange the bed while the doctor made a quick cursory examination of Mtubi's eyes, pulse, blood pressure, and the back of his head. Rewrapping the bandage he found there, he let Mtubi lie back, and gave him a practiced cheery smile on which he'd probably been tested during residency.
"No problems, Sergeant. You've had a mild concussion, and a severe laceration on the back of your head which we've stitched. Your hair will cover any possible scarring, and you'll be ready to leave here in the morning. One night of observation, you understand. Can I get you anything?"
Mtubi gingerly felt the back of his head, patting the bandage slightly. "Doctor, is there any chance of a painkiller of some kind? I hate the stuff, but I feel..."
The doctor cut him off. "Certainly. No, I understand; the stitches will hurt for a bit, and the headache, well, probably a couple days. I'll have the floor nurse bring in something." Mtubi thanked him, and he swept out again, the two nurses close behind. Mtubi turned his gaze back to Harris, who was still eyeing the spot on the door where one of the nurse's behinds had exited. "Harris?"
The other started a bit, and turned back, looking sheepish. "Sorry, sir. Where was I. Ah. Yes." He opened the report as Mtubi tried not to grin and bring on the pain.
"The Capsule you saw was destroyed as a result of an explosion on one of the track confinement rings about a hundred meters outside the station. The explosion destroyed the ring it hit, and damaged the Vector generator at that same installation point as well as the capsule itself. The confinement rings are individually powered, so that didn't hurt the rest of the track, but the generator shorted a bunch of its fellows down the line, all on the same power link. Um..."Harris flipped pages. "technical gobbledygook, more, more, ah. The explosion and loss of the confinement field caused an oscillation in the capsule's path, The damping magnets were hit by the blast, and the oscillation caused severe stress on the confinement rings down the track. Since there wasn't any propulsion system left, the capsule couldn't decelerate using the Vector system or its own emergency damping gear, and it shut off its Vector field in order to settle onto its emergency wheels. Those, however, had also been damaged, and only one set survived the impact. That, in conjunction with the remaining oscillation, caused the Capsule to slew sideways, at which point it began tearing up unpowered rings. I guess that's the point at which it passed you-"
Mtubi held up a hand to stem the flow. "Great. What caused the whole thing, Harris?"
The other flipped pages again for a few seconds, and finally settled on one. "The preliminary report says that it was probably Amatol, maybe three or four kilos. The longchain molecular scans taken from the area corroborate, and the fracture pattern says it was probably on the bottom of the ring in question, which is why the initial oscillation was vertical."
"A bomb."
"Yes, sir. Um, homemade, probably. They haven't found any casing fragments, so it was likely just a blob of TNT with...oh, they found part of the detonator. There's a report on it here..."Mtubi waved it off, and Harris closed the folder.
"Anyone claim responsibility?"
"No sir. Not as of a couple hours ago, when I left the station."
A realization came to Mtubi. "How long have I been out, anyway?"
Harris looked at his watch. "Three, three and a half hours, sir. Daris covered the meeting for you."
"Good. Injuries?"
"Ah..." (the folder fluttered open again, a reddish butterfly of information) "Four dead, six injured, including you. Families notified on all nine others, blah, blah, yah, three in the capsule, dead, the rest on the station." Harris shifted in his chair. "Sir, someone else on the platform...I know you told me not to ask into this, but, someone else on the platform said he saw, that is, saw someone..." he trailed off, looking somewhat helpless. Mtubi finished for him slowly.
"A flying man in a leather jacket-" Harris brightened, as Mtubi continued inquiringly, "-that is what they saw?"
"Yes, sir. She said it- well, he- flew through the station after the capsule, and vanished in the wreckage. We searched the wreck, but couldn't find a body or physical evidence other than that from the passengers. Did you, er, happen to see him?"
Mtubi settled back. "Yes, Harris. I did. I apologize."
"No need, sir. Sounds pretty orbital even now."
"Yes." Mtubi reflected for a moment, staring at the ceiling, before adding, "You won't find him in the wreck."
Harris simply waited, silent. "He flew through- well, went through, a, a circle, it seemed like. Right before he would have hit the capsule, this circle appeared in the air in front of his arms. It was moving, but slower than he was, much slower, and he flicked through it and vanished. It blinked out immediately after."
"What did it look like, sir?"
"Just a circle, man! Like- ouch." Mtubi winced as the emphasis woke the banshee in his skull, and lay back for a moment. "It was a circle of darkness, with a ring of light around it...it looked like a hole. I could see him as he went through, see him on the other side, until it vanished." There was silence for a few minutes. Finally Harris shook himself.
"Sir, I can come back later, if you'd like." He began to collect his few belongings.
"Harris." Mtubi was staring fixedly at the light above his bed.
"Sir?"
"You're detached from regular duties for a couple of days. Take Zannor and Clarkes with you, and find out who the hell is down there and what they're doing. And how they're doing it. Also, if they have Amatol, or if it looks like they did."
Harris grinned, widely. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir." He made as if to leave, and Mtubi paused him with a hand.
"And, Harris, report to me and me only. If you need to req anything, tell them I authorized it for an investigation into connections between the Transit accident and some missing persons."
"You got it, sir." Harris left, almost at a run, and Mtubi sank back into his pillow as a nurse entered with a medication cup containing two painkillers. He swallowed them, drank thirstily for a bit, and then sank into a dream that was thankfully not about hypodermics and pain but surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly) had much to do with Transit capsules, leather jackets, sunglasses and circles.
This is a work in progress. I really like the Angel Cycle; I'm just trying to figure out where I'm going with it. I have a few ideas; they'll spin out at their own pace, I'm sure.