Everman and sparky (Chapter 3 Part C)mature

The dirt track had curved around the base of the mountains, following the wilderness to the south. Caleb Everman, Gabriel, and Sparky had been following this track for some time, making camp directly on the trail at the day's end. The forest to their left was thickly wooded and full of game. The animals of this place were familiar looking, though they had grown to twice their normal size. Squirrels were the size of raccoons, raccoons the size of dogs, and deer the size of bison. This became more evident on the second day, where the trail ducked briefly into the wilderness to avoid an outcropping of boulders. Gabriel had an eyeful of one particular slug, sunbathing upon a rock. It was the size of his foot.

It was in the late afternoon of that day, shortly after exiting the wilderness once more, that they spotted the settlement in the distance. Everman saw it first, pointing it out to his accomplice, who merely nodded and continued his one-sided conversation with Sparky. He had taken an immediate shine to Sparky, that much was obvious, and lately had fancied carrying him and speaking to him as well.

“My name is Gabriel,” he would say to the small parademon, who was looking idly at the wilderness around them, not even paying attention to his speaking. “Gabriel. Your name is Sparky. Spar-kee. Can you say Sparky? Come on, Sparky! Sparky!”

“It doesn't talk!” Everman cried out, exasperated. He had been listening to this rabbling exchange for the last three hours, and his patience had been tried and long exhausted. “It can't talk, it never did talk, and it never will talk! It doesn't even understand a damned thing you're saying! It's just a parademon! Quit talking to it.”

“And that's Mr. McCrabby,” Gabriel continued, heedless of Everman's raving. “Can you say Mr. McCrabby?”

Everman clenched his jaw in frustration and increased his step to a vigorous pace. Gabriel took note and followed. But, mercifully, he stopped chattering to the creature and looked at the road ahead.

“The village is is getting closer,” Gabriel assessed. “Not much longer now.”

“Maybe there we can find your new friend a proper home,” Everman replied coldly. “So you can resume conversing with intellectual creatures.”

Gabriel barked a harsh laugh. “You mean like you?”

Everman said nothing.

Gabriel shifted Sparky, carrying the little creature in the crook of his arm, holding him steady with his other hand. Once secure, he spoke once more.

“If you hate Sparky so much, why did you not try to find him a home in Fairvale?”

“It was their king that had ordered the massacre of Sparky's village,” Everman replied sincerely. “I doubted they would take too kindly to learning of a survivor.”

“Why would they do something like that?” Gabriel inquired, genuinely confused. He skirted around a fallen log in the road, wading into the deep grasses on the side of the dirt track, before resuming step with Everman.

“Fully grown parademons are much more vicious than your friend there,” Everman explained, recalling with painful clarity as a small band of parademons tore through the wall of his armored comrades in mere seconds. “They grow to have a taste for blood. The parademons were probably attacking the town, and the king ordered a retaliation.”

“But they seem so small and innocent.”

“You never saw Sparky's parents. If those mercenaries hadn't of killed them before we got there, they probably would have killed us.”

Gabriel stopped suddenly in his tracks. Everman had taken several steps before realizing that his traveling companion had fallen behind. He looked back, surprised by the look on Gabriel's face. He hadn't expected his words to have such an impact.

“Problem?” Everman asked, approaching.

Gabriel looked up at him with a curious expression, gesturing with his free hand toward his chest. He looked confused, horrified and bewildered all at the same time, with his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

“I was killed, wasn't I?” Gabriel asked after a moment.

Everman had never seen him so solemn, never heard his voice without its usual cheer, and was immediately concerned.

Gabriel pointed toward his sternum. “Here,” he explained, his voice small and distant, as if speaking for someone else. “Stabbed through here, with a sword. I... I remember it.”

The two of them sat upon the dirt of the track, Everman confident that their expedition could wait on hold a few moments. Gabriel looked around bewildered, his expression half crazed as more memories came to him. Sparky ambled upon the dirt, curious about the smells but never leaving Gabriel's side. He had not often been allowed to walk about on his own legs.

Everman had never before now been curious as to the events leading to Gabriel's arrival here, but now suddenly wondered about it. There was usually but one way for a person to enter the Dreamscape Nexus from which Claymore had pulled him, and that is by the spirit leaving the flesh. Everman had visited the Nexus on one prior occasion, an unpleasant experience to say the least, but the circumstances behind his visit had been... decidedly unique.

Everman wondered now if Gabriel was referring to the death Everman now remembered, where Gabriel lay dying after having smote himself with his own sword. Or was he referring to his latest death which had, with Claymore's intervention, brought him here? The answer became clear in a moment.

“I was in battle,” Gabriel explained, his gaze fixed upon something a thousand yards away. “Fighting the army of the Dragon. I had been promoted since your disappearance. I was in the front of the charge. One man, his hair was brown and dirty, his eyes full of sorrow as if he did not want to fight, did not want to take any lives at all. His sword pierced me.” He gestured again toward his chest. “I fell. I heard screams. It got dark... and then I was drifting. It was cold. I think I can remember clouds, but they were blue and purple, which doesn't make any sense at all.” Gabriel shook his head, trying to arrange his thoughts.

Everman, meanwhile, only nodded. He understood what had happened better than his friend did.

It was Claymore who had first told him about the Dreamscape Nexus, and the flow of souls to and from Dreamscapes. Upon death, the spirit enters the Nexus, awaiting its time for reincarnation into another body upon another Dreamscape. This is what Claymore had explained. Everman had not believed it at first, could not believe it, but as time had passed, the information had permeated deeper and deeper into his head, a deep seed, unable to be shaken loose, that grew roots and burrowed deeper.

And here sat living proof of this. Gabriel had died, had even retained the memory of his death, and his spirit had entered the Nexus, where Claymore had plucked him out of and deposited him here. Not unlike what he had done for Everman some time ago.

But why? For company? Everman recalled Claymore's note, his words written in the same unusual dialect as his own speech. 'Consider it a present,' it had said. Was Gabriel's presence here intended to be nothing more than a gift from a higher power? Amongst gods, were the souls of the dead really as easily given as a box in wrapped paper?

It was Everman's turn to shake his head. The ramifications of this train of thought hurt his head to even ponder.

“I met one of the gods once,” Everman stated after a moment, turning both their attention to lighter fare.

“That so? Sat down over tea and muffins with him, did you?”

Well, at least Gabriel was beginning to feel better.

“Something like that,” Everman explained. “Let's just say he had some sway over the flow of souls into the beyond.”

That gave Gabriel pause. He considered Everman curiously, his face aglow with more of his old humor. “Rubbing elbows with the god of the dead? Didn't sleep with him, did you?”

It was Everman's turn to bark a short spurt of laughter, an event of rare occasion. “What the hell makes you say that?”

“I always fancied the god of the dead to be a woman,” Gabriel answered offhandedly. “The way the lot of us always flirted with her.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Right. A hard case like you shakes hands with the gods, slugs grow to be bigger than my own hand, and there are strange little cat-like creatures covered in red fur roaming the land.” He looked at Everman suddenly, a dumb grin stuck on his face and laughter in his eyes. “We're really not in Vayen anymore, are we?”

“What gave you that idea?” Everman countered.

“The lack of educed wenches hanging from each arm, all of them bearing full bosoms and full skins of mead.”

“That happened back on Vayen?” Everman asked pointedly, rising to his feet, helping Gabriel to his after he had scooped up the tiny parademon.

“All the time,” Gabriel countered. “But you missed that.”

“Of course.”

They resumed walking toward the distant encampment, Gabriel holding Sparky.