-14-

Urisc was a Claimant back when Claimants had another name. On a planet called Baal Moloch, centuries ago, on what is now understood as the neo-Bronze-age of spacefaring, when mankind was still mostly hibernating across the many planets as the machines created the foundations of their societies. A man that should have never been a Claimant was born. With equivalent rarity of events, a string of chance had placed him into one of the candidate positions for him to ascend into a Pantokrator of that planet.

Underground, between four Pretenders a great war waged on who would be the only one to ascend as Pantokrator of Baal.

The war itself is one of the ways to solve such disputes at the absence, premature death, or removal of the previous Pantokrator. However, the worrying exceptions, the unnatural rise to the position of a Pretender, from a man who was never meant to be there, created a fear of what was to come. This rarity and disregard for ancient plans, the inmost exception of magic, the unreal self within that man, caused for other Pantokrators from different planets to intervene.

Those times, the world of mankind was only six planets, including Baal Moloch. Each planet, by way of swayed chance sent many people to Baal Moloch and each Pantokrator picked one champion to investigate changes in the magic of Pretenders and Claimants. It seemed, that across the stars, in that vastness of space, that a similar horror manifested in the fantastical archetypes of many Claimants. In their magic, in that abstraction of their soul, in the streams of thought that roamed about themselves, some shadow crept in parallel, a new horror had manifested in that space in-between and behind their ears and it spoke in a language that bribed generously, in coins made out of alloys of deepest desires.

The pretender Urisc held great magical power over Blood and Astral magic, but it seemed that his power went beyond that, into the realm of utter nothingness and as he entered the inverse dream, through the abstract interface where consciousness commands machine, the people were stricken with extreme, personalized suffering.

The horrors entered through the false gates of lust, innate to every person as true and intimate compassion.

Heroic and also underhanded actions from these five champions averted a future where one potential Pantokrator would seed the culture of the future with such a unique, powerful and inhuman texture.

To that, all Claimants know the story without the details. They know that the magic that helps them move and act in the inverse dream, the abstraction of logic that helps them command Lanzas to strike strong as well as to calculate titanic data, it has to be swayed away from such a rare combination.

All because of one man, standing at the gates and blocking them with his bare back.

-

Both young man and woman, have their imaginary wounds replicated to their bodies in the real and then healed in that very same instance. And while that instance flays and covers, their minds are still in a deep, virtual experience.

Every Claimant experiences the inverse dream, the space between all technology as something different from another, yet the dream blends together when in another's presence.

At the current moment, Jorj and Varhas are as one in a training ground. Where one sees targets and the arena, the other sees a similar shape, yet so affected by peculiar audiovisual characteristics pertaining to his self, or the self of an opposing Claimant in the vicinity.

Varhas has asked from Lacata to assault him constantly in the inverse dream. As Jorj aims and moves, so divides Varhas his attention, giving equal measure to focus on the synchronization between his Contestant and to resisting Lacata's attacks. These attacks take the form of sea foam, rapidly thrown against him and they slash and pierce along his skin as needles that vanish once they strike. The salty water that seeps through the mental wounds is also there, burning and demanding from Varhas to be more efficient with his concentration.

After this training session, Jorj is to rest while the two Claimants exit the inverse dream and come within sight of each other. In the physical realm, the arena that Jorj was just moving in, Varhas and Lacata exit two rooms, each connected to the edges of the training arena. Closing in, they stand an arm's length away from each other and in-between them is a piece of Gymnete armor. The battered and half dematerialized piece of armor is laying on the ground, otherwise cold and seemingly unpowered.

Varhas' knees bend and with a careful motion of wintery pathfinding. He touches the armor in the wide, soft texture of his palm. Lacata lunges in, collapsing in an ordered motion of half-despairing, silent wailing at the waves. Her stretched fingertips touch the armor in tenmost extended digits.

The space under their half-closed eyes bends and they manifest in a white room without walls, an ever expanding Lithe of square tiles with mortar in-between.

Timeless, the bleak shadow that covers Varhas, takes immaterial allure, evaporating into unordered shapes that cover the motions of his hands. Lacata waves and ebbs, the flesh out and around her bones swells and empties with water. Her hands press against each other. The soft palms move away and the phalanges only touch to light a release. As her arms form the shape of an imaginary sphere and that very same space fills with light. A radiating glow of white and bright cyan, imprisoned in the transparent layer of a bubble. In fact, as Varhas notices, the sphere begins to not only move, but it does so with soft vibrations alike to water and soap bubbles. The energy ball is the size of very large head and dissipations of light propel it forwards against him.

Varhas takes precaution. Other than the slow moving sphere, there is a pair of short throwable darts on her waist. He interlocks his hands and fingers into a shape with two extending thumbs. His body dries out, the suppleness caves to leathery folds that are hard and free of moisture.

As a response, Lacata forms another sphere of energy with the same motion. Visibly fatigued, sweat forms at her forehead while she heaves away breath from her mouth. With a straight indexfinger, she sweeps the sweat away and cups it in her hand.

Where there was once the shadow that described Varhas, in a singular frame of time there is nothing there anymore. In a blink of space and time, Varhas appears close and behind Lacata, yet still too far away to strike.

The energy spheres change direction towards him. Lacata sees their change of movement and turns around. Her hands lose cohesion and a great waterfall spills out from the once-cupped hands becoming puddles between the two.

His arms stretched ahead, closed fists and two thumbs upwards, forming the closest he can to a right angle, necromancy seeps into the inverse dream. Where the flow of sorcery should be a creep, it flashes to a sprawl and Lacata is intimidated by such great flow of a combination of sorceries.

Bones fly out of the ground and animate themselves, strung from threads invisible to form a skeleton directly in the path of one of the spheres.

As the energy touches shambling bone, an explosion of pressurized water breaks apart the newly-animated skeleton.

The explosion creates a light passage of salty rainfall. Under its cover, Lacata throws one of her darts against Varhas and it successfully strikes true at the center of his chest.

The damage is minimal. Two centimeters deep, the dart only lodges its edge there for a second and then it falls off the body. The outpour of blood is a trickle that runs downwards against his chest and it gets lost in a twisting shadow of soft and utterblack keratin.

Lacata begins to run sideways and away from the sphere that is nearing her, building some distance between the two.

With the same hand motion from Varhas, another shape of bones rapidly manifests. This time the void of space where the bones attach themselves to, is occupied by Lacata. Hollow as they are and of flat edges, a femur, two ribs and multiple wrist bones, knuckles and other bullets of calcium barrage her shape. Most of them do not bounce away, or penetrate, but splash against her shoulder or fingers. Her skin follows the shape of water, breaking to thin, translucent layers of liquid.

Wherever her liquid body does not splash back into her and instead separates to falling droplet, wounds of bruising and light lesions form.

Varhas times the next dart of Lacata with the same spell of instantaneous movement he casted before. This time however the spell manifests him four meters directly ahead and at an arm's length away from the radiating sphere that explodes prematurely. The rush of wild seawater flays layers of his skin. The dried and leathery plex breaks into layers of muscle and blood cleansed and stung anew by the salt.

The inverse dream is broken by both Claimants at the same time. Only a few minutes have passed. Varhas falls backwards, his hands tighten with an expectation of chemical burning and a shattering, body-wide wave of pain that never comes. He knows however that it must manifest soon and he remains only a moment, enough to balance between the idle time and the pain that has to be made real.

"Don't use Blink. You are rolling a dice each time you cast that shit."

Lacata spares no sympathies. She has been at this training session with Varhas for over two hours now.

"Could have been good."

"But it was not. I make the spheres for the chance you manifest into them. Stop gambling your life away."

"Thanks for exploding that one so far away from me."

"Fuck you Varhas. I mean it. Next time I am not holding the sphere back. You will die."

"You can only cast two of them anyways."

Lacata storms off. The door opens and she enters the adjacent room. Varhas turns to do the same. Before opening the door and entering the small machine that envelops Claimants, he stops for an instance. In that pocket of time, the hesitation rises in his body. The notches of that imaginary dart, over his leathery skin, the flaying explosion, they manifest as real pain. More than that, a hypodermal itch, a creeping flame that bores around the plex of his outer shell of skin, crawls underneath him.

He repeats a mantra before exit, that all imagined is to be reflected true and as the machine envelops him, with all its notches of metal and edges of stone and glass and chemical sprays, he once again enters the inverse dream, right on top of Jorj as the Contestant enters the other room to train anew.

Once again, Jorj performs an exercise of shadowing, battling imaginary foes, shooting and running, heaving his form within the safe space of the training room. No other person is physically there but Jorj. All the while, a mental assault of influence covers Varhas as he mentally latches on to Jorj and his actions.

As this happens, both Claimants have to resist and steel their focus against the enveloping machine that is accurately carving and flaying their flesh to the exact injuries experienced in the inverse dream. Varhas feels the shallow cuts of a dart-head on his sternum and then an intense force, followed by the extreme stinging of fresh seawater over flayed skin and snapped muscle.

Both Claimants maintain their role through this reflection of wounds. Their inverse dream does not break. Once Jorj exits the training session for a quick respite, Varhas and Lacata enter anew.

They both close into the same piece of armor as before. The plate is a bit more beaten then before. Some stray projectile has scrapped it and there is a smoldering hole passing through it.

The alloy is warm to the touch and both Claimants enter at the same time, ritualized in their stance of body, quiet and with quick initiative.

The inverse dream is changed. Now, the ground is shimmering. An invisible vibration exists near the floor, heat and passing air, a vast shadowy depression in the horizon breaks the otherwise ever flat fantasy.

Varhas enters a short distance away from Lacata. A quick sway of his fingers, brings a rusty norse sword to his hand and Lacata parries the attack with one her darts. Then, she too vanishes within a singular frame of reference, leaving no trace behind but that instant change of positions, called a Blink. She is twenty meters ahead of Varhas and her hands are already cusped, drawing water.

Varhas casts an offensive spell from that same, signal-less path of astral sorcery. Overloaded, where Lacata ebbed and flowed within herself to conjure through intellect the weight of water, a sharp intrusion, a mental edge infuses her thoughtstream with celestial light. A pearly-lit garrote, its edge is made of rays of light and it tries to tie itself around Lacata's thoughtstream. Without success, Varha's spell is resisted and the strain of scraping thoughts, is felt as burning along, a momentary migraine on Lacata, but otherwise unharmed.

A great wave gushes from her cusped hands. As the elemental force of water coalesces and swirls slowly within itself, Lacata grabs her temples with one of her arms and then she runs besides the now surging wave of water.

The response is that same hand sign of manifesting bones. The only difference is an extension of Varha's little fingers and thirteen skeletons reanimate instead to a huddled position. With rotten shields and rusty weapons, they form a shield wall that crashes against the elemental wave. The waters splash and break against iron, bone and wood and it appears that there is wide puddle now expanding across the ground and falling as light rain. Only one skeleton remains whole, a piece of wood is strapped to his arm.

Lacata is heard by the wet slosh of running steps as she nears. The remains of bone and wood crash against her wet form and they slow her down just enough for Varhas to crouch over a puddle of water. The sparks of air magic, twinned forks of thunder cross his fingertips and as he sends the current towards the water, Varhas thinks himself favored by chance, so that he is not touching the puddle of water.

-

Anax sits with Varhas in the empty training facility. In the entire complex that is booked for their team, rooms, Claimant facilities and the amenities of simple men are provided.

A vast, but still comparably small part of the spaceship that transports them, most of the people have gone towards the outer layers of the ship in order to be as close as possible to upcoming event.

The Glimpse is the moment of passing through space and time. In fact, it is the only acceptable way to pass through the vastness of space, without subjecting the passengers to mental horrors. Obscenities, such as, diluted space and time, radiation and temporal madness, or even the simplest of inconveniences, a slow transit of months or even years of travel.

The two Claimants don't care about the spectacle. In fact, nothing is really shown, as they know that all sight outside of the ship is sealed shut and forbidden. To them, this is the only chance for a small break. Entry into the inverse dream is also prohibited during this event of instant travel.

Varhas is in the process of slipping through himself.

"God. So many injuries stacked on top of me. I feel my soul misaligned. Air passes through my open palm and not around it."

"Take it easy. Go to bed. Zanuvia needs training chamber anyways."

"She's fighting whom? Against what are her waves crashing against?"

"Me."

"A beachhead of granite."

The lure of inverse dream psychosis is hooked deep into Varhas and Anax sees it into his friend's alarmed eyes. A lure that invites Varhas even deeper, the Claimant has trained for eight hours without stop, first fighting against Lacata, then Zanuvia and lastly against Anax. Still, he is invited by his own volition and as soon as Varhas alludes to this, Anax quickly sways him away.

"I need one more entry."

"Bed time first. Come now."

"Shit. You are right. You know... I'm in a body that has been flayed at its mind-to-movement connection. God. My head hurts from stem to tail and back to its frontal lobe again. Still..."

"I know. I know. Hush now. No more inverse dream for a while."

"No, no. Augur me. We have to provide speech, and speak our way forwards."

To experienced narrativist Claimants, any altered state of mind is a breeding ground for sublime augury. Some grab intoxicated strangers and speak to them of foreign things. In that slur of speech, hints of the real flow of out into the open and the madness that defines them houses some other logic, some genius, misunderstood viewpoint that is just what is needed to sway thoughts towards another direction. Some, like Anax, are well versed into this form of divination. Instead of strangers however, they specialize in Claimants, especially those who are suffering from Inverse Dream Psychosis, or Phrenia of Misaligned Injury. Varhas is only suffering from the prior, a heavy case of IDP. Sleep is the cure, but there are things to extract from him yet.

Anax draws stimulation from common knowledge, entertaining the conversation as easy as he can and then he speaks in a half-wise, half-ironic tone. "Overwork is the bane of great athletes."

"So is true, but I have to keep going."

"Worried? Of where we are going?"

"Ye are of no worry? Old a sea-witch comes about, by chance, mentioning of a Claimant anathema. Got me thinking that we are heading towards Baal Moloch maybe, or perhaps in this story that envelops us, we are yet to see signs of these horrors."

"Mere planet scares you?"

"Yes", replies Varhas, instant, mere blink and manifestation of a quick response.

"The Wars of Ascension on that planet happened a dozen more lifetimes ago."

"And? Mere memory of him remains and all the other horrors go along with that memory. Just the fact we are talking about him, means that somewhere later on, we will meet his concept. So is reality, self-referential, prophetic recurrence. So I can't fathom how it was in the age of heroes and bronze. On good old silver-dressed Earth."

"It was not that much different. For some I suppose. Augurs and Shamans perhaps their life was thus, reference to reference, happening of life to happening, understanding what comes next by loose reference to odd occurrences. Fabricating prophecies and measuring which one to make real."

"Now we are so many. And we run it all."

"You know that is not true. A common man is to a Claimant what a Claimant is to a Pantokrator. Mere speck, we do not move humanity, Gods do. One God at one planet. One Pantokrator to one dominion. We just navigate their currents of culture."

"Their currents. Currents the commoners make, or the ones Pantokrators do?"

Swift to find an alluring thought, Anax always enjoyed the self-deprecating nature of a Claimant versed in Death sorcery. In the case of his dear friend, that ever more accurate, revealing malicious thoughts that were burried.

"Both perhaps."

"Aye. Both. Is this the reasoning with which I am to accept what will happen to Jorj?"

Varhas becomes stiff, whole of exhaling sadness. A deep surrender falls over his face and Anax registers this expression as a newfound event in the shared moments between the two. Never before he has seen his friend, expunged so rapidly of life. The thought weighs heavy on Varhas, but Anax has seen this man eagerly spend and exploit the fates of many others, seemingly more important commoners and Claimants alike.

"You need no reason."

"I do. It is the greatest shame for special people, to fall prey to a cruel fate. I have thought of solutions. While casting Hordes of Skeletons and Mind Burns in the inverse dream."

"And? You see a way out for your Contestant?"

"None. The world thirsts for glory, but more than that, the world thirsts for tragedy. Imagine, to a bored CEO, to an uninspired nobody, the story of a champion who is to die right after their greatest success. This is to happen and you know it too. This is the culture that is craved by commoner, Claimant and perhaps even Pantokrators. If Jorj is to win the Contest, that is the best possible outcome. Bittersweet must come his death then. Else, to fail is only bitterness and neither outcome is perfect."

"Aye."

"This is why I need a reason. Such special commoner, you have to tell me there is more to this story that we are weaving."

"I cannot do that." Anax adds in a solemn tone.

"Then why are you even speaking to me?"

"I have to offer memories of the past. I am trying to heal you as best as I can, ease your IDP."

"Smokes and mirrors. "

"Yes. Much to you trying so hard to offer a dying man a last peak to his life, so do I, try to ease you at your lowest now."

"Spare me Anax."

"No. I believe you need to man up. Be the Patroclus to your demigod champion."

"That's disgusting. I don't swing that way thank you very much. Besides you do not even believe those two ancient warriors were butt-buddies. We've had this talk before, no?"

Anax laughs and so does Varhas.

"Yet you admire him."

"Trully I do. Was it not for the non-stop training sessions he would have turned to Obesius by now. That man's stomach is a bottomless well."

Varhas sits with folded knees, he presses the softness of his palms on his short hair and awaits.

Silence is also another way to ease a fatigued mind.

After some time passes, Anax grabs the initiative of speech. "Do you know when you die Varhas?"

"Of course." Varhas replies with ease.

"How exactly?"

"I know of the time. The date, but most importantly, I've peeked at the moment, the one minute and two seconds that it happens in. I can tell you when."

"When then?"

"Some sixty-seven Solar years from now."

"Can you describe the scene?"

"No. This is my own secret to keep. This is the same secret all Death Claimants keep."

"All of them?"

"Only if they are well versed in this sorcery. Prerequisite to manifest death in the inverse dream, is to be curious of the inevitable. One of the many different prerequisites."

Anax gets up and Varhas follows. When the Claimant believes to have finally swayed the other to take rest, Varhas turns around with a stop and he speaks.

"I wish I was back home."