#66

Mark stands up. His screams still echo in his ears even as they tear through space and time. The woods fracture and splinter; tiny blurs and what appear to be hovering pixel patches rip apart the sky and trees. The forest links with all forests in The Cascade. Kurq'wes and Mark observe the resultant plane.

“Hm,” Kurq'wes said. “A new dimension. Magical in nature. Fascinating. I suppose I shall have to call it The Thicket; for after all, that is the nature of it.” His skull turns back towards Mark. “My son, your destiny comes upon you. Let us go to ancient Kanpallia, to my tower, where I am content; for my faerie-hill is presently in use, and I wish to avoid prying eyes.”

Mark is about to say something as his sanity begins to erode, but he doesn't get to speak until suddenly The Thicket is gone; replaced by a crystal spire, full of machinery that drives home the depth of craziness to Mark. The tower itself flashes in between different dimensions in time with epileptic hyper-speed, as do the machines. It is nearly impossible to look at. Mark grips his head but doesn't scream, because he knows his first scream brought him here to begin with.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Kurq'wes says. “The 400^th Century BCE isn't as civilized yet as the 2070s, but there are still some small luxuries.”

A chair made of the same sort of quartz as the incomprehensible far-past tower appears behind Mark. Still reeling in mental agony, he sits down, but he doesn't—can't—even notice anything around him, including a bowl of ancient and long-extinct fruits, a time-piece made of the same mysterious crystal as the indescribable tower, and a series of majestic paintings full of mystique and beauty. It's good that Mark doesn't notice these things—because their own wonders would probably drive him mad in a way much worse than that induced by the tower, the fear, and the time travel.

“My own father is coming, Mark,” Kurq'wes says. He is faced away from the younger man, disregarding his fits. “And you, as my spiritual son, must confront him. To this effect, I have now taken you to a point when I am not merely comfortable, and also a point from before I changed myself to escape him. Here I will change you, as I changed myself. Just I moved beyond being a simple cleric of 17^th Century Britain. Now, an ancient sorcerer past reckoning, past time. Incomputare.”

Mark remembers that word. It reminds him of the Old Man, who betrayed him. Filthy bastard. Tear and rip him to shred, tear and rip his guts out, stomp his face, crush his head...

Kurq'wes hears Mark's thoughts and instantly soothes them. Mark feels his mind being tampered, however, and begins to convulse violently.

“Hold still, son.”

There is only a frothy roar given in response. It will take a lot of work to get him back in fighting condition after all this. Probably a deep-intensity mind-wipe. One that might clash with his cultural upbringing; but a decent patch until the final strike will be necessary.

Kurq'wes is not without mercy. He realizes that almost none of this will make sense, to Mark or anyone else. He takes pity on this young man. But the mission must be accomplished; he needs to open up more potential.

He reaches inside Mark's tropes and resets everything. Brings him closer to becoming imago. “Mark, I need you to listen. The time will come when you reach two towers, beside a third tower. The towers will be much like this one, in that they will garner the fuel of the cosmos; but they garner it for my father, for our enemy. You must use your power to drain these towers, and save your friends. For when you meet those that you met in The Thicket once again, they will be your friends. Do you understand?”

Mark doesn't respond. This could be a lost cause, considers Kurq'wes.

The resetting is complete. The aging and ailing skull-faced man allows himself a single sigh. He will have to grant him the small mercy. He reaches in once again and shifts around the thoughts, until at last there is no memory of this place. In his chair, Mark sits in a drooling coma. He will awake in the proper place, with only the metamorphosis-shift...and the memory of a crimson tower, in a T̶h̶i̶c̶k̶e̶t̶ thicket.

With a silent flash of light, invisible next to the fire spreading everywhere, Mark lands in the debris next to a white tower. The tower looms over the crumbling wreckage of Imperial Central.

Above him, his father watches as he grows stronger, repeating a cycle again; the dreamer awakening. When Mark wakes up once again, all the more power will flow into him.

Soon everything will be complete.