"The Veteran Agent" (Part 2 of 2)

Story starts in part 1, posted previously (here)

I realized, based on your surface thoughts, that the best way to divert you from focus on me would be to ask about your friends, your family. I didn't need to do so, but I decided that it would be interesting to learn how you described your situation, even if skimming your thoughts had put the picture together for me some days ago.

"So what about you? You have a family that still talks to you?" You were more or less immune to my shudder-inducing voice by that night, but still I did my best to just prompt you and fall silent. After all, your voice sounds infinitely better than mine.

"Yeah, though it'd be a lot simpler if they went ahead and stopped. I'm tired of playing their games." I wasn't surprised by this answer, but you were expecting me to be. I raised one of my eyebrows carefully, trying to approximate an expression I'd seen you use. You noticed, and seemed to translate it appropriately. "Yeah, I suppose given how things turned out for you I should count my blessings. "

"You don't see eye-to-eye with them?" I prompt/descend
ted. I already knew the story, but I wanted to hear you tell it, both for your sake and to learn more about your thought patterns.

"Well, not exactly, no." You shook your head. "Not that they see eye-to-eye with each other, either. My parents have been divorced for almost fifteen years, and still they both treat me as a pawn to use against each other."

"Yes, I know the dynamic." More to the point, I suspected that one of my compatriots had been at work on the concept. Look far enough back, and if something is causing humans ill, one of the Prince's agents has a hand in it.

"Yeah. Well." You looked away. "Knowing it isn't the same as living it. I haven't been on my own long enough to get completely out of their grasp." You turned back suddenly, looking right into my eyes. I forced my fleshly form to meet the gaze. "How can two God-fearing people each just turn into absolute monsters when the other is mentioned? It doesn't make any sense."

"It's often safer to let things go. Otherwise, you'll get answers you don't like." I suggested.

"See, I don't work like that. I can handle the answers, even if I don't like them." you sounded so certain, I wondered if you really could, at least until a basic analysis of your thoughts showed me that you were just putting up a front. You wanted to be able to handle the hard answers, but you weren't sure you could.

"Then answer the question yourself, if you can." I suggested. "Then I'll tell you what I think."

"Maybe... maybe they haven't been good people all along. maybe it's all an act, and that act is just visible to me in some cases because I can see both sides of it..." I wasn't surprised you came to the pessimistic solution, but I could think of another answer, one that in my experience was just as common.

"That's a rather negative outlook." I pointed out.

"Or, I don't know. What were you thinking?" You shook your head. "I've already thought that they might not be as good at heart as it seems. But I don't want to believe that of my parents.

"Love betrayed can do terrible things to people." I shrugged. I didn't then and don't now know for sure what was the cause of your parents' dysfunction - I'd not gone as far as actually finding and watching your parents, but I had a suspicion that this wasn't what was causing their hostility. After all, I found it unlikely that two essentially unpleasant people could raise a daughter like you. "I've known people who never stopped loving their spouses, even after the divorce. That sort of pain is hard to deal with to a lot of people." Obviously, said people never knew me, or even that I existed, but I wasn't about to say that.

"Maybe that's true. I remember..." You started talking, then, about how you remember what it was like before the divorce, how good life seemed, but I'll admit I did not spare the words much attention. Something else had come up - I'd sensed that a soldier of the Other was nearby, and closing. I couldn't bear the thought that my enemies might attempt to engage me in combat while you were around - besides revealing my nature, such a battle could likely hurt or kill humans caught nearby. If he already didn't know I was here, he would soon, unless I went to ground.

In light of this, I hurriedly interrupted your monologue. "I'm sorry, Karen, you've just reminded me of an errand I really must run tonight." I got up, and nodded a quick goodbye.

"Wait, what - " You stood to follow me. I stopped, despite the sense that the other agent had detected me by now. "Are you all right?"

"We'll see. I really need to go, though."

"All right, then. I'll be seeing you, Izunel." You smiled faintly, and after I mimicked the expression as much as I could, I again turned to walk down the path, in the direction I expected you to not need to take. I withdrew entirely into my human form, as I'd done several times prior to try to elude pursuit. It is possible to fool one of my kind in this way, provided they don't get too close. It also restricts me to human senses, and little else - I'd be effectively blind as to the whereabouts of my opponent until I decided the coast was clear.

I never really had a chance this time, I expect. The delay that your farewell caused cost me the time I needed. I don't fault you for what happened, not that what happened was what I was dreading.

"Do you think you can hide from us like that, Izunel?" The voice was melodic, of even tone, and clear, like the voice I had before the war. I knew the game was up - my pursuer knew enough to know my name. As I did not know his, this put me at a significant disadvantage. As I've probably mentioned, knowing the name of one of my kind grants power over him, to a degree. "Hiding in a false mortal shell does not hide your stench from us." He was confident enough to taunt - the Other's agents were always all business when the contest was close, so this one probably had backup. Still, no sense going without a fight.

"You got me." I didn't turn my mortal form, I merely did away with it, replacing it with my own projection into your world. Reddish, cracked skin, skeletal wing remnants, and a hideously scarred, tusked face - I knew exactly what my protrusion into three dimensions looked like. I retained just enough hints of my pre-war self to make it impossible to consider my look natural or original, just enough that an imaginative human might be able to piece together what I was once. Faster than human eyes could see, if any were watching, I was facing him, and I was armed. "Going to try the old 'smite the apostate' routine?" If we are caught openly in the mortal world, our enemies usually would try to destroy our moorings in the world, sending us back to our erstwhile "home" - though it's a bit more complicated than I make it sound, and a good deal more painful.

The other agent was visible only as a diffuse, wavering shape to mortal eyes, but my other senses could make out the familiar figure quite well. Beautiful, and terrible, as always they are, and as I once was. I could tell immediately that he was armed in the same way I was. The weapons of our kind have been described by mortals in a number of ways, the most common being the imagery of the "flaming sword." Perhaps that is an accurate analogy, except to say that one can swing the "blade" through any arc in several more dimensions than humans can percieve. Of course, such a weapon does give off a bright light, but only if it intersects your world. His was held in such a way that it would only be visible to me and others of my kind, as the Other's agents tended to do - after all, they try to stay out of mortals' ways as much as possible.

He didn't answer my query, not immediately, but neither did he move. I decided to try something else. "Look, can we at least leave here before we get to the fighting? I rather like this park." I had assumed a defensive stance, and was planning on dashing if the opening was presented, but as it was if I tried running he would only cut me down.

"No. Don't move, apostate." His voice was firm, even. "You will be sent back. All that needs be done is find your victim. One who knows your work well is doing so right now." He followed my lead, projecting himself more into the mortal world, and the shape solidified. Four shimmering, quicksilver-waterfall wings, alabaster skin, even, too-perfect features. Though no human could see them, glittering insignias of favor marked him as an elite even among the soldiers of the Other. I'd fought his kind before, and knew that if I was ever once capable of besting one of them in a fair fight, I was not anymore. It was also clear from his guarded inaction that he knew it as well.

I thought of you, Karen. I did not consider you a victim - only the closest thing I'd had to a friend since my participation in the rebellion. "I haven't had a 'victim' in this world in weeks, as it turns out. Don't expect me to help you harass mortals."

"You underestimate us. Now, stay put. I do believe we've found the poor soul."

"Leave her alone." I lunged for him, blazing weapon swinging a polydimensional arc, but he was faster than I. He darted back out of the mortal dimensions, returning to them in a different place, several dozen feet up. Part of my mind wondered what he meant by "one who knew my work well" - there were many among the opposition's ranks that I'd had encounters with, including several close calls. Depending on which it was, that could bode quite poorly for you, and for me.

He closed the distance back to me rapidly, forcing me to parry wide to allow himself in close. If we were both human, the analogous behavior would be for him to batter my blade aside and grab me by my lapels. "Deceiver, you will explain this. One of ours just witnessed your mortal praying, fervently. She was praying for protection - yours." He backed off a bit. "Prayers to God to protect a demon. How can a mortal know your name and still... Unless she thinks you are mortal."

His grip relaxed, and I moved back, expressing my kind's equivalent of a shrug. "She needed someone to talk to. All I did was engage her in conversation. Like you said, I am quite deceptive. Playing human is hardly outside my capability. But what are you going to do to me?"

"You must have some angle here..." He subsided into silence, trying probably to think of why a rebel would befriend a human.

"You want my angle?" I was fed up with the situation, and certain I was going to get banished anyway. I lost control a little. "My angle is that I remember just enough about what it was like to be one of you that I could weep for what I've lost. I've spent thousands of human years among mortals, a part of me seeing their companionships and wishing for a part of them, though this be a poor substitute for the bonds I broke. I know I can't go back, but maybe, just maybe, I can mitigate my solitude. The least I can do for a mortal who'll keep me company is provide an ear for what's on their mind." I gestured to his weapon. "Banish me if you must. But leave Karen out of this. She's in your camp, and her knowing who I am might hurt that."

"Silence. You make no demands here." He faded out of the world slightly, moving into position for a more effective attack.

"Fovrael, allow me." Another clear, beautiful voice. This one, I recognized.

"It can't be." I muttered. "Uriel." This would be the one familiar with my work. Uriel had been assigned to your Earth some centuries after I'd come here, and almost immediately he, by accident or skill, had managed to come uncomfortably close to banishing me several times. He lost me for a span, probably going to hunt my compatriots, most of whom usually made easier prey than I did. He'd only recently reacquired my trail (recently by my time scale, it was in fact long before you were born), and I had thought I'd lost him again after the little clash we had in Tunguska. Uriel's pursuit of me was not random: before the rebellion, we were close, but that was ancient history, quite literally.

"Hello again, Izunel." Uriel was behind me, though I didn't turn to face him.

"Look, I know you can't believe me, but - " He cut me off, of course.

"Izunel, for once in all eternity, I am inclined to believe you."

I was beaten to speaking by the other, Fovrael. "Uriel, you cannot be - "

"Please, Fovrael. Let me continue, you will see." Uriel interrupting another agent - that was relatively new. While their camp has no officers, there usually is little argument between them, and what there is is always highly civil. Even a mild slight by one of another is rare. "Izunel, if today you were offered the choice to take back your decision to stand with the Prince of Lies, would you?"

"Of course." I shrugged. "But it's moot. We both know that only mortal beings can be redeemed."

"Yes. As things currently stand, that is very true. But I've seen your mark on nearly ten thousand souls. It is as recognizable as your scarred face, for one trained to see it. Yet I cannot find a trace of your work on that mortal woman. We only found her because your name was at the front of her mind."

"Did I not already say I was not tempting her?" I  wondered what Uriel was planning.

"That is why I believe you. I've noticed the pattern, you know. You picked the most challenging targets, long ago, and over the years you've restricted yourself to easier and easier prey. It's a unique pattern, and I daresay it hasn't gone unnoticed on your side either."

Fovrael again broke in. "Uriel, do you really think he is angling for redemption?"

"No. Izunel is too smart to hope for that. I think he's losing his will to fight the war on its current terms." Uriel walked around to face me. He looked just as I'd seen him last, almost a century ago, and his face bore an equivalent of a mischievous smile. "I think he's relearned empathy."

Uriel had me to rights, so I said nothing. Not that I would have spoken if he was wrong.

"Perhaps. It is so easy to forget, at times, that the fallen were once our brothers." Fovrael looked thoughtful for a moment. "What do we do with him, then? This one has deserved banishment for millenia."

"And he'll get it." Uriel sighed, and my heart (rather, its approximation) fell. "But not at our hands."

Fovrael and I expressed our disbelief at almost exactly the same time. His response of "How do you mean?" and my "Wait, what?" overlapped almost precisely.

"His own cohorts will come for him soon. The Prince does not abide rogue agents. He is not long for the world, and I doubt he will ever be allowed to return." Uriel turned to meet my gaze. "I am sorry, Izunel, but this is for the greater good. If we banish you now you will be sent back eventually, because being banished has become a mark of effectiveness among your kind. None of the other apostates will never trust you to be an agent again if you are banished at his command. You will never tempt another human soul to share your torment."

Clever, I decided. And he was right. The Prince would keep me on a very short leash (after dragging me, literally, back to Hell) if he discovered what had become of me. Actually, thinking about it, I was surprised he hadn't already. "Don't be sorry for doing what think is right, Uriel. Your track record on being right is a lot better than mine is." I meant this as a joke, only belatedly realizing that our kind doesn't usually make them. Rather than trying to explain, I changed topics. "Am I free to go?"

The two shared a glance, then Uriel spoke. "Yes. Though we will keep an eye on you, we will not intervene, provided you do not attempt to revert to your old ways. As you can see, things end better for us if we need not deliver your banishing blow."

"Yes, of course." I faded out of the world, still half-expecting the burning, tearing sensation of banishment at any moment. It was a foolish worry - my enemies could literally not break their word. I shifted my human form onto the top of a large building near the park, and withdrew into it, both to hide and to think. After a moment, I moved back to the park, and waited outside the world, looking to see if you'd gone. You had. Uriel was still close enough to sense, and when I made no attempt to hide from him he imparted the knowledge that some of the other rebels were already hunting me, and I wondered if he or Fovrael had tipped them off. Mentally, I started trying to think of ways to tell you that I had to leave. I couldn't let my fellow rebels catch me around you - you would likely be killed by the struggle.

The next night, you were there early. I didn't make you wait long before I walked my form up to the bench. "You're earlier than usual." Even now, I didn't have the heart to tell you who and what I was, I realized.

"Izunel, there you are! After you vanished last night I wasn't sure you'd be back." You looked relieved.

"Karen, I..." I did my best to relay my feelings honestly to my human face. "I came here tonight to say goodbye. Some of my old associates are coming for me, and I want to be far from here when it happens." I shook my head. "I'm sorry. I can't risk you getting caught in something like that."

"Oh." You were silent for a long moment. "If there's anything I can do..."

I appreciated the words, though I knew you were powerless to help me. "Keep me in your prayers, Karen. That is all I can ask of you."

You did something I didn't expect, then. You stood, closed the distance to my human form, and embraced it - embraced me. "Izunel, thank you."

I returned the embrace, as close to acceptably as I could. "Thank me? For what?"

"For being there for me when I needed someone to talk to. For not expecting anything of me. For being a friend." You broke contact, and stood at arm's length.

"Karen, your friendship means much to me. I will never forget these last weeks." I smiled, a bit sadly. "Where I'm going, I'll miss your company."

"Where will you be going, then?" You asked.

I smiled humorlessly. "Quite simply, to Hell." This confused you, and you had no immediate response. "Best get started." I turned to leave.

"Wait!" I stopped. "I don't understand."

"Think you could handle the context?" I asked, seriously. I'd been composing what I wanted to tell you anyway, and though I wouldn't risk staying to relate it all, I had... alternate means.

"I'm not sure." You replied honestly. "But try me." The honesty made my decision for me.

I smiled, letting a little of my natural fire to flicker in my eyes briefly. You noticed, your eyes widened, and you were wondering if you imagined that.

 "There's a note, stuck under the bench." There wasn't yet, but I could easily create one before you got there to check. "Maybe you'll even believe what it says. Goodbye, Karen."

With that, I turned my human form and walked down the path until out of sight. After I return briefly (invisibly to you) to place this note, I will be moving directly to one of the more desolate, unpopulated areas of your world. There I'll make my stand against the Prince's agents, already now on my tail. I cannot hope to escape them, but I hope at least I can give a good account of myself before I am subdued.

I hope my tale has given you the context you desired, and that you can indeed handle it. Karen, we will not meet again in your mortal life, and if we meet in your next, I hope for your sake it is from opposing sides of the battle lines that are traced across the universe. Do not mourn for me: I made the wrong choice when making the right one was so easy, and I am now paying for that mistake. For you, the right choice is harder, yet I have every confidence you'll do right where my compatriots and I failed.

I would be honored to be remembered in your thoughts and prayers, though I would not be offended if you do not believe it proper to pray for one such as I, now that you know what I really am.

Your eternal friend,

Izunel

"The Veteran Agent" (Part 1 of 2)

Karen, my friend, I promised you context, and here you will find it.

I know you had suspicions that I wasn't exactly who I passed myself off to be, but you always insisted in your mind that such fancies are ridiculous, impossible. In fact, your modern psyche was thus deceiving you; it is a common enough problem among your generation, one those like me often use to their advantage. For reasons I will later explain, it has become impossible t/descend
for me to tell you all of this in person. I hope the following - my story, as it relates to our friendship over these past few weeks - will provide the answers you were looking for, and that you will not regret having them.

My story starts with a rebellion against a being we rebels took to be an oppressive ruler. I think by now almost every one of us knows we made a mistake in casting off the mooring lines we then took for chains. There perhaps are a few who still really believe that our split from our kinsmen was the right course, and that the freedom we earned was worth the suffering, but for the most part I expect these sentiments, often boisterously trumpeted by my compatriots, are motivated by pride or fear of repercussions incurred by contradicting the Prince. True, we cannot be killed as humans can, but our existence can be made... unpleasant.

Perhaps the greatest reward the Prince gives to us now is access to the mortal world. It's a small place, true, and a limited one, but for a being that calls home a realm with little to offer but infinite torment, this is an acceptable price to pay for a vacation. It didn't exist during the War, and so exhibits almost no trace of the unimaginable devastation we wreaked on the fabric of existence in its closing, desperate hours. The Prince pays special attention to it, even himself visiting it on occasion. For him, it's another battlefield, a place he might wrest one victory, at least, from the hand of his ancient foe. We go in disguise, of course, if we take form at all, since our greatest weapon against your species has always been its willingness to deny our existence. One doesn't after all fear what isn't real, or learn to protect against it.

When I first arrived in the mortal world, I still believed that our rebellion was just, despite our defeat. I set about my mission without a second thought. That was three thousand of your years ago. I was always among the more persuasive among us, and earned the favor of the Prince through the centuries convincing humans to shake off the bonds of fealty to the Other. I was granted the title of "Master Liberator" by the Prince himself - there are only a handful who've received that honorific among us. Fealty to the Prince has always been an unattractive prospect to your species, so my kind usually settles for setting mortals against the Other that we fight, robbing our enemies of support in the name of freedom.

Over the centuries, I took to keeping a human-seeming physical form, as did many, simply as a means of observing my work as one of you humans might see it. It became as familiar to me as an extension of my real, unrestricted form, something like a spare appendage. With it, I could whisper at my quarry's ear at the same time as watching his reaction from afar. I even took to viewing your world in the restricted way you might see it at times, in order to refine my ability to understand humans and therefore to better manipulate their loyalties.

Things changed, over time. I suppose pretending to be human long enough, working to understand humans long enough, will change even the most hardened, embittered old soldier. Perhaps that's why the Other's agents rarely stay in your world for long. I started choosing my targets sympathetically - I initially thought of it as efficiency - but over time I stopped believing that as well. I lost my unthinking belief in our revolution at some point along the line, but kept my beliefs secret, despite a growing certainty that the rebellion we perpetrated was wrong. I was still one of the most effective among the Prince's agents at the time, so I escaped significant scrutiny, and the changes in me went unnoticed..

Thus was my position when I met you. Perhaps "met" is too strong a word - in reality, I was casting abut for my next target, and you caught my attention. From what I saw then of your mindset, you were an easy mark for being led to struggle against the Other. I remember quite vividly, moving my human form to a position to observe you, and being stunned by what my human eyes saw.

You might remember that night, sitting on the park bench in the cool late spring dusk, head in your hands, staring off into the distance. You looked so sad, so distant, the scene was almost a work of art. Your mind was churning with an equal mixture of hopes, fears, doubts, and faith that is no less aesthetically pleasing, to beings who can see such things. I immediately wondered if I should pick another target, leaving you to your beautiful, silent solitude. I didn't, though; neither did I start the procedure of breaking your then-flagging allegiance to my enemies. I held back, watching through human eyes and senses beyond your comprehension, undecided. Something inside my own thought patterns had taken me aback.

I was feeling loneliness. I recognized the urge to connect from observing it countless times, but being affected myself by a human emotion like that was new. It was also a feeling I was unable to easily sate: while it would be a simple matter to locate another one of my kind, our prides and paranoias have from the start been much too strong to allow us to relax in the company of even the closest allies. Dispensing with these foibles would be a warning sign, showing the others that I had changed. Part of me wanted to simply shrug off this emotion - after all, it was a consequence of my long stay in the mortal world, and nothing more. Another part wanted to indulge it. How large this part was caught me off-guard.

After an interminable period, you left the park and went home. I followed, but not in human form, learning your place of residence. Perhaps human customs would find such behavior "indecent", but this term holds little value for any of us. I learned over the next several days that you went to the park regularly, to think in a quiet place. I empathized, though the thought patterns of a mind not bound to three dimensions are rarely affected by noise or the presence of other beings. Empathy wasn't new to me, but it was some time since I'd last felt it: long ago, before the rebellion.

I remember our first conversation as clear as if it just happened, because I was designed to never forget. I placed my human body on your favorite park bench, and withdrew into it as much as I am able - not that you'd notice if I didn't. Soon enough, you appeared on the path, and stopped, noticing my presence. I looked up to you, extending my being just slightly, to pick up your surface thoughts, but didn't speak. You wondered who I was and why I was out here this late, and the possibility of my having untoward intentions raced through your mind.

After an awkward moment, I shifted my human form to one end of the bench, gesturing to the other. I didn't speak, fearing your reaction to my voice. It is incredibly difficult to disguise our harsh, grating, almost reverberating voice, a battle scar of sorts from the War. Neither could my false body speak for me - manipulating vocal chords to produce a new voice is incredibly difficult work, and usually produces a flat, barely-intelligible robotic mumble, if it is understandable at all. I had decided not to speak, unless necessary.

"Er, no thanks." You nervously ran your fingers along your temple, pushing your straight, shoulder-length hair back behind your ear. You were thinking about leaving, coming back later, but you didn't. I had considered planting the suggestion in your mind to stay, but didn't need to. "Come here to think too?" You broke the silence again after a few moments, still standing several yards from the bench.

I shrugged my human shoulders, not speaking. In your mind, I planted the sense that I was not quite sure why I was here. You humans refer to such planted thoughts as "intuition" - all of the Prince's agents and all of our enemies use them regularly to manipulate humans. In truth, I didn't really know why I was there. The part of me that was true to my duty was screaming to leave you be and find an easier target, one less sympathetic.

"I know how you feel." You couldn't, possibly, but I appreciated the attempt. You were deeply conflicted, I sensed, but you sat down anyway, a little nervous, still afraid I might not be safe. I'm not and wasn't, of course, but not in the way you were anticipating. For a while, neither of us spoke. You kept sneaking glances in my direction, trying to figure out who I was, why I was here. Truth be told I was furitively observing you as well, though not in any way you could comprehend or detect. My human body stared thoughtfully off into the woods downslope from the bench, almost perfectly still.

Eventually, you spoke again. "Ever get that sense that you're missing something big?" You looked to my human form. I turned its - my - head to meet your gaze, and shrugged, feigning uncomprehension. In truth, I knew what you were referring to - my experience with humanity had taught me that your kind could sense something of the conflict going on beyond your world, the struggle that had shredded the very fabric of the cosmos. I had often used that, during my service to the Prince - romantic notions are, after all, easily manipulated. You elaborated, trying to explain. "Like there's something out there, just out of reach, just beyond comprehension?" I decided to respond with an affirmative nod, not wanting to seem like I wasn't listening.

You smiled thinly, again putting a stray strand of hair back into place. "I sometimes feel like I'm crazy for thinking about it. It's why I come here." You made me really think, then, really put the cognitive capabilities of my whole self to use. I wondered for a span (It's not really accurate to call it a stretch of time, given the fact that part of me transcends your time) if I should tell you, then, what I was. I decided, barely, not to. Trying to explain my chilling, tortured voice, I caused my human lungs to cough, took a breath, and spoke.

"It's not crazy. It's being human." You winced at the sound of my voice, as I knew you would. I had an excuse ready, though. "Sorry. Wound from the War. I used to have quite the singing voice, too." The truth, with a few details left out. That would become a pattern for me telling you things, as you probably know. I shrugged my human shoulders apologetically, or at least tried to. Apologies weren't something I'd ever exactly practiced.

"Oh. That's too bad. Makes you sound awful." You chuckled a little, then explained. "Almost demonic." If I were human, I'd have winced. "You really think all people feel that way?" You had already returned to the original topic. This tack I gladly accepted.

"Yeah, anyone who stops long enough to think about it, anyway." My voice probably had a similar effect on you as nails on a chalkboard. That's a factor of your species' design, I suspect - designed after the war, the Other probably made you repulsed by the voices of his enemies. Not that it matters much in the long run - my kind almost never uses its voice except to converse with each other, given our other capabilities. You considered my words, valiantly trying to shrug off the bone-chilling effect of hearing my voice, which your rational mind was fighting to discount. My opinion of you improved with every second you tolerated it without visibly showing discomfort.

"That makes sense." You moved over just far enough to extend a hand. "By the way, I'm Karen. You are?"

"Izunel." I don't know why I gave you my real name. Even mortals, with enough knowledge, can use the name of a being such as myself to gain advantage. I accepted the handshake.

"Izunel. Strange name." You commented.

"One might say that." My name, as the names of all my kind, be they serving the Prince or the Other, predates your world, the war, and time itself. Thus it's hardly surprising it sounds strange to modern mortal ears.

You smiled a little, then returned to your original topic. "How many people do you think actually, as you said, stop, like this, to think about what might be out there?" I had an idea, but I still shrugged, not wanting to trouble you with my voice more than necessary. You took it as a cue to continue. "What makes me wonder, though, is, what it is that makes people feel that way?" You looked distant, like you had when I first saw you. A human man would have found you very attractive, in the moonlight, looking off into the distance like that. "I used to believe it was God, but I'm not so sure anymore."

Again, my false-human form shrugged. I could have then, as I could have many times, seamlessly returned to my duty, thus avoiding the Prince's wrath. I could have used that chink in your psyche, solidified your doubts. I decided against it. At the time, I didn't know why I couldn't try to go through with my duty.

"Don't say much, do you?" You smiled. "The voice thing doesn't bother me." I knew it did, but you were resisting the primal revulsion by sheer force of logical mind, and I appreciated it greatly.

"When you sound like I do, you make do with few words." I had gone whole centuries without speaking before, though I could always make my meaning clear, provided I wasn't trying to be human.

"Sure. I get that." You turned to face my human form again. "But I've had enough monologues on this subject, mostly right here. I would appreciate just once having some sort of dialogue, you know?"

I sighed. "Sounds interesting, but I must decline." You frowned. Obviously, as a being of metaphysics, I have some expertise on the subject, but I had detected one of the Other's agents, far away but nearing. That meant it was time to go, before the enemy sensed me. "I have other obligations. Perhaps some other time."

"Some other time? Do you come here often?" Your suspicions, slowly fading, again peaked. I used a mild suggestion to placate them.

"Occasionally. Our paths will cross again." The anachronistic (to your ears) phraseology, and the certainty born of a mind that doesn't quite exist within time obviously confused you, but you didn't mention it. "Nice to meet you, Karen." I pulled my human shell up from the bench.

"Ah, you too, Izunel." As I walked the human form away, I barely needed my extrahuman capabilities to detect your gaze on its back. As soon as it was out of your view I merely whisked it away, unneeded. My presence remained around the bench for a few moments, skimming your surface thoughts. You were no longer thinking about metaphysics, about that feeling in the human heart that something else was out there, just out of reach. You were thinking about the strange man with the strange name and the ruined voice. To your credit, the thought that I might not be human did, fleetingly, occur to you, but you discounted it immediately. Again, logic prevailed. I was long gone before my enemy was aware of my presence - that time, anyway.

You came back to that spot the next night, and so did I. You didn't see me, however - One of the Other's agents, hidden to human eyes but visible to me, followed you. It might have even been the same one that had driven me off before. They can skim over your surface thoughts, too, and I'll bet that day you recalled something I said, or even my name, while too close to one of them. It was not your fault, they drift around the mortal world looking for evidence of our crossing their invisible lines, and this one probably thought something on your mind was suspicious. I drew into myself, taking no actions. As long as he didn't know I was here, I was safe, and I am an expert at avoiding the detection of their kind by now. It helped that he seemed to be concentrating on you, expecting my usual tactic of planting suggestions as a way to catch me. Obviously, I did nothing of the sort. My opponent (I couldn't recognize which of them it was without revealing myself) stayed in your vicinity for as long as I could observe without being detected, following you when you departed.

The next night you again returned to the park bench, this time without the opposition in tow. I met you there, to continue the promised discussions of metaphysics. About once every two to three nights for two weeks, we sat on the bench, and talked, as you probably remember. I won't bore you by repeating here a large portion of the things that you already know - after all, during most of those conversations even I often lost sight of the fact that what I was doing there was more than a commonplace meeting with a friend.

Over this period of time, as a courtesy to you, I began to slowly alter the portion of your brain designed to make your kind adverse to the voices of the Prince's scarred rebels. As a result, you felt less and less revulsion from the sound of my voice, which you attributed to your getting used to it. Before you worry, no, I did nothing to the functional part of your brain - even expert manipulators such as I cannot alter that, and trying would likely bring the Other's wrath directly. As it is, I was breaking rules even the Prince wanted us to obey.

I knew you got the sense that something wasn't right with me over that short period, but you seemed to accept that. You were noticing the ways I didn't act human, filing them away in your mind for later analysis. During the same time, if I were to interact with fellow agents, I would probably be unable to hide the ways in which I was no longer like my kin. When I met you I was already diverging from the norm of the Prince's army, and your company only sped up the change.

I agonized over telling you the truth often, on several occasions even going so far as preparing in my mind what to say. I never did tell you, though, because each time, at the last second, I backed down. I didn't even keep up with my Prince-given mission, though I tried to continue inciting human rebellion for appearance's sake, each time I tried to select a new target for my wiles I saw your face in my mind, as I saw it that first night through the eyes of humanity: sad, moonlit, slightly disheveled, and thoughtful. Call it empathy, guilt, whatever is most accurate - but part of me was simply unable to keep leading your species to oppose the Other.

That fourteenth day after we formally met - the last real conversation we had - you asked me questions I wasn't prepared for. You asked about my friends, my family - personal things our conversations had so far steered away from. I told you, as usual, the most human-sounding part of the truth - that I had been disowned by my family, such as it was, when I became a soldier in the War, and that while my closest compatriots from the war had all survived, the defeat had twisted them, made them difficult to spend time around. I told you the truth - that many of us during the worst of the war had hoped that if we did lose, the Opposition would simply destroy us all. I told you that it never happened - we were merely exiled along with our leader, never to return to our homeland.

You spent the rest of the conversation desperately trying to think of a war in modern history matching my story. Of course, your world has had many wars, and almost all of them are echoes of our War (after all, it was us that taught your species the concept), but I had provided just enough detail that I was pretty sure there were no exact matches. Part of me wanted you to discover this, and part of me was simply hoping you'd accept that I was referring to a conflict you'd never heard of. This internal conflict of interest was not something I had experienced before coming to your world, but I have since decided that it is a human concept, to fight against oneself in this manner...

Story continues in part 2 (here).

"The Water's Great!"

The cell was little more than a basement closet with a thick iron door, but, given the condition its occupant was in it might as well have been Alcatraz. The U.S. Marine Corps fatigues he wore were almost unrecognizably torn, stained, and worn. His wrists were bound by rough rope, and his face and chest were covered in bruises from the beatings he had suffered at the hands of his captors over the last few days. Each breath causing shooting pain from his broken ribs, Marine Corporal Lloyd Mennard struggled to remain conscious.

He concentrated on the footsteps of the pacing guard outside. Now he'll be at the end of the hall... The footsteps paused, then resumed. Now on his way back. Mennard visualized the guard, a tall, muscular, AK-47-toting man who spoke only four words of English, none of which were particularly pleasant.

Mennard's vision swam again, and he concentrated on remaining conscious. Though one eye was swollen shut from the beating, he squeezed the other one shut tightly and opened it again to clear his head. It didn't exactly work - when he opened it again, he found himself sitting at a folding card table back at the base, along with the other members of his squad. This isn't real, he told himself.

"Your bet, Lloyd." Vince said. Looking down, Mennard saw that he was holding a pair of tattered playing cards.

"I fold." Mennard heard himself say. He didn't seem to have an option.

Rob folded as well. "Did you guys hear? We got patrol duty again tomorrow." This was met with a chorus of groans and mild swearing. Their squad seemed to always get patrol duty. "For once I'd like to actually see some action." Rob was hotheaded, the youngest of the squad. Even so, most of the others nodded in agreement, including Mennard.

Mennard blinked, and the card table was replaced by the dusty cell, the murmur of the barracks replaced by the repetitive footfalls of the guard. Mennard saw in his mind's eye Rob cut down by enemy fire in the ambush. He had been the first to go when his wish was granted, and the rest of the squad had met a similar fate. Somehow I'm the only one left. But not for long. Mennard knew he was going to be killed. It was just a matter of time. It was the same every time an American was captured - sooner or later, the enemy always decided they were safer if you were dead.

Mennard had come to terms with his impending demise during the last beating. He was beyond feeling particularly upset about it, after all, the longer they kept him alive the longer they'd have to beat him, or to find more imaginative methods of making him suffer.

"Come on, Lloyd. Come on in!" Mennard was back on the shore of the lake where his family had once vacationed. In front of him, his grandfather stood waist-deep in the water, beckoning. "It's too hot to stand around all day." It was hot. Mennard felt himself perspiring. But Gramps died years ago. This can't be real either. His grandfather had stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, and lived to tell the tale. He had died when Lloyd was eleven.

"I can't." Mennard said. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was off. Something was wrong.

"Why not?" Gramps waved him in. "The water's great!"

Mennard opened his mouth to reply, just as the vision faded. From the sounds outside, the guard was talking to his superior, but Mennard's limited understanding of Arabic wasn't enough for him to follow. The conversation ceased, and footfalls approached the cell door, which creaked open gratingly to reveal a pair of Russian assault rifles and the two men aiming them.

"Get up." The heavily accented English words almost pulled a smile out of the Marine - in his condition, he knew he couldn't stand without aid. Mennard knew better than to smile, though. Instead, he did his best to show his captors that he wasn't able to stand, by struggling against the back wall feebly. A brief argument in Arabic between the two men ensued, and eventually, the guards shouldered their assault rifles and stepped forward, each one taking hold of one of their prisoner's arms above the elbow. When they hauled him to his feet, his broken ribs grated against one another. Mennard gasped shallowly, but managed to avoid crying out in pain.

Mennard suspected that they were going to torture him for information again. Not that they'd be getting anything useful - a Marine wasn't an intelligence officer, after all, and even if he did know what they were asking for, Mennard wouldn't talk. The bastards will never get anything out of me. Not that they really expect to. I swear half the reason they're doing this is that they find it fun.

To Mennard's surprise, the guards dragged him up the stairs, past the "interrogation" room. That's new. What's going on? He knew that in his condition, escape was probably futile, unless he could get his hands on one of the group's ubiquitous AK-47s. Even then, it'd be me against what, thirty-five men? With broken ribs and smashed fingers, he doubted he could fire a rifle without passing out anyway. Still... The guard at his left had his weapon slung over his shoulder improperly, and it dangled tantalizingly less than a foot from Mennard's hand. I just need to...

The man must have seen his prisoner eying the weapon, because he adjusted the strap to move it out of reach. So much for that idea.

The guards had him at the landing in moments. The door to the rest of the building was open, and there was another guard there, with another gun. Beyond him was a ground-level, dirt-floored room lit blindingly with a mix of scavenged USMC equipment and primitive-looking oil lamps. Most of the group, it appeared, was gathered here. Now they are selling tickets to my torture? Mennard would have chuckled dryly, if it weren't for the broken ribs.

The guards dropped their prisoner roughly in the center of the room, and stood over Mennard to ensure he stayed put. After that last beating, I don't know why they worry. Mennard could barely manage to keep his face off the dusty packed-earth floor. Somewhere outside the building, Mennard heard the bass-drum tempo of mortar fire.

Mennard blinked, and he was back at the barracks, suiting up for patrol. "Careful what you wish for, Mennard." The gruff voice had come from behind him: Lockhart. Lockhart had been stationed at this base longer than almost anyone else, and, so the story went, had survived a dozen or more ambushes, even one in which the rest of his squad was killed.

"Sorry, what?" Mennard remembered how this conversation went, and as before seemed powerless to do anything but observe.

"Careful what you wish for. I heard you hotheads're spoilin' for a fight. When one comes to you, you'll take back every word." Lockhart scowled grimly.

"We've been in... what, four firefights this month?" Mennard responded. "The war comes to us often enough."

"Pickin' off AK-47-totin' cannon fodder is not a firefight. It's barely above slaughter." Lockhart shook his head. "Some of these nuts are good, and eventually everyone gets in the thick with that sort."

"I know. It's that sort that eggs on the rest. Makes others die for 'em, and takes credit when the saps get lucky. It's that kind I signed up to stop." Mennard slammed his locker and started putting on his vest.

"Knowin' you're doin' right don't protect you, not here." Lockhart scowled, and turned to leave. "You boys be careful out there today."

"Will do." Mennard shouldered his pack, and closed his eyes for a moment -

And opened them to find himself sprawled on the packed-earth floor of his captors' hideout. I must have passed out again. The guards were arguing about something, again in rapid, unintelligible Arabic. Mennard stayed still, his good eye roving what he could see. Lots of feet, most sandaled or booted. The wall of the building, drab and crumbling, like the city around it. And... A tripod?

The guards bent down to lift the Marine again, moving Mennard into a corner, where the brightest lights were pointed. The lights forced Mennard to keep his gaze low to avoid being completely blind. On the other side of the room, a man was fiddling with a black device on a rickety wicker table. Most everyone else started crowding around the bright corner, the murmur of conversation occasionally interspersed with nasty chuckles.

After a shouted command from the tinkerer in the corner, someone moved the tripod to a point in between the largest pair of lights. Mennard wondered what exactly they had planned.

An older, gray-bearded man shoved his way through the group, shouting a single word repeatedly. Given that after each repetition the crowd got quieter, Mennard suspected the word meant "silence." In one hand the man held a large-caliber pistol of some kind (If he were gesturing with it less Menard might have been able to tell what model), and in the other, he held a long knife of some sort, sheathed in leather. Mennard guessed this was the group's leader.

Outside, the drumming thuds of mortars were interrupted by an explosion - by the sound, Mennard guessed it was less than a half-mile away. The thumping did not resume. With the room's inhabitants quiet, Mennard could hear small arms fire, too - somewhere out in the city, he bet, the Marines were turning over every rock looking for him. Even so, he suspected that his captors would kill him or move him before they got close. We never leave a man behind. It's our tragic flaw. How many will be injured or killed looking for me in vain? He didn't really blame his comrades, as Mennard knew that if it had been anyone else, he'd be out there looking for them too.

The tinkerer at the table exclaimed something, and picked up the device he was working on, rushing it toward the tripod. Mennard got a good look at it - it was an older model compact video camera. One of the pieces of the plastic housing was missing, and the adjacent segments were cracked around the edge of the hole - it had definitely gone through a lot. Mennard slumped even further and closed his eyes when he saw the camera - it meant he was going to die today.

"Lloyd?" It was his mother's voice. "I have to go run some errands. If you start feeling worse, call my cell."

"Ok, mom." Lloyd felt so tired, and cold, and he just barely got the words out before a wave of nausea swept him. "I'll be fine." False bravado, of course - he didn't feel fine. Mennard remembered this day - he was in ninth grade, and he'd woke up that morning quite ill.

"All right. Hope you feel better by tomorrow."

"Me too. I'd prefer school to feeling this bad." Lloyd hadn't particularly liked high school, especially freshman year, but he'd done well enough despite that. And, of course, it was better than being sick. His mother left him there, bundled up on the living room couch. What else was a teenager to do? He grabbed the remote and flicked on the television, hoping it could put him to sleep. After realizing that the usual channels had nothing on but toddlers' cartoons, he flipped to the news.

Lloyd remembered that fall Tuesday morning well, because the television had not put him to sleep. The date that day was September 11, 2001. Mennard, powerless to do anything but, relived his fourteen-year-old-self watching his countrymen die. The sight of those people jumping from the blazing Trade Center had given him nightmares for years.

Mennard realized that he'd passed out, again. The old man was talking, now, waving his gun, and facing the camera, which now displayed a red "recording" light. Occasionally, he pointed the knife back behind him to Mennard, usually inciting the onlookers to a ragged cheer. At least once, he lead a group chant of "allahu ackbar" - that phrase, at least, Mennard knew. Outside, mortar fire had resumed, though more sporadically. The two guards were holding him up at a kneeling position by his shoulders, a position that caused pain in the soldier's ribs, probably intentionally so. The old man twice stepped back and rested the muzzle of his pistol on Mennard's temple, but each time he pulled it away and kept talking. Come on, you sadist. Get it over with. You won't see me beg for mercy. You can't strike fear into a dead man.

"Lloyd, I don't understand!" His mother again, sounding agitated. "You could go to any university in the state with your grades. Why are you doing this?"

"Mom, I know what I'm doing." Lloyd heard himself say. This, too, he remembered. It was two months before graduation. "I don't want to go to college. I have something more important to do with my life."

"But the Marines, Lloyd?" His mother was near tears.

"His mind is made up, dear." This was Mennard's father. "I don't think I've seen him more convinced of anything in a long time."

"Thank you, Dad." Eighteen-year-old Lloyd Mennard was interrupted.

"Don't think I like it either, son." The older Mennard pointed out. "But if it is your decision, I'll support it."

His mother refused eye contact, and avoided him that night. Lloyd remembered that she'd only come to terms with the decision the month before he was deployed.

Someone was shaking him. Again struggling back to consciousness, Mennard groaned in pain as each shake reached his ribs. The old man was kneeling down directly in front of him, grinning like the devil. "Any lass' words?" The sentence was spoken rapidly, as if practiced. Lloyd doubted the old man knew more English than the guards.

Okay, Lloyd, this is how it ends. Strangely, this thought didn't bother him, only made him think for a long second, wondering whether to say something to the camera or remain stonily silent and accept death without complaint. Eventually, he nodded his assent weakly. Still grinning, the leader stood up and stepped to the side.

Mennard knew what to say almost immediately. Something that would make his captors angry and simultaneously send the message that he'd accepted his death. Something he'd memorized a decade ago, words that were cause for murder in this part of the world. I wonder how far I'll get before they realize what I'm saying? Mennard took a raspy breath, and started speaking. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want..."

He was on the beach again, standing uncertainly at the water's edge, and Gramps was still egging him on. "Come on in!" Gramps waved. Lloyd wondered hazily where everyone else was - surely on a beach trip at least his parents would be nearby, but he couldn't see them.

Mennard was back in that dusty building, surrounded by his enemies. He struggled to keep talking. One of the onlookers was gesticulating wildly at the leader, who'd not taken notice. "He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me by still waters." The old man finally saw the gestures, and stepped over to hear his compatriot's concerns. Great, someone does know English. Mennard took a deep breath in order to continue talking.

"I bet it's really cold." Lloyd shivered just looking at the lake water. It was still, calm, as if it was a block of ice only hours before.

"Nah, the water's great! Come on!" Gramps laughed. Lloyd took a step forward, then two. He was at the water's edge.

After a racking cough, which brought up blood, Mennard kept talking. The leader's eyes widened, probably based on what his lackey was telling him. "... He restoreth my soul and leadeth me in the path of righteousness for his Name's sake."

"I'm not sure I want to... Where are Mom and Dad?" The beach again. Lloyd's toes were inches from the weakly lapping verge.

"They'll be here eventually. Come on. It'll be great!" Gramps was all smiles. Lloyd made up his mind. He started walking backward.

"Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me..." The gray-bearded man, murder in his eyes, had heard enough, and whirled on Mennard. The Marine didn't even blink. Wouldn't give them the satisfaction of putting me off now. I'm on a roll. "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest me a table..."

Lloyd stood, for a moment, smiling back at Gramps. After a long moment, he started running toward the now-more-inviting water. Two steps. Three. The water's edge grew nearer again.

"... In the presence of my enemies. Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over." The man stepped toward Mennard, fury and horror in his visage. Mennard barely noticed the pistol coming to bear.

Lloyd jumped, and it seemed to him he jumped farther than should have been possible, and that he hung in the air unnaturally long. He had enough time to have a moment of doubt, but he forced it aside. Like he said, it'll be great.

"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life..." Mennard felt the pistol's cold muzzle against his temple again, and he knew this time the man meant it. He felt strangely calm, collected. "... and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever." The man screamed something wordless, as if hearing the last words of the psalm caused him physical pain, and pulled the trigger.

The water was indeed "great" - it was also cold enough to stop your heart. Lloyd Mennard gasped. Gramps embraced him, laughing. "I'm proud of you, kid. You did good. You did real good."