Nodded off at the desk. Heard the roaring of a hurricane bearing down on me. Snapped my head up, thinking it was the rumble of an earthquake, to find the walls of the room were disintegrating and falling away. I jumped to my feet, still thinking I’m experiencing an earthquake but just haven’t woken up enough to see the physical world. The chair and desk crumbled into dust.
I’m standing alone in a granite grey desolate land. The sky is crimson red. The sun is scarlet. A dry and desiccating wind pulls to my right.
“You could have just sent an earworm, No Man.” The wind pushed from the opposite direction. “Unless this is an emergency. Either way, you certainly have my attention.”
Despite the lack of dust to announce their presence, I knew the winds were suddenly coming together. I shielded my eyes from the sting of being blown dry as the winds collected themselves into a presence behind me.
“It has been some time since last we met. I did not think you would have recognized a polite request for an audience.” No Man’s non-voice boomed in my head. My ignorant ears rang in sympathy.
I turned to face him, expecting to see a sharply dressed man in a sharply black three piece suit. Perfectly coifed blond hair framing a perfect square jawed executive face. I meant to make a joke about not needing to set a broken nose this time.
The tail of a diplodocus. The body of a Komodo dragon. The neck of a sauropod. But where the head should have been was a branching stalk of twelve smaller necks. At the end of each neck stalk was a head. Each head was different, but all were skinless. Muscle, bone, and tusk worked freely. Some I recognized as being terrestial, like the wolf head, the tiger head, the orca head, and the crocodile head. Some I recognized as fantastical, like the dragon head, the cephalopod covered in a dozen eyes, and the round eyestalk covered with a thousand compound eyes. The others I could not identify the relevant species. Except for one. The human head.
“You are speechless.” All twelve heads made movement as if speaking. But only one of the heads was capable of human speech. The others just roared, squealed, gurgled, chittered, and made noises appropriate for the species they represented. My ears begged for ignorance to resume.
“I had a presentation in mind when I turned around. No Man has always used my biases to present a form that is easiest for me to communicate with, a form that does not trigger fear even though his visual perfection is a fear trigger in itself.” I cocked my head as I studied the twelve heads that were studying me. “Is that the eye pocket of a bacteria colony? That’s neat.”
“You seem to be lacking fear. What is the problem?”
“I never, ever, have seen this before. Nor have I ever thought of such a mix and match hydra. I haven’t even read of such a beast. Seven heads? Yes, but with fully fleshed faces. Twelve? No. You did not take this from my mind. You are deviating from the protocol previously established with No Man. Surely, you must understand, there are many that would wish the respect and yielding I give him.” I stood stiffly with my hands slightly behind me. As I bowed, I summoned the feathersword to my hand. “If you can not prove to me you are my No Man, I shall leave in peace as I arrived. Any attempts to stop me shall be met with force.”
“You threaten me in my realm?”
“You pulled me here without my consent.”
“Hospitality holds no guilt over me.”
I summoned a second weapon to my left hand. “Then I am released from it as well. You have failed. Farewell.”
“Wait. You have certainly changed since last we sat together on the wharf.”
“That is public knowledge. Try harder.”
The twelve heads smiled with gentle approval. “Good Guy Lucifer, then?” All the eyes blinked, and the world blinked with it. When the scarlet sun reasserted itself, the personification of the Good Guy Lucifer meme stood before me. He held a martini, just like the image in the meme. “Better?”
“I’ve written about the use of this image. Public knowledge. Show me an image I have not written about, but that my No Man would know.” I blanked my mind to the best of my ability. I thought about nothing and the formlessness of nothing. No Man is able to read my thoughts, no matter how guarded I am. I had to assume that if this is an imposter, but equal to No Man, this imposter would have the same advantage.
“How will you know if my next image is private or not if you do not consider it?” Good Guy Lucifer raised his martini in a toast and drank the glass dry in one draught.
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
“At least give me a name.”
I turned around and sliced the fabric of the world with the feathersword. As the Nowhere curled away from the gap, I saw the spirals of infinities blinking beyond. I realized I’ve never tried to cut through realms from Nowhere before, and on remembering my first introduction to this place, I was second guessing the safety of my plan.
“How about someone you have never told me about, but I know ke is connected to you anyway.”
That voice. No. Couldn’t be. I turned around and saw he had taken on the form of a particular person. It was true, I never mentioned this person to No Man, and never asked him to take on this person’s form because of an unusual quality of this person’s appearance to those with sight. No Man reproduced this form perfectly, including the unusual quality that can not be described, only experienced.
“You bastard.”, I harrumphed.
No Man smiled and waved his hand. The rip in his reality quietly healed itself behind me.
“We have things to talk of, Weaver. But first you need to abandon the idea that what you see is reliable. You have done well to confront your mammalian fear triggers. But the things we shall discuss will leave your precious meatsuit rotting in a forgotten ditch. You have sight. Start using it.”
No Man, still in [that person’s] form, waved his hand again. The fabric of Nowhere unzipped itself slowly around me. As I was gently removed from his world, he allowed his appearance to melt into a lovecraftian horror of tentacles, eyestalks, squid beaks, and barbed exposed spines. Once upon a time, I would have screamed in fear.
“Bitch, please.” His eldritch laughter at my dismissal woke me. I lifted my head and noted I was smiling in my “sleep”.
I guess the drought is over.