The Changeling: The FooL, #2

By Andrew P. Mayer

She Won't Get Fooled Again

Betsey and Matt have jumped out of the cosmic frying pan and straight into the fire – they've crash-landed in an alternate universe where humans are fighting a war against the changelings: shapeshifting creatures who can become wolves, boars, and possibly dragons.

Right now, the humans are winning, and that would be good news for Betsey—if she still was human. Meanwhile, the Fool has been taken prisoner by the changelings, and Betsey is going to need to figure out how to shift back into something with 2 legs if she has any hope of rescuing him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew P. Mayer
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507098745

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one

HARD LANDINGS

The Maelstrom: It is the conduit between realities that channels the etheric plasma bringing nourishment to every branch of the Great Tree.

There is nothing that exists which can perceive the nature of the fertile soil where the tree’s strong roots are planted, let alone the unimaginable cosmic forest where it grows and where It will one day fall when it inevitably dies. Within its infinite (and yet limited) lifespan will be all the universes that will have ever been, all the realities that will have ever existed, and all the possible lives that could ever be lived. Every tragedy and triumph, every struggle and success, every love and loss that those lives will contain is only a single infinitesimal speck against the countless stories of life and death contained within the meta-cosmos of this abundant ultimate phenomenon.

Each universe begins as a bud before it unfurls, expands, grows, and then, exhausted by countless billions of years of being and changing, withers and dies—its resources reclaimed into the Maelstrom to begin the process all over again.

Any perception of the Maelstrom itself, whether received in words or directly through the senses, is nothing but a poor echo of the impossibly rich and complicated truth that lies far beyond the ability of any corporeal being to comprehend. For example, despite it appearing to be somewhere you can travel through, it is not actually a place in the way that thinking creatures try to define such things. Yet, for any being trapped in a limited, time-bound body, thinking of the Maelstrom as a somewhere is the only way to protect the fragile mind from the vast and horrible implications that would come from uncovering even the barest hint of the truth of what lies beyond the veil of their own understanding.

When Betsey Weisz saw it for the first time, it blew her mind. This, she thought, is some seriously cosmic shit. Luckily for Betsey’s fragile psyche, she didn’t have time to seriously reflect more deeply on the impossible vastness she was witnessing, and thus she avoided the inevitable disintegration of self that must surely come with the contemplation of the infinite made real. There were far more important things to worry about; ultimate dissolution would have to wait.

Betsey and Matt Zero had escaped into the Maelstrom from a tiny dark reality. It was a poor copy of a tiny sliver of New Jersey that she had created herself. She still had no idea how she’d recreated the Free-Way diner and all the people within it, only that she’d done it in a desperate attempt to escape from the painful realities of her real life.

Matt had opened a door into her little world and stepped through as a divine being: a strange angel capable of incredible, almost godlike, acts of power. He had no memory of who he was or where he had come from, although he retained some understanding of how this strange universe worked. He also knew he was on a quest, and until he found the world, someone he loved deeply was in great danger.

After helping Betsey defeat a demonic parasite that had tried to eat her, Matt had asked Betsey to lead him back to the real New Jersey in the reality that she had been born into. He hoped that in her real world, he might find a clue that would lead him to the reality he was looking for. Betsey’s opinion was that there was no one in New Jersey who had a clue, and having woken from her self-inflicted delusion, the last place she wanted to go was back to the one universe in the meta-cosmos she was sure had nothing to offer her.

Betsey Weisz had slipped free from a spiderweb, and now she was flying free—eager to spread her wings and experience the infinite possibilities that lay beyond the window of her own perception.

Like most corporeal beings, Betsey could instinctually comprehend some of the fundamental truths of the Maelstrom, although she lacked the perception needed to navigate the pathways of the meta-cosmos or any way to propel herself through it even if she did. There is, for example, a basic sense referred to by meta-dimensional travelers as grozzoz that allows a being to feel the directional flow of meta-dimensional time. From a human perspective, it would be a cross of smell mixed with a touch of touch, rounded out with a strong sense of déjà vu. Even if they were somehow able to actually sense it, their brains aren’t wired to let them know how to comprehend it.

The best option for any species of manifested beings trying to satisfy a need to consider themselves intelligent would be simply accepting that the fundamental nature of the universe will always be beyond them. It would not only save a great deal of time that would otherwise be wasted arguing amongst themselves about the true nature of reality, it would also prevent them from killing each other over disagreements about their unhelpfully pathetic attempts to know what cannot be known.

Yet there are an almost an infinite number of beings who have been slain in the name of truth or reason across the multiverse. It might have been comforting for them, before they died, to know that while they did die in vain, death has its advantages. Living sentient beings are, for example, unable to stop smashing themselves into the cosmic window that separates the known from the unknowable. Living things are often fixated on what they can imagine must be possible if they could only hit the invisible barrier hard enough to smash through, and despite it often appearing otherwise, success only encourages them to keep solving the same problems over and over again in more complicated ways.

Occasionally some higher being will take pity on these poor insects as they bash themselves against the hard surfaces of reality, and rather than putting them out of their misery, the gods will benevolently open the window of the ultimate, removing the barrier that separates the living creature from the world of thought that lies beyond. No longer trapped, the corporeal being will fly free from the world it knew, soaring out into the meta-cosmos! If they were truly smart, they would fly back before the window closes. Most of them die in rapture, gobbled up by forces beyond their comprehension in the same instant they believe they have achieved ultimate insight. Not a bad way to go, all things considered.

Despite the infinitely impossible odds, a few of these irrepressible bugs will survive in the Maelstrom. Most soon go mad—delivering messages so exquisitely insightful that no one can possibly understand them, or simply blowing out their brains (or the equivalent) to make it all stop. Occasionally, out of the untold billions of beings that live within each of the incalculable realities that make up the Tree, one of these sentient flies will awaken and ascend, developing the cosmic consciousness necessary to rise to the status of an interdimensional god-like being. In the cosmic garden, everything is possible, and a fly can occasionally transform into a bird.

Having attained a new level of consciousness, these lucky travelers may soon discover, much to their chagrin, that they are now simply trapped behind another, bigger pane of glass, and that smacking into it hurts a lot more when you’re a bird not a bug.

In this moment, Betsey Weisz was still a fly, and the odds of her surviving her second journey through the Maelstrom remained poor at best. Without the protection of Matt Zero, she would have been shredded in the cosmic tides, eaten by meta-predators, or simply sucked down into a reality so strange that she would not only lack even the most basic understanding of the skills needed to survive within it, she would be unable comprehend it.

In fact, Betsey had only begun to become acquainted with her meta-corporeal self when something so dangerous manifested into the void directly in front of them it had caused Matt Zero, the closest thing she had to a guide and protector, to start freaking the hell out.

Dog! Matt shouted, communicating loudly with what Betsey had only recently learned was an invisible being that could inhabit technology and appear in canine form. He’s found us! We need to get out of here, now!

The car they were traveling in was a white Crown Victoria—the same vehicle that Betsey had been drunkenly steering down a New Jersey road when she collided with (and killed) her brother.

It was her inability to accept that tragedy that had propelled her from the real world and into a small reality of her own creation.

Now the car was once again traveling between realities, fueled by energies that had nothing to do with combustion and driven by forces that had nothing to do with friction. Still, as the car turned hard against the ether, there was a noise that sounded like the screeching of rubber against concrete.

Looking out the window of the vehicle, Betsey saw what it was that had upset Matt: a massive orb protruding out of nowhere, an eye staring out in all directions with an iris of infinite depth. There was no perspective that Betsey could see to make out how large it was, but she could feel the power of its gaze as it penetrated the Maelstrom, a lighthouse of awareness in the middle of a stormy ocean of infinite possibility and utter dissolution. The look on Matt’s face made it clear to anyone with a decent sense of grozzoz that something seriously bad was going on.

Then something else came into view. Betsey had never seen one before, but the name of it was obvious from the way swirling fractals marked a jagged rip in the boundary between an individual reality and the Maelstrom itself. A tear. As she looked closer, Betsey could see that the churning pattern on its surface was a set of grinding, gnashing teeth.

Matt touched Betsey to get her attention, although she couldn’t say how it was he did it. You’re probably going to want to hold your breath, he told her.

Up until that point, Betsey hadn’t realized that she had been breathing, but now that she was paying attention, she was also aware that she had no idea how her lungs worked in the vague conceptual outline that was currently acting as her body. She also had no idea how she might attempt to hold it in any way. Then Betsey simply tried, and that seemed to work.

When she looked back outside, the tear in front of them had grown large enough to fill the front windshield: an entire galaxy of whirling teeth, spinning and twitching against a background of colors well beyond any spectrum of light that Betsey had ever experienced or imagined was possible.

Roaming along near the edges of the rip were dark, abstract shapes: monstrous creatures moving with what looked like intelligence and purpose as they crawled along the edges of the churning reality, occasionally grabbing at the teeth and pulling one free.

The creatures were so bizarre that Betsey’s mind couldn’t fully process what it was that she was witnessing, and when she glanced away for a moment she was unable to remember what they looked like at all, the images of them refusing to stick in her thoughts. When she looked back, she saw one of them lose its balance and fall into a swirling pit of gnashing teeth. For an instant it seemed to be about to escape, then it was grabbed by the sharp edge of a passing fang and pulled in, bulging for a moment before it exploded into a black and red smear with all the grace of a frog in a blender. Why the eff are we headed in there? she asked herself, sure that they were going to suffer the same fate as the poor shadow creature.

Now, instead of light years away, they were right on the edge of it. A nearby shadow monster took a lazy swipe at them, its dark limb retracting as they dove into the tear.

All around them the fractals churned with infinite recursion. Hang on, Matt said, clearly as much to himself as to her. Things are going to get strange.

Before she could state the question out loud, everything around them seemed to grow, expanding so rapidly they seemed to shrink, growing so small that each tooth loomed over them like a skyscraper.

Hang on to what? Betsey asked him.

Whatever you are, Matt replied.

The ivory walls were getting closer now, and when they struck the edge, Betsey could feel herself being eaten alive—chewed to bits with surprising efficiency. The only thing that remained was a stubborn core of awareness that seemed impervious to destruction.

Then she was swallowed, and for an instant she wasn’t Betsey anymore. Whatever she was simply floated, a drop of attention in a vast sea of is-ness.

For a moment everything was possible, and it felt perfect. All the problems and every fear that had ever been had simply vanished.

Then, with a shudder, she came out the other side. As she fell back into herself, screaming and shouting, Betsey Weisz felt a sudden return of mass and momentum. I’m Betsey Weisz, she thought. I’m me again!

So there we are, she heard herself saying in a stunned whisper as she looked down at the new self she had become.

The first thing Betsey noticed was that the vintage bowling shirt and matching skirt she had been wearing when they’d entered the Maelstrom were gone. Her outfit (one of her favorites) had been replaced by a rough silk blouse and simple patterned skirt. The new peasant look was ren-faire fabulous but still retained the same pink and black color scheme that it had been before.

The color of her skin was another matter entirely. Her perennial olive shade had been replaced by a dull pinkish grey. Betsey was sure that her mother, a woman who claimed to be not racist despite constantly listing out the innate failings of every race (including her own), might have actually been thrilled to see that her daughter now had skin like a grey ghost rather than the brown person shade that her mother had constantly been criticizing.

Betsey’s Jewish/Korean heritage meant not only that she tanned easily, but that she could get very dark. Her mother almost never missed an opportunity to tell Betsey to stay out of the sun so that she wouldn’t be mistaken for someone somebody wants to shoot. No matter what her mother might think of her new skin color, the thick patches of fur sprouting out of her flesh were definitely not something that would have helped Betsey avoid unwanted attention.

Glancing over at Matt, Betsey saw that he was basically the same as he’d been before their trip through the Maelstrom: all pink skin, blond hair, and green eyes. He also had the same unfortunate beard on his face, the scraggly hairs making him seem more boyish than manly.

His clothes, however, had changed completely—the shabby-chic hipster ensemble he had worn in the diner world was now transformed into a raggedy robe of many colors that looked like something out of a low-budget Jesus movie. Twisted around his head was a bulbous wrap made from the same rough, multicolored cloth as the robe. It looked like he had been attacked by a cheap rug that was trying to suck out his brains.

The car had changed as well. It still maintained the same vague shape as the original Crown Vic, but the black vinyl and chrome interior was gone—replaced entirely by dark leather and blond wood. The dials and meters on the dashboard were now crafted from artfully placed twigs and branches. But who’s the artist? Betsey wondered, before her thoughts were interrupted by a thudding lurch and an impossibly loud boom.

Her ears ringing, Betsey clenched her eyes shut as bright sunlight flooded the car. Then there was a moment of what felt like flying, but only a moment. I’m falling she thought, forcing herself to open her eyes to see where she was falling to.

Wherever they had ended up, the sky above them was now a far more yellow shade of blue than she had ever seen before, and they were sailing through the middle of it. Betsey could see the earth far below.

Despite its miraculous transformation, the wooden Crown Vic was possibly even less a vehicle of the air than the metal version had been, which was to say, not at all. The nose tilted toward the ground, the horizon rising up until it filled the windshield. As the world slid by, Betsey saw a forest, a river, a field, and in the distance… the burned-out remains of a massive tree. It looked as if it were a hundred stories high, its bare branches waving in the wind.

Wherever they had ended up, this world had plenty of gravity. They were falling fast, and Betsey’s view disappeared as they faced directly toward the earth that was rising quickly up to greet them. Hang on, Matt shouted, and this time, Betsey found something to grab.

They struck hard. It had been Betsey’s previous understanding of crashing that anyone falling to the earth from hundreds of feet in the air would die instantly, but that wasn’t what happened here. Instead, it seemed that whatever magical force it was that had brought her back as a gray-skinned peasant remained intent on keeping her together, and much to her total surprise and relief, the car bounced.

Her handhold tore free, and Betsey was flipped head over heels, bumping into floors, doors, ceilings, Matt, and then the floor again. Inside of her, nausea and terror fought a pitched battle over which sensation would get the bigger grip on Betsey’s consciousness.

Having lost its momentum, the car dropped and bounced again, this time with far less efficiency than it had before. There was only an instant of free fall before gravity rudely reasserted itself and slammed the car back to the ground.

The wooden vehicle made a horrible groaning noise as it rolled along the earth, flipping over twice before the Crown Vic disintegrated into splinters all around. Betsey could feel the remains of whatever divine force it was that had protected her burning away as she tumbled over and over again across an open field of long grass.

When momentum finally exhausted its grip, Betsey found herself lying on her back staring up at the yellow sky. Every inch of her newly reborn body felt beaten, and there was no positive value she could see in trying to move what must have been her totally shattered self. The simple act of breathing felt exhausting, although along with each inhalation there was a pleasant scent of dirt and grass.

Perhaps it was because she’d spent most of her life living on concrete, or simply because she was now in an entirely different universe, but she simply had never smelled dirt so intensely before.

The world was quiet, at least, and before she tried to do something as advanced as moving, she took a moment to appreciate the silence as the sky grew dark.

And in the same moment that Betsey realized the growing darkness had come from her own closing eyes, unconsciousness took hold and turned out the lights the rest of the way.

∞ ∞ ∞

What might have been minutes or hours passed in darkness and without dreams.

When Betsey woke up, her first conscious thought was strange. Her second thought was good. She not only felt surprisingly alive, Betsey felt revived. There were still some vague aches and pains in her body, but not only did she feel amazingly good for someone who had plunged more than a thousand feet from the sky into the earth (or whatever this place was called), she actually felt better than she had when they left her previous reality behind.

She had left that world having been battered within and without. During her battle with the spider-demon, Betsey had been thrown into cars, smashed through windows, grabbed, choked, stabbed, and groped, and yet the only pain that remained from her previous experience was a dull ache in her chest where the monster had pierced straight through her with one of its horrible fur-covered legs.

She had managed to survive that particularly nasty attack by snapping off the monster’s leg, but it had left a piece of the limb inside of her—a fragment that had, in a way that Betsey was still no closer to understanding, become sentient and invaded her thoughts. The Thing in Her Thoughts had fed on her pain, and Betsey had only been able to exorcise whatever it was when she finally remembered the death of her brother—reliving in terrible detail her drunken collision with him in the same white Crown Vic that now lay in splinters all around her.

The resulting wave of grief that she had expected to feel hadn’t hit yet. Instead there was only the cold ache inside of her where the demon-chunk had been. At least the Thing in her Thoughts wasn’t torturing her anymore.

Betsey’s slow self-examination was interrupted by the sound of distant thunder. The rumbling echoed up from the ground underneath her. It seemed strange to her that it should come from below instead of above, but she had landed on another world. In another reality, she thought, correcting herself. Maybe ground thunder was a normal thing here.

Normal or not, instead of passing away, the rumbling continued to grow, getting stronger and stronger over the course of a few seconds until it had become a rhythmic pounding strong enough that it was shaking her entire body. Horse, something inside of her head told her with sudden alarm. Looking up, she saw the beast and its rider heading straight toward her.

The hooves of the massive chestnut-colored horse were churning the earth beneath it in a way that would clearly leave large, painful, hoof-shaped holes across her body of she didn’t get the hell out of the way. As terrifying as that possibility was, what captured Betsey’s attention was the sharp blade that the knight was holding high above his head. The axe seemed smaller than she would have expected, but the incomprehensible shout the rider was making as he rode straight toward her suggested that he was confident it would get the job done.

An instinct went off inside of Betsey on a deeper level of gut than the deepest level she had previously known she had. It not only told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to move right freakin’ now, it triggered her legs and sent her flying up into the air.

Unfortunately, her leap to safety only moved her a few feet. Betsey found herself totally hindered by her pink and black peasant clothes. She thrashed her arms and legs, attempting to escape the constricting outfit, but that only seemed to leave her even more tangled than she had been before.

With no time left to escape, she grabbed at her blouse with her teeth and pulled. The cloth tore easily, and Betsey, now miraculously freed from her binding rags, leapt (with a surprising amount of grace) out of the rider’s way, managing to avoid both the horse’s hooves and the flashing axe by a hair’s breadth, the blade slicing through the space where she had been only an instant before.

As she skidded to a halt, Betsey desperately tried to figure out what it was that had made her a worthy target. The person chasing her was clearly a knight of some sort, although his armor was a far cry from the plates of shining steel that the word knight would have previously conjured up in Betsey’s thoughts. The mail he wore was a clanking mosaic of small squares of metal, layered over each other in a way that would provide useful protection against sharp things that might come his way.

As he thundered away, Betsey saw that the armored knight wasn’t alone—the grassy meadow that they had crashed into was now a battlefield, and there were at least a dozen more knights dressed