Banner Men
TREWSTONE MADE
It was written on the back of the door that this was not an exit, which elicited a smile from Trewstone Made. No. It was an entrance.
On the other side of the door, there stretched the long white corridor of the all-too-familiar facility.
Trewstone Made, it could be said, had Mother Issues. He had been gestated here, in an incubation tube. He had been grown, educated and controlled by skilled hands in the rooms he now passed. Surely, he would have died within these walls if he hadn't shown an aptitude towards the homicidal?
Remorseless, emotionless; that was what they made him. And the Father of All Creatures had spent extra time on this one, even giving him a name; Trewstone. He gave him special attention, bringing envy out of Trewstone’s Brothers and Sisters, because they were like pack rats, biting and tearing into him, with blood stained tooth and claw.
But it was all for naught. He surpassed them all and became the Father of All Creatures' Champion. And He was pleased.
First they would throw the creatures into the Pit - a Fighting Arena built for the testing of new-borns - to gauge their strengths, their actions, their reactions, and to see where improvements could be made in later batches. See, the creatures like Trewstone were bred for death - it could be their own, or it could be someone else's.
Trewstone, it seemed, showed an aptitude and adeptness for murder. He took them all on with no fear and no corner given.
And Lo, The Father of All Creatures was pleased. Elements of Trewstone's DNA were extracted and utilised to go into and be harnessed by a new build of Lab-borns, to be better, faster, stronger and more agile - ready for battle.
After Trewstone was hardened beyond all recognition from the smooth, svelte tabula rasa he had once been, it was deemed time to release him into the world at large; to go forth with the Father of All Creatures' blessing, to ring a decisive bell in the Civil War - the one the Histories forgot. But no one had forgotten Trewstone Made, as Trewstone Made did well. Trewstone Made always did well; he could walk where no other could walk, and he could kill that which no other could kill - he was an unstoppable force; a diabolical dark cloud sweeping across the land. Whole armies were laid waste by Trewstone and his kin.
But it was Trewstone's name they all remembered. He was a folk legend in every town or village, and he soon became the beast under the bed that allowed parents to control unruly children; he was the monster in the closet - he was the warning of a season changing and that the harsh days were close.
Soon he was at the Enemy's Gates, but he did not advance. He stood and watched. And they, in turn, watched back. They were stunned, in fact shocked that he did not immediately break through the Gates and tear through the city on some kind of murderous rampage. Instead, Trewstone Made remained outside, for several days, pacing back and forth - sometimes in quiet contemplation and sometimes in meditation. Then suddenly and inexplicably he packed up his camp and returned home. And the whole world sighed all at once.
#
It had taken many days, many weeks in fact many months, but Trewstone was now back in his birthplace; in the Laboratory that had created him and the Facility that nurtured him. The Facility, it seemed, was empty. Perhaps they had been evacuated, in a rush? Many chairs and tables were toppled, and paper strewn about the place. Perhaps they had learned of Trewstone's returning home? It was mostly true to say the Facility was empty, but there remained one man, and one man alone. An old, tired and weathered man of advanced years.
The Father of All Creatures was seated behind his carved stone desk, ensconced within his opulently decorated office. Polished brown leather chairs and silver ornaments described an abstract design of sorts, placed in some kind of Feng Shui mockery, with priceless crystal glass upon mantelpiece and shelf. It felt more like somebody's home rather than a working office, with the unnatural fire in a smoothly hewn marble surround. In front of the fire was a thick rug made of something resembling hair, and the fire remained the central illumination within the office, dancing in wavy lines off the right side of the Father of All Creatures' face. He was smiling. Of all the people and monsters Trewstone had met in his many and varied travels, the Father of All Creatures was the only one not to show fear.
Trewstone walked calmly up to a chair facing the desk and sat, "You know why I am here, don't you Father?" he said simply.
"Yes, I'm afraid I do, my son. You have wandered the world and you have slayed, slewed, hacked and bludgeoned your way from here to there, and at some point, you were hit by a question; a question even I could not erase from the Spirit, as much as it remains in you and all my children. Why. That is the word you found, is it not?"
"It is, Father."
"And you want an answer, I take it?"
"I do, Father. Very much so."
"Would that it were that simple, my boy. All of creation would utter that word at least once in their life. Why. Why this - why that; why the other. There is no short answer, I am afraid, my son."
"So, what does this mean?"
"It means you have to answer that question for yourself, my boy. You see, once I asked myself this same question, and while answering it, I was led to creating you and your Brothers and Sisters. For the Grand Freeman who lies behind the Enemy's Gate, his answer was the rising to power. For his sibling, the Instigator of the Civil War, he realised his answer was revenge. For you, my son, it may be more than simple genocide - or even basic Fratricide."
"What of Patricide? Matricide?"
"If that is the answer you find, my son, then yes. But first, you must do one last thing for me. Then I will help you find your answer."
"What task is that, Father?"
"I need you to return to Loskass, find the Grand Freeman, Rector Yung, and destroy him utterly."
"But -"
The Father of All Creatures spoke with strident, rident words, "Trewstone. My boy. I know that you have returned to me, at last. I only ask you, with the humblest of hearts - will you accept your Father's words once more, and do his bidding?"
Trewstone thought long on this, lost in his thoughts, his memories of what came before and what was to come, and he looked resigned at last. "Yes Sir." he replied, despite himself. It seemed even the great Trewstone, Destroyer of Men, Champion of the Father of All Creatures, could also be manipulated and controlled.
So he set forth once more for Loskass, where he had sat and contemplated, surmised and eschewed. And he demanded of himself - what was he, if not his Father's Son?
#
They watched him approach once more. Again he camped at the spot he had previously. Again he sat and contemplated, paced and meditated. Would he fail his Father a second time? Would he walk away and forget it all, dig a hole somewhere and bury himself for all eternity?
Loskass was once a prosperous city, way back in the mists of time. They said that people lived without regret then; gave of themselves in the service of others and they treated those people as equals. Many years ago.
That was before What Came Before happened. The after effects of that turned the whole world upside down, and eventually it had turned Brother against Brother, those being the Instigator and the Grand Freeman. They had been locked in war ever since they were children, and all over a nothing, apparently. Nobody knows what that nothing was that caused the war. Even the Brothers themselves had forgotten, it being lost in time to a need to be proved right.
And was it Trewstone Made's place to intervene, to decide the outcome? All he really knew was Father would approve, so that would have to be enough. Trewstone advanced to the Enemy's Gates, and Hell followed on steel tipped wings, breathing fire and destruction in its wake, burning the heretics in Trewstone's stolen crusade.
All for some kind of redemption.
And it was done. The Grand Freeman, Rector Yung, had become destroyed, and utterly, as Trewstone's Father had requested. And all for the answer he so desperately searched for, Trewstone told himself. All this death for the answer Father had promised to help him find. Fires blazed, bodies burned and buildings were broken. Loskass was something else now - a memorial perhaps, or just another reminder that the world was changing forever; that What Came Before wasn't the most destructive thing in living history. That was, in fact, a man named Trewstone Made.
Trewstone expected a Hero’s Welcome on this time returning, but he received nothing. In fact, the place looked exactly the same as when he had left. The tables and the chairs; still overturned. The papers still strewn about. The workers and scientists still absent. And then there was the office of the Father of All Creatures.
Trewstone Made entered that office and almost immediately dropped to the floor. His spirit had been taken from him suddenly - in the one look to the Father; now not old, but dead. The Father of All Creatures was dead. Certainly he had looked weak when Trewstone was here before. He must have simply died of old age, not long after Trewstone had left.
And it had been all for nothing.
He had destroyed Loskass for nothing, because there was no answer, at least not from Father. Surely there would never be an answer? And so, as a last act of benevolence, Trewstone devoured the old man, eating every part of him, saving him from the decay. Because it felt right.
On his eventual exit from the abandoned Facility, he stopped at a medical room, taking out the bandages and coating himself in them. Then Trewstone Made left the Facility, and this time forever
#
But that wasn't the end. There is a footnote to the story.
Trewstone wandered from there to here, from that place to this place, over the Wastelands, through dying towns and dead ones - but he found no comfort.
That was until he came across a religious cult, born out of the Dark Days. They called themselves the Seven Men of Fealty. There were thirty of them, which didn't make mathematical sense, but they took in the lost soul and filled him again with purpose - to honour the memory of his Father, and perhaps garner approval from Him even yet, from beyond the grave. It was enough for Trewstone, the Made man.
Such was the tale of Trewstone Made.
No comments:
Post a Comment