AN- Best chapter ever, in the writers' esteemed opinions. We've looked forward to posting this for a while now, so please review! (Reviews consisting mainly of 'ewwwww!' will be acceptable.)

Updates may or may not slow down due to summer break. Hopefully not, but just a head's up.

Chapter six

What Rough Beast

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

The General’s cacophonic footsteps echoed madly.

The stones of the foundations in this part of the building his office resided in were older than the Great War, and far older than General Raskoph or the other men who unknowingly built their towers atop them. Few realized these twisting, maze-like passageways were even here.

The tunnels shone green-gray with water trickling in from above, finding and invading the smallest cracks in the stones. These ancient halls, built by men before they named countries, were an illusion of solidarity—Raskoph remembered how easily the stones had changed colors…had, with simple, natural chalk lines writ upon their surfaces, transformed from slick gray to blinding blue, like the arc of a flare…how the stones could be made as mutable as water.

The only practice that matched the stones in age, the only practice that seemed appropriate for them, was the concoction of monsters: the noxious experimentations which Raskoph and his mages had been engaged in for the past few months.

The mages. Those dark-cloaked men, reeking of mystery and a power unlike that of iron and politics, but who, for whatever reason, allowed themselves to be chained to Raskoph’s command. He was all right with that; he understood biding one’s time and watching one’s superior to find weakness. But of course, this time he knew their weaknesses well (they were mortal men, much as they tried to hide that in dead languages still spoken and dead arts relearned). So, when he was finished with what he needed them for, when he himself could read the magic books and translate their symbols, when he could be the only parent to the newborn monstrosities, he would do away with them. Simply, and without any ritual.

Raskoph turned to enter a room set off from the main hallway, its door rotted and black. No security was needed down this far; there was enough up above, and certainly enough labyrinthine twists between this place and any marked property of the German military, to confuse anyone who didn’t belong.

(The rest of the Germany military itself didn’t belong. This was Raskoph’s mission. He would give it to no other.)

When the men inside the room saw him, they stood and offered him crisp salutes. He nodded deferentially, scanning the room.

Behind one of the dark-robed men (their hoods thrown back now, it could be seen that they were human but certainly not German: mostly dark-haired and sallow-faced), a yellow-furred paw snaked out of a cage and swatted at the bowl of red meat one of the men had been about to offer it. Another swipe, and then claws extended and the leopard hooked the bowl, dragging it across the rough stones to the edge of the cage. It licked up one strip of flesh as General Raskoph strode across the room, boot heels clicking, and looked down at the animal. Green-yellow eyes blinked for a moment, returning the general’s gaze, before the great cat returned its interest towards its meal.

“We’ve procured all the beasts you asked for,” said a voice from behind Raskoph.

The general looked over the stacked cages, at the straw strewn about and at the animals within. A bevy of grey-furred rats crouched in one of the older cages like emissaries of the plague. There were other exotic animals along with the leopard: a snuffling tapir, a glass box of dirt and scorpions, a coiled brown snake thick with muscle. In a corner crouched a thin, once-russet dog, its fur grey and patchy now; although it was not entrapped, except by a leash that led to a man’s hand, it had a wild look to its black eyes. Twitches ran, like a horse flinching from flies, along its blunt-clawed paws and furless flanks.

“Africa, Egypt, the back streets of Berlin…” the man cackled softly. “We scoured the barbaric parts of the world for you, General. The tapir cost us half a fortune.”

“Good,” Raskoph said impatiently. He had enough money in his family’s coffers to make up for what he could not slip under the noses of his superior. More troubling was the derision or sarcasm he’d heard in the man’s voice; perhaps he would need to be rid of the mages sooner rather than later. “These are all you found?”

Another man replied from where he sat on a crate in a corner, “All that we haven’t used for previous experiments.”

“Hmm,” Raskoph murmured, thinking as he peered into the cages at the slitted eyes there. It was a good selection of creatures: some foreign, some common. But it seemed to lack something, some ooze of perfection that would adhere the disparate parts together.

A monster ought to have some elegance to it, the general mused, ought to have some quality that suggests the essential nature of Ouroborous the serpent…the terror of the fanged and many-armed heathen gods...it ought be the abyss looking back at humanity.

A perfect monster needed an element of personality; the same way nightmares were human because they were, whatever the thoughts of Freud, generated within the intimate whorls of the brain.

Curving leopard, sunken snake, twitching dog. It needed something more.

But Johan Raskoph knew what would fit perfectly into the puzzle, and a cruel smile lit his handsome face.

“One of you, do me a favor. Go and get Lieutenant Krauss.”

“Hey, Al! Alphonse!”

Al blinked, and straightened up in his chair. He’d been looking through some of his brother’s old alchemy textbooks—the ones whose original owner had, in fact, been Hohenheim—but the arrays and sigils weren’t opening up for him today. Al wasn’t too upset; some days were better than others, and some details of alchemy were easier to relearn than others. It was bearable.

Bearable but boring, on those days when Al’s goal to relearn all of the alchemy he’d forgotten sat stagnant. Sometimes he couldn’t help but doze off.

“Jeeze, Al, you remind me of your brother sometimes.” Winry walked over to him, smiling wryly. “Always sleeping instead of working.”

Al grinned, rueful. “Getting all this information to stick is pretty tiring.”

“Well, don’t push yourself too hard. Now come downstairs, dinner is ready.” Winry’s eyes grew a bit distant. “There’s stew.”

The younger Elric stood up, and followed Winry downstairs. Her distant expression from a few seconds ago flashed through his mind, and it made him hesitate as he said, “Actually, Winry, I’ve been thinking. I need to relearn everything faster, so I can find Ed. Maybe, um…maybe I’ll go back to Dublith and see Teacher. She can help me remember things…”

Winry paused, at the bottom of the staircase. There was a long, awkward pause…Al mentally flinched when she finally sighed. But instead of the outburst he was expecting—‘What do you mean, leave? You just got back!’—there was only a business-like pursing of lips.

“Fine. If you really think that’s what will help you. Better call Izumi first, to make sure she’s feeling alright. Wouldn’t make sense to go all the way to Dublith only to realize she’s not up to re-teaching you. And somehow we’ll have to explain all this to Granny…ugh, that Edward Elric! Look at all the trouble he’s causing! I swear, when I get my hands on that boy he’ll need full-body automail!”

Alphonse blinked in surprise. Was that it? Wasn’t she going to try and convince him to stay? Winry hated being left behind, Al knew that much…she hated having to sit back helplessly and wait for whatever outcome the Elric brothers could find. Usually she argued for hours before she’d let them go off…but maybe this was a sign of just how badly she missed Ed…

“Better pack light, who knows how much traveling we’ll have to do. Oh, and I should take my tools: I’m sure when we find Ed he’ll be a complete mess, and my perfect automail will be all destroyed! My workroom is such a mess, I should’ve organized it before like Granny said…Al, do you think you should take any alchemy books with you? Izumi might have everything, but I won’t be happy if we have to turn around because we forgot something—ugh, your brother better appreciate all we’re going through for him!”

“Wait.” Al digested this speech, and his eyes widened. “Winry…you...want to come with me?”

The mechanic whirled around, eyes flashing. Al shrank back, meekly, wishing his brother was here more than ever. Ed would never let Winry come along with them—it was too dangerous, was what he always said. What if she was hurt, or caught in the crossfire? And Al agreed! But Ed wasn’t here right now, and Alphonse had never been able to argue with Winry the way his older brother could, and she was glaring daggers at him, and oh lord, Al didn’t know how to handle this!

“Don’t start,” Winry snapped. “Of course I’m going! I miss Ed too, you know. Besides, you can’t go by yourself! Do you even remember how the train system works?”

“Winry—”

“If you go on your own you’ll end up lost in some strange country, surrounded by cats!”

“Winry!”

Al took a deep breath. He knew his brother would disagree with him, but…Winry was right, it’d be hard to travel all the way to Dublith on his own…and, beyond anything else, Alphonse knew he wanted the company. It was lonely, this search for his wayward brother. Lonely, and unsettling, and surely Winry felt the same way. They both wanted Edward back. Why not look for him together, keeping each other’s spirits up right until the end?

“Winry,” he said with a sheepish smile, “You’re right. I’m gonna need your help. If you’re sure…if you really want to come, then you can.”

Winry beamed.

“Great! I’ll have to go get ready—Granny can take over all my automail clients, I’d better leave her a list of names…and we should plan where we want to go! The train to Dublith passes through Central, we should stop there and talk to Brigadier General Must-…Brigadier General Mustang. He might have more information about what happened to Ed.”

(Brigadier General Mustang…Al didn’t exactly remember who that was. He recognized the name, though the title seemed wrong, but he couldn’t picture the face. He knew the man was important…knew he’d helped Edward many times, but Ed hated him anyway…

And he knew that General Mustang had once done something, some terrible thing, and whatever it was had made Winry sad…)

“…a few days,” she was saying when Al tuned back in. “Hopefully everything will come back to you faster with Izumi helping out. Hm, and I still have to pack—oh, my tools-! Don’t let me forget those! I’ll grab them the minute dinner’s done.”

The mention of dinner reminded Alphonse of how hungry he was. Hungry, and uneasy—the looming voyage to find his brother had set off an anxious churning in the pit of his stomach. Al acknowledged the nervous butterflies, and delighted in them.

Brother, he thought. I can feel nervous again. Nervous and hungry and cold…I can get goose-bumps again! If I stay outside too long, I can get a tan. Brother, I have so much to tell you.

I’m going to find you, Ed.

“I heard he was offered a promotion and turned it down; it wasn’t enough. So they gave him an even larger one…”

“They say he kills his own men, if they disobey enough, and he…”

“…moves in powerful circles…”

General Raskoph, Lieutenant Abeln thought, might’ve been very important, but he shouldn’t have been important enough to be allowed to wander away from his office to who-knows-where in the middle of the day, especially not when Abeln had been assigned to give a message to him.

Abeln knew that his irritation was showing as he grumblingly asked a soldier on guard whether he knew where Raskoph had gone. Three times now, he had asked office aides or guides and had been given misdirection. This soldier simply said that Raskoph had indeed been walking by. “I saw him go down that hallway,” indicated with a wave of his hand. “I don’t know why he went—that wing hasn’t been used in ages. But that’s where I saw him, about half an hour ago”

Abeln thanked him and followed the indicated hall.

He did not see any other people; only walls that looked steadily older and less cared for. He was about to turn back when he saw a door set into an alcove.

The door looked like it had been boarded shut once; two-by-fours were nailed to it, their ends splintering and stained with age. But someone had opened the door recently, had pried the nails from the wall so that the door could swing freely again. It was ajar, and appeared to lead into another hallway just like the one he was in now.

Abeln sighed and cursed under his breath. All he had to do was give an interdepartmental message to the general—this wasn’t worth all this time!

Or all this mystery. Couldn’t the man just stay in his office or on the parade grounds like everyone else?

If only he had, thought Abeln. Because I’m less frightened of a doorway that looks like it hasn’t been used in years, less frightened of being yelled at by someone for straying from my duties for too long, than I am of General Raskoph.

That fear, mixed with slight curiosity (why had this door been boarded up? More importantly, why wasn’t it any more?) propelled Lieutenant Abeln to open the door (it did not creak) and enter the hallway beyond. He descended a short staircase and continued forward, looking out for offices or some other sign of a place that would be normal for an officer to be.

The plaster walls gradually became flakier and older-looking as he walked along, until he could see that the passageway was in fact made of stone, only covered by the newer material. Then the plaster ended entirely, as did the tiles, and he was left in a stone hall with the occasional hanging, bare light bulb illuminating it. The hall turned a few times, without any other passageways or rooms branching off of it.

His footsteps echoed as he progressed through the dark hallways. He tried not to be a superstitious man, but inside he knew he was…he was, because fear was beginning to bite at the back of his thoughts like a worrying dog, and it all stemmed from the fact that these tunnels were buried under the offices, buried in the heart of Berlin, gaping like mouths. There was something intrinsically unappealing about the dimness.

Lieutenant Abeln was just about to turn around when he saw a square of light flowing out from under an old, half-open door. Tentatively he moved forward.

The shadows changed as he approached close enough so that he could see what was within the chamber. As soon as he did, his other senses were assailed—a smell like unwashed fur or like blood (like humans dead), a squishing, dragging sound, a fog of smoke that burst into condensation on his skin.

The first impression he received was of curves: black bridge-arcs of…flesh? Stone? Bundled living-not-living material that arced from the floor to the air and back again. Then the orange-cast smoke, backlit by a sourceless glow from somewhere on the floor, held his eyes for a moment. But he had to keep looking, to find out what the smoke wreathed—

Movement. Lungs moving in and out, but these were burst open and somehow still breathed, showing their red-slick, fang-studded inner surfaces to the air as they opened and closed in rhythm. The thing was alive, he could tell that it was, it moved in snake-pushes and rat-spasms, flopping over its fleshy self as it made no progress but to stir in its self-generated puddle of fluids. A giant, blubbery body was covered haphazardly with slinky tentacles; it did not seem to have a head, although the stalks were studded with the occasional ear, the occasional black-and-blue phlegmed eye.

Abeln stepped back in horror, almost tripping over his own feet, staring at those runny eyes.

Eyes that could have been human.

General Raskoph scowled as soon as the door to the transformation chamber opened. Who would be arriving late to the birthing? He’d already ordered the mages out, and had expected no one else to interrupt.

The creature did not seem to react to the intrusion or the sliver of light. It simply did as it had done since its inception: writhed. It was not what Raskoph had been picturing—it was, in fact, another failure. It did not seem to have any legs, and its mouths were distended and thin-skinned. This was not the soldier of the future; not by a long shot.

But then again, this was his first attempt at using dark magic to create a chimaera without the help of the mages. He’d drawn the lines and chanted the incantations without any outside help; it made sense that it would take a while for him to get the tricks right. Perhaps he’d have a perfect creature in a day or two.

(‘Life is just a chance to grow a soul.’ Raskoph turned the quote over in his mind. But I’m not really concerned about the souls of my creatures. And anyway…

Oberleutnant Krauss had made such a poor soldier in life. Why expect him to make a better monster in death? The tapir had proven more useful then the man.)

The man standing in the doorway was a soldier of the present, a pale-faced, uniformed lieutenant now frozen with fear. He shouldn’t be here, Raskoph thought with a rush of cold anger. This was in no way the place for peons who happened to get lost on their rounds. Who had seen him come this way, through the many once-locked doors? The general would have to check the guard rotations and have whoever had silenced.

But now to the current problem: the stunned soldier. The lurid orange light of the glowing symbols and circles on the floor, somewhat visible under the monster’s companion pool of viscous matter (it really was an impractical monster, Raskoph thought, he’d have to improve its physiology…but it certainly did strike fear into a man) tinged the soldier’s blonde hair. The chimaera began to stir with more purpose, moving more curves of its huge, squishy body toward the front of the room, raising the stalks on which the mutated mouths blossomed. It had sensed the soldier.

Raskoph stepped away from the creature, as the tentacles began moving quicker.

Abeln was almost hypnotized by the monstrosity in front of him. It moved like waves on the sea, like a many-tenticled worm bloated to outrageous proportion. When one of the mouths rose up before him, breathing out fetid breath, he started to turn to run.

A warm touch on his ankle, like a pet cat rubbing itself against his leg.

The touch turned to a tug. The creature had wrapped an appendage around his ankle, and it pulled. Abeln fell, forearms smacking against the stone floor. He cried out, began to struggle ever more fiercely as he was dragged into the room. But the pull was inexorable.

Frantically he looked around for a weapon and saw only blank walls—and General Raskoph, surrounded by shadows, staring at him with his eyes narrowed against the light like a hibernating predator’s—

Abeln shouted for help, and when none came he thrashed, trying to dislodge the thing’s grip. But there were no fingers to pry off. He fumbled for his gun, but as he turned onto his back to face the monstrosity he saw what it was drawing him toward—a pulsing half-inflated balloon of a mouth, blood-red with splintered teeth—

He raised himself halfway up, fighting for balance…his hand, reaching for his gun, slipped in something, and he fell flat on the floor—

Warmth engulfed his legs.

“Kommandant!” he screamed, desperate. “Bitte…!”

(Hmm, Raskoph thought. Its mouths work better than I expected.)

Tentacles surrounded Abeln, as, prone—screaming, in agony—he was dragged into the gaping maw—the sting so intense he was almost beyond it—his legs were twisted and pierced—God, there was something almost human in the way the monster moved—and Abeln was so frenetic and frantic and afraid and remembering only Raskoph’s impassive eyes, predator eyes, merging in his memory with the reaching tendrils—and the burning pain—!

And then the pain ceased, and then—nothing—

German Words

1) Bitte: please

Quotes

1) "It ought be the abyss..." --referencing Nietzsche, although not a direct quote

2) "Life is just a chance..."--A. Powell Davies

3) "And what rought beast..."--The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats