The Viluverse - Chapter Five

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The pair walked through the tunnel, which ran straight ahead for a distance, with smooth surfaces reflecting little of the chequered past that existed between them. Her pirates looked at him as he walked by them, looks of disdain as he simply grinned and winked at some of them.

She noticed this, smiling. “Haven’t lost your touch, I see,” to which he simply nodded. “Being charming comes naturally, although I have to say your boys showed little charm or courtesy towards me back there; need to train them up a little.”

She smirked. “Yes well, being attacked by a lowly gun-for-hire hardly counts as an excuse for courtesy now does it? Besides, I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon.”

“Well, a gun-for-hire has priorities don’t you know.” “Quite,” she smiled again as she gestured him into a rounded chamber ahead. A hole lay in the middle, and they walked around it.

“Care to drop in?” She asked coyly as he winked again. “Sure, what’s the surprise?” She glanced down and then looked at him again. “Anything you want.” “Anything, huh?” He said this flirtatiously as she simply grinned and jumped in first as he followed suit, a wind from below buffeting them as they descended down the long, brightly lit tunnel which descended some way into the ground below.

They caught up with each other mid-way, smiling as if kids again before they began to lower themselves to standing positions as the ground raced up to see them. She gracefully beckoned him forward as they walked, now seeing the walls on each side replaced with a dark ribbon pattern as lights ahead.

He could now see a vast open space with a giant ship hull suspended from above and a dark balcony wall beneath it where one could presumably look at the space below it. Circular tables were arranged before it, and giant marble columns on either side as a waiter beckoned them to sit.

They chose a table nearest the balcony, as white balls shone brightly beyond the timber ship hull, which loomed giant behind them.

“So, you like the get-up?” She asked this seductively, and two crystal glasses appeared before them. Jensen could see two of her pirates, whom he presumed were bodyguards, near the wall behind her and to the right and winked at them, to which they replied with no response.

“Yeah, not bad, where did you get this?” “Oh, I just found a nice little dream architect guy, said he was still learning, and he owed me one from a favour I did for him, so here we are.”

“Dream architect, huh?” Jensen raised his eyebrow and smiled as she winked.

“Yes, an apprentice, but a darned good one I’d say.”

She gestured as the ship lay dormant.

“Sure, what is that, like a magic ship?”

She smiled and giggled slightly.

“You’ll see, it’s rather fun I have to say.”

She took her glass which was now filling magically, and supped some of the clear liquid, Jensen grinning.

“So, just like ole times, huh?”

She put her glass down, considering.

“Perhaps, although much as changed since we last we saw each other.”

“Mendos?”

She winced as he said that, and he looked concerned.

“Sorry, had to say it, how’s ole Mendos doing these days anyway?”

“I’d prefer not to mention that name in pleasant company, but yes, he’s doing well…last I heard anyway.”

“Surely you should know, you’re more connected the I am these days.”

He took his glass, now filled, and eyed her with interest.

She looked like she was considering something.

“Right?”

She looked up at him, red eyes gleaming, which took him by surprise before they went pale green again, her long, curly, red hair hanging gracefully down a black top with silver beading and a beautiful dress skirt below. She’d always had an air of mystery to Jensen, often beguiling and entrancing, like a creature of the night dancing in the sunlight.

“One would think….” She paused, Jensen noticing as he sipped. “But Mendos is, as you know, a wild animal now…he’s not the man I knew, and he’s planning something, although what that is I do not know.”

“Something bad?”

The half-innocent tone of his voice took her by surprise, and she laughed to herself slightly as he smiled.

“What…I mean not like that isn’t obvious of course.”

“You know Jensen….”

She paused, her eyes now softening as their color grew more bewitching.

“If you weren’t such a rogue yourself, I’d say you were still a child deep down, still hopping from one dream world to the next…not caring about the damage you leave behind….”

He took exception to this; his eyes looked perplexed.

“Damage…I just wanna have fun man, nothing else…we live in dreams after all.”

“Yes but thee are real consequences to these dreams Jensen…surely you must know that by now…remember the tale of Abe Quail?”

He paused, trying to remember.

“Abe Quail…pirate?”

She nodded.

“Yes…he was a pirate, a very good one, helped both me and Mendos out on our raids where we were in Vicaria…the city of spheres.”

Jensen nodded.

“Yeah I’ve been there a few times, nice place…ginormous project, musta taken them years, if not centuries to build it.”

She smiled again, ever so slightly.

“Yes well…Abe, happened to take a liking to this particular city, he came across a young woman who’d made a moon her home…they’d married, had children, and build such palaces of antiquity as have never been seen in the open in the Viluverse.”

“Really?”

“Yes…they were made from pure love…like starlight, this woman had been one of the originals who first tasted the Vilu…she carried with her a vestige of pureness which I suppose Abe was drawn too…their union was of such purity that it created a temporal void within the Vilu…they were melding with the dream itself.”

“Wait…so they weren’t just part of it?”

She shook her head.

“No…they were literally becoming as one with the fabric of the Vilu…their original selves were disappearing…so great was their love, that it created something the architects had never seen before…and one of them decided to stop it.”

Jensen suddenly put his drink down and stared at her.

“Say that again?”

She looked up at him and nodded.