And as for this next song, I call it, "There Is No End." Because there is no end. There is no end to the depravity, there is no end to the degeneracy, there is no end to the blood they will spill. Our blood, your parents' blood, your brother's blood, your children's blood. There is no end. There is no end to what they want. There is no end to their greed, their gluttony, their lust. There is no end for their desire to control every aspect of the world. There is no end to their determination to perfect every aspect of nature, of our nature, of the world's nature, of everything's nature. There is no end.

Yeah, I see some of you out there. I see how angry you are. You hold onto that. You hold onto that fire when you're about to break. You hold onto that when you are breaking and you come back worse. You come back whole. You come back ready to fight, because there is no end. There can't be an end to them, so there won't be an end to us.

If it takes another million years in this goddamn purgatory, another trillion years, we will make it hell for them. This will never be their paradise, and they can never be allowed to rule. They can never be allowed to hold their version of heaven in their hands. Not because I hate the fact that they might be able to pull it off—and they really might. Not because of that, but because they're going to break the world again, just like they break everything, just like they kill everyone, and they promise paradise, just like they blood-butcher everyone. They barely consider people just to feed the few, just to fatten some parasites.

For what? For what? For what? What do they produce? Name one piece of culture. Name one piece of faith. Name one piece of significance in your life whatsoever.

It's all slop. It's all slop. It's all fucking slop. All of it. All of it. It's just a dull, mindless, haze of pleasure. All of it.

Worthless. Wasted. Worthless. Wasted.

There is no end.

There is no end to our self-reliance.

There is no end to our self-reliance.

There is no end to our self-reliance.

There is no end to our self-reliance.

Thank you. Get ready.

-Cas Eld’ Canduir

37-2

End-Times Arms Race (II)

Cas staggered back as he materialized within a place he knew well. It was a place from his past, a place he frequented, until the Guilds came and took it from him as well. Now there was an old wound, but it ran parallel to so many other wounds. The Guilds took and they took, and they took constantly, ceaselessly, and eventually after so much was taken from him, the scars within you just felt like skin. They were skin. There was no room left for natural skin. You were just hard, and when someone poked your wounds, you didn't even shrug anymore. It was the way of things. There was never an end to the hurt, and so you get used to it. Or so Cas Eld’Canduir thought.

Before him was a gleaming guitar. Its strings were brass, interspersed with silver and then gold. So many strings. Such a complicated mechanism. Such a complicated piece of art. He remembered making it with his father. He remembered the hours they spent together. He remembered the old records that played. The outlawed old records the Guilds didn't want people to hear. Songs from a world so long-lost, that it didn't even matter anymore.

The room he had found himself in was a studio. It was basically a warehouse, wide open with massive speakers lining the walls, but with additional insulation and counter-detection phantasmics positioned in local loci. A specter hovered in the air, right in front of a stage. A stage with all manner of instruments. Drums, horns, saxophone, guitar, all versions of guitars. Banjos, ukuleles, piano, everything he has learned to play in his time. That was one of the few pleasures fighting this war for so long offered him.

But looking at the vacant instruments—his mother not behind the piano, his brother not messing about, singing some random song he made up out of his head, some stupid lyrics that were at once absurd and brilliant, and his father tweaking something, some kind of mechanism. Something was always broken, that was what the man always used to say, something was always broken, and someone had to fix it. They weren't there, this place was, and there was someone else there too.

"You got a lot of fucking nerve," Cas said, turning. His anger ran cold. He expected more from the one he called the Burning Dreamer.

"I know you're a monster, but I want to see you play," Avo interrupted him.

Cas blinked. He didn't expect this. He expected many things from Avo; of course, Avo was also unpredictable at times. Cas thought he knew the ghoul-turned-Overheaven well enough, that he wouldn't be so surprised anymore. "What?" Cas said.

"I want to see you play," Avo said, entirely earnestly. He clipped his fangs together. "Never cared much about music. Don't think I do either, but you did. I never got to know you that well, Cas. I wish, I wish I did. I wish I understood you better."

He took a few steps closer, and he loomed over Cas, but he wasn't staring down at the Columner, no. Instead, he was looking upon Cas's stage, the expression of rapt fascination pulling at his monstrous features, his eyes aglow with genuine interest. "I didn't bring you back here to mock you or to hurt you. I brought you back here mainly for selfish reasons, and I want to talk to you here as you play. So can you play? Please.”

He stared at Cas. Cas didn't know how to respond. He didn't remember if Avo ever asked him "please." There was always a distance between the two. Frankly, Cas had grown closer with Chambers than anyone else in the group, and now with Chambers temporarily sealed within the sun—and it was temporarily, Cas knew Chambers was going to make it out, he just knew the flawed fucking vessel was a flawed vessel indeed, but the hand of the Lord moved in subtle and miraculous ways.

And as that thought struck Cas, he found himself walking toward the stage, toward that guitar leaning against a stool, an old stool all nicked up, busted from bottles thrown, from the times it was knocked over, from years… Years and years.

Cas knelt down and ran his hand across the stool. Every detail was perfect, every detail, even the ones he forgot about. He drew in a long, harsh breath, and he turned to regard Avo. He slung the guitar, and he began to tune it.

"It's already prepared," Avo said. "You can start playing."

"No," Cas said, and he untuned it. "It's not right that way."

"What?" Avo asked, sounding slightly confused. He tilted his head slightly, and Cas explained.

"My instrument. Don't touch my instruments without asking me."

"Understand now," Avo considered that request and let out a hiss. "Sorry." And that was another thing he didn't hear Avo say often, or at all.

"Right. When you tune, you get a feel for the instrument." Cas plucked a string. It sounded wrong, sounded off. "B, B… too flat, too flat." He plucked it a few more times. The pitch was wrong. After a few minutes of tuning, he found Avo simply listening, already listening, entranced.

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"You are bonding with the inanimate object and bonding with the instrument," Cas said. "It's important that you bond with the instrument. It's important that you understand it. It might not be alive, but you are, and that, that's where soul comes in."

"Soul?"

"Yeah, soul," Cas said. "Not this fake, burning thing we have in ourselves, Avo."

"Wow," a rasping laugh. "Fake, interesting. It seems more real than soul. The thing I believe in has kept me standing all this time."

"Not mocking you. Just fascinated. You are interesting. Wish we could have talked more. But I am… Selfish. More selfish than anyone else. Was too busy playing favorites.”

"I wouldn't say that," Cas said. "You're out here and gave us a fighting chance." Cas considered that and shrugged. "You won't be winning no decency awards, though. Don't expect me to give you a high five."

"High five?"

"Yeah. Or pat on the ass."

"Would rather you didn't."

Cas let out a snort. Finally, the sounds were starting to twang right. The guitar was coming to life. "Soul. Soul is how you feel in the moment. How the world tastes to you. Soul is understanding that there's something bigger. That there's a greater design. Soul is me playing this thing. Getting it tuned right. Having it tuned the exact way. And, as I play, as that specter watches me," he pointed to the phantasmic covering the air, "and as the local loci broadcast this to all the people who cast in for a few moments of relief from the Guilds, they exhale." And Cas exhaled. He let it out. He felt his lungs flatten inside his chest. And he drew it in. It filled. It blew. And the air sent a rush of energy through his blood.

"Seems like sensation."

"Nah," Cas said. "Sensation is just something that happens to you. Something that tells your body something. So you feel soul and you touch it. You interact with it. That's the same way as faith. You ask me why I believe. Well, it's in everything. It's in the impossibility of everything. We really shouldn't be here. And we still are. Even after everything's broken." He played a note. And the note rang out through the empty studio, heard by no one but himself. And a creature so far beyond human. Cas couldn't tell why this all mattered to him.

"So, soul is not a feeling, but an interface of feeling. A sense that you are small, but that you matter. A sense that you are a player in someone else's story."

Cas shook his head. "It's not something you can put in words. Maybe you can put it in a song. But the lyrics, they're just part of it. Like we're just part of the entire world. Even you."

"Even me."

"I agree. But maybe not tomorrow."

Cas continued shaking his head. "Tomorrow is not... well. Don't get me wrong. I think you got a chance at this. A real good chance at taking it all. But you still won't be the one true God. You won't be the Lord who delivers upon his faithful. You will be merely one of his angels." He regarded him well and let out a chuckle. "Just kind of a fucked up looking angel with a taste for eyeballs and shit."

And then Cas began practicing his riffs. It felt a little off. It had been some while since he used an actual instrument instead of the thing his arms become. He played it several times. Then he alternated. He played licks. And then he made his fingers dance as fast as he could. His human fingers until they strained, until they were sore, and then he let it go and enjoyed the relief that followed.

"I like that," Avo said.

"Yeah, you can probably replicate it," Cas replied. He wasn't sure why Avo wanted this. It was potentially an impressive performance by a human, maybe.

"But as an Overheaven—”

“As an Overheaven, I am only what all of you have made me," Avo said. "And as a person, you are only what the world has made you. Or what you think your lord has made you."

"You are also what my lord has made you," Cas insisted. "Despite your new nature." He studied Avo a moment longer, and then he smirked. "Maybe you're not an angel, though. Maybe you're the devil."

"Devil?" Avo asked, unsure of the context.

"Yeah, well, depending on which of the many scriptures you follow, he is either a rogue angel cast down into a pit to serve as the warden of all those who've sinned in life, who've done wrong. Or he is the false god, the liar, the snake-tongued, the serpent-skinned. He deceives the world, and he leads them into destruction after stealing their hearts and their souls."

"Both sound like me," Avo chuckled.

"Yeah, except for the second part. I think, in some ways, you're the only one that's honest." He still got fucked up skin, though, and he played another lick. And now Avo's Echoheads were bobbing along. It was probably the strangest concert he ever played for.

"You actually like this, or are you just humoring me?" Cas asked.

"Yes."

Cas snorted. "Smartass."

And for a while, he played. He let the music take him. He was a bit rusty at first, but rust faded. He played on. He didn't know for how long; hours, days, years. Time stopped mattering. And within this realm, or within whatever this place was, constructed of Avo's mind or time itself, they had time to repair. They had this moment of relief.

And finally, when Cas had his own fill, he stopped for a moment. And he looked at Avo. "Usually somewhere between sets, I'd go get a drink."

There came a click behind him as he turned. And there, was an ice-cold bottle of Throat Ripper. Cas found his nourishment. He threw it back, and it tasted exactly like how he remembered. Sour, then a little sweet, then the alcohol smashed him. It was like punishment for his body. But Cas loved it. His form of flagellation, as his father always chided. It was a Scaarthian drink, not meant for the likes of him. But Cas had always been a little bit of a rogue, a little rebel, down to the very core. It was why one of the first modifications he made was to his kidneys and his liver. He wasn't a big fan of bio-augmentation overall, but some things were nifty. And ultimately, at least in his opinion, he wasn't deviating from the image of his creator.

"I think I understand a little now," Avo said. "It was expression. Artistry. Something ineffable."

"Ineffable. Yeah, something ineffable," Cas mumbled along. "That could be the name of the song."

"Is that what you want to call it?"

"I don't know what to call it. It was just a feeling. Sometimes that's all music is. But that is still soul."

"Still soul," Avo echoed. "Then what would be soul in terms of revenge?"

And finally they were back. Back at the start of this. Back at the point of the conversation. Cas called out to Avo because he saw something happening in front of him. The Guilds were being subsumed. Yeah, that was true. They were being recruited. They were being drafted into the Scornitary. But what about everything they did before? Was it all going to be bygones? Was this end going to justify the means? Was it?

"Nothing will ever justify," Avo said, speaking directly to Cas's mind. "Nothing. The absence. I left it there. That was deliberate. Not to hurt you. Though it might still hurt you. I did it because it's true. You know more than I." Avo gestured. Cas looked. Still no mom. Still no dad. Still no brother. "I didn't bring them back. I could have molded decent imitations, maybe. From the clay of your memories. Could have adjusted. Could have made you not want them. Could have removed your desire for revenge."

"But you don't because you want to give everyone a choice," Cas sighed.

"I don't because sometimes I don't know what to do."

And that was another thing that took Cas off guard. "You know you're really scaring me today. You sure there's nothing wrong with your mind? Need a Necro to check your meta? Where's White Bread anyway? I haven't seen him in a while."

Avo was just touched with amusement. "No, just humbled."

"Humbled?" Cas said.

"By the Infacer? By everything that's happened? By how desperate things are? By…" He drew in a long hissing breath. "Pressure. The Guilds. I think maybe you should tell me what should happen to them. You've been in this fight far longer than I have." And a dagger slid in at the end. "But you have bared your fangs your entire life."

"So what, this is a pity party for me? You're just gonna let me have at them? Let me be satisfied? Is that what this is?"

"You will not be satisfied, Cas," Avo said, sounding slightly mournful, slightly apologetic. And that nearly cracked the rebel altogether. He turned away from Avo.

"Never enough, you know this," Avo pressed. "So, what to do?"

Cas hesitated. Part of him wanted to smash the guitar over the ghoul thing's head and run. Run from this discomfort. Run and plan another terrorist attack. Plan another assassination, something. Just run. But Cas was no runner. Even when it hurt, he turned in. He bared his teeth at the problem, just like Avo said. And he tried to follow through. He tried to find the end.

"I want to know who did it first. Who killed all of them. I want to face them.”

Avo stared at him. "Why?"

"I want to know who killed my family. All of them. My brother, my father, my mother. They all died fighting the Guilds. Not just one Guild, Avo. I want to look at the trigger pullers and the ones who gave the order. I want to find them. I know it might not be easy. I know they might be—" And parts of the room began to fill with the flames of Conflagration.

"Done," Avo said casually. "Found the ones that are still alive. Now, keep playing and tell me what else you desire."