Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #10 – “Old Magic”! In the previous installment, Death and Oracle strike a deal: she helps him find his son, he gives her one of her eyeballs! Ahh, that old chestnut…

We also get some Crown Prince John Freeman of the Kingdom of Nawlins action. He talks to his King father about getting some money to bail out the financially collapsing Union. His father says “pffft, you’re getting played, son” and tells him to buy the country instead of loaning them money! The Prince seems amused.

As we’ve been seeing in recent issues, there’s a lot of tense shit going down among the Seven Nations of America! So very delicious, and I’m ready with my bottle of A-1 steak sauce (to drink).

East of West, Issue #10 [March, 2014]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Old Magic”

“You should fear what the future holds.“

That’s how I live. Always fear the future. No looking forward, gotta look back. Back is comfortable. Back already happened and I’m still alive. Forward is where I die!

And maybe even Death is thinking that, because he’s shrieking his stupid white head off at the gouging of his precious blue eyeball. Oracle mocks his fortune, since, you know, she knows how it feels to give and get nothing in return.

Death is irate! He came here voluntarily and now he’s being a crybaby about it. “You’re gonna need that eye to fully appreciate where you’re headin’” he tells her, quivering with eyeball-less empty eye socket indignation!

“What you seek is Heetse’isi’.” the little eyeball nudges, but Death knows what that means! That’s eyeball talk for “a grave”, you bastard! Death aims his gun: “Seen plenty of people crave a bullet in my day, but never one so greedy as this.”

The eyeball stays calm. I think. Who can tell? It’s an eyeball. “Your son is not there, but that’s where you’ll find the man who can tell you where he is.” A wild goose chase it is, is it? Just keep on hitting landmarks, talking to random nomads and spiritual entities, collecting nine crystals from all the dungeons to appease the Tree Gods? Death said that wasn’t the deal he signed up for. SON. NOW!

Oracle has no pity for this hunched-over sack of a cowboy, and gently tells him he can go fuck off if he finds this situation unjust or spiteful. After all, HE wasn’t the one who has been blindly buried under 800 miles of sea. Remember, honey? She also reminds him that the prophetic words, HER words, include a little line as such: “There’s Horsemen on the plains, the sky’s red as blood, and only the blind can see a better end.” So, there you go, that’s an upshot!

Or, like, a really good beef brisket sandwich.

Death keeps playing his death hand, the only hand he has. It’s like a 2, 4, 7, 8, J. Of guns. So he’s got a flush! Not a bad hand, I guess. And Oracle isn’t safe from Death’s hand just ‘cause she’s special and shit. Remember THAT one, dear.

And when Death says she wasted a trade, she begs to differ. She’ll get her freedom next time he comes around! Her freedom and so much more. Just you wait, sir. It might be another eight million years, but it’s gonna happen! Ha! Until then, she’ll just wait patiently. Maybe try to replay some movies in her head. Look Who’s Talking, that’s a good one. Bruce Willis as the baby.

“They lift themselves up as your betters. Take joy in watching them fall.”

Death and his crew approach Heetse’isi’. Another appalling landmark in the middle of buttfuck desert nowhere. This time they head toward a lonely tree. “It’s not ‘a grave’, Death…it’s ‘The Grave’,” pipes in his faithful Wolf by his side. This is where people who are cast out of the Endless Nation go to, uh, stand on the fence between the waking world and the other realm. Sounds very mysterious! I hope it has HBO and those magic fingers vibrating beds.

Anyway, Wolf is getting awfully nervous hanging around here. It’s where he grew up, his father’s land, and he doesn’t like it anymore. Time to go! But no. Sorry Wolf. “The Lady said this is where I need to be to find out what I need to know,” Death snarls over his shoulder. “So here I am.”

Several bones hang from the trees by rope. Several human bones. SKELETON bones.

Crow seems skittish too. “I can see for miles, Death, and he’s nowhere in sight. Perhaps the Oracle was wrong and he won’t be here.”

That little statement was met with silence. They’re not budging. Be patient, you chucklefucks.

Wolf’s super-shapeshifting wolf limbs start howlin’. He doesn’t need to see him. He can smell his presence. “Five miles west. He’s waiting for us at the Sea of Bones,” Wolf tells his captive audience. Apparently, it’s his “seat of power”. Where he can “fully manifest” and “call his true self over”. While eating “gas station hot pockets” and watching “Season 4 DVDs of Friday Night Lights“.

The lone cowboy flies solo again, eh? Well ain’t that ducky.

Wolf and Crow aren’t shy about their reservations, but Death doesn’t have any time for whiny piss-pants ‘fraidy-cats! Either come along or stay put like little pussies! Don’t forget, though, this is all prophecy stuff so whatever happens happens and all that. Don’t mean no nevermind to death and such.

Next we return to the Lair of the Beat, where, as you may recall, Death and Xiaolian’s son is hooked up to machines being fed all the universe’s information! Ain’t that cool? The computer continues its endless task of quizzing the kid on various logic puzzles and/or Sphinx riddles, but when it asks the kid questions of a more human ilk, he either doesn’t understand or he answers that he feels nothing. So this kid is just like me!

The Three Horsey Boys are watching from above, petulantly harumphing at the kid’s inability to feel! “Maybe I should see what happens when the thing’s femur is poking through its skin,” says Conquest with very little of that Ezra Orion motherly love. Famine tells Conquest to be a little more fucking patient. Monsters take time to cultivate. Conquest is skeptical that this Young Sheldon twerp is even the Great Beast of the prophecies. War is also skeptical: “The infallibility of The Word is not in question…but its interpretation? How often have we been wrong?” And Conquest says that they haven’t been wrong that much, so don’t worry about it War ol’ Boy. Girl. Whatever.

After some mulling over, Famine has a quirky little thought: maybe they are wrong! And they all kind of start coming to the same hunch. Whatever it may be. So their next task is to follow that hunch. Whatever it may be. And if there’s credence to their hunch, they’ll kill the boy.

And then they leave. And then the ruse is over.

Good show, everyone! That’s a wrap! We have eight more performances of this run before we take it to Broadway, baby!

Once Sonny Boy makes sure the coast is clear, the computer confirms that he is in grave danger. The forecast is about a month of survival, with a chance of meatballs, and after that the future becomes too unclear to predict based on algorithms and megabytes and Winsock TCP/IP gnomes. Time to switch gears! Enough theory, time for practical. With respect to the outside world, the not-hooked-up-to-a-computer world, “Teach me that world’s current geopolitical alliances. Also, please show me schematics for all related and relevant weaponry.”

And looks like Opie’s gonna learn the Art of War! Lesson One: blow everything the fuck up, for serious.

Enough of this child. Death arrives at the Sea of Bones, which isn’t much of a sea, but there certainly are a lot of bones. A paltry collection of bones this ain’t. It’s a lot of bones. There’s an Endless Nation shaman-type sitting atop a small hillock of bones. “I saw you here in a dream,” says Mr. Bones, “And caught a glimpse of what follows…” This is quite a mysterious, bony encounter.

Endless Nation Shaman, ol’ Bonesy, he tells Death that his attempt to fight fate is fruitless. He has no quarrel here at the Bony Sea of Bones.

“Your real enemy is yourself,” says Shaman.
“Well I beg to fuckin’ differ,” Death says with his trademark grimace and his monotone good looks.

Shaman recognizes Crow, snorting at her masquerading as some sort of human being.

Shaman recognizes Wolf too.

Daaaaaaaaad, you’re embarrassing me!

No wonder Wolf didn’t want to come. Yet another daddy issue wedged into this series. I’m looking forward to seeing Andrew Archibald Chamberlain maintain composure in front of his 130-year-old father in a future issue.

Wolf and Dad exchange pleasantries, but it’s time to cut to the chase. Cough up Death’s little boy or else you get the WOLF ARMS! RAWR! And Shaman Jones is like “ha, yeah, uh huh, that’s rich coming from you.” Wolf is not comfortable at all with this face-to-face reunion. He squirms and stammers, defending his decision to leave on account of, ya know, differences! But enough of that! “Please father… the boy.”

And Pops is all “nope”. Prophecy. The Message. What’s done is done! “We will all become what we must in these…the last days.” says Dad before completely evaporating in a plume of crimson smoke. This angers the Death-Man even more, and he’s always already pretty angry. “Here we go! He’s broke the plane and tunnelin’ pure dead time.” he hollers maniacally like a one-eyed piece of shit.

A lot of stuff starts going down, like the tornado scene in the Wizard of Oz. Death hangs on tight to the ground and asks Wolf what his dear old dad uses to anchor himself between the two worlds: the living world and the dead world. Uhhh, I dunno, an anchor maybe? Ha. Well, Wolfy doesn’t know. It all depends on how he chooses to manifest himself. Dad’s a decamorph, you know. Some real Dungeons & Dragons shit. He needs to reveal his final form, like a boss in Final Fantasy that takes four hours to beat.

“Show yourself, you son of a bitch,” Death yells at the torrent of wind and dust. Then there’s a deafening roar of a large skullface wooly mammoth thing. Nice final form, did you get that at the toilet store? Heh. Anchorman.

Gesundheit.

This thing is massive, easily 50 feet tall. *gets out measuring tape*… 53 feet tall. Crow recognizes the bastard as Cheveyo, who has barely had any screen time so far in this series, but you may remember him as Frowny Pigtail Man of the Chosen, introduced in Issue #2. Big Magic of the Endless Nation. Father of Wolf (Blitzer). Make a note of it.

Crow calls him a poseur, then Cheveyo roars, then another big explosion go boom happens, then a vertiable MURDER of crows starts swarming Horse Man and his Cronies. Crow-nies.

One tries to fuck with Death. “KAW! KAW!” it shrieks, trying to steal his gun. Death looks terrified and enraged; starts trying to blast the damn bird full of bullets. One cuts through its tail, then I guess a big stone spike appears…and then Wolf grabs the spike, launches into the air, apologizes for the sin he’s about to commit, and then stabs Wooly Mammoth Dad right in the chest. Understandably, this is pretty effective.

“You left me no choice,” Wolf claims as his father morphs back down to his dour, human self. Don’t worry, Wolf. Your dad isn’t mad. Just disappointed. “One path is The Message. The other…is not.” How profound.

Flashback time. Cheveyo taught Wolf everything he knows. Just like he taught John Freeman the VIII everything he knows. Now one is on the path. The other is lost.

Wolf begs for his father’s understanding while his father, like, is dying. “I stepped outside of our people the same as you… I did so because I believe in the things you taught us. But I also know your understanding of them is flawed. It’s why I had to leave.” So, in short, before you kick the fucking bucket right in front of me like a total butthole, tell me where Death’s son is right now or, so help me god, I will give you the biggest noogie this side of the Mississippi!

And in Dead Country, the one-eyed man is King.

Death, being the insecure pissant that he is, puffs out his chest and asserts his dominance. Listen pal, do you think you’re running the show here? In a place called Dead Country? HA! Cute.

Here I realize that Cheveyo has become a pile of red goo with a head attached. Death dishes out more tough guy Dirty Harry shit and gives him an ultimatum. “Tell me what I want to know and you live to see another day, Cheveyo,” he says, and who could resist such a deal! Looking like a Slimy Little Pile from Earthbound from now on.

Cheveyo, begrudgingly, starts mumbling about a lair, but Death cuts him off right away because his ears ain’t taking too kindly to this disrespectful mumblin’! “I said, we built a lair for the beast–you’ll find your son there.” It’s in a hidden forest, in a hole dug deep into the Earth. Where is it specifically, you ask? Well, it’s… it’s… IT’S… hold on… it’s… *cough*… the lair, you say?… well, the lair… the lair is… the lair is located… the lair… *cough*… it’s… it’s… hold on, I’m getting a call… what?… what?… no, you have the wrong number… I said you have the wrong number… well, actually that sounds like a pretty good offer… I have been paying too much on my car insurance, yes… ok, thank you… anyway… the lair… *cough*… *wheeze*… you can find it right by the McDonald’s at 23rd and–

Dead.

So Cheveyo explodes into a swirling black gorey pile of nothing. Death is furious.

We pan from the Sea of Bones, over the river, through the woods, miles away, revealing a sniper with a rocket launcher dog. Bel Solomon’s hired assassin, the judge-killing Ranger, assigned to murder each and every one of the Chosen.

“That’s one.” he says.

Final Thoughts

Could you have any worse timing, Death? Jesus H. Christ, sir, I thought you were punctual. Nice going. Good luck finding your little poindexter of a son now, Whitey.