LORD OF NOISE

The grating hum of the Suva receded mercifully, and fear struck me. Core thudding in my chest, limbs heavy, heavier than before, somehow. Eyes rolling back, jaw clenched. Terror ran through me untamed, unfettered, and I convulsed—

A firm hand on my shoulder. The fear was driven back, and there was some clarity. Something had happened. Something in my mind, many doors opening up, where before there had been only one. And the doors led to more doors, to more doors, to an infinite labyrinth of uncertainty, and fear careened through the labyrinth with me—

Peace, calm, control. Some other will was there with me, in the labyrinth, and the doors collapsed back into one. Eyes opened. I was looking up into the familiar Kanohi Komau of the Turaga. The air was silent—all sound banished by the elder’s mute-staff. That helped.

I sat up, nearly knocking the Turaga over. How . . . ? My body felt strange, like moving someone else’s limbs. I was larger, and my armor was different. I was . . . I was a—

“Up, my friend,” the Turaga signed with his free hand. “There is no time.”

Again the outer will asserted itself, and my body responded. I stood up, now twice the size of the elder.

“What . . .” I signed shakily, “What has happened to . . . me?” I had seen the Turaga use the sign before . . . Me . . . Myself.

“You are remade.” The Turaga pointed to the Suva, which still glowed white-hot.

A flash of memory, of the Turaga calling me from the desperate work, calling me to the Kini. The Suva had opened, and blazing light poured out . . .

My work.

“I left my work unfinished,” I signed. “I must return—” 

The Turaga shook his head. He was already walking, and I was following.

We stepped out of the Kini, and sound washed over us. The breeze roared. The tools of the other De-Matoran wall-builders clamored. The crunch of my feet in the gravel was a harsh grindstone. I winced, hands going to my ears, but then old habits reasserted. Habits, instincts . . . at least I still had those. I focused and pushed through the noise as best I could, like everyone else. 

The Turaga was already halfway down the path to the edge of the village, signing for me to hurry. I followed, stumbling on too-long legs, and found that I could walk much faster than before. We reached the unfinished wall in no time. The other Matoran were still hard at work. They did not pause as the elder slipped through a gap in the fortification. I stepped over it, and then we were outside the village, alone.

Fog. The fog was here.

The thick mutagenic mist loomed above and on every side now, all around the edges of De-Koro, sickly green and twisting with many shapes. It was too soon. Too soon! Just this morning, it had only reached the mouth of the canyon, still a kio away. There had still been time . . . But no, the fog was here now. Time had run out.

Terror froze me to the spot. I knew that any Matoran touched by the mist became maddened and transformed, heartlight burning with strange fire, eyes bulging, armor buckling, limbs splitting and diverging. I had watched it happen . . . Now I found that the doors in my mind were not just a web of choices, but of imagination. Every movement and shape in the mist conjured new and terrible images. I could not move, wanted to flee, but there was too much. It would have been easy to run away, back when I . . . when I was a . . .

A sharp rap against the armor of my back, and my joints seemed to unlatch. The elder was there, staff in hand. He was not afraid of the fog. I could breathe again. He pointed into the murk ahead, signed for me to look, and I obeyed, straining my eyes. After a moment, something moved in the darkness. Something big. There were eyes, many of them, burning green, stalking closer and closer. They were coming. The wall was not finished . . .

I expected the fear to flatten me at this thought, but it did not. The other will was there, intervening, keeping the new labyrinth of my mind at bay. My brethren were still hard at work, back behind the wall. They were closing the gaps, shoring up the ramparts.

“They need time,” the Turaga signed. There was no time. The eyes were approaching.

“What am I to do?”

“You are Toa,” the Turaga made the sign slowly, and there was something in his face . . . something like sadness. “Toa is the terrible protector,” he continued, “the lord of noise.”

I shuddered, looking at my hands, at the thick metal of my gauntlets. Noise.

“They,” he continued, gesturing to the shapes in the fog, “They were once like us, we who desire the peace of silence. They are changed now, but still I think they fear the Noise.”

He raised one hand, and it uttered a sharp report, a sound that burrowed a small tunnel into the thick mist. The eyes moved in agitated patterns, and I flinched away, holding my ears. Fear and disgust were rising in me again.

“What am I to do, Turaga?” I asked again, feeling a dull sense of foreboding.

“My power is not enough,” he replied, “but the power of Toa is mightier. The lord of noise must meet them and drive them back. The lord of noise will give us time.”

“But I am not . . . I cannot . . .”

“You are Toa. Made by Mata. You shall protect this village.”

“I don’t know how.”

The Turaga nodded, and the look of sadness was in his face again.

“The knowledge is . . . It is there, within you,” he signed. “Only open your mind, and . . . and the Great Spirit shall guide you. Mata shall be your guide.”

“Turaga . . . I am afraid.”

“I know.” The elder stepped closer. The mutant sounds were approaching, and the green eyes.

“But—”

“Open your mind,” he continued, “and soon the fear shall pass away, and you will find the power of Toa.” He pressed his staff into my hand, the hand of a giant.

“I promise.”

For a moment, the staff looked small, no more than a twig. Then, a spark leapt out of me and the staff unfolded, branched, buzzed with vibration. The tool of a Toa, weapon of the lord of noise.

I hoped that I had not flinched as much this time. I looked back into the mist, and there was no hope in me.

So I opened my mind. 

Immediately, the other will was there, stronger now, surrounding and encompassing me, filling the awful labyrinth and seeking out its every twist and turn. I stepped forward suddenly, almost without expecting it, into the cloying darkness of the fog. Was it Mata, reaching down to guide his chosen? 

The small tunnel created by the Turaga was slowly collapsing, but I was numb to this. I felt no fear. I took a few steps forward on the spongy ground, then paused to register the light of too many eyes through the murk. They were circling, circling nearer.

I turned and looked back one last time, through the tunnel of mist. I saw the Turaga, still standing before the wall. He smiled, his Komau glowing . . . perhaps with the last bit of evening light. His eyes glowed too, and then he closed them . . .

Cool darkness. Sound.

I opened my eyes, and the fog covered me like a blanket. It hissed and scalded at my armor, but it could not really touch me, not yet. The mutagenic vapor trembled with the vibrations that now emanated from every surface of my body, from my hands and gauntlets, and from the bifurcated tip of my old Resonant Staff.

There was movement, off in the distant dark. Movement of too many limbs and bodies, and the grinding of too many teeth. Clacking and crushing mandible-sounds and thin, reedy proboscis-sounds fell sharply upon my hypersensitive ears, but they did not bother me. I was the master of such sounds.

I was the terrible protector.

I squared my shoulders, shook out the muscles, and took a few short breaths, trying not to ingest too much of the mutagen too quickly.

I was the Lord of Noise now.

The staff spun in my hand as I advanced into the dark, and I hummed for the first time in ages.

I was the Lord of Noise again.

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