by C. M. Carney
“I like Lex’s definition better,” Simon said, standing taller and prouder next to his leader.
“Thanks, kid. But in this case, I am hoping Sean is right.”
“Why?” Simon asked, his voice tinged with a pout as if Lex had betrayed the bro code.
“Because if he is, we might be able to bring Gryph back.”
“Exactly how did Aluran alter reality with his code magic?” Vonn asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Lex said, looking from Vonn to Sean. “He learned how to digitize the human mind. Every player is proof of that success.”
“You are right,” Sean said. “But only partially.”
“I’m gonna hate the rest of this partially aren’t I?”
Sean's face was grim. “Aluran learned how to digitize the human soul.”
13
The chill creep of fear bit into Lex’s soul as the full measure of Aluran’s accomplishment filled him. The metaphysical questions alone were staggering, universe-shattering. He’d already known that his entry into the Realms had been far more than a normal MMO login, that the Realms were not just a game.
But to learn that his very soul had been analyzed, codified and transformed into bits and bytes was terrifying. It was a violation of the highest order. Was his soul still whole, was it still eternal, was it still his own, or had Aluran altered the code giving him some mastery over those who’d come here? After all, he was a Master of Soul Magic.
By entering the Realms, had Lex unwittingly sold his soul to the devil? Lex pushed his fear down and forced his mind to attend to the here and now. As morbid as it sounded, the fate of his soul was not his most pressing concern.
“What the hell have you morons gotten me involved in?” Seraphine asked.
“Forgive us if we care nothing for your plight,” Vonn retorted with venom. The rogue’s ire was surprising. Lex had never seen the half-elf’s feathers ruffled but found he agreed with his friend.
“If you’re scared, give us back our Furrick.” Lex held Seraphine’s fierce gaze until a twinge of fear and regret crossed the face of the boy she wore.
“She can’t,” Sean said, without looking up. “She’s scheduled for the hangman’s noose.” Seraphine’s eyes snapped to him, boiling with anger.
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Lex said, a dozen likely crimes flashing through his mind. “Finally pissed off the wrong people did ya?”
“She aided and abetted the Vex,” the archon said. “Were she not in the body of an innocent, I would kill her where she stands.” The sparks of silver-blue energy that were the archon’s eyes blazed to cobalt and the hairs on Lex’s forearms stood on end.
“Well that settles it,” Simon said. "In the battle of teenage rivals, I win."
"Yes, you're the goodest boy," Vonn said.
“Teenage?” Seraphine gave Simon’s rotting, middle-aged Dirge body an up and down.
“Dammit, did I say that out loud?”
“You sure did,” Vonn said, clapping the undead teen on the back. The force of the blow dislodged Simon’s left eyebrow, which swung like a pendulum to obscure his vision. The rogue’s eyes went wide, and he removed his hand from Simon’s back. “Sorry about that.”
Simon pushed the brow back into place, but it dropped again the moment he pulled his hand away. “Anybody have any velcro?” His head cocked to the side. “What the hell is velcro?”
This wasn’t the first time he’d made an Earth cultural reference. Gryph had suggested the time he and Simon had spent with their minds intermingled during the battle against Ouzeriuo the Barrow King, had somehow left the kid with residual memories that were not his own. What did he leave behind in Gryph?
Lex shook his head and turned to Sean. “This whole digitization thing of Aluran’s. That's how you melded me with Gryph’s banner AI.”
“Correct, we stole some of his source code and I deciphered enough to sneak you out of the Realms, layer you on top of the banner and then get you back into the Realms past Aluran’s security protocols.”
A glimmer of hope sparked inside Lex. “So, you did it once, you can do it again. Send me back to Earth.”
“I can’t,” Sean said, his tone that of an exacerbated older brother. “And even if I could, you don’t have a body back on Earth to return to. You’d likely dissipate into nothingness.”
“Yeah, let’s not do that.” Lex’s shoulders slumped. “Why can’t you go? Didn’t you leave your body in a safe place?”
“I did, but as I have said before, Aluran severed the connection between Earth and the Realms. You, Gryph and Eris were the last three to get inside before the path between our worlds collapsed. Unless I can get my hands on the rest of his source code, the Realms remain closed to outsiders and inescapable to those of us still here.”
“Tell that to the Princes of Chaos,” Vonn said with no humor. “They seem hell-bent on getting in, and to do so just as Gryph gets yanked from the Realms. It cannot be a coincidence.” The group fell silent.
“While I understand the meaning behind your words brother Vonn, they are technically inaccurate. The Realm of Chaos is not another universe. It is a subset of the Realms.” The archon continued working the controls as he spoke. “It was the Source’s first attempt to create a soul native to the Realms. It hoped that by filling the primal Aether with its Divine Thought, new life would be born. Instead, it birthed the sentient patterns that became the Princes.”
“The Princes of Chaos are the Source’s first-born gone wrong?” An image of a psychotic Adam filled Lex’s mind.
“They are abominations to all order, to all sentience. Which is why the Source walled them off long ago.” Lighting surged up and down the archon’s torso and Lex imagined this was the monotone archon’s way of showing displeasure. “If the Princes of Chaos had discovered a way through the walls of their prison, then we would already be dead.”
“Then how do you explain the recent incursions?” Lex asked.
“I can offer no sound hypothesis.”
The stoic archon’s ignorance sent a hum of dread through Lex. If he didn’t know what was going on, they were well and truly screwed.
“Perhaps the Princes have discovered a cheat code,” Errat offered. “Friend Lex told me all about cheat codes for the games he used to play on Earth. Can friend Sean not create a cheat code?”
Not for the first time, the warborn, with his steel-trap mind, had remembered one of Lex's embarrassing admissions. He’d been several flagons of Thaldrain’s famous honey mead deep, when he’d regaled Errat with his tales of MMO power leveling, cheat codes and mods. The gaming had been part of the training Sean had put Lex through to prepare him for his role as Gryph’s NPC. Lex hadn’t expected the warborn to care about, much less remember, his tales of derring-do.
“Friend Lex seemed especially fond of the mod that turned all female clothing into bikini armor. Such protection seems inadequate to Errat, but Lex said it was ‘hot bro’ and then took a long, snoring nap.”
A flush of embarrassment moved across Lex’s face. I gotta watch what I say around that dude. He remembers everything.
“Brynn told me I should have added parental controls to those games,” Sean mumbled under his breath, like a father who’d just caught his kid watching soft-core porn on Skinamax.
“As much as I enjoy ribbing Lex, perhaps we should return to the matter at hand,” Vonn said. He turned to Sean. “Can you create one of these cheat codes?”
“If I had access to the Realms source code and a thousand lifetimes, maybe I could accomplish something like that. But I don’t, so I can’t.”
“Well, somebody logged Gryph off,” Lex said, grateful for the distraction. “So we know it can be done.”
“It had to be Aluran,” Vonn said. “Who else could it be?”
“It wasn’t Aluran,” Simon said. His cocksure teenage surety replaced by something purer, absolute faith.
“How do you figure?” Lex gave the undead teen a quizzical look.
“Gryph has been a thorn in Aluran’s side for months now. If he could log Gryph off whenever he wanted to, why wait until now?”
A chill of ice water ran through Lex’s veins that had nothing to do with locking eyes with the teenage lich lord. It was so obvious that he cursed himself for not seeing it earlier. But, if it wasn’t Aluran, who was it?
“As much as I am surprised to be saying so, your corpse buddy is right,” Sean said. “When Aluran sealed the Realms, it wasn’t by turning a switch. He had to smash the switch, burn down the house it was in, then bulldoze that house so a nice neighborhood park could be built over the spot. It isn’t something he can just turn back on.”
“Why would he do that?” Seraphine asked. “I don’t know the High God, but he doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave himself without a way out.”
“She’s right,” Vonn said. “Something else is going on here. He is afraid of someone or something back on Earth. There must be another faction in play. One with abilities even Aluran cannot claim.”
“We call them the Cabal,” Sean said in the tone of a man reluctant to reveal a powerful secret.
“The who?” Lex’s bowels tightened.
“A group of immensely wealthy individuals who operate from the deepest of shadows. They provided material aid, political cover, and information to Bechard.”
“Why would they do that?”
“That information was above my pay grade, but I had my theories.”
“They wanted entry to the Realms,” Vonn said. “And Bechard left them behind.”
“Oh crap, you don’t think…” Lex began, wide eyes staring at Vonn.
“I do,” Vonn said, his normally calm tone filled with fear.
“What do you think?” Simon begged, his Dirge voice cracking with a bit of Simon’s pubescent squeak.
"The Cabal is conspiring with the Lords of Chaos." Lex looked to Sean and saw his fear reflected back at him. He turned a pleading gaze to Vonn, begging his friend for a solution. The frown on the rogue’s face told him all he needed to know.
“Great, cuz more bad guys are exactly what we need,” Seraphine muttered. “And for the record, I hate every one of you.”
“You are not helping,” Errat said.
“So now what?” Lex asked. “Are we supposed to hang around until a solution punches us in the face?”
Before anyone could respond, the walls shuddered under the impact of another chaos singularity. Sean returned his attention to the controls.
“The pulses are getting stronger.” Sean tapped at the controls, as another shuddering boom shook the tower. Flakes of crystal fell from the ceiling cascading over them like glitter. The walls and ceiling flowed like a viscous liquid, trying to retain cohesion under the assault.
“And they are increasing in frequency,” the archon said. “We need to divert power to the Order Engine if I am to have any hope of countering these incursions.”
“Didn’t you warn me that would drain too much power from the dome?” Fear entered Sean’s tone. A low harmonic resonance built beneath their feet and the crystal began to sing like a thousand goblets being played by a thousand drunk party guests.
“I did.” The archon’s eyes met Sean’s.
Sean’s jaw clenched as he debated. The resonance grew in pitch and somewhere deep below them, a cracking sound rose. “Do it,” Sean said, and the archon tapped the controls and the Order Engine’s speed increased behind them.
“Stand back please,” the archon said rushing towards the spinning temporal engine.
Before Lex moved to let the mechanical man pass, a massive impact hit the tower, knocking Lex and the others to the floor. Only the archon kept his feet, his strong hand lashing out to catch Sean.
A portion of the wall and the ceiling pulsed as another rift opened. A chunk of the tower, the shape of a quartered orange disappeared as the antithetical energies of order and chaos raged against each other. Silver-blue lightning flashed as pulsing tendrils of red-orange snapped outward from the rift. The air grew heavy and a wall of sound punched into Lex as he regained his feet, knocking him back to the ground.
The rift expanded, eating away more of the tower’s crystalline structure. An oily wave of raw chaos flowed over them and Lex’s mind dipped towards madness. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, shutting out the chaotic maelstrom of colors. It helped, if only a bit, but he found it difficult to focus. Desperate for stability, Lex’s mind scrambled to find an anchor.
I must protect Gryph. I must protect Gryph.
His mind calmed under the mantra and his breathing eased. He got to his feet, his eyes still shut tight. He reached out and grasped the control panel. Only then did he open his eyes. The rift had expanded and hung above Lex’s head, its expansion held at bay by the power of the Order Lance. To his right, Simon and Seraphine were still down, while Vonn was getting to his feet. Errat stood amidst them all staring up at the storm of chaos, his face an implacable mask as if studying the unknowable. To his left the archon was moving towards the spinning Order Engine, dragging Sean along with him.
The rift pulsed again, shaking the entire building. If not for his death grip on the control panel, Lex would have crashed to the ground. He sent a thank you into the Aether for the small blessing, but it turned out to be premature.
The rift exploded outwards and flowed over Lex and the others. His body began to itch, and he imagined every atom in his body was being torn apart and altered before snapping back into its normal position. He felt simultaneously stretched and compressed. A distant sound of screaming filled his ears before it surged down his throat. It took a moment to realize he was screaming in reverse as if all the laws of causality had gone haywire.
The field advanced over Sean and the archon. With a herky-jerky motion, the archon moved through the bubble of unstable time and tossed Sean towards the Order Engine. The player passed through the small opening at the center of the device’s spinning arms and slammed into the floor. He got to his feet quicker than Lex’s eyes could follow, now under the sway of the increased time-field inside the engine.
Sean’s movements were a blur, reminding Lex of how Furrick looked while using his Ring of the Zipping Chameleon. Sean was yelling, but the sounds of shattering crystal and the speed of his words made comprehension impossible. With a roar, the field pulsed to solidity, slicing the archon in half from shoulder to waist.
Before the archon’s two halves hit the floor, Sean’s gaze fell on Lex and slowed enough for Lex to see the fear in his eyes. A moment later a red-orange flash of light as brilliant as the sun at dusk flashed and Lex’s world became pain.
14
The pain ended and Lex stumbled to his feet, blinking the tears from his eyes. His vision still pulsed with blobs of darkness mixed with angry flares of red and orange, like the surface of a seething magma pool. When his eyes cleared, he examined his surroundings. For a moment gravity had gone haywire, and he thought he was hanging from the ceiling. Then his senses adjusted as the odd upside-down sensation faded enough for him to realize he stood near the center of Harlan’s Watch at the foot of the tower.
"What the what?"
It was only when Lex looked towards the sky, that he noticed the light was different. It had been a sunny mid-afternoon day when they’d entered the tower, but now it was … different. The sky was a morass of oranges, reds and black clouds that flowed like liquid stuck in a gaseous state.
Flashes of jagged black lightning sliced the sky, somehow illuminating the world with their darkness. Lex’s head pounded as he watched the bolts arc from cloud to cloud before punching into the ground over the roofs of the nearest buildings. His upper lip was wet, and his nose throbbed. He reached up and his fingers came away wet with blood.
“Looks like you got that punch in the face you were looking for,” Vonn’s voice said from behind him, the sarcasm boiling over.
Lex turned to find Vonn, Errat, Simon, and Seraphine staring at him. There was no sign of S
ean, but the lower half of the archon’s body lay between them. Lex knelt and laid a hand on the fallen archon. The need for a eulogy burned inside him, but no words came to his lips. He sent a silent goodbye into the Aether and stood. Around them, the world was silent, almost peaceful, like a town market a few hours before opening.
“Something is really wrong here,” Lex said.
Simon opened his mouth, likely to respond with snark when a movement behind him caught Lex’s attention. Lex shushed the kid with a harsh hiss as a figure emerged from the shadows of the alley. The others followed his gaze just as Seraphine, the actual female version of Seraphine, emerged from the alley.
Her gaze was a confusing mélange of amorous and livid, exactly what Lex would expect from a teenage male who’d spent the last several hours stuck in the body of an attractive woman. She lurched towards them, stumbling a moment as if unused to a new pair of legs.
“Furrick?” Lex asked as this Seraphine grew closer. “How’d you escape?” Her lips parted in an odd imitation of a smile as if it was her first time trying. The hair on Lex’s arms rose, and he took an involuntary step backward.
“That isn’t Furrick,” Seraphine said.
Lex sensed she was right and activated Analyze.
Seraphine - Level: Error.
Health
Stamina
Mana
Spirit
Error
Error
Error
Error
Analyze has failed. Analyze is an information gathering skill and relies upon strict rules of classification and nomenclature. This requires a connection to the Realm of Order which is currently disrupted by the high concentrations of chaos energy moving through your body. Therefore you will get no information beyond the name of the Analyzed creature.