by J G Smith
“I’m sorry?” I ask.
“Claire,” she answers. “I see her.”
“In a vision?” She must think you’re slow, Robert.
“Yes,” she confirms. “Not the one with wings, though. The other one, with the wild fur coat and foresty staff.” So, she did pay attention.
The image she draws helps me remember. The nomadic statue.
She continues to relate her vision, explaining that Claire isn’t the age the statue portrays, assuming they’re one and the same. “She’s younger,” she says, “and she’s standing on the other side of what appears to be a gap in space, talking to Rex.”
The gold light goes out as the girl’s hand pulls away. Her shoulder, though, remains pressed against mine. “There are others with him,” she says, with sadness in her voice. “And they’re leaving her. She’s telling them to go.” Her words fade off into a sullen silence and we begin traipsing to the next tomb, furthest from and to the right of the door. I’m not sure if I’m leading her or if she’s leading me, but I waddle on nonetheless.
“Rex says that he’ll find her, no matter what,” she says, after a pause. Again, it feels like a stop, but she carries on. “Why isn’t he coming for me?” Her question comes softly—longingly.
Right now, I don’t like this Rex guy. He’s on her mind and in her words… maybe more. She wants him. What is wrong with you, Robert? I keep tugging back and forth between not trusting her and… well, this.
I don’t know what to say to her. I simply listen. Fortunately, the lull doesn’t last long. She asks me to direct her hand to the next inscription and, with her hand on mine, I reach for the engraving. We touch the letters which light up (white) and scan the words and symbol – a trapped star with an eye, or moon, glaring from the centre. In full, the epitaph reads:
Seth Xenoth
The Mystic Maverick
I recognise the symbol from the hand of the robed sorcerer – the statue to the right of mine. I think I’m noticing a pattern. But none of it makes sense. The ghost, and just about everything else, made it seem as if the Arcane Messenger was alive. Unless, maybe, she’s a ghost.
Stop making theories, Robert.
Keeping up with her endless list of visions, the girl explains one of Seth, a younger-looking version of the statue above, wielding magic at the palms of his hands. In his arms he holds a woman whose face is blurred.
“He seems happy,” she says, letting go of my hand. The light goes out. “But then there’s this letter,” she adds, changing her tone from content to disheartened.
Who are these people? I ask myself. It feels like we’re on a crazy witch hunt, finding random pieces of an obscure puzzle. How do they fit in? How do we fit in? My head keeps going, playing the same song over and over.
I try moving us to the opposite end of the room. I suspect that’s the next checkpoint on my quest. But the girl has other ideas. She catches on to the pattern and persists in finding ‘Oliver Curie’s tomb.’ “That’s what I’m here for,” she says, pressing against me. “We can get to the others later.” Somehow, I doubt her intentions. But we end up doing it her way.
I take us to the tomb on right of Seth’s and mimic the motions done at the previous two. The symbol I recognise beneath my fingers and again as crimson light makes way. Its shape is similar to the blade of a slender double-edged axe. I read:
Rex Anderson
The Ghost Master
I don’t know how I feel about this. There’s a mix of emotions. I pull my hand away quicker than I did with the others. The touch of her shoulder, though, keeps me calm. “That’s the symbol I have on my arm,” I say, feeling a little whelmed.
She doesn’t say anything. I imagine that she’s frozen, caught in a vision. Then, she lets out an uncertain, “Rex.” Another moment passes by and the words “I don’t understand” escape her tongue. It’s different, hearing them from someone else.
I try envisioning the things she must be seeing, but the thought of Rex awakens a green-eyed monster inside of me. Don’t be jealous, Robert.
“He knows me,” she says. “And I think I know him too.”
I feel myself withdraw from her touch.
“He also knows you,” she tells me, sounding surprised. “He sees you in his reflection.”
Him? But then why the tomb? The room around me changes and I see, with my own two eyes, an open room lit by flame torches. The girl isn’t there. I scan just to make sure. I’m alone. I blacked out again. I put my hands to my head and force myself to breathe deeply. Don’t panic, Robert.
I need to find out where I am, and find the girl.
I notice a stone coffin etched in spooky symbols before me. I step closer and see my tattoo’s symbol at the heart thereof. I’m still in the building. An archway against the wall covers the head of the casket and frames another inscription, seemingly out of place. It reads:
James Widek
The Shadow Master
James? Didn’t Bradley say I spoke about a James during my last blackout? Before this one. I cast out the theories bombarding my mind.
What’s happening to me? I try keeping it together, but things keep falling apart. I’m petrified. Just when I think I’m finding something, this happens. I don’t feel the urge or have the energy to inspect any further. Not now. I need a moment.
I fall to my knees and let the tears flow. Robert! shouts the voice inside my head. Stop it. Get a hold of yourself. But I don’t listen.
CHAPTER NINE
MOTHER
I can only conclude from what she described of that building, and what I’ve seen of Robert’s memories, that they saw us – the six who vanished. They left a hall of statues and a labyrinth of tombs in their wake.
They knew our names and had our marks. Everything inside that building, down to the last glowing emblem prefigured the arrival of Alversia – or, more specifically, an Alversia and a Myentron.
They knew things the institute was barely beginning to understand. They had technology I’ve only seen at the Origin of All. Curious, I know, but instrumental in preparing us for the events that were about to transpire. Fate, I'm certain, played her part in these designs – her scent is all over it.
And, while the institute prepared their best candidate for the chamber project, researchers worked around the clock to harness my peculiarity with the same ambitious goal in mind. She was more likely to remember. I had the potential to cross over – mind to mind.
The only problem was that Robert, my Alversia, wouldn’t remember. And that the longest shift I recall happened after she had already gone. It happened in a forest where I was being chased by a red light-wielder from the planet Solbezna, in the Lychnox verse. That’s when I learnt that Robert had enemies of his own.
My mission was failing. The information I had gathered was miniscule, but the institute kept pushing. They feared imminent disaster and this was the only solution they saw – to gather the Alversia and to channel their unique connections to the walls of reality. The lives of many depended on it.
But my heart wasn’t in it. I was more interested in where she was… hoping she’d find her way, locate her Alversia and come back home.
It wasn’t until a blackened shift, mind to mind with Robert, that I realised she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. So far as we knew, her Alversia was in a different universe to mine, but her voice was unmistakeable in that lightless room. I could have recognised it even a mile away.
“I miss him,” she said, sadly.
I tried calling out her name, but my mind returned to its body before Robert’s tongue could utter the sound. It came out of my mouth instead, back at the institute, along with a heavy pant and the aftermath of strenuous exertion.
Oliver marched over, noticing my panic. “Rex?” he called. He was worried, yet carried himself sternly. In this frame of mind, he was a bullet. One thought. One outcome. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”
He had already raised his concerns with the experiments and proje
cts, and had warned me to be careful. This was just the fuel he needed to support his suspicions and disapproval of the institute. He was waiting for something, and this was it.
“What’s happening here?” asked Seth, picking up on the distress.
“Help me,” ordered Oliver in response, trying to lift me up and calm me down. Seth obeyed, even though his question was cut off and unanswered.
With their hands on my shoulders, holding me up, they brought me down to a mild panic.
“Talk to us, Rex,” entreated Oliver. “What happened?” He hijacked Seth’s inquiry, but Seth didn’t mind – he was humble that way, or just very good at keeping things quiet.
“Something went wrong,” I told them. I didn’t look at either of them as the words came out. “She was there.”
“Where?” asked Seth, notably befuddled. So was Oliver; though, with his look, seemed to be wanting more.
“With Robert,” I told them, feeling more than a little unsettled. “She’s with Robert in Spectum.”
Seth was shocked. His face froze in perfect dismay while Oliver fumed shades of red and grey.
We were told that the unique energies in each Alversia would resonate and create a quantum link when either one of them entered the chamber. At that point, they’d be pushed through reality’s walls into their respective Alversia’s universe.
It must’ve been the energies from that building that pulled her there, to Spectum, instead – they must’ve been stronger.
Oliver and I confronted the facilitators and instructors, but all they said was, “Wait.” We reminded them that she didn’t even want to go and that it was our responsibility to make sure she made it back.
They reminded us that she had the people’s interest in mind – that she cared more for the lives of others than her own. That’s why she went, to find what we needed to fix what had already started falling down.
“She can do it,” they said. “No matter the setback.”
It wasn’t good enough for me, nor for Oliver. He wanted to leave, but couldn’t – none of us could – not until she was safely returned. Even though I worried she’d be lost forever. I put everything I had into perfecting the switch with Robert, so that she and I could speak. But it never worked.
Disheartened by my continued failure, I turned to a credulous hope that her visions would take her back to us—to me. So, I spoke to her in my moments alone, telling her everything I knew and everything I wanted her to know.
I still do. Talk to her, that is. Maybe she’ll hear me, wherever she is.
But it is her story that matters here. After her decree of missing me, which I didn’t pick up on, and after my fleeting shift, she noticed an emerald shimmer from Robert’s eyes, and arm. It caught her by surprise.
“Robert?” she called.
She felt as if something odious was moving over her, so she quickly embraced herself for comfort. There was a disconcerting pause. “Robert, this isn’t funny. What are you doing?”
She began worrying that he might’ve left and, worse, that someone else was there instead. She was right. She stepped back and felt around in trepidation, just to have something to hold onto in her sightless view.
“Robert!” she shouted in a desperate plea.
She grabbed hold of the tomb to the right of mine; or, more accurately, to the right of the tomb bearing my name. It lit up in purple bliss, with only her touch, and read the same as her dream:
Oliver Curie
The GiniFowl Herald
She found it. But her emotions were torn, being tugged from one end to the other. It could wait. She let go of the tomb and allowed the light to dim in fear of being seen; just in case the emerald shimmer came from someone other than Robert.
“I’m not going to ask again. Where are you? What are you doing?”
“He isn’t here,” came a voice. It sounded like Robert’s, only, a little nightmarish.
“Don’t be creepy,” she said, hoping it was all a terrible prank. Not that Robert would do anything of the sort. “This isn’t the place.”
She felt unsettling movement over her skin as the voice returned. “Don’t you recognise me?” Shivers ran down her arms and spine. Only one person had the power to make her feel cold, at that point in time. “It’s me.”
There was an uneasy quiet that followed. His voice, it seemed, triggered a falling sensation and a shift in her perception – though her feet were planted, firmly in place. She felt and saw as if she was somewhere else – in two places at once. She closed her eyes, rubbing them tightly and opened again. It was clearer.
She felt herself in the dark room. That was right, she thought to herself.
Though, she felt and saw herself in a glossy silver room as well. It was spacious – it was lustrous – it was light – it was wrong… yet, familiar. It was as if she was experiencing a moment she had already lived, or the reverse – experiencing a moment she was still going to live. Not having any memories past the last couple of days didn’t help in distinguishing the matter.
She turned her head, in the silver room, and saw a large silk curtain – the same colour as the room. It was nearly double her size. It intrigued her. It pulled her in.
“What have you done?” she asked, in the dark room, beginning to feel woozy. It probably originated from the other side, where the air struck thin. Her head began to spin and she felt as if she was about to fall over. “What have you done with Robert?”
That was her, in the thick of it – worried about someone else. But, maybe, this was more. Perhaps she worried for Robert a touch more than she would have anyone else.
“Robert, Robert, Robert,” played the ominous figure. His voice bounced around the room, near and distant, making it difficult for her to pinpoint where he was standing. “I just hope you’re able to do what needs to be done.” He sounded deceptively sincere and, to the trained ear, glum.
“To do what?” she asked. There was no hesitation in that response.
She felt herself growing braver while, on the other side, she moved toward the curtain. She quickly grew accustomed to the experience, realising that she wasn’t actually in two places, though it truly felt like it, but that her visions were stronger.
“You know,” he started, in delayed response – he was feigning demureness, perfectly in line with his sly nature, “it’s why they sent you…” She felt him breathe those words over her neck and pulled herself away in a jerking motion as he continued, “…to find the Alversia.” An image flashed through her mind, of her strapped to a chair inside a chamber – the chamber.
It was almost as if he intended his words to trigger an image—a vision—a memory.
In the silver room, she opened the curtain and entered a tiny room. She couldn’t see any walls or floor, only the silver curtain behind her and a glint of light shielding her from the void in every other direction. She looked out past it and saw hundreds—no, thousands—of warped spheres in the distance, some bigger than others. They were piled one on top of the other.
Staying focused proved difficult.
In the room with the tombs, she remained still and waited. A part of her wanted to hear what was being said – a large part. Another part pled for light, control… a way out.
Though, the ominous figure hadn’t proven himself to be a danger… yet. He merely toyed with her, being purposefully vague. “They, and you, realised there’s no other way.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” she muttered.
“Something is coming. And, if reality has any chance of surviving, you need to be stronger. They need to be gone.”
She saw the image of herself in the chamber flash once more. Her head was hanging low.
“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” came a sombre voice, part of that vision. “We can find another way.”
She looked up to find me standing in front of her, chamber still open. She immediately noted the resemblance between me and Robert. Not that she remembered me from before… I think. She pro
bably just recognised me from her previous vision.
“There is no other way,” she heard herself say. And, from what I remember, there was no arguing with her. “I have to do this,” echoed her words.
That moment comes back to me at times. She was scared. I was scared. She was brave. And we… we knew oh so little.
As the vision ended, she cried, “I don’t understand.” She turned to where she heard the figure last and asked, “What do you mean gone?”
“Robert and the other Alversia need to die.”
I imagine her eyes shot open and that her stomach turned. She felt sick. Portions of what he said were definitely true. That she knew. But the last part… she hoped it wasn’t.
“I’m not following,” she said.
There was no answer.
“Why does he need to die?” I’m sure she meant they. It was just… Robert was on her mind.
Again, no answer.
“Hello?” Her words now echoed and begged with no reply. “Who are you? And what have you done with Robert?” A tear ran down her cheek.
Meanwhile, in the tiny room, the undistorted and life-like premonition continued. Her focus shifted from the spheres to a holographic image which popped up in the glint of light. It was a close-up of one of the spheres. Another image slid over. It was the same as the previous, except this one had a dark light bleeding through – a crack. And it spread.
More and more images popped up and showed the blight spreading – growing larger and larger, from one sphere to the next. She quickly noted, as the zooming continued, that each of these spheres were filled with galaxies upon galaxies. Too many to count.
She watched as the slideshow moved through planets and worlds to men and women standing in arms. Some of them seemed to be from the future, others from the past. Some of them seemed to belong, others did not. Some of them seemed to be human, others not so much. Some of them seemed to be warring for control, others fleeing for survival. It was battle and chaos playing from one shot to the next, and the scene kept moving faster and faster.