Paragon

by Rowan Rook

  "Better, indeed."

  Amaranth stiffened, turning to see Lucillo behind him. His roommate's icy eyes belied the heat in his voice. Lord, why now?

  "This was your fault!" Lucillo's hands curled into sweaty fists, save for one accusing finger. "It was after you. You heard the thing⁠—it was after you!"

  Amaranth shuddered. Something about the gesture⁠—that outstretched finger⁠—summoned the arsonist's image in his mind.

  "Look! Look at everyone!" Lucillo gestured at the carnage like a grotesque showman. "I already found Galler and Theon, burned with the rest of Lab 1. Why is it that you're still alive, when they're...?" His body shook like his voice, "It's you! It has to be because of you!"

  Galler and Theon? A pang came with memories of the two roommates who'd sat around the dining table and played cards with Lucillo and the others just the night before. He'd spent years sharing a space with them without truly knowing them.

  Rickard crossed her arms. "Come now, Lucillo. We don't yet know the details, but you know as well as I that what you're saying isn't true. The Lyrum came for the specimen room. It was only a matter of time, what with Edgard's incompetent fools⁠—"

  "We never even knew it worked!" Lucillo glowered at the cuff on Amaranth's wrist. "Always sneaking around alone, always making up those stories of yours. Now look what happened! Galler and Theon were two of the best scientists here, so...why...?" His damp eyes narrowed with intent that went well beyond anger. "All you ever think about is yourself! Say something! They were your roommates, too!"

  Amaranth said nothing. Anything he could say would only make it worse. The best he could do was let Lucillo blow out smoke and hope he didn't erupt...the way he himself had earlier. His face heated.

  "It should've been you!"

  Lucillo slammed his fist into Amaranth's jaw.

  Amaranth's lungs lost their air as his back crashed into the wall. He fought to keep his footing, but his legs surrendered. He sank to the floor.

  Lucillo yelped, a return blow smashing into his head from behind. Shakaya. When had she slipped into the room? The soldier glowered wordlessly at him through her helmet.

  Lucillo clutched his skull and spun on his heels. "Bitch!"

  Both the scientist and the soldier raised their fists, but another set of hands wrapped around Lucillo's arms and put an end to it.

  "That's enough!" Rickard scolded. "These hysterics are embarrassing. I understand that you've been through an unspeakable ordeal, but as a graduate of the Academy, that does not excuse this behavior."

  "He hit me first!" Lucillo's voice smoldered like the ashes spread across the floor. "It's not fair! This isn't fair!" Tears dripped down his cheeks. "They can't be dead, when he's⁠—"

  Amaranth watched Rickard drag Lucillo off through vision bordered by black edges. He tried to get up, but his body barely moved. It wouldn't work anymore. He was just...so tired. His jaw ached, his limbs shook, and his mind was too numb to think. He leaned his head against the wall. Shakaya said something, but he didn't hear it⁠—unconsciousness reached him first.

  Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ

  Amaranth sat alone in the lab. Dusty sun filtered in through the windows⁠—nothing more than small pools of glass and light in the walls⁠—but every door was locked, and the only desk inside was his. Finally, he could be alone with his research. No Lucillo, no Shakaya, no Rickard. Just him, paper, and ink. What had happened to everyone else, he wasn't quite sure. Maybe they were all dead. He couldn't remember. The floor was covered in blood, after all. Whether it belonged to someone he'd loved, hated, or simply the specimens he'd discarded in his wake, he had no way of knowing. All he knew, all he had left, was a furious urgency to read and write.

  He looked up at the huge clock on the ceiling. It was so massive that its face of bone and crystal stole the entire space above him like a black and white sky. Tick. Tick. Tick. The hands moved slowly across the blank circle. There were no numbers, but somehow, he knew where the hands would stop, and when they reached it, he knew it would be too late. The world would end.

  His hands moved feverishly over words and numbers, turning pages and sketching pictures and paragraphs. His heart pounded to the beat of the doomsday clock. He needed to hurry. There wasn't much time left.

  "Do you really think you can save the world from inside this room?" asked no one.

  "I have to," he told the one who wasn't there. "This is all I can do. I don't know how to do anything else. I'll make it."

  "You won't make it," no one argued, voice far more sure than his. "The world is already ruined, and there's nothing you can do from here to change it. Information, images, words. None of it can stop the destruction. It's too late for that."

  "I don't believe that. I can't believe that," he argued back. "If I did, what else could I do but sit back and watch the hands tick by?"

  "Believe what you want, but it won't change anything," laughed the one who wasn't there. "You are simply afraid, ashamed. You can't face the truth. You cling to hope that isn't real. You're weak."

  "I'm not!" he shouted, his low voice echoing uncomfortably in the stillness like an offkey piano note. "I'm the only one still trying to save anything."

  "Do you really believe that?"

  Amaranth didn't answer.

  "Why are you fighting?" no one pressed. "Why do you want to save this world which disgusts you? Lyrum and their violence and fear. Shattered shadows clinging desperately to a past long over, broken by grief. Their closed minds⁠—trusting in the sky and denying reality. Humans and their hatred and lust. Cold soldiers marching toward progress at the expense of love, drunk on power. Their closed minds⁠—roles written by money and gender and sex and strength. Nothing in the world ever accepted someone like you. It never will."

  He stopped, his hands hesitating over the paper. Blood dripped from the tip of his pen. "I want the world to be more than it is," he admitted.

  "Believe what you want," nothing repeated. "It won't change anything."

  "The world won't accept me," he hissed through his teeth, "and I won't accept it. I will change it. I will make it better. I'll save it."

  "From inside this room?"

  Amaranth didn't answer. He let his research take him, falling into the world of paper and ideas, dreams and nightmares. A world he'd made his own, that couldn't hurt him, where he was god. This was all he could do. All he'd ever been and ever be able to do. He would break the code and change the real world. Make it more than it was.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock. His heart pounded to the beat of the doomsday clock. He needed to hurry. There wasn't much time left.

  But no matter how many pages he wrote or how much he read, nothing changed at all. None of it mattered. Files and books piled up behind him, burying him, filling the once empty room with useless words and broken hope. An ocean of defeat. Loose paper flitted in the dim sunlight, glistening with crimson ink as his pen spilled blood.

  Useless. He was as useless as ever. He tried and tried and tried. None of it mattered. None of it ever did.

  Tick. Tick. Tick. He started to sweat, his slick hands shaking. He wasn't going to make it. The world would end. End beneath a sky of black and white and crystal and bone. End when the clock fell silent.

  "You're right," he admitted to the one who wasn't there. "I won't make it."

  There was only silence. Blood pooled around his feet, spilling fresh with every tick and every tock. He was alone. Alone in stale sunlight and a lake of red. A failure. The first tears came.

  "What else can I do?" he asked the emptiness and prayed for an answer. "I want to save the world."

  "Do you?" no one asked. "Or do you want to save yourself?"

  He didn't answer right away. "The world," he decided. "I'm the only one who can, and so I must."

  "You're the only one who can, and so you must," no one repeated, pleased.

  "How?" he begged. "Tell me how and I will."

  "It wasn't supposed to be like this," said the one who wasn't there
. "The world was never supposed to be like this. Set it on fire and write in the ashes. Make it more than it is."

  "How?" he screamed, trying not to cry. He suddenly couldn't breathe anymore, his lungs filled with blood and ink.

  "Stand up," no one said, and a door creaked open from across the room, "and follow me."

  He stood and turned, all the heat draining out of him. The doorway was dark, bloated with black. The stench of smoke wafted through the hole in his small, square world. His skin crawled, every inch of him tingling with fear. He couldn't move. He didn't want to leave. But⁠—

  "Follow me," ordered nothing and everything, "follow me."

  Chapter Three: Elavadin Academy

  Warm fingers brushed against Amaranth's cheek. He stirred, his thoughts slowly sparking back to life and shaking off the remnants of strange dreams. The sound of someone breathing seeped into his ears. Two someones, actually, but perhaps one rhythm belonged to his own body. He knew who was with him without opening his eyes⁠—there were few people who ignored that he didn't like to be touched, and the callused skin confirmed his suspicions. He groaned, his eyelids blearily drifting open.

  Sure enough, it was Shakaya staring down at him⁠—she was his second shadow, after all.

  Silver armor peeked from beneath her knee-length white coat, but her helmet was off, letting her long, sandy hair drape over her shoulders. Shakaya so rarely removed her gear that Amaranth had seen her without it only a handful of times since she'd graduated from student to soldier. Her ability to stare down death without flinching, the hours she spent training in the Academy's gym, the jagged scar jutting from under her chin, and the musculature lining her figure were testament to how her job had become her identity. As many hours as he'd sunk into his research, he sometimes felt that her devotion dwarfed his. It was everything she lived for.

  Shakaya tucked her hand away when Amaranth's eyes opened, setting it on her lap as if she'd never touched his cheek. "Good," she spoke in her low monotone. "You've been asleep for hours." To a stranger, she would've sounded devoid of emotion entirely, but he, trained as he was to the nuances of her voice, heard her relief.

  Amaranth swallowed, trying to get his tongue to work. "What...?" He was pinned down in an unfamiliar bed by thick blankets. Images hazily played with his head⁠—fire, burned metal, spiteful eyes. He wanted to believe they belonged to a nightmare, but the bandages around his arms and shoulder wouldn't allow him that luxury.

  The faint light faded from Shakaya's eyes. "We made a mistake. My platoon engaged the Lyrum troop sighted outside Elavadin this morning, but it was only a distraction. A larger troop attacked the Academy in our absence and overpowered the few soldiers left behind. We drove them out when we returned, but the labs..." A flicker of what might have been pain⁠—or shame, perhaps⁠—crossed her face. "I fetched doctors from the infirmary after you collapsed. How are your injuries?"

  He shuffled just enough to test out his limbs. A fist-sized bruise ached beneath his jaw, and scrapes and burns stung against the sheets, but for the most part, he was simply tired. Very tired. Stress, and the unexpected usage of Translation, had drained everything out of him. He sucked in a breath that wheezed in his smoke-stained lungs, but at least the air was clean. The infirmary was located on the Academy's property, but mercifully away from its main campus, shared by students and the city itself alike. "I'm all right." He tried to smile. "I'm sorry for worrying you."

  The corners of her lips twitched. "I wasn't worried. Nothing could ever happen to you⁠—it's impossible."

  Amaranth blinked. It was hard to tell with her stoic face, but he had the sense that she was serious. Perhaps some part of her really believed that...and perhaps some part of him believed something similar, too. She was a soldier, but even while she was out serving, he rarely worried. It was simply a given that she'd come home each time. After all, if one of them was alive, the other would be as well. That was as much a fact as anything else. Or at least, considering how much of their lives were shared, it felt like one.

  The quiet moment lasted a few beats longer, before Shakaya's eyes drifted down to the cuff on Amaranth's wrist. "I put away what was left of your box. I noticed it on the floor and I know how important it is to you. Most of the files were burned. Your tools and the copy of the Not seemed salvageable."

  She'd gone through his things? A stab of panic sunk into Amaranth's chest. "Did you read any of it?"

  Shakaya couldn't quite hide the hurt from her face. "No."

  Amaranth winced. "Thank you," he remembered to say. Perhaps it was fortunate that most of his pages had burned. In his shock, he'd forgotten all about his spilled storage box. Still, it was wonderful news that his copy of the Not had been spared. Much of his more public work was gone, but at least everything that mattered was safe.

  Shakaya's gaze lingered on the Not, narrowing into something almost like suspicion. "I thought... I knew the Not could process Word, but I didn't know you could actually do anything with it. That's⁠—"

  "Not public knowledge," Amaranth finished, tensing beneath the blankets. He wasn't sure if it was shame, guilt, or something else altogether flushing away his color, but it was more than uncomfortable. "The Not is dangerous⁠—it isn't stable. No one else has tested it yet. I just... I had no other option."

  The Lyrum's gift of Translation came from patterns etched inside their flesh. The microscopic pores in their skin were too small to see, but allowed Word⁠—the invisible energy source in Auratessa's atmosphere thought to be left behind from the world's creation⁠—to enter and exit their bodies as simply as air passed in and out of their lungs. Different movements forced energy through the patterns in different ways, and Translation itself was controlled through such gestures and activity in the brain⁠—it was almost like an extension of the limbs.

  The patterns each Lyrum possessed were unique, offering skills of countless variants and potencies. Some Lyrum could shape-shift, others could heal, many, like Rita, could generate forces. Even when not actively utilized, Word constantly moved through Lyrum's bodies. The pores that formed the patterns and the strain caused by the energy's presence, however, physically weakened Lyrum and influenced the species's short lifespan.

  The Not was inscribed with patterns similar to those inherited by Lyrum. If equipped properly to a Human body, it would emulate and amplify the energy transfusions that gave the Lyrum their gift. Put simply, it would allow Humans to use Translation. If it succeeded, it would be a momentous step forward for the Academy's research department as well as his personal goals.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't quite there yet.

  Amaranth scratched the back of his head. "I was lucky it functioned at all. It's a prototype. Nothing more."

  Shakaya stared for a while longer. "Does Rickard know?"

  Amaranth let his eyes fall as hers did. Was Shakaya upset that he'd never told her? Rickard had ordered him to keep the project's details quiet. And he knew that Shakaya... He bit his lip, not letting himself finish that thought. "She's the only one."

  Light footsteps came from the infirmary's hallway.

  Shakaya frowned at the door. "It seems it's dangerous to say her name."

  Amaranth followed her gaze, bewildered, before Rickard stepped inside the room. Ah. The scientist tried not to grimace at the sight of his boss.

  "Never arriving for our meeting, and then falling asleep while I dealt with Lucillo for you? My, you can never make things easy, can you?" Rickard hovered over the bedside, her hands tucked behind her back. "It's fortunate you're one of my favorites." She wore a smile, and now that Amaranth had a better look at her, didn't seem to bear any injuries of her own. She must not have been present during the attack. "It would be fantastic if you could just do what you're meant to for once, but it seems you don't have the option of wandering off this time. Let's talk."

  Amaranth couldn't help a sigh. "What must we talk about?"

  Rickard tilted her head. "I wanted a report this afternoon, reme
mber? In fact, if you'd only come to my office when I'd asked you to, you wouldn't have been caught up in the attack at the lab. Isn't fate a funny thing?"

  Oh...that was right. He never had gotten much of a chance to look over his notes, and he'd completely lost track of what he'd planned to say. He could only hope his boss would have mercy. Amaranth scowled, "Forgive me if my memory's a bit foggy."

  "Given the circumstances, I suppose I can manage that much," Rickard chuckled. "Besides, Lucillo told me quite the story. You used the Not to fight off our guests?"

  "Well, to defend myself, yes," Amaranth stuttered. "I...did it on instinct, really. I didn't think about it first."

  "Then it sounds like I have all the updates I need," Rickard nodded, pleased. "I'll assume your work on the Not is progressing well. Though I must say, you caused quite the commotion. With luck, your little spectacle should be overshadowed by our losses, but I'll need you to write up a report soon. The others will want answers, and I could do with the details, myself."

  Amaranth tried not to groan. He suddenly felt very weary again, fighting the urge to close his eyes.

  "Still..." His boss twirled a lock of her white hair around her fingers. That odd white hair that looked so much older than the rest of her, matching her lab coat and standing out against her painted red nails. It made her seem so much more fragile than she was. "I'm quite glad to see that the Not is functioning as planned⁠—this was quite the assurance test⁠—and even gladder to see that the two of you came through it all fine." She outstretched her arms, placing one hand on Shakaya's shoulder and the other on Amaranth's. He was too tired to flinch. "Thank the Author for that, huh?"

  The Author. Auratessa's deity. The thing that had supposedly created the world Amaranth studied. Bitterness soured his mouth. He didn't like to think about it much.

  "How many scientists did we lose?" he asked drowsily.