Restart Again: Volume 2

by Adam Ladner Scott

  Compared to the first two members of the group, the woman on their left sparkled vibrantly with emerald green light against the darkness of my Detection. It was clear she was a magic user of some sort; in combination with the simple, unadorned robes and hood she wore, I guessed she was a member of the Unity Church. There were no clear signs that she was affiliated with the Company, apart from her companions, but she stuck close to the front man of the group as they moved down the stone stairs towards the podium. She appeared much younger than her two companions, most likely of an age with Lia or myself. The only other distinct feature I noticed was a baseball sized orb hidden in the sleeve of her robe, which radiated the same green mana signature as she did. That must be her casting implement. It seems the Church is proficient in storing mana inside any casting implements, not just Val’s shield.

  I nudged Val and leaned in close to her ear. “Someone is taking the stage. They look like they’re some sort of important Company people.”

  She nodded and took a moment to spin onto her knees, being careful not to scrape her metal armor against the stone floor and give away our position. Her head poked out slowly above the windowsill, and she took in the scene before us for the first time. The courtyard had continued to fill consistently since we arrived, and was now packed to the very edge of the stone plaza only fifteen feet away from our hiding place. After a few seconds Val shrunk back from the window with a look of shock on her face, by far the most emotive expression I had ever seen from her.

  “Two of them, together...unprecedented,” she said under her breath. She blinked her eyes repeatedly in disbelief, then turned to me suddenly. “The man in the yellow coat is the Strategist, and the man armored in blue is the General. Two of the three leaders of the Company.” When I didn’t react to the revelation, she leaned in and whispered more urgently. “The last time two leaders of the Company were seen together was during the Lybesian Trade Affair, during which they destroyed over half of Lybesa’s fleet and single-handedly turned the tide of the conflict. If they are here now…”

  I nodded. “It really is serious.” I peeked over the edge of the window to confirm what my Detection had shown me. “It doesn’t look like either of them is the Conduit, though. And who is that with them? It isn’t the Admiral, I take it?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I am unsure as to her identity.” I watched as the man in the golden coat climbed the wooden staircase to the stage and approached the podium, drawing a large cheer from the crowd. “Perhaps the Admiral is the Conduit. It would be sensible to leave him in the safety of the statehouse, if what you say about his importance is true.”

  “Maybe,” I said, distracted. The hair on the back of my neck had stood straight up when the Strategist reached the podium, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us. I rechecked our surroundings through Detection and found nothing out of place, but the feeling persisted. “The Strategist is about to speak,” I told Val, motioning up to the window again.

  “Greetings, my friends!” The Strategist’s voice boomed over the plaza, drawing another round of cheers from the men before him. “Thank you all for gathering here tonight. I know how hard each of you has worked towards our goal, and I would never summon you away from that work unless it were important.” He spoke with a charisma and easy confidence that any cult leader would envy, and the crowd ate it up. “But tonight is a night for celebration! A time to bask in our success, and look forward at the new world that your hard work has built!”

  He made a sweeping gesture back towards the statehouse. “Look! The bobbing lights may look small from here, but they signal something great.” Though it was obscured from our position and far out of range of my Detection, I knew he was pointing to the harbor that sat below the city. “The final deployments of our men have arrived. Tomorrow, we will assemble the greatest army that Kaldan has ever seen, and it will be led,” he motioned back towards the man behind him, “by the fiercest General the world has ever known!”

  The man stepped forward when mentioned to wild applause; he looked entirely unamused by the situation, with his severe features accentuated by shadows of the flickering torches that lit the plaza. He drew one sword from his hip and pointed it up to the sky. “We will be victorious!” he called out in a deep, resonating voice. He returned the sword to its sheath and stepped back to his original place while the men in the plaza stomped their feet and thundered their support.

  The Strategist stepped to the front edge of the stage and looked out over the crowd. “Unbound men! You have liberated your home from the clutches of weaker men, who would have continued to exploit your families for generations. Will you join me in liberating others like you?” The Unbound standing around the outside edge of the plaza shouted back with enthusiastic pledges of loyalty. “My faithful Elta’sahn men,” he continued, “will you follow me into history as the greatest Company to ever be assembled?” A unanimous cry of “For the Company!” came from the inner circle of men. I tasted bile rising in the back of my throat as I watched the jingoistic display; it was eerily similar to the rally I had seen when the Dominion first came to Hedaat.

  The sound of shattering glass rang out from the street beyond our hiding place, and I lurched forward to a ready stance with my hand on the hilt of my sword. My breath sat frozen in my chest as I waited for someone to appear in the doorway to our building, despite my Detection telling me the street was clear with no signs of broken glass. I felt Lia’s hand touch mine, and I looked back to find her and Val watching me with concern.

  Sitting back against the wall carefully, I shook my head. “Sorry. Thought I heard someone coming,” I whispered, scratching at the tingling feeling of adrenaline at the base of my neck. When my attention returned to the scene outside, the Strategist was on the ground, standing before the small collection of Dominion men assembled directly in front of the stage.

  “Take note, men!” he shouted, spinning in a tight circle to address the entire crowd. “These brave soldiers before me have gone above and beyond in answering the call of duty! These are the men that will lead us to the glorious future we all dream of!” He walked down the line of men, patting each on the shoulder with a respectful nod. “Are any of you strong enough to join them? Will you help them free this land of injustice?” A multitude of cries rose up from the group, and the Strategist smiled.

  A deafening crack resounded out of the ceiling above us, followed by the sound of broken glass raining to the floor. Lia and Val didn’t react to the noise, and although my ears were ringing, I hardly took notice; my attention was entirely drawn to the image of the Strategist in my head. He’s the one who brought them here. The one who caused all of this. My blood chilled to ice beneath my skin as the world around me shrank to a pinpoint, with the Strategist at the center. He’s the one who ruined my life.

  I think it’s time for you to remember. A voice that was not my own echoed inside my head. I recognized the source immediately, but the tone was wrong; Amaya’s voice had never sounded so cruel.

  Fuck you. How DARE you pretend to be her. I gritted my teeth and did my best to block out the voice. Whatever you are, leave me alone.

  The voice returned again, twice as loud as before. It’s the only way you’ll survive the night, Amaya’s voice boomed. It’s the only way Lia will survive, too.

  I felt a quick, sharp pain at the center of my chest that faded to a dull burning which began to spread throughout my body. My heart started to race, and my limbs trembled as my body recognized the sensation before my mind did. Death. Pain. The darkness between lives. I looked at Lia, who sat in intense focus as she watched the scene outside through Detection. “Please, no...I’m not ready,” I whispered to nobody.

  Don’t be afraid, Amaya’s voice replied sweetly. You’ll understand everything once you remember. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat as the world went black before my eyes. As the last bit of light faded, I reached out and found Lia’s hand beside me. My lips moved, but I coul
dn’t hear if the words escaped before I fell unconscious.

  ---

  “Open the damn door, Lux!” The muffled shout was accompanied by a consistent banging on the metal door, still audible two rooms away in the laboratory. I pushed away from the bench in frustration and slammed my hands down on the worktop in frustration.

  “Alda, go tell the councilor that I won’t be meeting with him again today. Or any time this week, for that matter.” My patience for the blustering lump of a man had long since run out, yet Gorat continued his daily trips to the lab to pester me about joining his new organization. “I don’t care what they call themselves; this new Dominion can fuck off just like the last Council did.”

  “Of course, sir,” Alda said with a deep bow. She turned and scurried out of the lab into the entryway, leaving the door open behind her as she rushed to answer the insistent pounding. I turned back to the lab bench and retrieved the needle I had been working on, sighing with annoyance as I held it back underneath the magnifying lens to inspect the incredibly small inscriptions along its length. “Good evening, Councilor,” Alda recited dutifully as she cracked open the outside door. “I’m afraid that Master Lux is—”

  A loud shriek cut off her prepared speech. My stomach dropped as I abandoned my work and sprinted to the entryway door to find the cause of her alarm. Councilor Gorat stood at the lab entrance, but he wasn’t alone as I had come to expect from his recent visits; eight armed guards stood around him with their weapons drawn, one of whom had Alda pinned tightly against his chest with a dagger at her throat.

  Without a thought, my sword materialized in my outstretched hand, and I pointed it at the face of the closest guard. “Let her go,” I hissed. Something about Gorat’s escort felt dangerously strange; all of the men had the same pale skin, and their eyes were glassy and featureless, glowing with a dull purple light.

  “Lux,” Gorat started, holding up his hands, “this doesn’t have to come to violence.”

  I lunged forward, shortening the distance between us to a few feet. “LET HER GO!” I roared. There was a sudden, strange sensation in my chest; a single stab of pain followed by an intense burn that began to radiate outwards into my extremities. My vision started to cloud, and the world took on a dark, red-tinged appearance.

  “Sir, I-I’m alright!” Alda managed to squeak as she struggled against the burly guard.

  “Shut up,” the man growled as he pressed the knife harder against her ivory skin, summoning a line of crimson droplets on its edge. “Gorat, you need them both?”

  “I told you, we’re here for him!” Gorat whispered angrily. He turned back to me with a pleading expression. “Please, Lux, we just need to talk with you. The girl will be fine if—”

  “You have THREE seconds to release her, or you all die,” I growled, clutching at my chest with my free hand. The fire had crept through my entire body, and I could feel a dark energy pulsing in my sword hand. “ONE!”

  Gorat yelped in alarm and turned to the man holding Alda. “This isn’t how things were supposed to go! Let the girl go, we have no need for her.”

  The guard showed no acknowledgement of the councilor’s protests; his eyes never left mine as his mouth curled into a dark smirk. “Fine,” he called out as he drew his leg up and kicked Alda hard in the back. A vibrant spray of blood gushed from her neck as the knife ripped through her flesh, and she stumbled towards me unsteadily.

  “What did you DO?!” Gorat shrieked at the guard, yanking on his arm.

  The large man turned and said something in reply, but I didn’t hear the words; every part of my body fell instantly numb as Alda tumbled towards me. I caught her in my arms and sank to one knee, cradling her as my mind shut down in shock. Her eyes scanned around the room vacantly until they met mine, where they locked intently. The constant pulse of blood from her neck increased as she tried to speak, but more blood came from her mouth instead of words.

  “No, no, no no no,” I murmured, dropping my sword to press hard against the wound. “Alda, no, this isn’t...you aren’t…” My mind refused to accept the reality before me. “You’ll be...fine, Alda. I’ll fix it, I’ll…” Her hand reached up weakly to touch the side of my face, and I held it fiercely. Each pump of blood that flowed across my trembling hand came weaker than the last, and I watched as her eyes began to lose focus. “No, don’t go...Alda, don’t leave, please.”

  Her hand fell limp against her chest, and her head sagged backwards. I threw my head back and screamed in wordless agony, and the fire in my chest returned all at once; it felt as though every inch of me was burning away, leaving nothing behind but an empty shell. My mind retreated, fleeing in search of some dark corner away from the torment where it could hide from my reality.

  Somehow, I became aware that my body was moving on its own. It carefully set Alda down on the stone floor and rose to its feet, dragging me along as an unwilling passenger. “You took everything I have,” a multitude of voices spoke out from my mouth, overtones echoing in a dissonant choir. I saw wisps of smoke rising from my fingertips as my hand reached out towards the man before me. “You’ll die for that. All of you.” Black flames licked out along my arms, casting long shadows across the entryway.

  Gorat shrieked in terror and dove backwards through the group of guards, scrambling on his hands and knees in the snow. The men readied their weapons and poured into the room, surrounding me on all sides. Alda’s blood burned away as the dark fire spread across my body, engulfing my entire form in dancing shadow. My vision faded to black, and the men surrounding me screamed. Before I lost consciousness, I heard a single word, repeated in a thousand voices at once.

  “Suffer.”

  -

  When my consciousness finally returned to me, the room was still and silent. The smell of blood and smoke filled my nostrils as I came to, and the dull stone room was painted with vivid splotches of red. Although there were no signs of fire damage anywhere, every surface in the entryway was covered with a thick layer of black ash, sitting like a fresh snowfall over an open field. I sat on the floor in the center of the room with Alda’s cold, lifeless body cradled in my arms.

  I had no memory of what had transpired after blacking out; where the men had gone, whose blood was splattered around the room, and how I had ended up alone were all mysteries. Every inch of my body felt entirely drained of energy, and even though I had no apparent wounds, it ached with a familiar burning sensation. The pain seemed to be radiating up from my right hand, so I held it up with a detached curiosity to find the source. Tiny black scars retreated down the length of my fingers, disappearing out my fingertips in faint wisps of smoke. A slight tremor shook my arm as the marks disappeared, and I let it drop back down into my lap.

  When I looked down into Alda’s vacant, unseeing eyes, I felt wholly empty. My eyes felt puffy from crying, but I had no sadness left. There was no anger inside me, no grief, no fear; nothing but an empty void. It was as if I had been burned away from the inside until everything I had been before was gone. Everything, apart from a singular thought that repeated over and over again inside my vacant mind, until it became an overwhelming roar of my own voice.

  Make them suffer.

  ---

  Now do you understand?

  The dark, disassembling pain of death covered every inch of my body when I regained consciousness, and Amaya’s voice in my head was the only thing that kept me together. If I still existed in the physical world, I couldn’t perceive it; none of my senses registered anything apart from the pain. You made all of that up. That wasn’t my memory; that’s not how it happened. I’ve never...how could I forget that?

  You didn’t forget it, you repressed it. There’s a difference. Her voice oozed with condescension as it continued to echo inside my head. Part of you stubbornly refuses to accept your true power. Something about holding on to whatever scraps of humanity you have left, I’m not really sure. Whatever the reason, the end result is the same: you’ve chosen to hide those memories fro
m yourself.

  Then why are you making me remember it? Who are you? WHAT are you? My head spun as I struggled to get a handle on the situation.

  Does that really matter? I’m trying to help you, after all. You should be thankful.

  You stole her voice. You stole her face. It matters.

  I heard her sigh. Is that what you’re hung up on? There was a momentary pause, and then another familiar voice responded. Would you prefer Alda’s voice, then? I’m not calling you Master, if that’s what you’re hoping.

  ENOUGH! My anger seemed to push back against the pain, and I felt some semblance of my body return to me. If you’re going to kill me, do it. Otherwise, leave me the fuck alone, and never come back.

  The voice began to oscillate back and forth between Alda and Amaya’s voices interchangeably. Oh, I’m not going anywhere. You need me now more than ever; that power will tear you apart without my help.

  A clear, shining image came to me through the darkness: Lia, sitting beside me with tears in her eyes, explaining the fear she felt when I tortured Jack during our escape from the dungeons. No. I’m never using that power again.

  I heard the voices laugh, a sharp, cruel noise that chilled me through to my core. It’s a bit too late for that now, Elden. The floodgates are open, and soon you’ll...you know what? Why don’t you just find out for yourself. I’d hate to spoil the surprise.

  My senses returned all at once. I attempted to gasp and bolt upright, but I was stopped by the presence of firm hands pressing over my mouth and chest. I was lying on the floor of the abandoned building at the edge of the plaza, with Lia and Val kneeling over me. When my eyes shot open, they looked at each other with relief before carefully removing their restraining hands. “Primes, Lux, are you alright?” Val said under her breath.