by S. S. Segran
An annoyed rumble rose from Mokun’s throat. “Do you really believe a person can live as long as I have and not learn ways to maneuver around something as trivial as blocking one’s consciousness from the novasphere? I am ancient, Jag. The knowledge I’ve discovered is more complete than anything Dema-Ki and its Elders have.”
Jag strained against his bonds. They dug into his skin, leaving reddened furrows when he slackened for breath. The cables that held the canvas roof taut quavered with his efforts. “I’ll bring this whole place down,” he vowed, teeth bared. “I’ll bury you, Mokun. You lost your way. Reyor was right to kill you.”
Kody listened, unsettled. This was not the Jag they had grown up with.
“We ought to get started.” Mokun plucked a small vial from his pocket and popped the cork. He grabbed Jag by the chin and pried his jaw open, holding steady as the boy tried to toss his head. The dark green liquid spilled into his mouth.
Jag attempted to retch the substance but nothing came back out. “What was that?” he spluttered.
“Just a bit of what we use to help make potential Stewards more pliable,” Mokun said. He winked at the friends. “Let’s begin.”
Mokun pried open the doors to Jag’s mind as Tegan, Aari, Mariah, and Kody stepped into the novasphere; their essences amorphous, barely more than a flicker of light mingled with mist as they sailed through the opening. He let the doors slam shut after them. Their forms circled him but when he raised his hand, they stilled.
“Visualize your bodies,” he instructed softly, “and they will apparate in this plane.”
It took a while for them to get the hang of it; one arm would appear, then a leg, sometimes just eyes. When they were finally fully formed, they appeared mirrored. Kody spread out his arms. “Whoa, why does everyone look a little off? Also, how are we communicating if telepathy is closed to us?”
“The enigmas of the mind are endless, Mr. Tyler.” Mokun turned to stare down the blackness before them. “Even with all my time spent trying to pick it apart, more mysteries remain to be found. The whys of certain mechanics here can often be difficult to grasp, but some things are easier to explain than others. Your appearances, for example. You take on the interpretation of what you perceive. I would reckon most of us have looked into mirrors more than at our photos. As such, when we construct our bodies, it is not pure copies but the images we hold in our minds. Notice your clothes barely have a defined shape or color. Periphery constructs of ourselves, only subconsciously recognized as important, will take on only vague apparitions.”
“Trippy,” Kody muttered.
“Reform yourselves, this time not as your reflections, but as what you feel you look like. It’s more natural and easier to hold on to than constantly keeping up an image from a mirror.”
The friends’ likenesses wavered before steadying once more. They seemed about the same, with only minor differences—symmetrical faces, slight variations in height and build, smoother skin and hair texture, and more comfortable postures.
Mokun dipped his head. “Better. The greatest thing about the mindscape is how malleable it is. As the universe expands outward, so too does the imagination expand inward. Both are boundless.”
“Wait, so if I . . .” Tegan’s shape morphed, taking on the form of a twenty-foot-long creature with glittering violet scales, curved horns atop an angular head, and an elongated jaw with rows of pointed teeth. “Oh, man, this is so cool! I’m a dragon!”
The others immediately changed their appearances, Kody into a comically muscular superhero in the most absurd, colorful costume with a billowing cape; Mariah into a giant stuffed bear dancing to imaginary music; and Aari into a wooden dining table that was somehow able to totter around. The friends guffawed.
Mokun laughed, a full-hearted admission of mirth he hadn’t experienced in too long. He let them goof around for a few moments more before waving them closer. “While these antics are amusing, we haven’t much time to waste.”
The friends returned to the previous versions of themselves and followed him deeper into the void. Kody tried to feel around. “How are we supposed to find anything in here?”
“This darkness constitutes the defensive buffer Jag put up to conceal himself in the novasphere,” Mokun said. “Near as I can tell, I am the first to fully master that trick. I taught it to Reyor, and she taught him.”
“You’re the guy with the original code, which means you have the key to get around these defenses,” Aari surmised. “Which is how you found him to begin with, and how you can get through.”
“Exactly. As to the earlier question about telepathy . . . well, there are more ways to communicate in the novasphere than you might think.”
“I’m pretty sure we only know the one,” Tegan said.
“There are layers. Think of the novasphere as a public place. Depending on certain factors, like bloodlines or more extraordinary reasons, separate rooms can be crafted away from the general throng. Off-map, if you will. Since Reyor is from my lineage, we have our own chamber where she and I may communicate without anyone locating us.”
“Secret meeting spaces!” Mariah said. “Do the Elders know about this?”
“It’s doubtful. Mind you, telepathy is already a gift not everyone has access to, even if they have Islander blood. To learn how to dive below the surface of the novasphere’s depths is by no means an easy task unless you have a guide.”
“And you’re the only proper guide there is.” Aari sounded awed. “There’s so much to discover about the Islanders and their history. You could fill in so many gaps for the people of Dema-Ki. They lost most of their written history and records when your home island was obliterated. All they have now are their stories and a cellar full of books and scrolls.”
Mokun winced inwardly. Mariah slunk up to his side. “Why don’t you reach out to Dema-Ki after this? I’m sure they’d be thrilled to learn from you.”
It was just an illusion of the girl, but the earnestness in her eyes was real and it wrenched something inside Mokun that he’d entombed long ago. “I am a murderer,” he told her softly. “The moment the black crystal infused with me, I was marked. My hands, my mind, became instruments of destruction and chaos. Mistakes piled up one after the other because I thought it was the only way to right humanity’s wrongs. Had things played out differently, perhaps I would feel worthy going back to Dema-Ki.”
She glared up at him. “That’s selfish.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Because it’s not about what you feel.” She glanced at Tegan, then back at him. “Sometimes our emotions get in the way of what’s best in the grand scheme of things. You have important information that could benefit your people. How you feel has nothing to do with it. You . . . you have a responsibility to teach and share with them everything you know before you leave this world.”
Mokun gazed down at her thoughtfully. “I took a look at the results from your mitochondrial DNA after I was revived. All five of you have made the leap past my own people, which means this is very much not a fluke. The prophecy is indeed on your side, and you are spearheading something. Your progeny will likely carry forward abilities of their own. You are the start of a great new evolution within the wider populace and that carries great responsibility.” He smiled sympathetically as trepidation unfolded across Mariah’s face. “We each have weight to bear on our shoulders, it seems.”
Ahead, a pinprick of brightness hailed them. Mokun’s smile widened. “Ah, here we are. We can speed up now.”
“Is a concept like motion valid here?” Aari asked. “I don’t think we’re even really moving, are we? This is all just . . .” He made vague motions with his hands as though compressing something between them. “. . . constructs. We’re limited by our experiences in the physical world, so we transpose parts of it here to help us navigate our minds better when we have to turn inward like this. And what about time? Does it work the same way in here as it does out there?”
“You are correc
t, motion is just a construct here. As to your other questions, have you ever heard of something moving at the speed of thought? In a sense, it’s no different from the idea of time dilation. The faster one moves through space, the slower time becomes. In the mindscape, it will feel as though hours have passed, but in actuality only a fraction of that time has elapsed.” Mokun spread his arms, eyelids sliding shut. “Just let go and fall.”
In the next second he was yanked forward. As a projection of his consciousness, there was no discernible sensation to be felt but he liked to imagine he was falling from the sky—weightless, abstract, free of burden, never hitting the ground.
They blinked out of the darkness and onto a thoroughfare. Flanking the wide road were expanses of nothingness but, past them, rose the vaporous outline of a city that stretched endlessly, its structures packed close together in varying heights as they glistened under some sourceless light. Kody walked backward, head craning as he took it all in. “What is this place?”
An enraged cry shattered the peace of the mindscape. The friends instinctively dropped low. Mokun remained tall, forgoing the false senses of his illusory body. “Stay close,” he whispered. “He’s here.”
They continued along the thoroughfare. On either side of the road, shapeless adits blinked to life as they neared. Passing glimpses inside hinted at what lay within but Mokun ushered the group onward. “I should say, if something happens here, remember that it’s really just a battle of one consciousness against another. Whatever is occurring to your forms in this place is only a manifestation of your mind to better understand and maneuver in a fight. Any pain you might feel is not somatic but it will hurt, much like a headache.”
“I don’t understand how any of this works,” Aari groused.
“Human language is grievously lacking,” Mokun agreed. “As is our ability to grasp concepts that stray too far from the sciences of the day.”
Tegan reached out to put her hand through one of the portals, then seemed to think better of it. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“A library, perhaps. That’s most common, though it varies from person to person. It’s essentially a grand place where memory, ambition, guilt, hope, emotions and the like meet.”
“Libraries aren’t quite Jag’s thing as much as they are mine and Aari’s,” Mariah said. “If anything, his place might be . . .” She squinted. “He likes open areas. Freerunning over buildings and stuff. That kind of freedom makes him feel good and lets him clear his head.”
Mokun glanced through one of the adits that led to the interior of a small cottage with windows looking over a desert. “It would need to be an enclosed space. No one likes having aspects of their psyche out in the open, not even in the safety of their own minds.”
Another cry ruptured through the vicinage of the ether. Jag’s wrath seemed to manifest as the atmosphere itself, contracting around them. Mokun tried to push back but the viscous sensation returned his efforts with twice the vehemence. Blinding flames roared to life on either side of the road, barring him and the others from the portals. The friends shielded themselves from the unnatural luster of the blaze. Mokun shouted at them to lower their arms. “This isn’t real! You don’t have eyes here!”
The flames stretched along the ground, cutting into two trails as they raced toward the center of the road a hundred feet ahead. Shadows flickered off the inferno, expanding and contorting like sentient smoke. The burning veil, at first thick and impenetrable, dissipated just enough for a lone figure to take shape behind it. A face emerged, caressed by fingers of fire and darkness.
Kody balked. “Is that . . . ?”
Aari slowly crouched, hands covering his mouth as understanding took hold of them all. “That’s how he sees himself.”
Jag stood in the middle of the road, his eyes sewn shut, head tilted sideways. His body was scorched. Blunted light pulsed somewhere deep inside. He lifted his arms and the flames rose with him, tongues of fire splitting and encircling his body as shadows flared out behind him in midnight-black wings. His mouth parted and smoke spilled forth, morphing into an all too familiar likeness of a head covered in a golden hood.
Mokun stared at the phantasm before him, shell-shocked. So this is what happens to their subconscious once they are repurposed. Revulsion, horror, and shame—burning, relentless, all-consuming shame—rammed down his throat in his physical body, stopping his breath.
“He’s ruined.” Mariah’s words shattered in a sob. “He’s ruined. What did your people do to him?”
Mokun clawed his fingers through the mirage of his hair, tugging but unable to feel the pain. The wickedness of the few is indeed the calamity of many. His hands slid down to his lips. I never thought—it wasn’t supposed to be . . . Oh, God, what have I done? Reyor, what have we done?
The hazy semblance of the woman he’d guided and trained disintegrated as Jag burst through it, sprinting toward the intruders who had breached his sanctum. In a blink he was on them, hurling himself at Tegan. “Get out of my head!” he screamed.
Tegan held her ground and discarded her form in favor of hefty chains, twisting and tightening around Jag. “I’ll hold him off!” her disembodied voice yelled. “Go!”
Mokun ran, the others taking off after him. The farther they got from Jag’s essence, the easier it was to see through the flames obscuring the adits.
“We still don’t know what we’re looking for!” shouted Kody.
“What about this one?” Aari whipped his arm to a portal on the right. “His room!”
“People only conceal things in their personal spaces in the physical world,” Mokun called back. “This is all a construct of his subconscious. It would have to be something else.”
Mariah flicked her hand, dispelling fire from another entrance; it led to what Mokun thought was a chalet or resort of some kind. “What else could it be? And how would we even know if we’ve found it?”
“Believe me,” Mokun said, “you’ll know.”
“But how?”
He looked at her over his shoulder, grim. “His fears will be guarding it.”
The flames died out more the farther they went. They passed portal after portal, frustration mounting. “This could take forever,” Aari moaned.
“I hope Tegan’s okay,” whispered Mariah.
Kody peeked into one of the entrances. “Jag’s not coming after us, so she’s probably still holding the line.”
They fell mute. Mokun fought to shove aside the image of Jag’s projection but it had already been burned into him, the sin branded on his soul.
Kody formed his staff into their reality as he drew shoulder to shoulder with the older man. “Does this mean all the other kids you took are like him?” he asked. “Are they monsters trapped in their own heads?”
“Most likely,” Mokun said.
“How many kids are there in all the Sanctuaries?”
“There are about three thousand Stewards throughout all six locations.” Mokun halted, lips tightening, fingers curling. “They looked perfectly fine on the outside after they were successfully repurposed. Their faces were bright. They were always driven in their work. Hopeful for a better world, eager to do their part. Even their cognitive readings came back positive.”
Kody gave him a look of reproach. “Judging by what your repurposing did to Jag, I don’t think you can call any of this a success.”
“And you’re just talking about the brain,” Aari argued. “You said it yourself that the mind and the brain are different entities. You of all people should have known better. You should have checked both to make sure the damage hadn’t shown up in some other way.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” sighed Mokun.
“That’s not—” Aari’s face twisted in anger. “Our friend’s mind was put through hell, as were three thousand others, and that’s all you have to say?”
Mokun rounded on him. “I was trying to do what needed to be done, as was Reyor. Had I known what was actually going to happen,
I would have taken even more time to ensure the Stewards would be repurposed with greater safety measures.”
“That doesn’t make it better!”
“We had the prophecy on our side until you showed up!”
“No, you didn’t! You never did! That’s the point!”
Mokun eased back a few steps. He was sliding into his old beliefs and that just wouldn’t do. He took a moment to collect himself, then with a calmer tenor, said, “You’re right. It is difficult to admit but, yes, we were in the wrong. Sometimes, when one’s ambition grows as big as mine did, we see what we want and don’t look any further.”
Aari’s ice-blue eyes clawed into him but he said nothing else. Mokun snapped around and hastened over the road, barely casting glances inside the portals.
“Wait,” Mariah called. “Something looks different, way over there. We should check it out.”
As Mokun had showed them, she allowed her essence to be pulled ahead. The others followed suit and they blinked back into existence at the end of the road. The thoroughfare split, two arms rounding to meet, enclosing an empty expanse. Distance wasn’t real but Mokun estimated the annular track covered two miles. A third path cut through the middle of the ring directly in front of them. Outside of the circular road, the ether shimmered and constructed itself into being, skeletons of geometric shapes assembling as raiments of color draped over them to create a vision of a valley between mountain ranges.
Mokun was overwhelmed. The last he’d seen this place was lifetimes ago. Though it was just a projection of it, and a loose one at that, he recognized Dema-Ki by the tranquility it evoked. The lush serenity of the valley could never be forgotten. Monumentally massive evergreens with trunks ten times his size rose to impossible heights on the outside of the looping thoroughfare, stretching so far into the whiteness above that their tops could not be discerned. Within the ring, softly undulating terrain, grass mixed with some spots of snow and stone, covered the space between the paths.