Jason swallowed and licked at his lips. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but it felt like it could have been weeks or even months. Slowly but surely, he had been unraveling the mystery of Ascendancy, and with luck he could figure it all out and wake up before his body was killed by the Crell or even the Galvian rebels…
“This place is from my memory, not yours,” a female voice said from beside him. “My people spread throughout this area to harvest the fields and mine the mountains.”
Jason turned. Standing next to him was his only “real” companion in this mental journey. To the ancient Hassians, she had been known as Queen Malacross the Dreamwalker, but now he knew better. She was actually an Immortal, an ancient race of deific beings who had walked Obsidian before the Godswar had wiped them all out. It was her divine spark—a collection of all her thoughts and memories and powers—that had trigged this hallucination in the first place. Jason had unwittingly opened the spark’s long-lost reliquary, and now he was here. If his mind could eventually learn to cope with this power, he would ostensibly awaken as a true Ascendant. If not…well, it was probably best not to think about that right now.
“Why have you brought me here?” he asked quietly.
“There is much more to learn,” she said. Her avatar walked barefoot through the thick grass and seemed almost puzzled by the sensations. “I become more confused as I study your memories.”
“For some reason, I doubt that’s a compliment,” Jason muttered.
Malacross didn’t reply, but a moment later a flicker of motion in the distance caught his eye. He turned to see a vaguely human-shaped figure descending from the clouds, a set of glowing, feathery wings sprouting from his back. He was tall and statuesque, and he appeared unarmed and unarmored aside from a simple green sarong.
“One of yours?” he asked.
“The way you imagine us,” she clarified. “You have never looked upon one of us, yet this image is still clear in your mind.”
“That’s how the Immortals are almost always depicted in art works across cultures: tall, broad, and half-naked, usually with wings.”
Malacross started walking towards the distant Immortal, and Jason shrugged and followed. The man didn’t acknowledge their presence, and just before Jason called out to him the unmistakable rumble of encroaching cavalry shook the ground.
“I have seen your notions of what happened during the age you call the ‘Godswar,’” she said. “Many details seem…unlikely.”
“Given what else you’ve told me, I’m not surprised. It’s not like there’s anyone still alive who actually lived through it. Even the elysians and the vaeyn are a dozen generations removed at this point.”
“Earlier, I told you that this war began with my people. Once they learned that they could accumulate power through the worship of your kind, our society underwent a rapid transformation. Dissent replaced order, and division replaced unity. We became…unbalanced.”
Jason pursed his lips. Most cultures were rife with tales of mortals being tempted with power and gifts from demons or other evil spirits; it was something of a historical irony that apparently mortals were the ones who introduced sin to the gods.
“I’m sure it wasn’t difficult to impress a bunch of tribal people,” he murmured, “or to convert them into outright worshippers.”
“It was not,” Malacross agreed. “I promised my tribe a lifetime of pleasant dreams, and for that alone they loved me. Eventually, they even came to worship me.”
“I suspect that not all of your people were willing to employ such…subtle…methods to gain worshippers.
“No,” she whispered. “They did not.”
As she spoke, the thundering cavalry finally materialized over a nearby hill. Everything about the riders seemed ragged, from their wearied mounts to their tattered armor, but they angrily charged towards the Immortal with spears and axes at the ready. Jason watched in silent awe as the winged man turned towards them…and then suddenly he flicked his hand, and the riders were violently hurled away in a dozen different directions like leaves scattered by a stiff gale.
“Some of your people worshipped us out of affection,” Malacross said quietly, “but others worshipped us out of fear. A single destructive demonstration was often all that was required to secure the fealty of hundreds or even thousands of your kind.”
“I’m sure it was,” Jason murmured, turning away from the carnage. He had once read an account of one of the last truly tribal groups in Calhara, the Kor, who attempted to lay siege to a Taurosian settlement. Allegedly, two Bound channelers had wiped out the entire tribe…and this had been nearly fifteen years ago when magic was still in its relative infancy. He didn’t even want to imagine the destruction a true Immortal could inflict.
“There is a more pressing question before us,” Malacross said after a moment. “We must discover how your people learned to emulate us.”
“Emulate you? You mean channel?”
Her face creased as if she was struggling to describe it. “You possess senses you once did not. You control your environment in ways beyond other creatures in your world.”
“Channelers can, yes, both Bound and Unbound.”
“And you believe that we taught you this power.”
“The Immortals raised armies to battle one other, and eventually each commanded legions of their own followers,” Jason recited nearly verbatim from the ancient classic The War of Eternity he used to read as a child. “Eventually they realized they could gift a fraction of their divinity unto the most loyal subjects. These men and women became agents of their god’s will—and the first true priests were born.”
Malacross’s brow furrowed. “I have explained to you that this is impossible.”
“You mentioned that, but you didn’t elaborate. You said that your blood—the Aether—is the herald of our salvation and the harbinger of your demise.”
“It is everywhere now,” she whispered, making a wide gesture with her arms. “Our memories, our very essence, is scattered across your world…yet just like the wind that sustains you, most of your kind cannot perceive it.”
Jason nodded. He suddenly wanted to sit down, but there weren’t any stone slabs to perch on out here. Instead he decided to pace and ponder her words. Some religions believed that the Aether was gifted to mortals following the Godswar, while others believed it was their “blood” spilled across the world as they destroyed each other. He had never personally considered the question all that important, mostly because it seemed unknowable. And it had been…until now.
“Now that I think about it,” he whispered, “that’s an interesting distinction. If the Aether really is the lingering essence of your people after you are killed…then why would you have granted us the ability to see it, let alone shape it? I mean, how would your people have even known what we could do with it?”
“We didn’t,” Malacross said. “Remember that we had never killed one another before. The consequences were unknown to us.”
Behind them, another wave of cavalry appeared on the horizon and charged the Immortal’s position. They were dispensed just as trivially as the first batch; with a literal flick of his wrist, the Immortal sent them hurling away. They were nothing to him. No matter how many they sent, he would crush them all.
“There was no way we could have possibly stood against you,” Jason said. “But according to history, mortals eventually learned to kill the gods and then Ascended after absorbing your memories and power. I’ve always assumed those stories were just religious nonsense…and they are, aren’t they? You didn’t know that your deaths would create the Aether; you didn’t know that we could learn to wield it.”
“Your knowledge is flawed.”
“I’ll say,” he muttered. “But what does it mean, then? If you couldn’t grant us power, then what hap—”
Jason stopped himself as he reasoned it through. He wasn’t sure if it was his own powers of deduction or the influence of her spirit working
within him, but suddenly everything started to fall into place. There was really only one explanation, and he immediately found himself struggling with its implications. If true, it would undermine the foundation of every religion and topple the legitimacy of every government in the world. Perhaps worst of all, it might expose a conspiracy of global proportions that had remained buried for two thousand years.
He started to speak, but another cavalry charge shifted his attention. This time, however, a single mounted man came to a halt before the Immortal. He raised a hand, and his palm crackled with brilliant strands of violet-colored energy. With obvious effort, he shaped the disparate strands into a single shimmering bolt of power and hurled it at the Immortal…and destroyed him. The winged man vanished in a swirl of light and dust, and a cold gust of wind blew across the battlefield.
“Unbound,” Jason whispered.
Malacross nodded. “Not long after our war began, small numbers of mortals began to duplicate our powers. The rest of your kind feared them, and in time, so did we. We did not understand how or why it had happened, but some of us became convinced it was a portent of our inevitable doom…a doom we had unleashed upon ourselves.”
“The first channelers were Unbound,” Jason repeated, still nearly breathless. It made so much sense, yet he had trouble forming it into words. “You never empowered your servants with magic, and the only reason your armies were fighting one another was to kill off rival followers. The fewer followers one of the gods possessed, the weaker he or she became. Eventually some grew so weak—and others so powerful—that you began to actually kill each other.”
He bit down on his lip and paced away. “But then everything suddenly changed. With your people dying off, the Aether bled into the world…and not long after, the first Unbound arose. They realized for the first time that they didn’t just have to kill the followers of another god—they could kill the gods directly.”
Jason turned towards her. “That’s how you were wounded, isn’t it? Someone in your tribe was Unbound…and they turned their powers against you.”
“He was a soldier,” she replied mournfully. “One of my best. His powers made him a heretic amongst the tribe, but he believed he could rule it. It…changed him. His hopes, his desires…they all transformed so suddenly. I was not aware of how easily he could threaten me.”
“I bet that started happening all over the world. You were busy fighting one another, and suddenly you had to worry about battling off your own followers.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Jason nodded and forced himself to swallow. He didn’t understand how his imaginary throat could be so dry, but it was anyway. “What I still don’t understand is Ascendancy. You said before that our leaders do not carry the spirits of your people.”
“It is a myth that binds your people together.”
“So it’s even worse than I thought,” he said. The first Unbound weren’t just channelers—some of them must have Ascended. They were the ones who learned how to empower armies of Bound followers. They were the ones who nearly consumed the world in war and wiped your people away.” He swore under his breath. “And then they were the ones who somehow covered that up and spread a lie that would define the world for thousands of years to come…”
“I cannot know any of this for certain,” Malacross admitted. “I was not conscious at the end of the war, and I never saw these armies you speak of.”
“But it fits the facts,” Jason said. “It all fits the facts…”
He took a deep breath and let everything wash over him. The Godswar was the defining moment in history, the transition of sentient species from loose bands of superstitious, primitive nomads to vast empires of reasoned individuals. And the truth of the matter was that no one in Obsidian knew what had actually happened.
“There is irony in our annihilation,” Malacross said, her voice little more than a whisper. “Even those who opposed intervention in your world had no choice but to participate. In order to fight the dissidents, they had to gain worshippers of their own. And as they fought and died to preserve your world, their blood made you even stronger. Our war to save your world only accelerated our people’s destruction.”
“It’s difficult to believe,” Jason murmured. “Almost every nation is founded on the ideals of a supposed Immortal, and many share its name. The Solarians believe in Sol; the Crell, Crell’tarik; the Galvians, Galivar—the list goes on. And it’s all a lie. If those men existed at all, they weren’t gods—they were probably Unbound humans. Who knows if they were murderers or saints? All that mattered is that they were powerful enough to Ascend on their own, without the assistance of any Immortal, and they must have also learned to pass on this knowledge to their successors. This ability trickles down from generation to generation, creating rulers who have no other powers, but who still bind nations together beneath them.”
Jason’s thoughts turned to King Whitestone, a man he had known well in his youth. Galvians were proud of their monarchy and its long tradition, and the Whitestone lineage may have been the oldest in the world, ostensibly descending from Galivar’s first mortal disciple. He had always wondered how many of the old myths were true…but in the end it didn’t really matter, not compared to the magnitude of this discovery.
“Control and immortality,” he breathed. “That’s what it’s all about. The original Unbound must have believed they could cheat death by passing some small fragment of their mind and power from generation to generation, and then later they created an elaborate myth about their transcendence. They spread the belief that their lineage was divine, and over time people were much less likely to question official dogma. A few generations later, no one knows any differently, and you have the perfect illusion of an unbroken legacy.”
“The Unbound in your world do not realize they have this power. They don’t realize they could all be ‘Ascendants,’ as you call it.”
“No, and I’m sure that was intentional. The original Unbound didn’t want contenders to the throne, otherwise their lingering power in the world would be threatened. Instead they turned against their own kind; they created a terrifying mythos about the Unbound and demonized them so thoroughly that they were driven to the fringes of society.”
Jason shook his head. None of the living Ascendants in Obsidian were carrying the essence of a god inside them—they were carrying the essence of a supremely powerful but mortal Unbound of the last age. He wondered how many of them knew the truth, if any. Had King Whitestone? Did King Areekan? How about the Crell Sovereigns?
“Do you think any other Unbound throughout history learned their true potential?” he asked. “Do you think any of them have Ascended on their own?”
“That is something you may never know.”
“If this gets out, people will fear them even more,” he said soberly. “I can’t even imagine the reaction…assuming anyone even believes it in the first place.”
Malacross nodded but remained silent. Jason wondered if she could even understand the implications for mortal societies. Regardless, he did have one last concern that didn’t seem to fit anywhere.
“If the Ascendants aren’t truly carrying about the lingering soul of an Immortal, then what about the spark I found?” he asked. “Your people didn’t leave them behind when they died; they didn’t pass their knowledge and memories as we’ve been taught to believe. But you did—how is that possible?”
“I am weakened, not dead,” Malacross said. “My attacker was unable to destroy me, but I was no longer able to manifest in physical form.”
“So you’ve been alive all this time?”
She looked at him curiously. “Time does not affect us the way it affects you, but I have not been…conscious, as you would put it, in a very long time. What remains of me is only given form through you.”
Jason pursed his lips. “So then what does this make me? I’m not Unbound, and I’m not really an Ascendant.”
“You are me, and I am you. In this union, m
y species will survive, and yours may find salvation.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“You will eventually,” Malacross assured him. “But it will take time, and the process will not always be pleasant.”
“At some point I have to leave this place,” Jason told her. “My body won’t survive in the mortal realm forever. Eventually someone will probably try to kill me in order to steal my power.”
“Your mind will adapt, and you will awaken,” she said. “Or you will die. I cannot say for certain.”
“Fantastic,” he muttered, rubbing a hand across his face. “I really should have left that damn cube right where I found it…”
“Your fears are irrational. If you had not found me, another would have. Would you have preferred that outcome?”
“No,” Jason conceded. “Not really.”
“In time, my senses and power shall be yours,” Malacross said. “Together we can restore the past and secure the future.”
He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. It felt as if a dam had burst inside his mind, and now he was struggling to hold his ground against the flood of information…
Malacross reached out and squeezed his hand. “There is much you need to learn, Jason Moore. I will teach you as best I can.”
Chapter One
“The war is over. We lost. How many more people have to die before you can accept reality? You lost your powers, you lost your king, you lost your wife—do you want to lose me too? How about Sel? It’s not worth it, dad. You have to let this go.”
—Jason Moore, speaking to his father for the last time
Ethan Moore tossed an apple core onto his desk and shook his head in disgust. The moment he’d learned that Jason had gotten his hands on a divine spark, he should have taken action. He should have ordered his followers to steal the cube, or perhaps he should have come out of hiding immediately and begged for it himself.
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