Then, he would find a way to convince Paul to betray Jonia. He did not care what it took; money, women or power. If Teo’s description of the man was accurate, he would eventually find a way to make the man betray that idiotic rebellion. Jonia’s final defeat would have to be at sea, something that should not be too hard with Paul working for them.
He clenched his fists. His real prize was not the Jonian Democracies, of course. He wanted to make sure no-one ever threatened him or his family ever again. He still had his siblings to look after, and they would not be safe as long as anyone opposed him.
Should the First be next to fall? They had forsaken him, deserting him in his hour of need. He had given them everything, and they had repaid him by turning their backs on him. Perhaps he would still be alive if not for their betrayal, a voice whispered in his head, making his blood boil. It’s true, he thought. It’s their fault. Had they not left me, none of this would have happened. Or would it? He found it hard to focus. They must pay for their betrayal, the voice whispered again, and he agreed. However, they seemed less of a threat than the Western Democracies. The First, divided among many tribes as they were, would never dare attack his Capital, like Anthea had. He regretted helping them organise and handing over Malekshei, but that could not be helped now. If he needed to, he would just have to take it back.
As the sun rose on the horizon, a sudden realisation hit him. Instead of breaking him, everything that had happened had only made him stronger. So, let Cyrus the scared boy perish in the all-consuming, cleansing fire once and for all. And let from his ashes Cyrus the man rise.
He drew a deep breath, feeling the blood rush to his head, making him feel intoxicated. His ascent had ended centuries of the justices’ rule. He would not call himself King, for that would be a title fit for his father. This was, indeed, the beginning of a new day, a glorious day, the whispers in his head reassured him: the day of Cyrus the Prince.
Epilogue
“The nature of things is on the habit of concealing itself.”
Heraclitus, fragment 123
305 AL, Chamber of Justice, the Capital
May 15, David
Tie shook her head. “Oh boy, here we go again,” she said and chuckled.
David failed to find anything amusing in his situation, but offered no reply. Annoush and the guards waited for him outside. To escort us to freedom or death?
Tie had asked the guards to give them some privacy as befits a confession, and they had not dared oppose her. David examined her office, the same office he had escaped from years ago. He had been just a boy then, but was a man now. She was sitting behind the large desk he remembered vividly, her thick legs resting on a small, pillowed stool.
“So, what do you propose we do this time?”
“Couldn’t you let Annoush and me use the trapdoor?”
She gave him a crooked smile. “What for? I thought the guards would show you out anyway.”
“Sure. And probably lead us to an alley so they can present our heads to Cyrus in the morning.”
She chuckled again. “True enough. Where would you go, though?”
“The only place we can. The Old Woman. Or further north.”
“Ah, yes, Malekshei... I’ve heard so much of the place.”
“You have? I didn’t think many knew of it.”
She waved dismissively. “I make it my business to know things. Now, to return to your predicament: how would you get there?”
He crossed his arms annoyed. “I haven’t thought of that. The problem is Cyrus left me with nothing; no money, no weapons, no friends… Everyone that could help is gone. You’re my last hope.”
“Well, let’s see what we can do about it, then.”
She threw him a small, surprisingly heavy pouch. He opened it and found it filled with gold coins.
“They may come in handy,” was all she said.
“Thank you,” he said with heartfelt gratitude.
She seemed amused. “Did you know that the first survivors on Pearseus did not use coins? Back on Earth, they had what they called plastic money; something few can even grasp nowadays.”
Seriously? A history lesson at a time like this? Instead of saying what he thought, however, he merely shrugged. “It makes sense, I guess. Plastic is precious.”
Ignoring him, she continued. “When they crashed on Pearseus, they printed money on paper, but that never took off. Which is why they used metal for their coins, based on what was rare on their home planet. That’s why gold coins are the most valuable, despite the fact that gold is, in fact, quite common on Pearseus. Plastic, on the other hand, was cheap as dirt on Earth.”
He began to shift his weight between feet, rocking from side to side like a boxer keeping their muscles warm before the bell rings to announce the start of a fight. “My point,” she said, sensing his impatience, “is that sometimes we place undue value on the wrong things, ignoring what’s really important.”
She reached under the desk to pull out a large sack. Despite its size, she threw it at him as if it were weightless. He tried to catch it in mid-air, gasping at its weight. It thudded heavily at his feet.
“I was hoping you’d pay me a visit before leaving. Now, open it!”
His jaw dropped. He found not only clothes inside, but also his Sheimlek-dar and an e-lib.
She winked at him. “It wasn’t easy, but everything’s possible for the right price.”
He nodded enthusiastically as he pulled the items out, fishing out a sword and a leather jerkin. He felt less vulnerable now.
“Won’t Cyrus miss the e-lib?”
“Sadly, our new ruler has no time for reading. A pity. Still, since he has no idea how many e-libs were in Styx’s collection, I doubt he’ll miss one.”
He gaped at her with admiration mixed with gratitude. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For everything.” He placed everything back into the sack. “What now, we use the trapdoor?”
“I prefer they didn’t know about my little secret, if you don’t mind. However, I can’t have you use your toy either, as I’m sure you’ll have to if you’re left alone with the two gentlemen outside. It’s best if our boy-king believes it was destroyed as ordered. Not to worry though, there’s another way to make sure your heads stay on your shoulders.”
She beamed her broad smile, ignoring his discomfort, and clapped her fleshy hands. The door opened to show two large men. They wore white robes with silver amulets of Themis’s scales hanging from their necks. Cowls covered their ebony heads, making them seem menacing, despite the purity of the white cloth.
The two men pushed the guards brazenly aside as they walked in. They stopped before Tie, bowing their heads in respect.
“My children, would you be as kind as to escort our brothers to safety? Please don’t leave their side until they are safe; I’m afraid their two friends outside may not have their best interests at heart, and I’d rather meet with them again one day.”
She then turned to David.
“These good brothers are Ram and Lem. You won’t find better guards than these. They’ll take good care of you and keep you safe. Don’t hesitate to ask them for anything; they are now bound to you.”
The two men said nothing, as one of them picked up the sack with ease to hoist it over his shoulder and the other stepped next to David, towering over him.
David’s eyes watered. “Thank you.”
“Just be safe, my boy, and I promise you: someday we’ll meet again.”
He left the room, shadowed by the two white-robed men. His guards gave them sidelong glares, but said nothing. They guided him and Annoush to the Chambers’ gate and spun around to return to their post.
“Where to?” David asked their escorts when the scowling guards were gone.
Still silent, one of them pointed towards the stables, where freedom and safety awaited him.
Then, he heard the Voice in his head. She sounded scared. “David,” she started, then paused as if searching for the right wor
ds.
“What?” he asked, scuttling towards the stables.
“Remember when we first met, how I told you I was pregnant?”
He glanced behind to make sure Annoush and his escorts still followed him; he felt safer in their presence.
“Sure,” he answered in his head.
“Well, I think it’s time...”
“Time for what—” he asked, then froze in his tracks. “Now?”
“Now.”
He rushed into the stables as fast as he dared move without attracting unwelcome attention. As soon as their escorts and Annoush stepped inside, he slammed the door shut behind them.
“What do you think—” An irate stable girl approached raising a small fist at them, but one glare from his guards’ dark faces sent her scurrying back to her horses.
David’s head felt ready to explode from the inside and he moaned, his entire body now on fire. The three men could not peel their eyes off him, missing Gella slithering in the shadows behind them, a glistening dagger in her hand.
He tried to shout out a warning, but a howl escaped his lips instead. Annoush whispered something and dropped on his knees, as did Lem and Ram. Light surrounded David, gushing out of every pore of his body until he became too bright to look at and the men covered their eyes with their hands.
He spread his arms outwards and leaned backwards, lifted into the air by an invisible force. Just when the feeling became too much to bear, he felt his innards rupture and cried out as an explosive pulse of light burst out of him to crash through the stables. It knocked down stalls, sending neighing horses to dash around in panic.
David dropped onto his knees on the straw-covered floor and a final, agonising scream escaped his lips. His heartbeat slowed down. Slower and slower, until it stopped altogether. The last sight he caught out of the corner of his eye before the room swirled into darkness was Gella’s shocked expression. The dagger slid from her hands and she, too, knelt before him.
PEARSEUS
MAD WATER
Introduction
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
Lao Tzu
Waters of Oblivion
The man’s eyes tried to focus on the unfamiliar surroundings. The place had an eerie familiarity to it, as if he had known it all his life; as if it had somehow been calling to him ever since he came to be. Time had no meaning as he padded next to a deep, calm sea, too dark for him to make out anything but the soothing waves that lapped his feet.
Without thinking, he crept into the waters, taking one step, then another, until dark silhouettes surrounded him. He could not make out their faces, but they filled the waters; old and young, men and women, taking slow, serene steps into the deep sea. His numb mind carried no thought, allowing an ancient, forgotten instinct to drive him forward. As the warm water reached his waist, he made out in the distance smaller silhouettes coming out of the sea, like baby turtles going the wrong way.
An orb of light, not much larger than his fist, shimmered into existence, startling him. He froze in his path and cocked his head at the unfamiliar sight. The orb seemed to examine him for a while, then a voice sounded in his head, the only unexpected thing about it being how normal this felt.
“Is this really what you wish?” the voice asked him. It was sweet and serene, but the question jolted him.
He pondered for a while, consciousness and reason slowly refilling his being like wine poured into an empty cup. Parad! His name rang in his head with unexpected clarity, bringing forth one question, then another, until an unstoppable avalanche of memories burst into his mind. He blinked in an effort to focus his thoughts before speaking. “Who are you? What is this place?”
“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box,” the voice replied casually.
“I don’t understand. Where are we?”
“The Waters of Oblivion. The Dark Sea. Names matter little here. Although I suppose they do help with the illusion of control.”
“The what?”
“Man’s need to be in control.” The voice sounded deliberately patient, as if talking to a child.
“I don’t understand.”
“Man needs to feel in control, though he never is,” the voice explained. “Take something as simple as fire. People don’t really know what it is, but they can name its various elements, so they believe they understand it.”
Parad stared at it in exasperation. “No, I mean I don’t understand where…” His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry; once an engineer, always an engineer, I guess. How about we discuss this somewhere safer?”
Parad suddenly found himself back on the shore, though he had no memory of walking back there. The darkness had receded somewhat now, chased away by the orb. It started to morph into a man. His body was made of light at first, but then it seemed to cool down, until all that was left of the blinding light was a bright dot on his forehead. Recognition hit him, dragging memories with it like a net heaving with struggling fish.
“I know you! I’ve seen your statue! You’re –”
“Names matter little,” the man of light said, interrupting him. “They change too often to be of any real use.”
“What do they call you now?”
“Orb. Voice. Lucas. It matters little.” He raised his shoulders. Can men of light shrug? Somehow, it seemed strange. “Do you remember your name?”
“Parad.” He rolled the word in his mouth with relish.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Parad closed his eyes. “David shot me.” He shuddered at the memory and corrected himself. “No, it wasn’t him. There were others there, too. Only David could see them, though. Shadows. They drove my son crazy.”
“Whispers,” Lucas said simply. “What about your son?”
“Cyrus?” A pang of agony shot through Parad’s heart. “David tried to warn us, but I didn’t listen. This is all my fault.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know; I just woke up here.” He glanced wistfully at the enticing waters. “I felt the sea’s pull.”
“Yes, the soothing embrace of oblivion… very tempting. But you could move on instead,” Lucas suggested.
“Move on?”
“Do you realize what happened?”
“I guess I’m dreaming.”
“It’s closer to waking up, actually. You went through the transition people call death.”
“Are you saying I’m dead?”
“Like I said, a transition, not a state. You’re very much alive, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?” He chuckled.
Do men of light chuckle? Somehow that, too, felt strange. His son had once told him he had met a Deva. Is this what Lucas had become? One would expect Devas to be less amused by their own flat jokes. “But you said I died.”
“You did,” Lucas agreed. “Death ended one part of your existence. You existed long before, and will live even longer after. The point is that existence is a constant; the cycle of birth and death are transitions into different points of view.”
“That sounds rather pointless,” Parad observed drily.
“Not at all. How else can you learn? There’s only so much one can learn from observing. Sometimes, the best way to grow is to experience things first-hand.”
“So nothing I do matters? I’m immortal and therefore can do as I please?”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Or you could say that everything matters, since everything you do remains within you for eternity, whether you remember it or not.”
“Where’s God in all this?”
Lucas pondered for a moment. “People spend so much time away from the world’s struggles looking for God, when God can be found in lifting that world’s plight.”
“So, He doesn’t exist, is that what you’re saying?”
“Not at all, or we wouldn’t exist. We are God, and God is us. All rivers spring
from the same source, and will eventually return to it. Is the spring separate from the river? Can you look at a drop of water as something separate from the sea?”
Parad stayed silent for a while, trying to wrap his head around all this. He did feel one with the world around him, even with the man of light. He could only compare the feeling to considering his fingers separate entities, only to realize they belong to the same hand; as if he could now sense underlying connections between everything. He let the feeling sink in for a while, before his next question. “So what happens now?”
“Life is all about choice. So is death.”
“What are my choices?” The mind of the old soldier sprang to action, ready to explore alternative options, as it did back in the countless battlefields he had encountered in life.
“When people come here, they usually enter the waters to continue their journey. There are other choices, though. Your choice is to either go back into the sea, or to return to Pearseus.”
“I can’t do that! What of my body? They must have burned it by now.”
“No water can travel the same river twice. No, you’ll return in a different form. You died fighting an enemy you didn’t even know existed. Now you can return and fight back.”
“So you, the Whispers – it’s all true?” he still found it hard to believe.
“Yes. Our war is fought on many levels, and we would like you to join us.”
“But I can become a Whisper too, if I choose?”
This took Lucas aback for a moment. “The deepest respect the universe has, is for our freedom. But there are laws that must be obeyed, too. Every choice has its consequences. No-one can escape these, for they spring from our freedom itself.”
Another thought hit Parad. “Will I return as a man or as a woman?”
“A distinction that matters little in our new form, as I’ve found out. I was once a man, but I’ll give birth to you, if you accept my proposal. Does that make me a woman? My host seems to think so.”
Pearseus Bundle: The Complete Pearseus Sci-fi/Fantasy Series Page 31