by S M Briscoe
Orna gave him a curious look. “Do you not know?”
“I know what it resembles . . . and I’ve seen it many times in my-” He let his words trail off, deciding not to voice the fact that he had seen the sword in his recurring dreams with everyone listening. “But, like the sphere, it’s something more . . . isn’t it?”
Orna simply blinked at him, her dark eyes unreadable.
“Did you know what would happen when I removed it?” he asked.
“I did,” she admonished with a nod.
Jarred felt himself becoming angry and stood back up, a bit unsteadily. “I almost died! That whole place came down around me. A little warning would have been nice.”
“I could not tell you what you would find there,” Orna explained, calmly. “It was your journey to take.”
Jarred shook his head, feeling both frustrated and light headed. The ordeal had taken more out of him that he had thought, his body not recovering as quickly as he was used to.
“Alright,” Sierra interjected, stepping forward again. “I’m sorry Orna, but what is going on here? What is all this talk about a sphere? Where was it that you sent him, and why? And please, don’t tell me it doesn’t concern me, because your safe return to my people is my responsibility and that makes anything that happens here my concern.”
“Of course is it your concern,” Orna assured her, letting her gaze move over all of them and the Toguai, finally coming back to rest on Jarred. “It is all of our concern.”
“Orna,” Sierra began again, looking wary. “Why did you bring us here?”
“To help you,” she answered. “To help us all. But to do so, I must first help him.”
Sierra’s suspicious gaze fell on Jarred. “Help him to do what?”
Orna was quiet a moment, her eyes remaining focused on Jarred. “To become what he is meant to be.”
* * *
Golden flames from the raging bonfire in the village center reached high into the black, star filled sky, casting flickering shadows out across the cliff wall and surrounding trees. Hoots and growls echoed out loudly into the night. The sounds of celebration. Elora wasn’t entirely sure what the Toguai were celebrating, but it seemed to have something to do with Jarred’s return, and more specifically, what he had returned with.
Strangely, the Toguai seemed both intrigued and fearful of the sword. They revered it, as though it were a sacred artifact which obviously held some great importance to their people, yet they also distanced themselves from it. She remembered Orna’s unspoken words the night of their arrival.
‘One that is worthy of that which you protect.’
Is that what she had been speaking of? Did the Toguai protect and possibly worship this sword, and if so, why? What was so special about it? Why did she send Jarred into the mountain to retrieve it, and more importantly, why did he agree? Was he the worthy one? The questions whirled through her mind in a non stop barrage and she had to force herself to stop. There was only one person who could answer her questions and that was Jarred.
He had drifted away shortly after the celebration began and she found him sitting on the same large stone formation she had herself taken to resting on during the day, which provided a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains. She approached him slowly and he glanced up at hearing her.
“Hi,” she said, a bit sheepishly.
“Hi.”
“Some party back there,” she commented, gesturing back towards the still audible sounds of celebration from the village. “A little too much for you?”
“I guess so,” he said, with a slight grin. “I just needed to go someplace quiet where I could be alone for a bit.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Elora apologized, feeling immediately embarrassed. “I’ll leave you.”
Jarred stood up. “No. I didn’t mean for you to go. I’m sorry. Please, stay.”
Elora hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he answered with a smile. “Of course. Please. I could actually really use someone to talk to. Just . . . not there with all that going on.”
“Alright.” Stepping up onto the stone formation, she moved into a position next to Jarred and they both sat down. For what seemed like forever, they just sat in silence, staring out into the mountain scape, the reflective light of the looming gas giant they orbited, casting subtle highlights onto the edges of its many peaks and valleys. It really was quite beautiful. Glancing over at Jarred, she found him cradling the sword he had returned to the village with, one hand moving back and forth slowly over the surface of the blade.
“Where did Orna send you?” she asked, decidedly, breaking the silence.
Jarred didn’t respond right away, meeting her gaze and hesitating, as though debating whether or not to answer at all.
“Into the mountains,” he replied, finally. “Deep into the mountains.”
“What was down there? The sphere you mentioned. What was it?”
Jarred looked thoughtful. “I can’t say that I really know. Something was leading me, drawing me towards it. It had been calling to me since we landed.”
“The sphere?” she surmised.
Jarred shook his head. “No. I thought so at first, but it wasn’t the sphere. It was what it held within it.” He glanced down and Elora followed his gaze to the sword in his hands.
“The sword called to you?” she asked.
“I know how it sounds . . . but, yes. Not in words exactly, but in a feeling. An urging. It wanted me to find it. To remove it. And now . . . it wants something more.”
Elora raised her brow at that. “What?”
“I’m not sure.” Jarred stared down at the sword, holding the palm of his hand to the blade, as though he could somehow glean the answer from it that way. “I think it wants me to do something with it. To take it somewhere.”
“But you don’t know where?” she hazarded.
“No.”
Elora sat back, taking a moment to try and register everything Jarred had told her. “How can you be sure it wants anything?”
“I can’t explain how,” he answered. “I just feel it.”
“Alright,” she yielded, deciding not to question him any further on what it was he felt. “Well, when you find out where it wants you to take it, are you going to?”
“Yes,” he answered, as though he had been asking himself the same question for some time and had finally made his decision. “I have to. I need to know what it all means. The sphere that held this sword has been buried beneath these mountains for a very long time. If what Orna said is true . . . if I was meant to find it . . . I have to know why.”
“If Orna knew what you would find when you went down there, maybe she knows where it’s trying to lead you now?”
Jarred nodded knowingly and she assumed he had already come to that conclusion.
“Why haven’t you asked her yet?” she asked.
“I will,” he replied, turning to look at her. “But not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I know where it wants me to take it, the urge to go may be too strong to resist . . . and there’s something else that I have to do first.”
“What?” Elora asked.
Instead of answering, Jarred gazed back out at the mountains again. When he finally did speak, it wasn’t an answer to her question.
“Tell me about your mother and father,” he asked.
Elora was actually surprised by the question and stumbled for a moment before replying. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. Who were they?”
Leaning back on the smoothed stone surface, she looked up at the stars, considering her response. “My father was-” She paused briefly, considering her own word use. Was, not is. Her father hadn’t died. He had been taken by the slavers. Though, in her heart, she still grasped at the possibility that he was alive somewhere, the passing years and her own reason told her otherwise. She took no comfort in the thought, but knew that her father would have preferred
death to slavery.
“He was a good man,” she continued. “A leader. He helped to found our colony on the Kasdin moon, where I was born. He was some kind of soldier before that, though he never really talked much about those times.
“The colony was a simple place, very low tech, but it was a community and he was its heart. Everyone worked together to get by. I think most of the people there had come to get away from something in their old lives. It was a place where they could start over. My father welcomed them all. I think it was a new beginning for him and my mother as well, but I never knew what life they had left behind for it. Only that they had chosen to give themselves fully to the colony and to keeping it alive.
“I was Ethan’s age now when my mother died giving birth to him. My father stayed strong for us, but I know a large part of him went with her. The light that used to come to his eyes when he saw her dimmed. I saw glimpses of it from time to time, while he watched Ethan growing up, but he was never really the same after. Not that he wasn’t always there for us, because he was, but . . . my mother was his heart. Her death left a hollow spot in him.”
“What was she like?” Jarred asked, when she had been quiet for a few seconds.
Staring out into the mountain scape, focusing on nothing in particular, she tried to envision the woman she had not seen for nearly half of her own life time. She smiled at the familiar face, still vivid in her memory, as the mental picture took shape.
“She was beautiful. Always smiling. She could make anyone smile just by being in the same room. She had the ability to bring joy to the people around her, because she was always so full of it. She radiated it. I remember how happy she had been when she became pregnant with Ethan. How happy we had all been. It was as though she had been waiting for him her entire life.”
Elora was quiet a moment, collecting herself emotionally as she began to feel those emotions getting the better of her. “With the settlement of the colony, my mother and father had realized their own dreams of living a quiet, simple life, but I guess nothing comes without a price. When the birth went wrong, the colony physician wasn’t equipped to deal with the complications. In a more advanced medical facility things could have turned out differently, but . . .” She let her words trail off, not finishing the thought. She had dwelled on it for much of her life and had always come back to the same conclusion. Her mother had been a strong woman. The colony was her dream. Her life. Had she known the outcome, the price she would ultimately pay, Elora believed she would have made the same choices. Without them, neither she or Ethan would have ever been born.
“Ethan was saved,” she continued, “but my mother couldn’t be. She gave her life for his, which I know is how she would have wanted it.”
“They sound,” Jarred began, after a long quiet moment, with sincerity in his voice, “like very brave, caring people.”
Elora looked over to find him watching her intently, but she didn’t shy away as usual, instead matching his gaze. “They were. I miss them very much.”
“I have no memory of my mother or father,” he said, after another long pause, turning to stare out into the darkness.
While saddened by the thought, Elora also found herself surprised, unsure if by the admission itself, or by the fact that he had revealed it to her at all. “They died when you were young?” It was less a question than a knowing statement.
Jarred didn’t respond immediately, his eyes scanning across the vast landscape, though his focus seemed somewhere else entirely. “I honestly don’t know.”
Elora was thrown off by the remark. “I don’t understand.”
Jarred’s response was slow coming, but when he finally turned to face her again, his expression conveyed none of the resistance she had encountered with him before. “I have no memory of them because . . . I have no memory of anything from that time in my life.”
The statement left Elora momentarily stunned and it took her a moment to digest before responding. “What do you mean, of anything? You mean nothing? Like . . . nothing nothing?
“Yes,” Jarred answered, stifling the faintest of grins. “That nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” Elora apologized. “It’s just . . . hard to imagine. What happened?”
“Honestly,” Jarred answered, “I’m not sure. All I remember is . . . waking up . . . in a place I didn’t recognize, feeling like I’d been chewed up and spat out the exhaust vent of a freight hauler, with no memory of anything before. A man named Hiroshi had found me, a little better off than dead, in the wreckage of a crashed escape pod, and had done what he could to treat me. I recovered, but the injuries I sustained seemed to have had the side effect of leaving me with no memory . . . of anything. As hard as I tried I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there or where I had come from. And it didn’t take very long for me to realize that I didn’t know who I was either.
“So, with no memory and no place to go, and considering Hiroshi was the only person in the universe I knew, I stayed there with him. He became my mentor . . . and my family, really. He became like a father to me. Helping me to learn who I was. And like all fathers and sons, we differed in our opinions of just who that was supposed to be exactly. He had his thoughts on the matter and, of course, I didn’t agree. So, eventually the time came for me to move on.”
Elora waited for Jarred to continue, but when he said nothing else, she realized he was finished. “So, you became a mercenary.”
Jarred let out a short laugh. “Well, not exactly. I wandered a bit. Searching for clues to my past. To who I had been.”
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
He shook his head, negatively. “No. Nothing. Everywhere I went, as far as I searched, I couldn’t find anything. It was like Jarred Archer never existed. So, I let go. I didn’t need to know who I was. That person was gone. Once I accepted that, I was free to start being who I needed to be. Someone of my own choosing.”
“So, you became a mercenary,” Elora repeated, playfully.
“Not exactly,” he repeated, grinning. “Or not right away, anyway. It was just . . . something I fell into after a while.”
“Fell into?”
Jarred shrugged. “It suited my particular skill set.”
Elora had to laugh at that and Jarred soon followed suit. The light moment passed quickly though and she felt herself grow saddened.
“You know,” she began, “as hard as losing my mother was for me, I can’t imagine not having ever known her.” She felt a twinge of pain as she considered that similarity between Jarred and her brother. “He doesn’t know it, but Ethan has her energy. Her enthusiasm and joy for life. He’s a dreamer like she was. That’s what dad always called her. What he called them both.
“I’m more like my father in that way. The constant realist. Always serious. I’ve always given Ethan a hard time because of his way. Telling him to stop his daydreaming. To grow up.” Elora felt her chest growing heavy with grief and her eyes began to tear. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “Now I’ve lost him too. I’ve lost all of them.” She felt Jarred’s arm wrap around her and she sank into him. Unable to hold back the tidal wave of emotions any longer, she wept freely.
“You haven’t lost him,” he assured her.
She pulled herself away enough to look up at him, her vision blurred with tears. He wiped them away with his fingers and then gently held her face in his hands. His deep blue eyes exuded compassion, but beyond that she saw a deep conviction as well.
“You’ll see him again,” he vowed. “I promise you that.”
She forced herself to nod, believing his words of comfort to be just that. A kind sentiment. But words and positive thoughts wouldn’t help Ethan, wherever he was, and she felt herself sink deeper into despair.
Sliding his fingers under her chin, Jarred lifted her dropping face back up to where their eyes could meet again, but he didn’t speak. His eyes were warm and penetrating and she found herself unable to look away from them. Emotionally drained, she needed t
he comfort they seemed to promise. She leaned closer to his face, only slightly, momentarily fearing he would not reciprocate the action and she would be humiliated on top of the pain she already felt. Instead, he gently pulled her face the rest of the short distance to his, leaning forward to press his mouth to hers.
His lips were warm, despite the cold chill in the air, the kiss sending tendrils of electricity racing through her entire body, the sensation making her light headed. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, so fast that it actually stunned her at first, until she remembered the night in the desert. As the wild heart rhythm began to slow, she quickly realized that it was both of their heartbeats that she was feeling again, which were beginning to become synchronized as they had that night on Isyss. Overwhelmed by the sensation, she gave into it, pressing herself into Jarred and kissing him harder.
“Hey!” came a loud call from somewhere nearby, the exact location of which she couldn’t be sure of, as she and Jarred instantly broke apart, leaving her strangely disoriented.
“There you are.” It was Kern’s voice. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Her head still swimming, Elora noticed Jarred slide off the rock formation to a standing position. In her dizzied state, she didn’t bother trying to get up just yet.
“Sorry,” Kern apologized, looking suddenly awkward. “Did we interrupt something?”
Blinking her disorientation away, she noted that Sierra was standing next to Kern, watching with a look of discomfort.
“No,” she and Jarred answered in unison.
A grin came to Kern’s face as he looked back and forth between the two of them. “Are you sure?”
“We’re sure,” Jarred clarified, as he walked towards him and Sierra. “What’s going on?”
Kern continued to chuckle. “Nothing. Those Toguai sure know how to throw a party, don’t they?”
“Kern,” Jarred said, coming to a stop in front of him. “What do you want?”
“Orna wants to speak with you,” Sierra answered, a cold edge to her voice. “Privately.”
Jarred glanced back over his shoulder at Elora as she slid down off the rock formation, finally feeling composed enough to stand without the fear of falling over.