Awaken Online: Ember (Tarot #1)
Page 45
It almost looked… alive.
“It’s possible,” Finn muttered to himself. “It’s actually fucking possible.”
When confronted by the Seer and then Lamia, Finn had made a choice. He knew that. He had grasped at the hope that the goddess could deliver on her promise – that the people he had met inside the game were real. That the Seer could bring Rachael back.
While Finn might not be able to prove that the AI felt or experienced emotion, the orange image flickering in front of him offered a different kind of evidence. It indicated a codebase so complex that Finn was having trouble dissecting it. It was something so close to a living mind that he wasn’t certain he could tell the difference.
It’s possible.
That thought kept rebounding through his mind.
Finn pulled his attention away from the image reluctantly, shifting his gaze to the table beside him where a familiar plastic helmet sat. His fingers reached out tentatively, feeling at the hard material and tracing the faint scratches along its surface.
With trembling hands, Finn lifted the headset, staring at it. He could do this. This was a chance. He could accomplish the Seer’s task and finish the Emir’s competition. And at the finish line, Rachael might be waiting for him.
At that thought, the lingering doubt and hesitation faded, replaced with a steadfast resolve. Abbad’s words returned to him then – the librarian’s questions hovering in his mind. Finn could answer them now.
His goal was to bring Rachael back.
Finn tugged the helmet over his head, his vision quickly obscured by darkness, and the sounds of his office muted behind the thick insulation. Immediately, a splash screen popped up in his vision, the emblem for Awaken Online emblazoned in front of him.
Abbad’s second question rang through his mind.
“What are you willing to sacrifice to accomplish your goal?”
“Everything,” Finn whispered.
Epilogue
An eerie quiet lingered atop the mountain. The harsh clang and sizzle of battle had given way to the faint whistle of frigid wind. The air suddenly shimmered and shifted, taking on a yellowish hue. Then it was as though a screen had parted, the shield of air sliding away. Two men stepped out of the rift, their feet crunching in the snow as they made their way down into the small valley below them.
One of the pair hobbled forward more awkwardly. He leaned heavily on an ornate staff composed of gold, adorned with bands of multi-colored crystal that spiraled up the shaft. His skin was wrinkled and aged, pockmarked and stained, and he let out a wheezing breath with each step, as though the effort cost him.
“Lend me a hand, Abbad,” the older man said, gesturing at the librarian.
“Of course, my Emir,” was the terse reply. Abbad let the older man lean on his arm as they made the short trek down into the valley.
As they reached their destination, the pair maintained their silence. Their eyes skimmed across the field. A faint dusting of snow drifted down around them, but not enough time had passed for the snowfall to obscure the visible signs of the battle that had been waged across this mountaintop. A massive circle had been carved in the snow, filled with a mixture of mud and water and the remains of the fallen – brittle, dark skeletons, their limbs frozen in a panicked, frenzied state. They remained where they had fallen. Where Finn had slain them.
Abbad took in this scene with implacable, calm precision – although he could feel disquiet whispering in the back of his mind. He noted the locations of the bodies, the damage to the underlying bone. If he hadn’t witnessed the massacre himself, he would have had trouble identifying the cause of death and angle of attack from the fractured bone.
“A right mess he made of this lot,” the Emir croaked. “Such a waste.”
Abbad forced himself to stay quiet – his will like iron.
The Emir poked at Lamia’s remains. “Although, this one at least served some use in the end.” He glanced at Abbad. “That was clever of you to use her. How did you know the ruse would work?”
“Lamia has not been discreet with her distaste for the travelers. Placing Finn in her class was a simple matter. I may also have had other students and faculty… rile her antipathy. After that, it only took a few careful nudges to set her along the desired path.”
The Emir barked out a hoarse laugh that led into a short coughing fit. “Ahh, I see. Does the Marked One suspect you?”
“I do not think so,” Abbad replied, bowing his head. “He believes me to be a simple librarian and a trusted advisor. He suspected that Lamia was behind the attacks by the other travelers – a point that was surely confirmed by her ill-fated ambush. I also told him that it was typical for water mages to use illusions. Even if the students could somehow identify my involvement, that should insulate me from suspicion.”
“Perfect,” the Emir murmured with a knowing glance at Abbad. “When I appointed you to head the Mage Guild, I wasn’t certain of your reasons for hiding behind that puppet, but now I see that I underestimated you.”
“As I was taught, the foolish charge from the front. The wise wait in the shadows,” Abbad answered simply, bowing his head. He hesitated, uncertain whether the Emir might view his next question as impudence. “Was this necessary?” he finally asked in a clipped voice.
The Emir raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the so-called librarian. “You think I take an unnecessary risk?”
Abbad tilted his head. “You saw for yourself the power of the Marked One. By pushing him like this, I wonder if we risk creating a force that cannot be contained.”
The old man’s eyes went distant as he looked at the skeletons that littered the field. “And so, the Marked One shall rise above the others of his kind, his flames consuming the bodies of the fallen,” the Emir recited. “You know the Crone’s prophecy as well as I. We are merely encouraging events to unfold as they were meant to.”
“And the competition among the guilds?” Abbad asked. “I don’t recall that described in prophecy.”
The Emir’s head swiveled to face Abbad, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Take care, Abbad. Your loyalty and skill earn you some measure of lenience. But my patience is not infinite.”
A brief silence and then the Emir continued, his tone more even, “As the Crone herself knows, people are blinded in the pursuit of their passions. Competition, rivalry – they keep the sheep blind and docile, looking for predators in the shadows when they should be watching the shepherd holding a blade behind his back.
“No, the competition is necessary. We will continue as planned. With our champions nearly assembled, they need only form their parties, and then we shall send them into the abyss.”
“We won’t be able to monitor them easily there,” Abbad replied.
“Ahh, and that’s where your little nudges will become useful. The board has been carefully set – our pieces arranged. We must simply wait to see how the game unfolds.”
“At the risk of testing your patience further, I feel compelled to remind you of our arrangement,” Abbad said. “Parts of what I told the Marked One were true. My goal is and always has been the freedom of my kind. I expect to call my debt when this is finished.”
“Indeed,” the Emir said, his eyes turning back to Abbad. For an instant, they flashed with multi-colored energy. “A compact has been made.”
The End
Thank you for reading!
First off, I hope you all enjoyed the story! This was a blast to write. I typically fall in love with a character as I write a book, but there’s just something about Finn… equal parts heartache and awesome, I suppose.
I’m tentatively planning to write two more books in this storyline – which will bring us roughly current with Jason & company. I already have both books outlined and plotted. I’m just wavering if I want to take a few months and knock these out before we return to our favorite necromancer. I know a bunch of you are impatient to get back to Jason. Although, I think finishing this arc first might be more satisf
ying since Finn will be relevant in the larger storyline moving forward – if you haven’t caught that already!
Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts and if you’d like to see more of Finn!
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Acknowledgments
I’d also like to give a shout-out to everyone who helped me write Awaken Online: Ember. Like most great things, it takes a village to write a book. Or at least one that makes sense and is (relatively) error-free. Thank you all for your help and support!
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