by O. J. Lowe
All wasn’t entirely calm in the room though, he could sense a few undertones of discontent lurking there, he let his eyes trail around until they fell upon a group towards the back of the room, white shirted men all hailing from Canterage or Premesoir by the pale colour of their skin. Process of elimination. It wasn’t impossible they could have come from somewhere else, but it was unlikely. Vedo philosophy told them the simplest explanation might not always be the right one, but it was a good place to start with the search for answers.
He could hear them from across the room, their words bringing a curl of displeasure to his mouth. All an opinion they were entitled to, yet it couldn’t help but leave something sour curled in the tip of his being. The speaker was an older gentleman, almost white-haired but for a few tufts of grey and strangely affectionate towards the three men around him, all of whom had a look about them reminiscent of the old man. His sons, perhaps? The more he looked at them, the more he considered it a viable possibility.
“You see, my boys,” the man said with a jovial edge. Premesoiran then. Battleby could hear it in the accent. “We talk about the Vazarans like they’re a good people at heart, they just had none of the opportunities. I mean, I like the kingdom. It’s a significant one. There are more treasures in Vazara than in the rest of the kingdoms combined and I don’t just mean the minerals and the diamonds. You just can’t leave it in the hands of the savages. Can’t trust them with anything of value, they’ll just sell it.” He burst out laughing, braying like a horse, a sound that set Battleby’s teeth on edge. His family had been from Vazara once upon a long time ago. Very distant generations, but the heritage remained.
“I mean, we want to buy it, but we don’t want to pay a competitive price for it. Competition is for suckers, you can’t let the bastards have an inch or they’ll want a mile. Your average Vazaran, he has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. They want everything, but they don’t want to work for it, they want it all handed to them. I mean, don’t get me wrong children, you might get one in fifty who grafts but the other forty-nine would rather drink and snort and whore their way through life. They’ll take any chance of taking offence, look to stab you in the stomach when they get the opportunity. They have no love for you or me, nay that’s wrong. They don’t have the respect. They don’t know their damn place; the fucking savage bastards chat their jibber-jabber in their own damn language and they could be saying anything. They could be threatening you, they could be telling you they’re going to cut your damn throat or rob you. Doubt they’re telling you your suit looks nice.” Another laugh. Battleby paid for his pack of meat, popped it open and placed a piece in his mouth as he headed back towards the exit.
“Gives me a damn headache, love to cut their damn tongues out and listen to their silence. It’s gold. Gold’s about as rare as a silent Vazaran sometimes, I mean they do like to hear their own voices. On and on and on and on.”
The feeling was mutual, Battleby conceded. He didn’t feel anger. Doubtless a man like that would lump him in with them, at least until he heard him speak. The generations had been far enough removed that any trace of a Vazaran accent had been lost. The Lahzenje accent was far more subtle, rich and cheery. Growing up in the temple, he’d long abandoned any notion of one race being perfect over another. They were all human after all. Rich and poor were the true divide in life, he’d always found, not the colour of skin nor accent or language.
He pitied him, felt sorrow that life had pushed him to the point where all he could feel about his fellow man was a sense of superiority. He wouldn’t like to hear it, but he reminded Battleby of his father. A man who couldn’t see ahead of for the shape of his nose.
Back in his cabin, he locked the door behind him and resealed it with the Kjarn, a tricky little defence against anyone who tried to force their way inside. They’d be in for an explosive surprise if they did. Security out the way, he sat down on the bed, the packet of meat resting across his lap as he picked at the scraps inside. They’d been pre-shredded, cooked in hickory that left a wonderful taste in the back of his throat. As much as flavour wasn’t a factor, sometimes it was nice. Sometimes you found something you could appreciate, and you clung on like a torpelo lizard. It was something you sought, you wanted it, you felt like you needed it and your body wouldn’t be sated until you got it inside you.
He blinked. Where had that come from? He’d never felt that way before. Not about hickory. Not about hickory at all. He blinked again, slid the packet of meat from his knee, got to his feet. Things felt vivid. Very vivid. He’d never known meat smell that good, he’d never felt this relaxed under circumstances like these. He just wanted to take a break, let himself slip into the gentle embrace of slumber and sleep until he awoke refreshed. Ignore that little voice at the back of his mind nagging away and away, it wasn’t important, it was an irrelevance, one didn’t need those in life.
Was it warm in his cabin? He tugged at his shirt, thought about removing it. His legs felt heavy, although not as heavy as his eyelids. The ends felt leaden, like they couldn’t wait to fall. He dropped to the bed, let his body fall back until his head was caught in the grasp of the mattress. Mmmm, bliss. Beautiful bliss, rushing up to surround him. If only that humming would stop, he’d be just fine. Stupid bloody Cycle screaming for his attention…
His eyes jerked open, he rolled to the side just as the blade swept through the space where his face had been seconds earlier, the kjarnblade burning through the mattress. The fugue was gone, he thrust out a hand and the Kjarn came to his rescue, rushed through him and hammered the assailant hard in the chest. Battleby watched him sail through the air as if fired from a blaster and smash into the shelving, blood gushing from his nostrils as he tried to pick himself up.
He wasn’t alone. Two more of them came at him with kjarnblades of their own and Battleby brought his to meet them. His blade came up to push theirs aside, he knocked one away, swung out a swipe at the other that would have taken the top of his face off had it connected. Things made sense now.
It had always been regarded amongst Kjarn users that there were seven different specialities. Seven applications for the power. Be they Vedo or Cavanda alike, they agreed on that, what little Cavanda lore they recovered told them that. Everything made sense. He hadn’t been prepared for a psychic attack from a Cognivite and it had caught him unawares, gotten in under his defences. Almost. They just hadn’t been good enough. Cognivites were masters of the mental attack and should a master get their hooks into you, it was hard to shake them off. He was lucky. This one, whichever one of the three it was, was not a master.
Blades hammered at him, he ducked under one, slashed out at the legs of another attacker. This wasn’t going to work; the room was far too small for three of them to have a drawn-out confrontation. Not when the one who’d initially tried to kill him was getting back up, wiping his nose. He looked mad. Real mad.
Keep them fighting with the blade. Don’t let them focus on bringing their powers to bear. He didn’t know who or what they were, other than they were better trained than the cultists he and Arventino had faced earlier. Wouldn’t be hard. Those jokers couldn’t have conquered a raffle. And yet, he had wondered whether there was someone else above them. Some sort of sponsor. Getting them organised must have had someone else’s hand in it. None of them had shown any hint of leadership nous, judging by the way they’d been routed.
“Do not suppose we can talk about this, gentlemen?” he asked, moved his blade to cut aside a strike at him. A third blade had activated. His door remained closed and sealed, he could feel the faintest hint of power there about it. They hadn’t come in that way. So how… “Which one of you is the Farwalker?”
A gambit but a reasonable one to make. If they’d come to rob him, remove the Farwalker first. Amongst the seven aspects of the Kjarn, Farwalkers were the rarest of all, far from the most powerful but their power did have its uses. Farwalkers weren’t confined to traditional time and space, their location was only relative
to where they thought they were. A Farwalker cared very little for walls as obstacles, half a kingdom away was nothing to one, they could take one step and be where they needed to be. True masters of the skill could move not just themselves but others. That explained how they’d gotten in here.
They looked at each other, he chose the moment to strike, tore amidst the three of them in a blur of blade and energy, electricity crackling from his free hand. It hit one in the chest, the recognition starting to filter through him. He’d seen them before. In the dining room. He wondered where their senior was. Maybe he was their master. Not important right now. Only survival. The one he’d shocked had gone down but wasn’t dead, rose as if he’d been kissed rather than tried to be killed. Elementalist perhaps? Or an Enhancile. Either would explain the survival of the hit. Enhanciles were rare as well, not as rare as Farwalkers or Manifolds such as himself, but unique amongst Kjarn-users in that their powers were passive rather than active. All other specialities could affect the world around them, an Enhanciles power only affected themselves. The Kjarn made them damned near unkillable. Elementalists controlled the elements, lightning wouldn’t do much more than annoy them.
The temperature had lowered in the room, the lightbulb above his head blinked and his danger sense screamed out, louder than before. He turned his head, felt the invisible blow crack him on the jaw. Before he could recover, he felt the same force on his throat, hurling him into the air and against the wall, his head brushing the ceiling.
The old man was there, a bemused look on his face and a hand outstretched. “Amusing,” he said. “As much as watching you play with my boys is, I’m afraid I must cut in, son. I mean, you might hurt them and as much as we all know what sort of lesson pain is, I’ve got uses for them yet.”
“Bastard!” Battleby spat. He struggled against the invisible bonds, tested his strength against them. Nothing. Willpower always trumped physical strength, this old bastard looked like he had it in spades. He hadn’t seen it before, maybe he hadn’t wanted to, but there was a composure there within him. A fire of certainty that burned bright within him.
“You know, we all recognised you for what you were the moment you walked into that room,” the old man said, too matter of fact for his liking. “You people think you can hide in plain sight, but we can smell the Kjarn on you. I mean, you think all that power you wield doesn’t affect you? Hence the distraction. All that stuff about Vazaran inferiority. You see what you want to see. We all do. It’s the failing of humanity.”
He tried the Kjarn against the invisible force holding his throat and his arms, again to be disappointed. It was never so simple. The bonds were never the pivotal point. It was like hammering at the strongest link. Go for the weakest. And no matter the circumstances, the weakest part of the Kjarn was always the one who wielded it. They could be broken. The Kjarn could not. He fixed his glare on the old man.
“You can fight all you like but it makes no difference. You got something we want. You got something we had, before you stole it. Could feel it from a kingdom away, ready to bring it into play we were and then you interfered. Got here just in time.”
“You’ve got a Farwalker,” Battleby said. “Should have come sooner.”
“Son, I’m the Farwalker,” the old man said. “Amongst other things. About the only one in existence by my reckoning. Where’s the Cycle? You’re not living through this but at least you’ll get a dignified end if you hand it over. It’ll be swift. Fast deaths are the best sort.”
So, a Farwalker and a Cognivite for sure, one either an Enhancile or an Elementalist. One unknown. He couldn’t say for sure, nor even which was which. Restorers and Alchemites weren’t much use in a fight. This old man wouldn’t have brought one of those with him unless he thought they’d have a use. A Manifold would be dangerous, not just to those in the room but everyone else aboard the ship.
Battleby knew first-hand just how dangerous Manifolds were. He had some experience in that area. Second rarest skill after Farwalker. Even then, one in a thousand Kjarn users developed Manifold abilities. Farwalkers were categorised at one in half a million, bare minimum. He had the figures, estimated by the grand master long since. Four specialities were common. Three were not. Those were the thoughts in his head, he didn’t want the Cognivite catching any stray impressions from him about what they sought.
He knew how dangerous it was. He’d considered every option, thought them through and his situation looked hopeless. He was outnumbered, probably overpowered. The old man alone had everything on him. Experience and age counted for a lot where the Kjarn was concerned, it brought new perspectives and knowledge, the comfort to try new things. Battleby had reached his forties, he should be coming to that point of his life. Right now, he had to acknowledge that he wouldn’t reach it at all unless he did something.
“You know, I was raised never to quit,” he said. He could feel his voice shaking. “I was always raised to do what is right.” He couldn’t let the Cycle fall into their hands. They were dangerous. Whatever the price was to not let them get away with it, he could already tell it was worth paying. Terrible for everyone else but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
They were all a victim of circumstances.
“A fine speech,” the old man started to say before Battleby cut him off.
“And you know what else I am?” he asked. “One in a thousand.” He gave him the grin and opened himself up to the Kjarn, not just the Kjarn within him but the power he’d felt ever since he’d come to possess the Forever Cycle. Since first contact, he’d felt it calling to him, trying to seduce him into using it. It had power, more power than anyone could hope to contain, a little piece of divinity there for the taking.
Those skilled in the art of the Manifold could affect the environment around them in all manner of ways, the power was only limited by the imagination of the one controlling it. Battleby had never done this before, he’d always respected the power too much to entertain any thought he could control it. His body was only the conduit to something so much greater, yet the flesh was fragile. The Kjarn was eternal, all powerful, everything and anything that ran through life was a part of it. Something so fleeting as mortality couldn’t hope to stand against it. The power in the Forever Cycle was the power of the Divines, a gateway to the heavens, and he felt their power beneath his skin, bubbling flesh into solid cancerous lumps. Battleby screamed, not a human scream but a roar of agony that shattered his teeth in his mouth, the words stripping the paint from the ceiling of the room, cracking the plaster beneath. Flakes fell to the ground, dusted the burned mattress.
“Master…” one of the young men said, the old man fixed him with a stare.
“You cannot control this power,” he said, his words gentle and polite, the change in demeanour might have startled Battleby if he was capable of surprise any longer. He couldn’t see it. The words were like floss in his ears, soft and meaningless. If he twitched his head, they would fade.
“Control…” It came out not as a word but as a Word, a single burst of power formed into sound, he could see it through bleeding eyes as it struck the old man hard in the chest. His clothes started to burn, his face remained unfazed. “Control is not something I seek!” With each Word, the cabin shook, flames erupting into life. Some parts of the wall simply ceased to be. He could see people outside the room looking in, fear and shock on their stupid cow faces. They were unimportant, they were already feeling the effects of looking at him. They wouldn’t survive it. They couldn’t. The flesh was fading but magnificence was eternal. He could hear their screams as their eyes caught alight, the azure fire spreading to their skin, engulfing flesh and bone. They were already a memory, only the ashes would remain.
“Control!” Battleby could no longer stop himself from speaking, wasn’t sure he could do anything. His body wasn’t his to control. Training against mental attacks had been a basic requirement for Vedo, the only reason his mind hadn’t gone. That knowledge hurt, more than realisation, it
was acceptance. Acknowledging his life was over, no going back from this. The life of everyone aboard the boat was over, that truth just hadn’t caught up yet. It would come in a blaze of fire and death, no time for regret. Any pain would be fleeting. In a way, he’d betrayed a vow to preserve life. If the only way he could preserve it was to take it, a thousand for a billion, it still felt like a betrayal. “You don’t want control. You want power. And this is power you will not take.”
This was why they were Vedo. Because someone needed to make the hard decisions for those that couldn’t. He was laughing, he thought, could hear the roaring of blood escaping his body. Every little sound and sensation were his to observe. Thoughts and feelings, the terror and the fear and the surprise all echoed in his body, sapped at every iota of his essence.
Alone. So alone. He was connected to everything and everyone, one tiny neuron in a giant brain spread far across the kingdoms and he felt alone. His body hurt, he looked down through eyes that felt increasingly alien, saw the blade protruding from his chest, one of the younger men… Claridge Coleman, his name was. He knew; therefore, it was… holding the hilt with an almost sheepish look. Battleby blinked and Coleman no longer existed except in memory, fine ashes falling to the floor beneath his feet. The other two young men, Timothy Massa and Simon Tomasi, both looked worried. Their master was gone in a flash of light leaving them alone. The looks on their faces as they realised he’d farwalked without them might have made the vessel smile once. That consciousness was gone and only the wrath of the Kjarn remained. Massa and Tomasi were not long for the world, they died painlessly. The fire and the fury were working their way through the ship, adding new fuel to its flames every time it touched something organic, cradled the life in its embrace before snuffing it. Every warm soul had a story, sadness and light, joy and pity.