by Stel Pavlou
He turned his attention to that desolate region of space Hex had called the Embers, hunting for the smell of misery; that old reek of oil, and grease and disease—that rancid world of the Overseers.
There! Was that it . . . ?
It came again, disappearing as fast as he’d found it. He turned on his heel, desperately trying to find the source of the odor. So many planets, so many trails; which one was it?
Daniel closed his eyes, focusing on the memories, trying to capture a trace of them in the air.
It seemed like such an impossible task. Until . . . was that it? Had he found them?
Daniel snapped his eyes open, confronted with the awesome beauty of flying through an alien world, until—
A blistering sun shot past his face. Then another. And another. Five in all. Searing fireballs singeing his hair and face, leaving streaks of red, blistered skin in their wake.
Daniel cried out in agony.
He threw his hands up as more objects tumbled toward him, asteroids with the power of fists and gas giants filling the chamber with noxious fumes, snuffing out the oxygen, leaving him choking and dizzy.
Frantic, Daniel looked around. He couldn’t see the Vault. He couldn’t see the book. He was lost in an illusion!
He reached out. There had to be a way to get it to close! But the more he struggled with the book, the more the atmospheric pressure became so crushing that it literally began squeezing the life from his bones. And it was at this point that Daniel cried out, “I’m sorry!”
And then, quite suddenly, from the misty fumes, a warm hand reached out for him.
Daniel had no way of knowing whose hand it was. But as he took what felt like his last gasp of air, he reached out and grabbed it.
35
WAY OF THE TRUTH SEEKER
Daniel rolled onto his side, coughing violently, his throat burning.
“Here, drink this,” the stranger commanded, forcing a cup of milky liquid into his hands. “Quickly, quickly.”
It tasted bitter, but Daniel did as he was told, gulping it down until it was all gone.
It took a moment before the burning sensation began to ease. When he could breathe again, he thanked the man and handed the glass back, his hand shaking.
The stranger gazed down on Daniel with lively eyes; he had a restless nature that quickly drew him away. In constant motion, his kilt swishing every time he took a step, he darted around the strange room, filled with contraptions and elaborate instruments. Pieces of enginoids were stacked in one corner, and the anatomy of an anatom was displayed in the other. The stranger, always doing three things at once, never rested.
After quietly watching the stranger for a little while, Daniel asked, “How did I get here?”
From behind a pile of junk, the stranger said, “With my two bare hands I picked you up, threw you over my broad and impossibly strong shoulders, and carried you.”
Daniel sat up. “You did what?”
The stranger poked his nose around the corner. “You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
The stranger appeared insulted. “Why not?”
“Because you’re . . . short. I’m probably bigger than you.”
The stranger narrowed his eyes, stepping out from behind his creations. Daniel stood perhaps a head taller, though the stranger was much wider. He clearly had the face of an adult, but his limbs were proportioned like a child. “Well done, Captain Obvious. Ionica was right about you. Remember her? The girl who saved your life.”
The stranger kind of reminded him of Ogle Kog from back in the mines, but his physique appeared very different. “Did you grow up on a high-gravity planet?” Daniel asked.
The stranger appeared even more insulted. “No,” he said, incredulous.
“Then why are you that shape?”
“I was born this way!”
“Who are you?” Daniel demanded.
The stranger’s mind didn’t pause, even for a moment. “Who am I?” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Daniel Coldstar, slave number forty-one eighty-two. But you already knew that.”
The stranger glanced over at him with a twinkle in his eye. He didn’t seem particularly old, but he had the presence of an old soul. He seemed to like Daniel’s response. “Didn’t anyone ever warn you about the Book of Planets, Daniel Coldstar?” he said. “You could have gotten yourself killed. Why didn’t you use your Aegis for protection?”
Daniel glanced away. “I didn’t think of it,” he said quietly. “Besides, if somebody hadn’t left the door open, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The stranger considered what Daniel had told him, but if his eyes were any indication, his mind was an endless cycle of supernovae. “There’s nothing wrong with being curious,” he replied thoughtfully. “I did the same thing when I was your age. But don’t blame others for your irresponsibility.”
“It’s true. The door was open. How else could I get inside?”
“But nobody asked you to step inside, did they?”
“No . . .”
“You made that choice alone. The consequences are entirely yours,” the stranger remarked.
Daniel thought about what he had said. “What are the consequences?”
“You tell me.” The stranger stopped in his tracks. “You’re the Truth Seeker now. What did you find?”
Daniel didn’t know how to respond, or even if he should. The stranger held such a powerful, magnetic force of personality that Daniel felt compelled to say something—but what?
Standing behind one of the larger desks, the stranger snatched up a complex-looking monocle and pressed it to his eye. Peering down his nose, he set to stretching out schematics and perusing their contents, comparing an elaborate device on the table with the picture of a similar-looking object rotating next to it.
Daniel slowly got to his feet. “I have one request,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Please don’t tell anyone what happened. If the Keeper ever found out . . .”
The stranger glanced up from his studies, impatience saddled on his face like a feedbag on a Hammertail. “Have you ever met Tor Torin?”
“Who’s he?”
“The Keeper. He does have a name, you know.”
“Oh,” said Daniel. “No.”
“Then how do you know how he’d react?”
“I don’t,” Daniel admitted. “But I doubt he’d react well, no matter how wise he’s supposed to be.”
The stranger seemed troubled. “That’s all you’ve been told? No one ever mentioned how fantastic he is?”
“Fantastic?”
“He’s an extraordinary man. It’s common knowledge.”
Whoever this man was, he was more than a little cracked, Daniel decided.
“No one ever told you how he fought the Beast of Amaranth?”
“No.”
“Rescued the Krittika from Scalpernauts, single-handed?”
Daniel shook his head. “Sorry.”
The stranger threw his monocle down in disgust and began mumbling to himself. “Youth! What’s the point in having a reputation if nobody knows what it is?”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
“All I know,” said Daniel, “is that this Torin person can kick me out of here on a whim, and I’m not about to let that happen just yet.”
The stranger pressed the monocle back to his eye once again and resumed studying the device. “Why not?”
“I need to rescue my friends. That’s why I searched the Book of Planets, for all the good it did me.” Daniel stood at the edge of the desk, watching the stranger examine the mysterious object, taking careful note of every detail.
“What is that thing?” Daniel asked. “Did you build it?”
“Dear me, no. I didn’t build this,” replied the stranger, running his keen eye over the ornate surface, probing its imperfections with a tiny screwdriver. “But it does look like the picture, doesn’t it? Fortu
nately, it doesn’t appear to be working.”
Daniel didn’t understand why that was fortunate.
“It’s a Thought Detonator,” said the stranger, tapping the image on the schematic. “Nasty little thing. A relic from the War of Wills.” He set the device back down on his desk. “I found this one being sold as a paperweight,” he said. “Which raises some very serious questions. First, where did it come from? Second, who had enough knowledge of Thought Detonators to disarm it? And third, nobody’s made paper in over two thousand years, so why would anybody need a paperweight?”
“Maybe somebody found it and they didn’t know what it was? I don’t know what one is,” Daniel said simply.
Such brutal honesty took the stranger by surprise. “A Thought Detonator,” he explained, gravely, “has only one purpose. To lie in wait for Truth Seekers—and destroy them.”
Daniel hadn’t even considered that a Truth Seeker could be killed. They all seemed so . . . invincible. “How?” he asked.
“By taking a Truth Seeker’s greatest strength, and turning it against them,” he replied. “I had hoped never to see their like again.”
Taking the device in both hands, the stranger carefully set it high up on a far shelf. “There isn’t a Truth Seeker alive who wouldn’t instantly recognize the threat posed by the return of one of these insidious little nasties. We were meant to find this,” he said. “As a warning.”
It took a moment for the stranger’s words to sink in before Daniel realized their importance. “A warning? From who?”
“Precisely,” said the stranger, striding back to his desk and gathering up his tools. “Though I fear that by the time we find the answer to that question, it may be too late.”
Daniel hadn’t thought about it much before now, but in joining the Guild of Truth he had taken sides in a galaxy he knew very little about. “Do Truth Seekers have many enemies?” he asked.
“There will always be those who feel threatened by the truth,” said the stranger, taking his bundle of ratchets and screwdrivers, and other odds and ends, over to a chest, pulling open the lid, and dumping them into it in no particular order. “Consider,” he said. “Why might somebody lie to you?”
Daniel thought deeply on the question. “To hide something?”
The stranger nodded. “That’s one reason. There are many others. Can you think of any more?”
“To make you think differently.”
“About?”
“Anything. A person, a piece of information.”
“I see. So why might somebody tell you the truth?”
“To reveal something.”
“Ah, revealing something implies that there was a lie trying to hide it to begin with. What if there was no lie? What would the truth be then?”
Daniel was truly puzzled. “Makes you think about the subject more, I guess.”
“Would you say then that it gives us focus?”
Daniel shrugged in agreement. “Sure.”
“Aha!” the stranger said with a smile. “And when we focus, what do we see? We see possibilities. You see what we have discovered together? We have discovered the truth. And the truth is that lies have a purpose. They are designed to sway you. Distract you. Confine you. Limit you. But the truth? There is nothing freer than truth. No higher authority. The truth just is, but lies serve a master. And a master of lies craves power, and to remove his power is the greatest threat that he will ever know.”
Now this was something Daniel understood. Deep inside himself, even when the Overseers had told him that the universe was a certain way, he knew there had to be something better. Even when the Sinja had told him if he stepped outside the mines he would surely die—he knew the truth lay elsewhere.
“You see!” said the stranger, pointing at him. “I see it in your eyes. You recognize this as truth, don’t you?”
“I do,” said Daniel. “I felt it. I knew it. Will I always be able to tell the difference between a lie and the truth?”
“Finding the truth is a lifelong journey and it is never an easy one. That is the Way of the Truth Seeker. Remember, the biggest mistake we can make is to stop asking questions; not only of others, but of ourselves.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes, as humans, Daniel, we can lie to ourselves, and we often do.” The stranger rounded the table and jabbed a finger at the dormant silver Aegis on Daniel’s chest. “You have trouble removing your Aegis.”
Daniel glanced down at the troublesome silver relic. “I’ve never been able to take it off.”
“Where does it sit on your body?”
Now that was a strange question. “Uh, right here.”
“But where, on your chest?”
It took a moment to realize what the stranger was getting at. “Over my heart,” he said.
“All the Aegis asks from you,” said the stranger, “is purity of intent. The Aegis knows your head and your heart. When they are in conflict, your Aegis will not function. You must control it both in mind and in spirit. You must know what you wish it to do, and you must believe that it will be done.”
“You’re saying that it can read my mind?” asked Daniel.
The stranger rolled his eyes in frustration. “You’re not much of a poet, are you? Yes, okay, it can read your mind. The reason you can’t remove it is because deep down you don’t want to, and the Aegis knows that.”
“Why would I not want to remove it?”
The stranger shrugged. “Because it protected you once and you hope it will do it again? Or you just think you look really great wearing it. I don’t know. The Aegis reads minds. I don’t.”
Daniel glanced down at the ancient device in wonder. “How does it even do what it can do? Is it magic?”
The stranger almost choked. “Is it what?!”
“Magic?”
“Magic?” The mere mention of the word seemed to leave a bad taste in the stranger’s mouth. “Of course it’s not magic,” he raved. “This is science!”
“Then how does it work?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea.” The stranger turned tail and went back to his contraptions. “Humans didn’t make them. Some very ancient intelligence scattered them throughout the galaxy, and we Truth Seekers were able to utilize them.”
“You must know something. All that power. It’s incredible. Did you ever open one up to find out?”
The stranger sighed and leaned across his desk. “Yes, I did once. . . .”
“And?” Daniel asked eagerly.
“It was empty.”
“What?”
The stranger shrugged. “The act of opening it made it empty. The nexus of what was inside vanished, escaped, disappeared. Poof! I know how it works in theory. Just not in practice.”
Daniel pulled his arm back, creating a perfect whirling shield of air. “How? How does it do this?”
The grave expression on the stranger’s face grew darker with every passing moment. “We call it the Fuse,” he said. “Though it’s had many names through the ages. The Source. The Core. At the beginning of time,” he explained, “the entire universe existed as a single particle of energy and matter, of infinite power and infinite density. When that particle exploded, everything that issued forth from it, all of time, all of space, all of matter—all of it—the entire universe remained inextricably tied to that first particle. The theory goes that to control the Fuse is to control the universe.”
He watched Daniel manipulating his shield until he suddenly let it blow itself out. “I’m controlling the universe?”
“In a limited sense. The universe is giving you control. It, however, is always in charge.”
“But how can this Fuse be in my Aegis and every other Aegis all at the same time?”
“Well, I never promised that it wasn’t complicated.”
Now Daniel could see what he should have seen all along. “You’re Keeper Torin, aren’t you?”
The stranger’s eyes sparkled. “Indeed I am,” he
said. “And I must say I haven’t seen that particular Aegis in a very, very long time.”
36
WAR OF WILLS
“His name was Indigo Cort,” Tor Torin said. “He was a remarkable man; quite the rebel in many respects. He would never take no for an answer. Rather like yourself.”
“How do you know this is his Aegis?” Daniel asked.
“Because it’s chipped on one edge,” he explained. “And I’m the one who did it when I wasn’t much younger than you are now.”
Daniel glanced down at the silver relic. Sure enough, there was a tiny, jagged chip on the rim that he’d never noticed before now. “What happened?”
Torin drifted toward the window and his memories from a lifetime ago. “A story for another time,” he said.
Something wasn’t quite adding up. “If this was his Aegis, how did he lose it? What happened to him?”
“He died trying to save a people who refused to be saved.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Keeper considered his words carefully. “History,” he said, “calls it the War of Wills, though in truth it was merely the first great relic war. It began over a hundred years ago, when a Sinja of unimaginable skill and learning, calling himself the Achorint, believed that he had finally decoded a deep-seated mystery left behind by a very ancient alien civilization that we have come to know as the Destronomers.”
Daniel didn’t recognize the name.
“At least, that’s what we call them. Who they were and what they called themselves, we shall never know. What is certain is that they lived and died a billion years before humans were ever born. From what scholars have been able to piece together, the Destronomers were obsessed with trying to see into the future and change their own destiny if they didn’t like what they found.”
That seemed perfectly normal. “Wouldn’t anyone want to do that?”
“Not like this,” he said, finding Daniel’s comment amusing. “They were consumed with changing not only their own fate, but the fate of everyone around them. Consider this,” he said. “How would you react if you discovered that a mortal enemy were waiting to destroy you, yet neither of you had ever met—indeed this enemy hadn’t even been born yet? What would you do with that knowledge? Do you try to understand them so that when they are born, you become friends instead of enemies? Or do you take the other route?”