by Jarod Meyer
Despite their goals, all initiates all started out with the same basic studies. These days were some of the most intense William had ever experienced. His life back on Earth quickly felt like a distant vacation.
During his breaks throughout the day, he had time to ponder the purpose of life. He walked the seemingly endless corridors of Valhalla, exploring the many winding passages.
There were common areas for feasting, and sometimes parties were held for no reason at all other than to fraternize with their fellow soldiers. He attended one of these with Brock. The people were nicer if Brock introduced him. He met many soldiers that had already completed the Guardian training and forged their armor. They all seemed intense and fierce in their own ways. One warrior named Benkei wore green and red armor Japanese. William thought he recognized the style from an old Japanese movie he watched. Benkei wore twenty Japanese Katanas. William counted them five times to be sure.
He sat and simply listened to their war stories for hours, feasting on course after course of the most delicious food he had ever eaten. He ate duck, pheasant, quail, wild boar, and even lion meat. There were other foods as well, many he did not recognize. Brock told William that those were the true delicacies, because they had been fabricated by someone’s mind.
William also stumbled upon places for recreation. Massive pools of water where one could swim in or simply lounge around. It seemed odd, and he wondered how anybody got anything done in this world, when they could simply sit around all day in complete comfort.
William found himself walking through the Nordic quarter one day after his studies. He looked over many of the statues, reading the names to see if he recognized any of them. He found Thor, the Norse god of thunder. His statute read “Thor of Scione”. He saw many others as well – Loki, Freya, Freyr, Heimdallr.
There were also many closed doorways in this wing. He opened a few, finding large lecture halls and study areas. One set of doors in particular caught William’s attention. They were made of thick, strong wood. An inscription across them read: Only the strong may enter here.
William tried to push or pull them open, but to no avail. They would not budge. He eventually gave up, deciding it best to save his strength for the physical training.
The physical training was some of the most difficult he had ever experienced in his life. This training was Guardian specific. He tried to keep telling himself that it was not really tiring, but if felt so real, and painful. He was assigned to a captain named Chang Fei, who in the mortal world had been revered as a god of war by the Chinese. This man was intimidating for his small size, and William had never seen a man with more discipline.
In ancient China, discipline was all that mattered, and people devoted their lives to the perfection of whatever they did. It was quite an amazing culture, which produced some of the finest soldiers that history had ever seen. Apparently it was because he was such a good general and warrior on Earth that people had revered him as a god much like many of the other heroes from Earth like Zeus, and Achilles. He was of course killed during battle, and came here to continue doing the same thing that he had done on Earth.
He stood only four feet five inches at the most, but his gaze commanded respect. He wore very simple robes that were a dark blue. They were loose so that he could easy move without ripping them to shreds.
William had already shredded so many clothes in training simply because his mind was still unaccustomed to his new found strength. If he went to adjust his clothes they would rip like tissue paper. He was still having trouble finding a good balance.
Chang Fei was completely bald, and had a long stringy mustache common to the people of the orient. He spoke very little, but when he did it was something serious.
The first lesson they had from Chang Fei was about the ancient Chinese belief in the life force or “Ch’I” as they called it, which in Archonia was actually existed.
“Ch’I flows throughout your body. Surrounds us and makes us whole,” the Guardian captain said as the initiates sat on the ground in a cross legged fashion.
“Is that like projection?” William asked, interrupting.
“Silence!” Chang Fei shouted. “You will not speak unless spoken to!”
“Ch’I is what gives you strength and focus. You must focus on every action you make, and where the energy comes from,” the Chinese warrior said. Then he walked over to a massive stone sitting off to the side. He closed his eyes, and touched a single finger to the stone.
The initiates looked at one another, and then back at their captain. With only his finger against the giant stone, it started to lift off the ground. The group gasped in awe.
It continued floating skyward. Chang Fei remained motionless, except the arm that extended along with the rock. Soon it was over his head, floating above the entire group. Some eyed the rock uneasily, standing so that they could make a fast escape. William smiled, and imagined himself doing this someday. Then to the groups surprise the stone shattered into a billowing cloud of dust with a massive crack, and sand came falling down like rain.
Some in the group applauded, while others laughed.
“Initiates, one thousand push-ups,” Cheng Fei growled.
The group groaned.
“You will all focus on each push-up as if it is the only thing in your life that matters. Control your mind. Find your Ch’I,” he said.
William didn’t know what he meant by Ch’I, but he did know what one thousand push-ups were. He didn’t focus on each one, instead he gazed around the training grounds as he pumped his arms. There were many odd looking objects placed orderly around a massive circular man-made valley. The high walls of the valley were made of soil and rock.
As William struggled through the push-ups, he turned to his left and noticed a tall tower near the southern ridge of the valley. He turned to the large man next to him.
“What is that?” he asked casually, doing push-ups faster than he ever thought possible.
“The warning beacon of Helios. Should Archonia ever be under attack that bell will ring,” the man said.
“How often do these attacks happen?” William asked.
“That bell has not been rung in two thousand years. Not since the twin obelisks were created,” the Native American man finished.
“Then why am I doing all these push-ups?” William huffed, laughing.
There was a crack like a whip and a throbbing pain on the back of his head. William looked up, pausing the exercise. Chang Fei stood above him, his face grim.
This was to be Guardian training, and it never stopped. If you quit without his word, you did more, and if you weren’t doing something correctly, he would whack you on the head with a long staff. William had lived through intense physical conditions on Earth, and yet, he could barely keep up here.
The rest of the week was focused solely on this intense training and the ability to find one’s Ch’I. Exercises seemed to never stop, and the limit was only what the mind could handle. They were forcing him to understand how much that truly was.
“More!” Chang Fei shouted as William counted his five hundred and sixty-fifth pull up.
These were no ordinary pull-ups either. Chains were wrapped around William’s waist, holding two boulders that easily weighed a ton each. If that wasn’t enough, he was dangling fifty feet in the air. The most difficult part was jumping up to the bar. William was convinced that nothing in this world was normal sized. His arms and back muscles screamed in revolt over his five hundred and sixty-seventh pull up, but he kept telling himself it wasn’t real.
“When you are on crusade and you are surrounded by the enemy and they are tearing at your imaginary body with their claws and pincers, will it be made from stone, or from flesh?” Chang Fei shouted as the sweat poured like a fountain from every pore on William’s body.
He thought long and hard about what a crusade would be like, if he passed his Guardian training. A crusade, according to his professors, was a sacred quest that a Guardian h
ad to take once a year. These quests could be anything deemed worthy by the Guardian corp. For the past two thousand years, however, the majority of these crusades had been back to the mortal plane where Guardians would search for worthy souls and protect them from Lucifer’s abominations. William pictured himself clad in his own brilliantly shining armor, cutting down seething creatures of evil on his first crusade. It turned out to be just enough to get him through his training each day.
As they were finishing their daily exercises, William looked over at a man in his group. His name was Juarez. He was small in stature and had apparently been trying to become a Guardian for the past one hundred years. He could see why.
William dropped to the ground, wiping sweat from his forehead. He’d final finished his six hundred pull-ups. He unwound the chain binding him to the massive stones, and looked himself over. The first couple of times he had done this the chains left a nasty array of bruises across his body, but now his skin was unmarred. In fact, his skin appeared thicker, stronger, and healthier than ever. His muscle mass had increased as well. He almost looked as if he was chiseled out of stone.
William looked up at Juarez, who was struggling to get his three hundred and fifth pull-up. The large stones dwarfed him in an almost comedic fashion. William seemed to normally end up the butt of torment, and rarely received help when he heeded it. He realized that this was his chance to help someone else, and be noble, where others had not been to him.
“You better get your ass moving, Juarez. You’re over halfway done,” William shouted. “Look at that fading sun. Ignore your muscles. They are lying to you!”
The others had all finished for the day, and had gone to meditate, but William stayed to encourage Juarez. He prodded and motivated him until finally, with a shout, counted six hundred and dropped to the ground with a crash. William ran over, expecting to find the smaller man hurt, instead he was laughing, and leapt from the ground, smiling and hollering with joy.
“I have never been able to do that many! Thank you, William,” he said with a Spanish accent.
“It’s no problem.”
Juarez held up a hand as if to shake, and William grasped it firmly.
“Juarez,” the tiny man said
His sharp features and olive skin glowed in the fading light. He was skinny with little muscle, but what he did have was very well defined. Veins popped out all over the place.
“William,” he said, smiling back.
“Thank you, William. Nobody has ever helped me before.”
“Me either,” William responded honestly.
At that moment, the two men decided to become training partners. William did his best to open up to Juarez, just as Brock suggested. They talked during their warm ups, which usually consisted of running around the massive valley a couple of hundred times.
If they wanted to finish in time for drill, they learned quickly that they needed to be fast. If they did not finish before Chang Fei began training they had to run again at the end of the night. It didn’t take William long to let his mind go, and become faster. He was not as fast as some of the more experienced recruits, but for some of them, this was their second or third attempt at gaining entry to the Guardian corps. Chang Fei had made it very difficult to complete the warm up in time so many of the initiates, including William were forced to stay after and run again.
“How many more laps?” Juarez asked.
“Did you lose count again?” William sighed.
“Yes, I have been counting how many times that woman has passed us,” he replied as they felt a rush of wind fly by.
William looked ahead and there was a blur of white racing around the field.
“She is just showing off, pal. We have twenty more laps to go, and we are home free,” William said, glancing over at him.
“Did she not complete the warm up run in time?” Juarez inquired.
“Yeah she did. Like I said, showing off,” William muttered.
William realized he didn’t know very much about his new companion, so he decided to get to know him better.
“Tell me more about yourself, Juarez,” William said casually.
There was a silence and William didn’t push. Juarez looked at him.
“I come from Spain. The capitol called Madrid,” he said.
“So does that mean you speak Spanish?” William asked.
“Yes of course,” Juarez responded, smiling.
“Say something in Spanish,!”
Juarez chuckled, “My friend, I have always spoken Spanish. Your mind simply thinks I am speaking your language.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” William said, suddenly remembering.
“What made you want to be a Guardian?” William asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
“I suppose so that I could protect those I care about,” Juarez said seriously.
“Fair enough.”
He didn’t seem to want to talk on the subject further so William focused on running. They pushed themselves, William’s lungs beginning to burn as they traversed the field.
“What about you, tainted one?” Juarez asked, in a slightly mocking tone.
William half-smirked, and said, “Oh you heard that, huh?”
“I did indeed, but I do not believe in such things,” Juarez replied.
“Well, believe it all, because it’s true.”
“I know that you have done things in your life that you regret,” Juarez said. “But you must not let those actions dictate your future.”
“You think I should forget what I did?” William asked skeptically.
“No amigo, those are great lessons. But you must forgive yourself,” Juarez said, staring straight ahead.
William looked into the fading sunlight.
“You sound like my old priest when I was growing up,” William chuckled.
“I was a priest,” Juarez responded quickly.
William stopped running, and Juarez slowed and turned.
“Hey, let’s go. If Chang Fei catches us we will have to run another hundred laps,” Juarez pleaded.
William didn’t say much for the rest of the evening, troubling over why a priest would want to fight. He thought about this on his way back to the barracks, but soon his thoughts strayed as he fell into his meditative state, and he was once again flooded by memories of his former life.
Chapter Eight
The Passing
Angelica awoke in a panic. She didn’t know where she was. This had been happening for the past couple weeks. She struggled to adjust to this world. Instead of sleeping, they meditated. It seemed unnatural, and contrary to everything her mind and body were used to.
The room around her was growing lighter by the second. The large Archonian sun was already creeping into view over the horizon, starting a new day. She looked around the small room where some of her relatives sat, still in their trance. The home belonged to her grandmother, who shared the space with one of her sisters, Amelia, who Angelica had never met, and a couple of her more distant relatives.
Last, but not least, was Julia. Her husband, who served as a Guardian, lived with his brethren in the barracks of a castle called Valhalla, so she stayed here. The living quarters felt far too small for so many people, but she was starting to learn that they actually needed very little room to meditate, and people rarely spent much time in their living quarters. Instead, most chose to spend their time outside, exploring the world’s innumerable possibilities.
With the absence of things such as movies or television, people in this world lived the experiences they only dreamed of on Earth. Angelica had already been rock climbing, white water kayaking, fishing, and sailing. Most of her days, however, were devoted to study. Julia helped her enroll with the University of Socrates. Education was free, and Angelica wanted to learn as much as she could about her new life and world. Julia, it turned out, was already well into her studies. She had recently reached maturity and wanted to pursue a life in politics.
“Are
you ready to go?” Julia asked with a warm smile.
They had already become the best of friends, which filled Angelica with a joy.
“Yes cousin,” she said, standing and stretching. She felt so light and full of energy every day, as if some lifelong bond had been broken.
Angelica dressed in a white, linen wrap that fell loosely over her body. She didn’t like the many layered outfits her cousin favored, and despite her urges to try them on, she kindly refused. Julia was always clad in jewels, the predominant one today being rubies. They sparkled in rings, chains, and even her sandals, which wrapped around her ankles almost to her knees.
“You know, I think you look pretty without all those gemstones,” Angelica said with an awkward chuckle.
Julia scowled. “Everyone here dresses like this, Angie,” she said, and then stuck her tongue out at her.
Soon they were on their way. The small unit that Julia lived in was on the 43rd floor of the labyrinth-like Latin Quarter, which was a seemingly endless array of houses stacked one on top of the other. Angelica soon realized that it was a good thing that there were so many hours in a day, otherwise people would spend much of their lives walking from place to place. Well normal people anyway. There were those, mostly the older folks, who could travel so fast that she could barely see them. She decided that she would need to learn to walk quicker. Julia wasn’t pushy however, and kept pace with her cousin.
The streets weren’t filled with despair, as she had come to expect in her previous life. Even this early in the morning, people were bustling about, joyfully preparing for the day. With no need for money, vendors and merchants were there simply to share their creations with the world. Nobody was rich, and nobody was poor. Angelica wasn’t entirely convinced that there was no monetary system, however. She had overheard people talking of “sharing secrets” in exchange for services. This was one of the oldest forms of currency. Most of it was harmless. However, it was the harmful kind she was worried about.