by Garon Whited
With Firebrand in hand—a flaming, psychic sword—I thought we might be in fairly good shape.
“What do you think, Firebrand?”
I think we can take ’em, Boss. The blade rippled with flames as the knocking repeated, tock-tock-tock-tock.
“All right!” I called out. “All right. I hear you. Be advised I’m armed and in no mood to trifle with my subconscious.”
“I understand,” came back, muffled by the hatch. I worked the bolts to unlock it, then toed the latch. Nothing immediate happened.
“It’s open,” I announced. The hatch lifted slightly, paused, moved up slowly. A hand appeared at the edge, pushing the hatch upward. Another hand extended up and out, empty and open. They looked perfectly normal.
A moment later, I was climbing out. Not me, exactly—a personal demon of mine. He looked much like me, but better. A trifle taller, slightly broader in the shoulders. His physique is mine, but with another ten pounds of muscle. His face is handsome, his hair is perfect, and his smile almost makes a ting sound when the light hits it. He’s an idealized me, a perfect version of me, and he haunts me.
Now he wants to talk? Now?
“What do you want?” I asked. “No, don’t climb out. You can stand right there, or a few steps down. I don’t want you wandering. That’s better. Now tell me what you want.”
“I was hoping to have a civilized discussion.”
“We’re having it.”
“While you hover over me with a lit sword?”
“I’m not hitting you with it,” I pointed out. “That’s as close to civilized as I’m prepared to be with a personal demon.”
“I’m hardly a demon.”
“Depends on where you’re standing. Explain what you want or we’ll see how fast you can duck.”
“Very well, since you insist. I would like to take this opportunity to be your conscience.”
“My what?”
“I’m a perfect version of you. Stronger, faster, smarter, but also more generous, noble, kind, brave…”
“I get it, I get it. So?”
“I’m also part of you. An aspect of your personality. Of course, I’m psychologically stable enough to accept I am only one part—a powerful part, but only a part—of your personality gestalt.”
“Well, isn’t that nice? I’m glad someone in here isn’t crazy.”
“Indeed. But my message is this. Are you sure you want to kill Johann?”
“Yes.”
“You know,” my better self said, “the Fabulous Four—to say nothing of little Olivia—would not approve of your quest. They would not want you to kill him on their behalf.”
“I figured that out for myself,” I told him. “I’m not doing it for them. Wherever they are, I hope they’re having a wonderful afterlife. I, on the other hand, have plenty of reasons to kill Johann.”
“Name three.”
“He used me to kill children. Argue with that.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“He used me to open nexuses for his relatives.”
“I see a pattern developing. Is this about what he tricked you into doing, or about the fact he used you?”
“You have a distinct point, and I acknowledge it. However, you haven’t heard my third reason.”
“My apologies. Do continue.”
“He keeps trying to kill me.”
“Is that his fault, or the fault of the Evil Orb?”
I could feel my jaw tighten and my eyes narrow.
“You’re trying to tell me I shouldn’t kill him?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. He certainly deserves to die.”
“So?”
“I merely want to make sure you’ve thought it through. Emotionally, there is no great deal of difference between murdering a man because it’s politically expedient and plotting the bloody assassination of a wizard-king you helped create.”
“Says you. Now back down the steps.”
“I merely wish to add—”
I swung. He ducked, but Firebrand belched a cloud of flame in his face. He rolled backward down the stairs and I kicked the trapdoor closed. A moment later, I had it latched and bolted.
When I tried to delete it, to roll the floor over it and make it go away, it still didn’t budge. I sat on the hatch and tried not to think about what it all meant.
Boss?
“What is it, Firebrand?”
Did we just try to kill your conscience?
“Part of it, maybe.”
What does that mean?
“Oddly enough, I’m trying not to think about it.”
Oh? What are you trying to think about?
“I’m visualizing a successful murder.”
Why do you call it that? We’re killing an evil wizard, right? Isn’t that one of the things you do?
“It’s a motivation thing. My idealized demon is at least partly correct. I’m not doing this because I’m defending myself or others. I’m doing this because he hurt me, and this is my vengeance. I’ve plotted and planned and worked to bring about a situation where I can kill a man. This is premeditated, with malice aforethought, and I don’t care. I want to kill him, I intend to kill him, and I’m going to kill him.”
Okay by me. Let me know how that works out for you.
“I’ll try.”
Saturday, February 20th
In every enterprise of note, there is a moment. The moment is a timeless thing, stretching infinitely outward, wherein one stands, poised, upon the precipice. In this sliver of time, this universe of unrealized possibility, cast over everything is the shadow of doubt. It may be a black curtain, concealing everything, or a thin, grey mist, obscuring only the most distant and trivial of details, but it is the uncertainty of the enterprise, the free will of the universe, expressed in this moment of decision. To make the decision, to choose, is to defy all doubt, to step from the edge of the precipice, to launch oneself irrevocably upon a course uncertain, eyes cast forward to the goal. To look back is useless, for the past has no bearing, no power, not even—for the moment—any value. There is only the future, rushing nearer, and oneself, rushing to meet it.
Standing on the deck of the Silver Princess, I looked at the soap-bubble dome and the seething, prismatic distortion of things beyond. To raise my hand and invoke a minor power would be a simple thing, yet it would set in motion powers to shake the world.
Is this a choice? Is this where I make my decision? How hard have I worked to get here? What have I risked to bring about this moment?
I could turn away now. I could turn my back on this enterprise, walk into a distant universe and hide. Knowing what I know now, he would never find me. I could sit in my quiet home, read books, meditate on the ways of life, death, undead, blood, and magic. I could recall the time I had the means, motive, and opportunity to murder a man deserving of it, and feel good about myself for resisting the urge to do so.
Do we have free will if the choice is already made? Is it still a choice if you have always known the answer? Do I really have a choice? Or is there a destiny that shapes our ends? Free will or fate? Johann set me in motion. Am I already a soulless thing, acting like a wind-up toy, a rough-hewn simulation of the man I once was?
Either way, does it matter?
Johann had to die, and I was the one to kill him.
I went below as the sun began to set and the tingling turned to stinging. I waited it out in the master bedroom, gestured myself clean with my left hand, and went back up on deck. The sky was still light enough in the west to hurt my eyes with the remnants of sunset, but the visor of the helmet cut the glare enough for me to see.
I turned my back on the sunset, concentrated on a nexus far to the east, raised both hands to launch my spell, and the deadly dance began.
I felt the crackle of magical energy before I saw it. The spell arced through the air like a comet come to end the world. It shivered through the sky above me, passed above the domes, and detonated, all in the blink of an eye. T
he world rippled like a disturbed reflection. Johann’s dome didn’t quite go down, but I saw the way the spell flexed and cracked. Had it been a physical structure, pieces would have fallen off. As it was, the energy from his nexus blazed through the fissures for a moment before the spell structure absorbed it. The cracks closed, sealing themselves as the power flowed into the dome, shoring it up, reinforcing it.
Good.
In a few seconds, the dome was almost back to full strength, but the second disruption bomb dropped. This one was slightly stronger, as per the program. I sat on my skycycle and watched as the dome cracked again, much worse than before. It splintered, almost shattered, with lines shooting through it like empty lightning. Power continued to flow upward, filling in the cracks and gluing the whole thing back together, but not fast enough.
The third disruption attack hit. For just a moment, a bare instant before it did, I saw a sudden surge of force into the dome. Johann, rather than relying on some automatic spell to pump energy into his protective bubble, actively took a hand in reinforcing it. Thus, the third attack, while it cracked the dome again, still didn’t take it down.
I, on the other hand, had lines of power in both hands, readied, prepared, poised. I raised both hands in a scooping motion, like a conductor urging the whole orchestra into a fortissimo blast.
I spent so long tapping so many nexus points. Now all that preparation and work showed its worth.
Everything activated at once. Disruption spells streaked above each dome’s center, directly over each nexus, striking downward like a rain of meteors. The rapid-fire thunder was less than material, of course, invisible to the untrained eye. Yet, such was the power involved that crew members on deck whipped around to stare, confused about why. But they watched with me as the domes shattered under the onslaught, disintegrating into glassy shards of energy, dissolving as they fell.
The blasts continued, staggered, each nexus of mine firing when it had enough of a charge, spacing out the pummeling into a series of hits instead of volleys. Blasts of disruptive force shot down into the now-visible fountains of nexus energy, scattering them, striking the ground, blowing outward like rolling thunder. Wave fronts of spell-scrambling energies expanded, intersected, overlapped, heaved up and smashed down. This process would continue indefinitely if I didn’t shut it off. Good luck to anyone trying to concentrate in the thick of it, much less assemble and coordinate energy into a spell.
I gave the skycycle full throttle and shot toward the naked coast.
If I was right, Johann was standing on his nexus. Since he teleported so easily and often, when the attacks hit, he should have bounced to the thing, stood in the geyser of power, and defended his domain. Now, though, he should have all the power he could shake a stick at… and be unable to do anything. Assembling a spell requires power—which he had—but also requires a relatively stable environment to build it. This is the default for most environments—Karvalen, New York, the bottom of the ocean floor. But standing in the middle of ongoing magical carpet-bombing is not stable. Even concentrating enough to build a basic energy-guide should be beyond him, or anyone.
I felt it while I was still over the ocean. It was like feeling the rumble of thunder, only on a spiritual level. Even my tendrils could feel it. I tried using them to lift the skycycle—who knows? It might work! —and shove it forward even faster. The magical disruption attacks, though, were a rapid-fire hammering that made my tendrils sting. This grew steadily worse as I approached the shore. I noticed, in passing, a brief pain in my left hand and the resulting regeneration, followed by a short, sharp crackle from my armored underwear as it lost its enchantment. Well, I expected this, only not so soon. I still had a few hundred miles to go. I even had to let go with my tendrils and withdraw them into myself as the pain grew excruciating.
It's vaguely possible I might have overdone it by just a smidge. Not that I’m complaining—there is no kill like overkill. I would rather err on the side of caution. But I might have been the least little bit off in my calculations.
I spent the entire trip crouched as low as I could get, urging the skycycle to its top speed at surface-skimming heights. First over the ocean, then at treetop height over land. The GPS system already had the nexus coordinates in it and a minimum-distance path in my augmented-reality visor. All I had to do was stick to the path and hope Johann didn’t wander off on foot. I didn’t actually need the GPS guidance; the geyser of power at each open nexus was like a searchlight spearing the nighttime sky. No, more like actual fountains, actually. They sprayed power upward and it was bashed about, scattered back and forth, like a fountain of water in a storm.
The terrain below me was a mess. I spared it the occasional glance by vamp-o-vision and the waning moonlight.
Whatever changes Johann and Family wreaked on their domain, everything was coming undone. Magical creatures—miniature dragons, pony-sized unicorns, butterfly-winged fairies—were lying on the ground. Some were twitching, some were not. Less magical creatures were staggering under the constant barrage or curled up in some sheltered spot to scream. Mundane creatures—that is, creatures which did not require magic to survive—coped best, but even they were struggling with the continuous stream of unfamiliar psychic input. Imagine being aware of a ghost screaming at you, but having no idea what’s going on. No sound reaches your ears, no sign of a ghost is visible. Yet, something screams in your ears—or between them—and you’re as aware of it as if someone were actually screaming, and it’s just as impossible to ignore.
I heard it and felt it, but I had the advantage of knowing exactly what it was. This did not make it pleasant.
I flew over melting landscapes and crumbling constructs, the remnants of semi-real conjurations. Labyrinths of roses, towers of porcelain, lakes of polished glass, all were coming apart as their magical structure crumbled. A kingdom all in pieces, melting or shattering even as I flew above it all.
It seemed to take all night, but my skycycle’s clock told me it was less than two hours before my destination came into sight. It was a wasteland of crushed vegetation, golden stone, and multicolored glass, all of it melting like ice. In the center of it all was a fountain of light that cast no shadows, visible only to eyes attuned to such things. In the heart of it, the figure of a man burned brightly, angrily, jerking and twisting with each thunderclap of power, struggling mightily against energies vaster far than his own.
How’s it feel, Johann, old buddy, to be on the other end of the stick?
I brought the cycle in for a landing. I could see him glare at me, his teeth clenched as he struggled to raise his head. It had to be like being in a magical hailstorm, constantly and relentlessly pounded from above. I felt it myself, almost like physical blows. I had to lean forward slightly and place my feet carefully to keep my balance amid the continuous blasts.
We must have looked like a pair of drunks to mortal eyes. He was simply some guy on his knees, leaning forward on both hands, trying not to throw up. I didn’t stagger, but I walked with exaggerated care toward him.
On a more subtle level, we were both in a storm of energies. He was in the heart of the nexus, centered in the eruption of power, unwilling or unable to move from it while the spell-shattering bombs burst over us. I slogged through the buffeting, braced against the effects and trying not to grunt at each detonation.
At last, I stopped and swayed at the edge of the open nexus, looked into the blazing heart of it. He snarled at me, hating me, hating being on his knees while I stood before him. For me, this was weeks, months of work, of planning, of patience, of holding on to the urge to kill, holding out against the urge to kill. It all came down to this moment, and right or wrong, moral, ethical, good, or otherwise, I found I could savor it, even in the midst of the storm.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” I told him, and my voice sounded strange. I could hear it with my ears in the silence, even through the psychic thunders cascading over us. “How’s it feel to be the
one on your knees?” He didn’t answer, but his glare intensified. It was a good glare, full of hate and walking arm in arm with its cousin, fear.
“As a formality,” I continued, into the thundering silences all around us, “do you want to give me my ball back? I could be persuaded to mercy,” I lied. I think he knew it.
“Go… to… hell,” he replied, gasping out each word. He surged up from his bent-over position and gestured at me with both hands, hurling raw energy at me. He intended it to be a blast of power, a tight beam of energy, but the continuous barrage around us scattered it, reduced it to a spray, a foam. It was like being hit with an ocean wave, not a wall. I braced against it and kept my feet. His face screwed up in a snarl of terror, like a cornered animal.
“You first,” I replied. I sprang, leaping with all my strength into the current of power. The wash of energy over and through me was a different sort of pain, somewhat similar to biting a fake goddess of fire. I hit Johann hard and fast, all five hundred pounds of me, but it wasn’t meant to hurt him. I meant to grab him, but his body was charged in the fountain of power. Contact with him gave me a nasty shock, akin to hugging a live wire. Still, I hit him pretty much dead center. The impact and my velocity sent up both tumbling almost out of the nexus. Close enough for my purposes, because I laid a hand on him—laid claws into the meat and bone of him—and finished rolling out of the area.
He screamed as we left the bath of energies. It must have partly shielded him from the effects of my ongoing assault. He convulsed and shuddered under the psychic hammering, the equivalent of being pinned down and punched across the face, left-right-left-right, without letup or relief
I loved his scream. It was a beautiful sound.
It took me a few seconds to recover from the trip through the nexus point’s energies. I kept my grip on Johann, though, while he struggled and screamed and tried to scramble back into the nexus. When I shook off the aftereffects, I made him scream again, and again, by folding his knees and elbows the wrong way, one at a time. I did it slowly, so he could feel the tendons pop and the bones grind in each and every one of them.