Her eyes and thoughts betrayed her yet again; she’d judged him morally inferior, for she would certainly never allow a tragedy to occur if she could prevent it, regardless of any consequences. But he’d seen enough of Genevieve’s thoughts and heard enough of her opinions to know that she’d change her mind in an instant if any action or inaction on his part would save her daughter’s life.
His father had untethered the boat and floated aboard—“Wow, he can do that now?” Genevieve exclaimed—and they watched as the Energy-propelled boat hurtled toward its destination without the aid of the missing oars. They followed him above, invisibly as before, and watched as he circled around to approach Eden on the northern edge near the caves.
His father wasn’t launching a stealth attack. They’d all see him coming. He wanted them to see him coming.
The residents of the island spotted the boat, watching as it hurtled toward their land with what must seem an impossible speed. Adam parked the time machine above the beach to the eastern side of the caves, low enough that they could watch everything unfold.
Additional residents spilled forth from the caves as a general nervousness enveloped the population. More residents came, drawn by a summons neither Adam nor Genevieve had heard.
It didn’t take long until everyone stood on the beach, behind the protective stone statues, waiting until the strange visitor reached them.
Adam detonated an Energy Eater inside the time machine, wrapped them in invisible nanoskeletons, and opened the top of the time machine, ensuring that they could listen in as the events unfolded below.
It took everything he had to avoid yelling at everyone gathered on the beach, telling them they should run now if they wanted to live.
But as Genevieve now knew, he wouldn’t do anything to change recorded history, no matter how awful.
~~~42~~~
1019 A.D.
They could see the apprehension growing on the faces of the assembled island residents, a sense that grew stronger when the resident jumped from the boat and swam toward the shore. The boat drifted toward shore behind him, trailing in his wake. The residents looked at each other, unsure what to do, uncertain what this strange event might mean.
“Stranger! Identify yourself!” Cain’s voice rang with confidence and authority. And for a brief instant, the residents relaxed. That was the cause of their angst. They didn’t know who the strange man might be, and because of that couldn’t know his intentions. If he’d just shouted a greeting, all would be well.
The stranger stood in the shallow water and walked toward the beach. Adam could feel his father’s seething anger, could feel his need for revenge and justice without understanding the two weren’t the same.
Abel, standing near his older brother, suddenly paled. “It’s him,” he whispered. “The Nameless One. He’s returned from the Hell to which we sent him.”
“That’s not possible,” Cain snapped. “There is no chance he survived.” A smirk lined his face. “And if he did, by some miracle, he wouldn’t be so foolish as to return yet again. There would be no mercy this time.”
“Abel is correct.” The Adam’s voice had turned raspy, old age catching up to his speaking voice and limiting its power. “The Nameless One returns. Curiously, I was previously assured he was dead, without doubt.” His words, though delivered in a weaker voice, carried an unmistakable menace, an accusation that they’d failed him at best, lied to him at worst, about the death of the man who now walked toward them, very much alive.
“He carries your blood, father,” Cain replied, his voice steady against the accusatory tone. Abel, for his part, retreated into the shadows. “He is far tougher than a normal man.”
“And that is why it was necessary that you ensure he died on that boat, that there must be no doubt he would die alone and away from this land. You failed to do the job assigned you.” The old man pointed. “Do you see it in his eyes? The evil lives in him. He returns for revenge, and has come to destroy us all… because you failed.”
Adam felt Genevieve look his way, and risked looking in her direction. “He means to… to slaughter them?”
Adam turned away, unable to look at her.
His father reached shore and moved through the crowds, which parted, fearful of the intensity of his malevolent gaze and predatory stride. He moved toward the Adam and the man’s oldest son, stopping only a few yards away. “Yield your title to me, Father.” There was nothing in his tone to suggest his words represented a request.
The Adam offered a laugh. “Threatening an old man, child of evil? You will not leave this island whole ever again.”
In the time machine, Adam winced at the words.
His father shrugged and reached for the sword strapped across his back. “My words aren’t threats. Nor are they requests. Step aside, or watch as your son dies before your eyes.”
“Which of the three?” the Adam whispered. The Nameless One, startled by the admission of parentage, briefly lowered his guard.
His scream pierced the silence.
Abel’s blade slashed through the skin of his back, leaving a wide gash from shoulder blade to hip bone. It wasn’t a deadly wound; Adam shot his healing nanos to his father to ensure he’d find his skin stitched together quickly. But his father wouldn’t stop for a mere deep gash torn across the skin and muscles of his back. He whirled to face his attacker, anger stoked to an even greater level of rage… and stopped.
Abel, who’d used the distraction to slip around behind his half-brother and launch the attack, wasn’t alone. The blood-slicked blade retreated closer to him, pressed now against the throat of a trembling older woman. Adam, seated in the time machine, sent a thin sheet of nanos toward her, letting them lay weightlessly across the woman’s upper torso.
“Momma?” the Nameless One whispered, once more lowering his guard, ignoring her eyes as they cried out a warning.
A warning he missed. Cain’s left arm wrapped around the Nameless One’s shoulders, his right was used to press his own blade against his half-brother’s throat.
The Adam shuffled from his perch, ambling with the gait of an elderly man, until he stood between the four, his three sons and the mother of the child he never wanted. “I asked you which of the three will die, did I not?” He slid closer to his youngest son, eyes angry and unblinking, a cruel smile upon his lips. “I will let you watch your mother die first, devil, so that you may briefly experience the deep pain of your crime of existence. Then you will die by the same sword. And we will not make a mistake this time, leaving you just enough life to return to us again.”
Genevieve gripped Adam’s arm. “Do something,” she whispered. “Don’t let him die.”
Adam shook his head. “He doesn’t need my help.” He took a deep breath. “Not yet.”
Below them, his father turned his head carefully toward the Adam. “If you spill a drop of her blood, I swear to you: every person on this island will die. And you will be the last to die.”
Laughter greeted his pronouncement… laughter tinged with nervousness.
Abel sneered at his half-brother. “I’ll take my chances.”
He ripped his sword through his captive’s throat.
Adam tried to ignore the tumult erupting below. He ordered the nanos on his grandmother’s dress to form invisibly around one of the streams of blood flowing from the gorge torn across her throat, then let it float above the fray.
It was the blood he’d give his father, the clean blood of the parent he loved, the blood that would allow his father to overcome morange.
Genevieve sat rigid beside him, transfixed by the horror below. Adam allowed himself to focus once more.
His father’s rage erupted, the heat of his Energy melting Cain’s sword into a useless blob of metal. As Cain stared, the Nameless One spun around and buried his sword in his half-brother’s chest. Cain’s eyes went blank, and he reached death before he hit the ground. He ran to his mother, ignoring the fleeing Abel, and tried to figure out how
the magic that melted swords could heal the wound in her neck, all while knowing his efforts were futile. He lifted her body and looked down on her as the last light of life left her eyes.
He moved her, gently and lovingly, out of the wet sand of the tides to the dry sand a few feet away. None of the residents moved, so terrified were they of what he’d done to Cain. None of them tried to avail themselves of this brief period of mourning; no one tried to wound the man who’d announced his intention to slaughter them all.
His father rose, a lion stalking its prey, and ambled toward his father, eyes flashing bright as the Energy inside him swirled and demanded release to appease the great anger. He stopped close to his father and stared at the elderly man. The Adam jerked his head toward his youngest son, and the child flinched back. The Adam laughed at this, a taunting jeer. “Frightened of an old man, are you, you cowardly devil?”
His father shook his head. “Just remembering your earlier words, Father. You told me you’d make me watch my mother die before you’d kill me. I could kill you now. But that would be mercy you don’t deserve. Instead, you will be the one who watches all you love perish before you, and suffer in the knowledge that you could have stopped it without the loss of a single drop of blood.”
The old man spat at him.
Adam turned and moved away. The sword swished and flashed in his hand.
After the fifth victim, Genevieve leaned over the side of the time machine and vomited, the mess falling onto the beach below, where the scent of coppery blood would drown out the metallic tint of her stomach fluids. Adam closed his eyes, not daring to watch the massacre, letting the emotion of his father’s Energy tell the story. Genevieve grabbed his arm, leaned her face against his shoulder, let her tears flow, and her anguish temporarily blinded him to his father’s anger. She felt horror and shame at what he’d done, at what he’d become, and couldn’t help but wonder if her daughter had that same capability for destruction within her.
Arthur had turned Elizabeth into his slave, used her for his own enrichment and as a tool to accumulate power.
And he was the better role model.
~~~43~~~
1019 A.D.
Adam reflected about the life lessons his father taught him as a youngster. Love and respect others. Treat those who hurt you with kindness and compassion. Respect the power your Energy gifts provide and use them only to help, never to hurt.
He watched that same man take two hours to track down every resident of the island, from the smallest newborn to the oldest and most infirm. And he slaughtered every single one of them.
Genevieve cried until there were no tears left.
He’d lost whatever food had been in his stomach.
When the last fleeing islander met death, his father moved back to the beach. He tracked the Adam to the mouth of the largest cave, where the old man moved, perhaps thinking he’d escape death, perhaps wishing to remove himself from the sights and sounds and smells of death.
The Nameless One seized his father by his shirt front, lifted him from the ground, and walked back to the beach. When they reached the sand, he tossed the man to the ground like a rag doll. The Adam looked up at his only living child, hatred radiating from every cell of his being.
His father waved his hand around, gesturing at the island. “Look around, Father. I have fulfilled my promise. You killed my mother, and in return I have killed every single one of your people.” He leaned in. “And you got to see it all.”
The Adam looked at him, disgust etched into his curled lip. “You utter fool. There is no Adam now. The title you wanted is now meaningless by your hand, for you cannot lead people if there are no people to lead.” He shook his head and glared at his youngest. “You destroyed your chance to have what you wanted most. Now get off my island and let me die in peace, you evil bas—”
Adam’s sword plunged into the man’s chest, leaving the final pejorative forever buried in his throat. “I no longer want to lead this people,” he whispered. “I just want to own my name, and have it be free of any association with the likes of you.”
He walked back to the ocean and dipped the slaughtering blade into the salty water, letting the waves remove most of the ichor, slicked most of the dryer blood off with his fingers, then considered it clean enough. He looked as if he’d just woken from a restful sleep, barely breaking a sweat during his rampage, killing with ease those who’d easily bested him in a single combat just two years earlier. He looked upon his father as the man took his last raspy breath, then glanced around the island he now ruled alone.
The mental shift as he stared across his work was subtle at first, then exploded in its emotional impact. Even Genevieve, still so new to her Energy powers, felt the shift.
The Nameless One finally realized the truth of his father’s final words; that he’d destroyed what he’d wanted. That was a minor concern, quickly lost to the emotions of shame and deepest guilt. This was deeper than the guilt experienced in abandoning his daughter; he’d genuinely done that with the best interests of another as his motivation.
But not here.
He recognized the truth of his monstrous behavior, that he’d succumbed to a raw emotion welling deep inside him without once pausing to review his situation with some degree of rationality. He felt little remorse as he stared at the bodies of his brothers; they’d deserved their fate, earning a death sentence for the cruelty they’d inflicted on others, just as he’d told the stranger in the cloak.
But what of all the others? They followed orders. Many of them took no joy in carrying out earlier acts of malice demanded by the leaders of the village, acting solely out of fear for their own safety. They were cowards, but not evil people deserving of a death sentence.
He wondered why he lacked the control required to use a gift he’d been given, wondered if he deserved, not just the gift, but the life he still possessed. He wondered why he deserved to live when he’d slaughtered the innocent along with the guilty.
Genevieve looked at him. “Is he going to…?”
The raw emotion burst forth from the confused man below, uncontrolled Energy blasting out and turning to rubble the statues lining the beach, those mementoes to past Adams positioned to protect their people even in death. The chunks landed in piles along the beach in the area moistened by the eternal rise and fall of the tides.
Over the course of the next few centuries, those waves would smooth the piles out, then begin wearing down the large chunks into gravel sized bits. In a few thousand years, perhaps less, all that would remain of the massive statues would be a rockier sand than found around the rest of the island.
His father began pacing, confessing every flaw in his life, every mistake he could remember, his sword dangling loosely and ominously in his right hand. He shouted the words, shouted them so that even the dead might hear his confession.
Adam glanced at Genevieve. “Now it’s time for me to go to him. I’ll be back.”
Genevieve, too emotionally spent to argue, simply nodded and waved him away.
He grabbed the tubes of blood he’d collected earlier and reformed the cloak and boots outfit he’d used twice before. Then he floated out of the time machine, not bothering to mask his Energy usage. His father, still shouting at the sky to the south, didn’t sense his presence until his boots touched down upon the sand. Then he whirled and saw the strange man in the cloak and stared. “You again?”
Adam nodded. “Me again. I sensed you were unwell and might need a friend.”
His father chuckled mirthlessly. “I’m afraid I’m beyond help.” He gestured around the island, a land now littered with the bodies of murder victims. “The power you helped me find? That’s what it did.”
“The power itself does nothing; it just exists.” Adam glanced around. “It acts only upon the request of one blessed with its presence. This is not the fault of the Energy inside you, but the emotion you cannot control, the emotion that consumes your entire being even now.”
His
father stared at him, then shook his head and sat down.
Adam sat next to him.
They remained there, silent for quite some time, before Adam broke the silence. “What will you do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“As I recall, you wished to return to exact revenge upon those who’d done you wrong. It appears that mission is done… or, more accurately, overdone. Unless I’m very much mistaken, the only two living people on this island are the two of us, and thus you have no reason to remain. So I ask you… what will you do now?”
His father thought for a moment. “I’ll return to my second home, to the people I left years ago to seek my vengeance. I’d never thought I’d return, but now?” He slotted the sword back in the sheath. “There’s nothing for me here now.”
Adam nodded. “I’m certain there are many in this second home you mention who can take advantage of your mistakes and learn the lessons you’ve not yet mastered.” He grimaced.
His father sighed and nodded. “I can think of several who would benefit. The berries you shared with me? They grow here, in a grove on the western side of the island that we avoided. I’ll collect them and take them with me. And I believe I saw the second plant growing plentifully throughout the countryside on my travels. I’ll gather those on my return so that I can help those who demonstrate the control necessary to manage this power to unlock the ability in themselves.”
Adam glanced at him. “You are thinking of people there. At least two that you care for deeply.” He frowned. “And at least one you fear may use this power to repeat what happened here today.”
His father nodded. “An intelligent woman I think of as family. A beautiful woman, one I wish I’d been fortunate to marry. She has a child, a beautiful girl with the most wondrous red tresses. And her father… the man who concerns me deeply. I do fear what he might do if he developed such power. But who am I to judge?” He shook his head. “I guess after my long time away that little girl will be a young woman. I hope for her sake that she takes after her mother, and inherits none of her father’s qualities.”
Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 20