Anchor Knight

by Nathan Thompson

  As far as I knew, the shadows could manifest inches away, and there would be absolutely nothing I could do to harm them.

  That thought made my mind recall Grandmother Mara's most recent words, and itch in irritation. But I dismissed the thought, because I heard banging echo out again, in the distance.

  It sounded much closer, possibly even in the hallway beyond the hastily-sealed door. I wondered what I should do about it, and also whether said monsters would attack in tandem with the maddened shadows.

  Doownnnn herrrrrrre, a familiar menace whispered in my mind.

  The banging stopped immediately.

  She'sssss downnnnn herrrrrre, another whisper said.

  The door in the distance suddenly shuddered, and the walls and floor of the chamber creaked like boards in an old house. One of the dead jotun's scrap metal clubs shifted on the floor, as if the wind had somehow pushed it.

  Then the remaining lights all flickered, some eventually sputtering out.

  Yesssssssss, another whisper hissed in relish. Downnnn herrrrrrrre.

  I remained perfectly still.

  But I was angry.

  Not afraid.

  Because I still felt Vessa's tears across my chest.

  They did not appear before me like in the past. Instead, as the scant lighting flickered again, I heard sniffing move across the floor, as if an invisible Earth hound was looking for garbage. I heard deeper, rougher sniffing noises roll across one of the walls.

  "Sheeee'sssss nearrrrrrrrr," the whisper on the floor said, and these I heard with my ears instead of my mind. "Smellllll herrrrrr."

  My hands dug back into my weapon, and my back vented more atmosphere.

  "Yessss," a rough voice whispered near the walls. "Yessss-yes! Yes-yes-yes-WAIT! WAIT-WAIT-WAIT!"

  The sniffing and other whispers paused. The rough voice began shouting.

  "HERE-HERE!" it shouted, and now I was certain this voice belonged to the ape-like shadow I had seen before. "HERE-HERE-HE-IS-HERE! HE-IS-DEAD-BUT-HE-IS-HERE!"

  "Dead?" the voice on the floor whispered. "Where? Let me have his corpssssse."

  "NoT DeAD," the warbling voice chittered high on the ceiling over my head. "ThE lItTLe THieF iS AliVe!"

  "Liesss," the hissing voice on the floor whispered. "He cannot sssstill be alive. He broke hisss ssssoul. He issss gone for good."

  "HE-IS-NOT-DEAD!" the apeman shouted. "HE-IS-HERE-HIS-SCENT-IS-HERE-HE-SHOULD-NOT-BE-HERE-SHE-IS-OURS!"

  I bared my teeth. Vessa's tears began to feel hot against my chest.

  This was getting ridiculous. They could sense and smell me, but not notice me sitting a few feet from the back wall, while wearing a jacket covered in bright-silver plates, and with a white undershirt visible underneath it?

  One of them should have addressed me directly by now, but instead the shadows continued sniffing across the walls, floor, and ceiling, in the warbling voice's case.

  Even more notable was the fact that they sounded afraid of me. I made myself stay perfectly still, and wait in case I was mistaken.

  "FIND-HIM-WE-MUST-FIND-HIM-BEFORE-HE-FINDS-US!"

  The angry one's outburst confirmed my recent wild thought. I blinked and waited for their next action.

  "No!" the voice on the floor hissed. "Do not find him! Let usss jussst take what we need and go! We are here for her, not him!"

  "WE-MUST-KILL-WE-MUST-KILL-HIM-SOON-OR-ELSE!" the ape shadow said.

  "Do not provoke him!" the hissing voice argued. "Do you not remember? He wasss already unafraid of hissss own death!"

  "He sCaReD uS!" the warbling voice chittered above me, and on the floor I saw tendriled shadows dance. "MaKe HIm gO aWAY!"

  That was right, I reminded myself again, and this time the knowledge landed somewhere in my mind and stuck.

  They had run from me.

  Not the other way around.

  "HE-IS-THERE-HE-IS-THERE-HE-IS-RIGHT-THERE!" the bloody ape voice shouted, and I thought I saw a many-armed shadow point at me from one of the walls.

  "Leave him!" the hissing voice said, and I finally got a glimpse of its shadow, something hunched like a spider, but with only four legs, and a vaguely human-shaped head. It was on the floor, hunching away from me, and trying to skitter around me.

  Since they could clearly see me, I saw no point in remaining silent. I leaned on my spear and rose to my feet slowly, surprised over the lack of shaking and trembling I was currently doing.

  "Maddened seniors," I began as respectfully as I could. My mother's ghost was reminding me to always be polite, whether or not the other party was worthy of it. "You have forgotten something. You said you would make me pay the next time we would meet. Now that we are here," I continued, holding my spear out in front of me, "did you perhaps bring me an invoice?"

  "YOU-DARE-TAUNT-US!" the shadow that never failed to shout exclaimed. I felt him project a pressure at my mind, like a fierce wind was blowing against it. "IT-IS-TIME-YOU-LEARNED-THAT-WE-ARE—"

  "JoKInG!" the warbling voice chitter-garbled over my head. "We wERe jOKinG! We aRe YOuR fRiendS anD wE LoVe you!"

  "Pay them no heed," the man-spider said from the floor. "You know what we are here for. You know you can't protect her forever. You know much of her hassss already been losst. Jusst let her go, and leave. We can all leave here, then."

  The humming in the room intensified. Vessa was closer to bringing the place back online.

  She was probably also swallowing her tears, because she did not have time to think of the gruesome deaths that her friends and family had suffered on her behalf, friends and family that her abused mind had not even been able to remember until just now, so the full force of their deaths was hitting her all at once.

  She was behind me. These three fiend-freaks, who had put seas of grief into each of her eyes, were in front of me.

  I was not stupid. It was not hard to guess that these beings were among her earliest of attackers, probably even foes she battled that came from the edges of the night sky.

  "He doess not anssswer," the spider-voice hissed, sounding confused.

  "Is hE cRyInG AgAIN?" the chittering voice asked.

  "IS-HE-STUPID?" the apeman asked.

  "No," the floor-shadow said, "He iss not. I do not undersstand."

  That was fine.

  I did not need them to.

  "FIGHT?" the angry voice asked. "DOES-HE-WISH-TO-FIGHT-FIGHT?"

  "He cannot," the spider-thing hissed. "He isss but dust, and we are beingsss beyond hiss night sssky."

  I grinned, and their black heads tilted on their surfaces as they tried to read my expression.

  "Dust," I said, "corrodes the most advanced of weapons, brightens rainbows when it passes through them, enriches plant life, and can kill, if it finds its way inside the right place of a living thing. You are welcome to think what you wish of dust, maddened seniors. But I will now educate you of the power a single speck can possess."

  The inside of my Soulscape was still sealed to me, but I spun it faster, and began to Draw.

  "HE-DOES-IT-AGAIN!" the ape-voice shouted. "HE-LIGHTS-THE-FUSE-ON-HIS-OWN-SOUL!"

  "WhAt? WhY?" the warbling insect-shadow screeched. "HOw? HoW doeS hE KnoW!"

  "He iss not detonating," the spider shadow said as it cocked its head. "He iss merely posssturing. He wisshes us to believe he can make war."

  Source energy poured into me, and for the third time, my Soulscape spoke.

  Intentions acknowledged, the planet said in my mind. Activating protocol Apocalypse Denied, using newly unlocked subroutine Battle the Endless Dark. Preparing subject for battle against nearby false kings.

  The cracked mosaic of my essence let out a whistling noise, as if it were moaning. One of the gray mists orbiting my coppery ore of mana suddenly glowed orange. The pool of qi in my body rippled.

  Faster than should have been possible, I began to enter the first substage of all my Source energies.

  "HE-DOES!" the brute shadow shouted. "HE-DOES-MAKE-WAR!"
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br />   "DoN'T dO it!" the insect shadow warbled. "We aRe pOweRfuL anD DanGerOus aND LOve yoU!"

  "He thinkss we cannot harm him," the spider shadow said, as it crawled backwards toward one of the floor-barricades, and used it to loom larger at me. "I undersssstand. Hisss mind is unsssound now, sssso he may talk to us and not break. He isss arrogant. Becausse he doess not know us."

  "I do know you, maddened senior," I replied, as I felt my essence moan again, louder this time. "You call yourself lofty, unknowable, and untouchable. You call the knowledge of those beneath you lacking, and insist they do your bidding. Yet when you must finally enforce your will, you first wait for the cover of night and for your victims to be completely defenseless before you dare take what you want. I do not know where beyond the night sky you came from, but you have come a long way just to gain the name of 'false king.'"

  It was this truth that released me from the last echoes of my old fear over these creatures. Because, for all of their nightmarish forms, unnatural voices, and alien anatomy, their behavior was no different than the fragile-throned tyrants of my own world.

  These things were not aliens. They were frightened old men that had chosen to wear shadows, chitin, and fangs.

  "It ssseems we will eat you after all, little thief," the spider shadow hissed, raising its front legs. "It isss true we cannot touch you here, but you are misstaken if you think you are beyond our power." The front legs split, with two halves descending back down, and the other two reaching upward, with claw-like digits at the end. "Awaken, new sonssss. Ssslaughter the little thief, and find the meal he hasss hid."

  An invisible, alien power rolled out from the shadow, one that vaguely reminded me of the massive deathbeast on Techne. A moment later, it had taken the shape of a purple, red-veined cloud that rolled toward the corpses of eaterlings and sott-jotun in the room. As the cloud passed over, the red veins extended downward into the bodies and began pulsing.

  The dead bodies jerked, twisted, and started to rise, limbs and torsos distending unnaturally, as if they were stringed puppets. The dead jotun's arms lengthened even further as they reached for their clubs.

  Then the giants all flashed with golden or silver light, depending on whether Nova or I had killed them, and crumpled back to the floor.

  The spidery shadow hissed in surprise as its most powerful minions inexplicably died, and I recalled that my blows had flashed with silver light whenever I struck the jotun.

  "Grandmother," I whispered under my breath to the being that had seen the last war with these creatures, and probably designed our weapons and gear to hurt especially them. "If you could see that just now, I hope it gave you joy."

  Then, as the dead eaterlings continued to animate, my Soulscape glowed bright inside me, and began venting atmosphere from my chest.

  A coppery-colored wisp suddenly plumed over my mana ore, and attached itself to one of the tin wisps floating around it. My qi pool rippled again, and this time it gained more depth.

  I had completely Advanced past the entrance point and fully into the first new substage of each of my Source energies.

  The spider shadow hissed again, and the dead eaterlings began to lumber towards me, bodies still reshaping right before my very eyes.

  As they did so, the ape shadow suddenly roared, and the tentacled insect on the ceiling began to warble.

  I felt pressure bear down on me. Pressure that my Soulscape pushed upward against, like a balloon full of helium pushing through fog. It scattered the next moment, and I saw the two nightmares on the wall and ceiling stumble backwards in shock.

  The mutating, undead eaterlings halted their march towards me as they came within range of my venting atmosphere. The spider shadow hissed and made a motion with one of its spindly hands, and the monsters continued forward.

  When they reached the special new atmosphere my Soulscape was venting, they collapsed like cut puppets, just as the sott-jotun did before.

  "Sssstubborn little thief," the necromantic spider spat. "Do you think you've won now?"

  I continued to Draw, my only answer to the monster's question. My Source energies all shuddered as they continued to increase, and this time my body could handle the intense growth. Ten stages, I reminded myself. They said I was eleven stages too early to defy them, and that was a stage ago. Ten more, and I can avenge the grief of the weeping woman behind me.

  The humming sound in the room grew louder. The emergency lights all flickered, and this time new ones came back on. The spider shadow jerked and let out an angry, wordless hiss. It reared back and waved two more legs across the barricade it rested on. I felt sensations sink into the room, like that of the ones I had felt earlier, only more hostile.

  "Ask yourssself how much death has already lurked through thiss place, little thief. Then realizzze the size of the throne you ssseek to pussh me off of."

  More grief. More anger flowed into the room. Lingering emotions of the things that had died violent deaths began to pool into the room.

  It was here that my fear had begun to return, bit by bit, wisp by wisp. Grandmother Mara had been unable to answer the question of ghosts, despite being a spirit herself. That very well might mean that I was about to fight a foe I was completely unprepared for.

  But as more hunger and hate floated into the room, a tide of rage gathered at my back, far thicker than any other presence in the room, including the shadow-tyrants.

  Desperate, protective affection.

  Grateful loyalty.

  And courage unspent by death itself.

  "Here…" a soft, strong voice said from behind my back. "She's… here."

  "She…lived," another voice rumbled, and a sense of deep relief washed out from it.

  "She… danger," a third said, coming closer, as if it was pushing its way forward. "Protect."

  "Protect," another deep voice said, louder than the ones before it.

  "Protect!" several said in unison, and then it turned into a chant.

  "Protect! Protect! Protect!"

  "You cannot!" the death-shadow hissed. "You are eaten and dead!"

  "Protect!" the loud, strong voices said from behind me, moving closer as they spoke. I felt as if giant walking trees of emotion were pushing past me, shouting down all the haunting rage and hunger and shadows that chittered in the dark. "Protect! Protect! Protect!"

  The negative emotions diminished, as if they were engulfed by the tide of invisible giants. It felt like their number was far greater than that of the ghosts of Vessa's crewmembers, but the haunting ghosts were like thin plumes of smoky hate, and the jotun were towering thunderclouds of overprotective might. They battered apart the invisible hungry vestiges until they were completely driven off, and then I felt them concentrate around me.

  "New… crew?" one of the voices asked slowly, as if it was straining to make words.

  "Maybe," I answered with a shrug, still not clear on the actual definition of my role down here. "But I will protect her, whatever title she gives or doesn't give me."

  "Crew… then…" the invisible ghost decided, and I felt a rush of satisfaction wash out from it.

  "Love… her," another ghost spoke up, and I could not decide if it was a plea or a command.

  But the giant had used the English word for love, which meant he could be commanding me to care for Vessa in any number of ways, many of which were mutually exclusive to each other.

  "Yes, senior," I said instead, committing to the request without any reservations. "She is brave, precious, and beautiful. I will help her retake the night sky."

  More relief washed out. I felt as if I were a toddler, and a group of adults had suddenly crowded around me and began weeping tears of joy.

  "Mission…success," one of the invisible titans said. "Daughter is not… alone."

  "We… ascend now," another said. "Our time… done."

  "Your time…" another voice rumbled to me, "begins…"

  "Passing… torch," a deeper voice rumbled, soon repeated by the other
giants.

  "Passing… torch," the others said in agreement, and their clouds of emotion and purpose began to dissipate, some of it drifting off to somewhere I could not perceive.

  But the rest of it drifting into me, as Source energy.

  I had not even noticed before. But as the remnants of ghostly emotions drifted into my form, it became essence to coat my bones, mana to float through my nerves, and qi to flow through my blood. Finally, some of it settled into me as a dense ball, the way the powers of Sourcebeasts did after I slew them.

  Each giant had given less than a thumbnail-sized piece of themselves, and their gift should have been diminished on account of the fact that I hadn't even slain the giants myself. Yet each piece was still denser than the entirety of the ball I had received from helping kill the cage-drake back on Earth, thick with emotion, determination, and raw power.

  I had no idea how strong these jotun loyal to Vessa had been, but if they had all been near immortality, Vessa's ship would have never been overrun. Yet these fragments seemed almost identical to how Grandmother Mara's part-soul felt, but only for a moment. Beyond that moment, even as they were being absorbed by me, they became something else, something more perfect and eternal.

  My mosaic let out another roar. Another coppery wisp linked with a tin one. My pool of qi deepened into its lake.

  Beyond even that, I felt my muscles and bones suddenly undergo a change. They seemed to condense, surge with power, and then stretch. I felt rocks and metal and fire and frost and finally lightning empower them, as if they were now batteries fully charged with elemental power.

  That was right, I remembered. Giants in many legends were either corrupt monsters or mighty beings that took on the elemental power of their environment. These creatures were not like the weaker, corrupted sott-jotun Nova and I had just overpowered. They were several categories beyond, and now that they were finally passing on they became something even greater, even the thin vestiges of themselves that they were granting me. This power in my bones and muscles felt timeless, as if tiny flecks of immortality had become my constitution and physical strength.