Endless Online: Oblivion's Promise

by M. H. Johnson

  And he tried. With every iota of his being, he tried desperately to feel that kernel of indomitable will and spirit, a potency that touched the divine and would hold fast against any foe. He tried with all his might to push her back.

  And failed utterly.

  Every time.

  14

  The hour was either very late or exceedingly early when Val's eyes bolted open and he stumbled out of bed.

  That's when it all made sense.

  He quickly donned his armor, Psiblade, and forceshield before slipping out back, donning Shadowmind like a comforting cloak as he lost all sense of self, one with the darkness once more, feeling the clean line of his forms as his blade crackled, moving effortlessly, perfectly through the air.

  The sword moved where he willed it. Yet it was more than that. Its passage was like that of a storm. Inevitable. Destined. Like a painter's crimson strokes depicting a masterwork. It was already there. He was just uncovering it, every stroke revealing it, tearing down all uncertainty until the truth was laid bare.

  He allowed his flickering blade to fade, sheathing the hilt, gazing anew at the grip of his forceshield.

  He was in deep. He had rarely been deeper. Dreaming as much as he was awake, yet never had every second of every moment been filled with such crystal clarity, such hidden meaning. Brilliant Phoebe shining majestically overhead, the smell of roses and jasmine, or flowers just like them, permeating the air.

  He held his forceshield and just gazed at it for some time. He could move it with his muscles just fine. But how about with his mind?

  All attempts to will it forward resulted in stillness. Or a simple muscle twitch. It was only when he saw the shield not as an extension of his will or potency at all, ignoring all the bitterly taught lessons of nearly a week of grueling training that it finally begun to feel... right. Now with a practice blade in hand, he mimed the dance and flow of blade and shield. Two halves of a whole working harmoniously, in sync, as Val visualized desperate combat, striking and parrying as imaginary opponents lost balance or ground, feeling not fury so much as hot ice coursing through him. The inevitability of winter storms howling without surcease. A force of nature. Undeniable. His foes would fall as he dodged aside, parried, struck, and spun away. It was inevitable. It was fate. And he? Just an agent of the storm.

  When he stopped an endless time later, he felt his breathing ease, sinking completely into the darkness once more, fading to the gentle whispers of a wind sometimes felt, but never seen.

  He smiled in something too impersonal for satisfaction. Content, perhaps, to know that the force of a storm would always transcend a lone individual's. As it should be.

  And somehow, he was certain it would transcend Elise's as well.

  He would see.

  But even he understood its flaw. The entirety of why he had endured Elise's awful training, forgoing his own strengths in the hopes of mastering his one terrible weakness, hoping to overcome it. But such was not to be.

  No matter how fearsome, no matter how potent, there was always calm in the eye of the storm.

  And a man who could not accept his own weakness was a fool.

  A smart man found ways around his flaw.

  "Captain, I have a request."

  Sten blinked and frowned, rubbing still tired eyes. "Can it wait, Val? It's almost an hour before dawn."

  Val bowed by way of apology before making his request.

  Sten sighed. "I'm sorry, Val, but Elise feels you need to train, if anything, harder. And our timetable is already set. Two days from now we head out, so you have one last day to learn whatever she can teach."

  Val closed his eyes and shook his head. "All she can teach me is pain. And there is some merit in that, in learning how to endure." Sten frowned. Val raised his hand in apology and tried again. "Please, sir. At least let me train with Halvar for a few hours. Then? We can do it her way."

  Sten squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Please don't cause a rift between me and my beloved, Val. She's only pushing you because you have talents the rest of us lack, save her. We're nothing to the Highlords. But you and she? Equally vulnerable, if anyone catches wind of your ability to use Psiblade and forceshield, you will immediately become a target. A pawn to be claimed, or taken off the board. She, at least, can ward her mind."

  Val nodded. "Just give me a few hours with Halvar, Captain."

  Sten sighed. "I'll see what I can do, Val. No promises, though."

  Val bowed and headed back to the community kitchen, grabbing a quick bite of the compact rations Gregor prepared in bulk for them every day or so. It was like eating whole wheat bread filled with pieces of dried fruit and nuts. Not bad, but a bit boring, day after day. A glass of water and Val headed back out, meditating and waiting for the dawn.

  "Not one to let imminent doom curb your appetite for a good fight, am I right, boy?" A booming laugh filled the courtyard as a Halvar approached. Val opened his eyes, smiling at his friend.

  Halvar suddenly frowned. "You're looking a bit... intense today, Val. Are you sure you're up for this?" His gaze turned even more serious. "If you've had your limit, and we both know what we mean by that, you just tell me, kid. Sten will understand, and Elise will have to back down."

  "It's fine, Halvar. Everything's fine."

  Halvar tilted his head, cybernetic eye dilating ever so slightly. "You sure, kid?"

  "Damn sure."

  Halvar grinned. "Alright then," he said, throwing Val one of the practice longswords. "Show me that Elise's mind-fries haven't grilled your brain."

  In answer, Val blasted off his back foot, seizing the Vor, lightning fast Scheitelhau strike wrapping against Halvar's helm faster than the giant could blink.

  Not that Val could tell, purposely avoiding the larger man's gaze.

  A rumbling chuckle. "Fast, Val. Speed, I'll grant you. Come, boy, let's try that again.

  Val grinned and leaped forward once more, their blades whipping through the air in a dizzying series of cuts and counters before one or the other called a point and they leaped back, Val using every hard-fought skill he had learned with the blade, his sense of distance and timing only a hairsbreadth from perfection.

  And still, Halvar managed to blast past his defenses a number of times, for all that Val was firmly in the win.

  "Good match," a panting Halvar allowed after several hours of practice, Elise's eyes trying to bore holes in Val's head, but he paid it no more mind than the gentle sunlight warming the backyard. "But something seemed a bit... off? Different? About your style. You were fast, Val, always seizing the initiative, but, well, you didn't seem to be able to read me quite as well as you normally do." He shrugged. "To be fair, it was a bit tougher reading you as well."

  Val smiled. "Was I improving by the end?"

  Halvar frowned thoughtfully. "Just in the time we had sparred today? Was it your intent to measure the effectiveness or rate of growth in using some new technique? I could better quantize the answer if you had informed me beforehand but... yes. I think you were reading me a bit better by the end."

  Val nodded. "Good."

  "Are you ready, Val?" Elise's words echoed like the voice of doom. "You've wasted enough time with this foolishness. Your sparring is worthless. A Highlord could make a dozen soldiers drop if they dared move against him. Now get out of your armor, don your robe, and let's begin your lessons."

  Val swallowed, but turned towards Elise and bowed. "I don't suppose you'd like to give me a sporting chance? I'll tell you what. Let's have a rematch. If you can best me as easily as you had the first time, I'll be your monkey for another day."

  Purposely gazing low, clenched fists still let him know what she thought of that idea.

  "Move. Now."

  Sighing once for the pain no doubt in store, Val did just that.

  And was made to pay, in double, for every moment of frustration Elise had experienced gazing at a fight that meant absolutely nothing compared to the real training he h
ad to master. As she made clear with such exacting, exhausting precision that he was a shaking semi-conscious wreck by the time she was done.

  "It's hopeless, Sten." Elise's worried voice, washing over Val as his eyes sprung open.

  It was still dark, he was comfortably tucked in his bed, still wearing his white robe, having been too exhausted, nauseous, and disoriented to bother changing out of it the day before. As awful as he had felt, he was relieved that today only memories both horrid and triumphant remained to remind him of the trials just past. Physically, he was unharmed.

  For now.

  "Are you sure there's no other way?"

  "I've thought about it. All night, I've thought about it. Every day I had to deal with molding that frustratingly fragile brain of his into something capable of defending itself, I've thought of it. There is no other way. If we don't induce catatonia and keep him in that state until we get to our ship, there is no way we can get past the Psitective the Highlord keeps on constant starport surveillance. With only three starports on Jordia, the dreadnought can keep a surveillance at the chokepoints unlike anything seen on more industrialized worlds."

  "Though their focus is limited."

  "Yes. But any Highlord must have paperwork, and we all know each other by sight, but I can disguise mind and appearance readily enough. The Psitective will take his job very seriously, however. If one of the southern wizards is up to any sort of mischief, let alone attempting some sort of strike in the city beyond, it might be our only warning. Of course they have little interest in actively scanning hundreds of minds an hour, so it is not so bad for most smugglers, but he will be specially trained in sensing mana emissions, and if he picks up on Val at all, as much wizard as tragically flawed psionicist... it's over. We're as good as dead." She sighed. "I know it's not ideal, Sten, but it's the only way we can assure a safe departure."

  "I understand. I just hope Val can appreciate why it has to be this way. Once we successfully clear the port, our profits would be more than double Jordian's listed market value," Sten said. "We would be making many times what we would, dealing with the rogues who dare call themselves honest traders."

  Elise chuckled softly. "And they would probably sell it to Phoebe themselves, bit by bit, in specially outfitted ships, key inspectors already bribed quite handsomely to leave their designated carriers alone."

  "Which is why, save for meeting our obligations to a friend who helped us, we do this ourselves. Every step of the way," Sten said.

  "Then you know what we have to do. If there was one shining light in this week of folly, it's that I now have a solid measure of Val. If he is a construct, he is extremely stable. His resonance field should survive being plucked from this world, and Gregor concurs. He will survive the trip to Phoebe, Jordia's sister planet, just fine. We just need to induce a catatonic state, and our Val should have the least stressful voyage of any of us."

  Yet when they entered Val's room on quiet feet, Val was nowhere to be found.

  "Val?"

  Elise gave an involuntary cry as she was struck from behind, Sten's luck doing nothing to help him avoid the blow he felt a moment later.

  As soon as he sensed them approach, Val had already slipped through the window, fleeing into the vast darkness all around, embracing Shadowmind like never before.

  To think that his friends would really drug him, leaving him helpless before any foe, in the hopes that no one would see him as a threat, that he would give no tell.

  As much as he wanted to hate them, he understood. He knew that to their minds, he had failed them. Failed in becoming the thing they wanted him to be.

  It was time for him to show them the strength in his weakness. The advantages of having the barest spark of hot ego propelling him, when he could instead mute it entirely, becoming nothing but a terrible echo of his surroundings, the dark potency at the center of a killer's heart. Stalking without heat, a fury so cold it was ice. It was nothing at all. So no enemy in even the most inhospitable terrain could sense the hot eyes of the predator stalking them. They would sense nothing but the night.

  Even as it closed in for the kill.

  15

  "You're right, Elise. I'll never have that fierce self-intensity that is the core of a Highlord's power. I don't have the mind for it, and I never will," Val said from the shadows as Sten and Elise both slapped their necks, Val's touch having been a tingling caress, generating reflexive slaps. "Taking you head-on will only result in the most brutal retaliation, which I have no way to counter. Save in this. You cannot strike what you cannot sense. I am no fierce torch blazing in the darkness like you. Like every other Highlord, using your heat to burn away all resistance, all opposition. I am the darkness. I am the nothingness your eye does not see."

  "Enough of this!" Elise snapped, flipping on a light far gentler than the harsh fluorescence used on Earth. Still bright in its own way, Val quartered in what was conveniently the brightest room in the compound, not a shadow in sight. "Your trick may be useful in the dark of the caves, Val, and as furious as I am at your weakness, for your strength, I owe you my life. I know that. But if our enemies grab hold of your mind, we are dead! All of us, dead! Is that what you want?"

  Elise paused. Seeming slightly confused. "Val?"

  "Alright, Elise," Val said, eyes upon Sten's tight, bemused smile alone, "try to grab ahold of my mind."

  Elise gasped as if he had appeared out of thin air. "So help me Val, that's what we were doing for an entire weak! You're so brittle it's like stabbing a child! Do you really think I take pleasure in it?" She sighed. "Just cooperate, Val. This will all go a lot smoother."

  Val said nothing. He sensed Elise's growing irritation but did not turn to face her. And when the whip cracked, it met only air. The space all around them, the emptiness, was unharmed. It acknowledged the breeze alone, weaving forward only slightly even as Sten winced and stumbled back.

  "Sten!"

  The captain chuckled ruefully. "I'm fine, Elise. I just wasn't expecting you to catch me."

  Val could taste Elise's frown in the air. He could feel her presence, but his eyes were on Sten alone.

  "You shouldn't have. My control is exquisite."

  Sten flashed Val a sympathetic grimace. "Then I would hate to taste the full force of your blows. In fact, I think I would be on the ground if you did that. It does make me wonder, though, if perhaps Val isn't quite so weak or helpless as you thought."

  "Impossible!" Elise snapped. "Even a child could resist my blows if they but trained!"

  "Are you sure?" Sten asked, turning to face her, his eyes free of judgment.

  "Don't you ever question me, lover, not in this!" she shouted, and Val felt the Psionic assault roaring through him. Unchecked, unfiltered, all of Elise's pent-up frustration over the past week for the infuriating, arrogant, foolish charge she had been burdened with, unleashed in one terrible Psionic Blast.

  Sten groaned, crumpling to the ground. Val heard the sound of Gregor's abrupt shriek, then silence. Sudden cursing, Halvar crashing through the manor, as if dizzy and off balance, but ready for the worst.

  Val sensed all this with his Psi-Sense even as the sound and fury roared through him. Through him and past, as if he were nothing at all.

  Congratulations! You have achieved Rank 3 in Psi-Sense! When deep in the depths of Shadowmind, you can sense your surroundings, even when in bright light. (After all, it's what's on the inside that counts!)

  With a low cry, Elise stumbled over to Sten, sobbing, cradling his head.

  Wordlessly Val crouched, ignoring Elise's furious words, plucking free a restoration potion from storage, gently pouring some down Sten's throat.

  He had to concentrate to slip even that free of the deep state he had entered, part of him gazing at it all just as impartially as if he really were the essence of the manor all around them. Ever observing, yet utterly unaffected by the world around.

  "Elise! Val! Gregor's gone catatonic! What just happened?"

 
Elise gave a low cry, shaking her head, beyond words.

  "A misunderstanding." Val felt the words emanate from the air more than he sensed a corporal body saying it, yet Halvar heard it well enough, scowling even as he rubbed his head.

  "I've served as bodyguard to Highlords before, Elise. I was trained to endure a certain amount of punishment, but Gregor has not. You know better than to lash out, no matter how badly Val gets under your craw!"

  Elise bowed her head.

  Halvar turned to Val, still scowling. "And you! What the hell did you do to antagonize her this time, Val?" Halvar frowned, cybernetic eye whirring ever so slightly, as if fighting to keep him in focus. But Val had fully embraced Shadowmind once more, slipping back into shadows only he could see.

  "Ancestor's mercy, did Val manage to find a cloaking device? Is that how we're going to get past security? Will someone please tell me what the hell's going on?"

  But Val had already left.

  Congratulations! Stealth Rank 4 achieved! Synergistic use with Shadowmind! Your opponent's eyes glaze past that which is no more substantial than the night. You already know how to position yourself past people's line of sight, and your body has become adept at moving almost as quietly as the shadows you pretend to be.

  Gregor, groaning slightly. Spasming no longer, but that which was shadow saw him groaning with discomfort and exhaustion. A splash of restorative in the glass beside the injured man, already faintly bubbling as the mana condensates slowly gave themselves up to the electro-mana field once more, but the rate of loss was minute in the time it took for Gregor to blink in stupefied awareness, noting the glass, taking a cautious sip, then leaning back with a sigh.

  "Thank you Val, Elise, whoever. But don't you ever do that again," the gnomelike man murmured before falling softly asleep.

  Though feeling no need to speak, to be a part of the mad frenzy of the moment, the shadows had still stopped to watch Gregor drink the restorative, flowing away even as Halvar entered the room once more.