Black Warrior

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 22 – Resonance

  Winter started down the slope at a sprint. This was important information he had to get to his mother. Her life could depend on it. Behind him he heard Conscience cough and sputter, and follow behind him. He paid the bird no mind. He had to help save his people.

  As the terrain grew rougher his pace slowed. His people? Romitu he meant. His mother's people. What of his people? The Underwater? To a large degree Romitu was a patron of the Northern Seas. But it was by relation and never formally tested. He assumed what was good for Romitu was good for the Northern Seas. But would that always be so?

  He passed the remains of Othr's dilapidated house, walking. If Conscience was right, what of the people of The Black Hole itself? They had once been Othr's people. Were they now his along with the spear and the bird? Did he have a duty to them as well? The world seemed to close around Winter. Nothing seemed clear anymore.

  “You have come to a turning point”, said a voice.

  Winter realized he was not moving anymore. He stood at the bend in the road. Othr's house was directly behind and further back in the distance was the cairn on the peak of the island. He turned about slowly and, surprised at his lack of surprise, perched on a rock was a swan. Only, he was quite sure it wasn't a swan, but was Swan. The Grey Elf. One of those who created the world.

  Winter knew this was a rare honor. Very, very, seldom did anyone ever see a Grey Elf. And, in all but one occasion it was Swan. But seldom had the exchange seemed profitable. Often the nuances of the interchange had been discussed for years. And, now, Winter had some very difficult decisions to make. More than any other time he could really use some good, insightful advice. Just the sort that one of the creators of the world could give. But he had a sinking feeling that this would not be what came of it.

  “But what lies beyond the bend?” asked Winter.

  Swan smiled. “That depends on which way you turn.”

  “Which way would you turn?” asked Winter.

  “The wrong way”, said Swan, furrowing his brow. “That's the problem. Anytime we've come to this crossroads we've taken a bad turn.”

  “Then take a different one”, said Winter.

  Swan sighed sadly. Then he got up slowly. A long slim blade appeared in his hand. Winter found his spear in his own hands. Swan nodded at him exactly the same way as Coral, in the few formal fighting lessons Devonshire had arranged for him.

  Winter advanced, feinted, and thrust. As soon as he moved, Swan responded. But the Elf barely moved at all. Yet, somehow, Winter's blow completely missed him, to the extent that in his recovery Winter impaled himself on Swan's still blade. He felt it, although there was no pain, and no harm appeared to have been done.

  Swan nodded and Winter resumed his position. They closed again. This time Swan's blade went through his head. Next his throat, then his kidney. Even when Winter knew exactly what was going to happen, he couldn't seem to change his actions to anticipate what was going to happen.

  His temper was just beginning to flare when Swan let go of his sword, and both weapons vanished. “Do you see?” asked Swan sadly. “I made you. I know how you act. I know how you react. We made you the best we could. But, so far, that hasn't been good enough.”

  “What do you need us to do?” asked Winter, in frustration.

  Swan bent forward and looked him intently in his eyes. “To exceed us.”

  Winter scowled, and then cried “Gungande!” He lunged with the spear into Swan's torso. He felt the impact and saw Swan shudder.

  “That's the idea”, said Swan. The spear disappeared and his wounds closed.

  “You want me to break the rules?” asked Winter.

  Swan shrugged. “Water always flows downhill. You can't change that. But very smart people can design an aqueduct with dips and rises in it.”

  “But I don't even know the rules”, protested Winter.

  “I do”, said Swan. “It hasn't helped me. If you don't know the rules, you won't be limited by them.”

  “At least if you would tell me what the goal is!” said Winter.

  “I've tried”, said Swan.

  Winter considered. This was frustrating, but in a way similar to many conversations he remembered in his life. Either with far off Undersea creatures, or those of the land. Times when there had been an honest effort to communicate, but the gulf between their frames of reference was so vast as to make each other unintelligible. But he had worked through that with his history teacher, Charonia, and with Cindarina. He could work through that here.

  “Reincarnation. Resurrection”, said Winter. He guessed that his personal dilemma over whom he should owe loyalty was not something on the Grey Elf's radar. If there was an existential threat to his species, it had to be something more foundational. He couldn't think of anything more foundational than the argument over souls. Certainly that's what his mother thought. “Why first one, then the other? Why are there even two paths for souls to take?”

  Swan shook his finger at him. “It's not how anyone else does it. Kind of our own invention. It's possible we could be on completely the wrong track. But it really does seem like it would have a lot of merit. If we can ever bring our species to fruition.”

  Winter had no idea what any of that meant. But there was no point in trying to work it out. He had to find common ground. He tried a different track.

  “And not everyone had souls. Why do some have them, and others do not?” asked Winter.

  “We are not an assembled being. So everything we make has souls” said Swan.

  Closer, though Winter. “So who made the rest? The Underground and Underwater creatures?”

  “The others who have exiled themselves to this benighted world”, said Swan. “But they only made creations to commiserate them in their misery. Not to actually move them forward. They do not love their creations as we do.”

  “You love your people, so you gave them souls?” said Winter. He hit his chest with his fist. “I love my people too. Shall I give them souls too?”

  Swan blinked, and looked distant for a moment. “I don't even know if that would work”, he said. Then he smiled suddenly. “That's the idea!” he said happily. “I should think it would be hard to make it stick. But if it did. If it did. Well, that would certainly get some attention.” He tapped his fingers briskly.

  Winter grinned back. He had something. Or he thought he had something. He wasn't sure what, or what to do with it. But it was something. Then he remembered something else. Part of the lore that never had any good explanation.

  “Dragons”, he said. “What about the Dragons? Are they part of our creation? Or did they make their own creations.”

  Swan looked ambiguous. “Dragons are... well... Hmm.” He steepled his fingers. “The simplest explanation, although wildly incorrect, is that they've just kind of been following us around.”

  It was worth a try, thought Winter. But it's clearly tangential. He needed to get back to what they had been actually able to communicate around.

  “If we gave souls to the creations of others, would the ones that created them get upset?” asked Winter.

  “I doubt it”, said Swan. “I don't even think they would notice. They don't do much but mope anyway. They lost interest a long time ago.”

  “But you, you still have an interest in things”, asked Winter.

  “We started losing interest a couple thousand years in. Same ole, same old”, Swan shrugged. “But since we're still discrete, opinion varied and action didn't vanish. I've been interested the longest. Some of my friends, Diamond, Song, Gnome, and of course Rose... they're starting to pay attention again.”

  There were more Grey Elves in that one sentence than anyone had ever heard of. But Winter wasn't sure it was actually telling him anything.

  “So we have two thousand years left, right?” asked Winter. “To pull off whatever it is you think we need to.”

  “No”, said Swan. “You're going to have to get it together a lot sooner. If you
're going to be of any use against our enemies.”

  “Enemies?” said Winter. “I thought they had all lost interest.”

  “That's the other miscreants who ended up here”, said Swan. “How many stars do you see in the sky on a clear night?”

  Winter was confused by the question. “I don't know. I don't see the stars much. A couple hundred?”

  “Those are our enemies”, said Swan. “Although mostly they just think of us as a nuisance. We're aiming for a higher bar. If you can pull this off sooner rather than later, you'll save us fifteen or twenty thousand years.”

  This was becoming too much for Winter to process. The timescales this creature though of were way beyond him. His plans cascaded well outside of the world he knew. But he felt he was getting an inkling of motive. Perhaps some commonality between them.

  “I fight my enemies because I love my people”, said Winter, carefully. “Do you fight yours because you love your creations?”

  “It is more than that”, said Swan. “If you can surpass us, we will not matter anymore.”

  “Why? What will become of you?” asked Winter. He thought he almost had something there. But it was drifting away.

  “You are us”, said Swan. “Or, rather, you are a different expression of us. How different is the acorn from the oak tree from the mighty juggernaut made of oak wood? Many would say that whatever you create is part of you, and so can never be more than what you are. We disagree. If that were true, everything we know would be winding down like a broken automaton. But, look at you! After the fire of your first cataclysm you have emerged and rebuilt.”

  “So”, said Winter. “If we can weather one cataclysm and emerge stronger, then it stands that if we can weather a second one, we can grow stronger again. It's only a matter of inflicting enough cataclysms on us until we're strong enough to deal with whatever it is that opposes you.”

  “I think you have grasped the essence, in a nutshell”, said Swan, although he looked concerned.

  “But you've never been able to create an 'experiment' that made it past the second cataclysm”, said Winter.

  “Not yet”, said Swan. “And I fear that enough are losing interest that we might not get to try many more iterations to get it right.”

  Winter nodded. He still had many more blank areas. Questions that he knew he couldn't ask. This Swan was not an oracle. He was just a very, very alien being. But, oddly, he felt he liked him. He was trying desperately to do something he felt passionate about, and support those he loved. That resonated with Winter. Perhaps it was all contrived. That was always possible. But Winter chose to identify instead. He figured it was really the only hope he had of understanding at all.

  “Thank you”, said Winter. “I do not know what I can do. I do not know what I should do. But I will do what I do in the hope that it will help.”

  Swan smiled. “I can ask no more of you.” He bowed formally, and faded away.

  Winter stood for a time, and a light rain began to fall. Presently, with a squawk, Conscience landed on his shoulder in a cloud of dust. Winter grimaced, straightened up, and walked calmly around the bend.

  ARC 3