Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade

by M. H. Johnson

  "You've turned eighteen, Val. You're a man in all the ways that count. If that's the path you wish to take, I won't say no. Still, I know you have a hell of a lot of potential, whatever your less than stellar GPA might suggest. You're a savvy tactician, you know your way around small arms, and you can handle the Confidence Course as well as any enlisted. I've made sure of that every summer since you turned fourteen. And not least of all, you're my son. That all pulls weight, Val. If you're willing to work hard and earn it, West Point isn't out of the question."

  Val swallowed, gazing down at his feet. "I talked to John. He said, he said if I was serious about enlisting, he'd steer me right."

  John was an old friend of the family who had spent most of his time in special forces. He had taught Val a mixed martial art known as the Modern Army Combatives Program, or MACP. It wasn't treated that seriously by everyone, and half of those who practiced were just boxers who knew basic takedowns which, ninety percent of the time, would handle any civilian encounter. John, however, wasn't one for half measures, and each summer left a sore but pleased Val ever closer to earning a blackbelt equivalent in Muay Thai and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. By the time he was sixteen and after a serious heart to heart, John had consented to teach Val what it really meant to be a soldier. Not just teaching him how to strike hard, powerful blows while always keeping his balance, how to quickly take down and pin his foes, but how to strike to kill. Overcoming the instincts that normally 'tamed' a person's blows without them even realizing it. Val learned how to strike nose, neck, eyes, and other soft spots for maximum, even fatal damage.

  He had taken to it with gusto, his experience with wrestling, and the sense of timing that he had learned sparring with longsword and saber, striking at the moment his foe was off balance, served him well in mastering whatever John threw his way. In turn, John had extracted just one promise from him.

  "Don't go getting into any fights, Val. Only reason why I agreed to go this far in your training, besides the fact that you're a natural, is because I can tell you have a good head on your shoulders. When you fight, your instinct won't be to send the other kid home with a black eye, it will be to kill him." John had gazed at him so hard that Val had looked away, normally more than comfortable with the rugged looking man, wiry and surprisingly strong despite his deceptively mild appearance. He might be half the size of a pro bodybuilder, but he could kill most man before they finished their pre-fight bluster.

  Val had only swallowed, nodding his head. "Yes, sir. Avoid fights at all costs."

  John's smile had turned hard. "If anyone's bothering you? Unless you feel your safety is at genuine risk, or you're protecting a girl, you just smile and walk away. Offer to buy them a drink if you have to, whatever. The minute you feel you or your girl are being threatened, and you can't defuse the situation in seconds? You just do what you have to do."

  Val had nodded back, knowing exactly where John was coming from. The man had served his twenty years almost exclusively in special forces and now worked as an elite 'troubleshooter,' though he never went into detail exactly what that entailed.

  It was John who had been a shoulder to cry on when Val had lost Christine. And it was John whose cold eyes had peered into Val's, just days after Terrance's death, and it was like he knew. He said nothing though, just squeezed Val's shoulder with one hand and nodded, before going off with Val's father.

  When Val contacted John and said it was time, John seemed to understand so much without any unnecessary words being said. "Are you sure, Val? It won't make what happened go away, but you will find purpose. It won't be easy either, but, hell, this might be exactly what you need. I just need to know that you are sure that this is the path you want to take."

  And shortly thereafter, Val had found himself standing before his father, saying what needed to be said.

  "But why, Val? I thought you were thinking of college, starting your own business." His father had flashed a gentle smile. "Starting up your own HEMA academy. What changed?"

  Val opened his mouth, his thoughtful story already in place.

  "Are we black?" his traitorous mouth said.

  His father's smile instantly fled, gazing at Val with eyes suddenly dead serious. He shook his head, raising a finger, powering down his computer, flipping a switch, and all to be heard was a faint static throughout the room.

  "Now we are."

  Val took a deep, shuddering breath. Looking his father in the eye. "No stranger beat Christine to death." He swallowed his suddenly dry throat. "It was Terrance."

  Val's father nodded slowly. "I'm well aware of the suicide note, Val. He confessed to everything before he died."

  "Yes," Val said quietly. "He did."

  His father stared at him for a long time.

  Val's heart pounded in the silence.

  At last, his father nodded. "I understand." He sighed. "You're a good kid, Val. A damn fine one. If you feel that John's path is the one best suited for you? Okay. If that's what you want, okay. Just make me one promise, Val?"

  "What's that, dad?"

  "Try to come back home alive?"

  Val shuddered, forcing himself to nod.

  "Good. Give it four years, Val. See if you can come to terms with yourself by that time. You have your whole life ahead of you. Find redemption for whatever wrongs you think you committed, then come back home, okay kid?"

  Val forced himself to nod. "Four years. We'll see how I feel then."

  His father nodded. "I know I don't even need to ask, but let me say this. None of us can correct the regrets of our past. All we can do is protect our future. Our future and the futures of those we love. I think you're already on the right path for yourself, and I want to protect you as you do what you must. So please, answer candidly. Are there any lose strings you still need to tie off?"

  Val shook his head. "You taught me better than that."

  His father blinked and frowned, silent for some moments. "Alright. Alright, Val. I'll talk to John myself, do my part to make sure everything is squared away. You graduate in a week, so just behave exactly as you always have. But on the off chance anyone says anything that feels off to you, or anyone, even the friendliest soul, starts asking you any sort of questions about your relationship with Christine or anyone else, you just cut them off. Tell them you're still in mourning, and you walk away. Then you call me. Immediately. Do you understand? Same thing if, god forbid, you are brought in under whatever pretext, even for a speeding ticket. You don't say a damn word to anyone in uniform without my lawyer, your lawyer present. You call me, you tell me you need our lawyer and where you are, then you shut the hell up. You don't tell me a goddamn thing on their phones, no matter how stressed you are. Only answer the questions I would ask you in a yes or no format. Then just go where they tell you, but you sign nothing, say nothing, not until our lawyer is there. Tell them you have nothing else to say until you have your lawyer present to make sure you're not being taken advantage of or manipulated. My guess is that at this point, the only thing that can condemn you is you. Do you understand?"

  Val grimaced and nodded.

  "And Val, this conversation we had? Dies the moment we leave this room. Capiche?"

  Val flashed a bleak smile. "Long dead, dad. Dead and buried. And yeah, anyone probes, even the cutest, smartest girl at school, I walk away under whatever pretext I see, and I talk to you and you talk to your highly paid lawyer. I get it, dad. I know my GPA is a smack in the face to you and the memory of mother, but I'm no fool. I know how this game is played."

  His father shook his head. "It saddens me that you do. But I understand, Val. I sure as hell do."

  Val blinked and swallowed. He had never inquired about what had happened to the drunk driver who had killed his mother. Partly because it was the sorest of topics, partly because even as a kid, he had read enough suspense novels, seen enough movies, to know that often it was poking into mysteries long dead that evoked tragedy anew, often for the very people looking. Sometimes, Val knew, it w
as best just to leave the past the hell alone. His father's gaze told him as much.

  They had both ended the lives of the men who had killed the women they had loved.

  And neither of them was proud of that fact.

  John hadn't let them down, neither had his father's status as an honored colonel. Val had gotten a certain invitation to speak to a few very powerful people, and had shown himself to be exactly what they were looking for. Much like cold vengeance, Val had gotten his wish. And it turned out to be just as bittersweet as killing Terrance had been.

  13

  "Val, are you okay?"

  Val blinked, realizing he had been lost in thoughts of the past, shivering as he sensed how deeply Elise's soft violet eyes had pierced his soul. He gazed around at the exotic stone library he had woken up in, still amazed beyond belief to find himself catapulted into another world. A world of dangerous magic, exotic tech, and potent Psiblade wielding Darklords. A world that quantized things in ways chillingly similar to his favorite role-playing games, even if the complexity was a millionfold greater. Somehow he knew that the mental image he had of his character sheet was just a metaphor, a highly simplified interpretation of something supremely complex and nuanced. But it was enough for him to sense how he was thriving and growing in ways inconceivable back home.

  He shook his head, awed and overwhelmed anew. "Sorry I went quiet for a moment there, Elise. I'm still a bit overwhelmed. Just a day ago I was living in my father's house, near crippled by pain and injury. Now? I'm as fit as I've ever been in my life, and I find myself sensing and grabbing hold of powers only glimpsed in fairy tales and computer games. Honestly, I've never felt so terrified or excited by all of life's potential as I do right now."

  Halvar, having talked Gregor into giving him back his laser carbine, smiled even as he tweaked it with his now obviously repaired eye. "It's always good to take stock and be grateful for life's bounties and your own accomplishments. It can make your experiences in life so much richer, however many credits you actually have."

  "Sure," Sten said, handsome features set in a hard scowl. "So long as we live to tell the tale." He turned his gaze to Val. "We have maybe a day and a half worth of water. I need you to keep it together until we get out of here."

  Val frowned but nodded. "Yes, Captain. I'll do my part to see us through."

  Sten flashed a bleak smile. "Either that or sabotage all our equipment, sure."

  Val swallowed, bowing his head. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know what would happen. I didn't even know I could do... whatever it is I did."

  "Shoot streams of fire from your hand? Explode in a grand inferno I was certain would kill you, only to find your scrapes and burns completely healed after sleeping like the dead for more hours than we can afford to sit still? Sure, I get that, kid. And hell, I owe you thanks. Your trick, however you managed to pull it, did scare off those shades. I just wish it hadn't fried so much of our gear."

  Val frowned "Will that always happen?"

  Sten shrugged. "How the hell should I know? This is the first time I've found myself exploring ruins with a wizard."

  "Not the first time I have," Halvar said. "Once or twice, we had a couple acting in an advisorial capacity on high mana worlds. Paid them in Elementium, they were happy as clams. Most wizards have no experience with internalizing their magic resonance, and so give off a fair amount a radiation in the mana spectrum that tends to knock out most advanced tech."

  Val frowned. "I'm sorry, Halvar. I'm not sure I understand."

  "What's to understand?" Gregor grumbled, frowning as he attempted to disassemble his own blaster with a pair of exotic looking rods. "Any tech more advanced than steam works on eletromana conversions. Any wizard that casts a spell near anything more complicated than a boiler or water clock is going to fry circuits and kill the device. Much like you did my blaster, Val, and it will be by the ancestor's will alone that I can fix this thing!"

  "Or keep at least ten yards distance," Halvar qualified. "That was the general rule of thumb. The wizards were auxiliary support. We kept them in body armor and with crossbows, which are low tech, but one of the few counters to laser resistant plating. That is, unless you have a very elite, very expensive carbine like mine that can modulate the fields and, not to get too technical, shoot lightning once we lock on the target with a magnetizing stream."

  Val nodded. If one could direct lightning blasts, that would be a pretty devastating weapon, he thought.

  Halvar shrugged. "Though it taps power like a bitch and takes a bit for the batteries to recharge. So doubleshot crossbows and body armor for our pair of mage scouts, and if trouble comes of a magical nature, they were the experts. We'd fade back and take up sniping positions, giving our mages cover while they did their thing. It was a bit of a pain, having to keep distance like that and delaying how readily we could use them, but they were a useful addition, and it did justify our unit being equipped with these specially designed carbines. Fully interchangeable parts, and if they get disrupted by a mana pulse, it's merely about realigning the components post-surge. Same thing with my eyepiece. It's military grade, so it's just as easy to recalibrate after a mana surge."

  Gregor shook his frizzy mop of a head in disgust, stomping over to a still dazed Val. "Until we find a buyer for it, you should be the one to hold onto it. Maybe you'll actually learn something useful!" He tossed one of the volumes they had found onto Val's lap.

  Val picked the tome up and frowned, opening it, seeing a dizzying chart of interconnected symbols and lines revealing a pattern that made his head spin just looking at it. He squinted, almost chilled at the level of detail, feeling his eyes start to sink into it like those optic pictures that would turn 3D and reveal surprising complexity if one unfocused one's eyes just right.

  Val frowned, turning to Gregor. "I don't understand."

  The tiny man blinked at Val incredulously. "What do you mean you don't understand? Just read it! Internalize the picture and study it at will until you understand all it has to teach." He rolled his eyes under his thick bushy brows. "Don't you get it, kid? It's the tome we found that instructs wizards on how to control their emissions."

  Val frowned, gazing at the first diagram for minutes, feeling nothing but dizzy as the flood of interconnecting lines and symbols seemed to gaze back at him, growing in number, complexity, and interconnections the longer he stared. "I'm sorry, Gregor, is this picture supposed to mean anything?" He flipped ahead. "There are no words, here, only more diagrams...

  Gregor's gaze widened. He turned to Sten. "Great, that's just great! Our little magical homunculus is also dyslexic!"

  The captain shook his head.

  Elise glared and the gnomish looking man. "That's hardly fair, Gregor. Whether he truly is the boy from another world that he thinks himself to be, or is merely a magical construct given sentience and identity, it's absurd for us to think he would be implanted with twenty years of intensive training in academic studies. Of course our tomes would make no sense to him. He only understands what we are saying because his arcane and psionic perception makes him a natural linguist, so he imprints our words with the meanings we are trying to convey as we say them."

  Gregor shook his head. "So instead of a fortune in liquid silbion, we find a complete innocent who now needs caretakers."

  Elise frowned, delicate hand squeezing Val's shoulder. "I don't much care whether he's human or an arcane construct. He saved my life, and no Highlord ignores her debts."

  "But you aren't a Highlord, Elise. You were just a trainee!"

  "It does not matter!" She snapped, eyes flashing so hot Gregor stumbled back, hands raised. "My gifts make me ascended, no matter that that awful bastard exploited so many of us. Justice will be done. My wounds, the wounds of those who suffered alongside me, will be avenged!" She took a furious, shuddering breath. "You know how I train with the sword. When I give challenge, he will answer. By our very code, he must. It is that code that has kept the Highlords from tearing each othe
r's throats out, kept our worlds from going up in flames."

  Gregor lowered his head. "You don't have a Psiblade, only your parents' old artifact. It's a nice toy, but a Highlord's weapon will cut right through it an instant before cutting you in half."

  Elise's eyes were lit with a strange manic gleam. "Not before I run that bastard through. We will die together! And if he lets fear into his heart, his mind will be wide open, no matter how strong he thinks his shields are. Then I will let him taste every bit of my agony! Every scream he ever stole from my lips he will feel burning through him as I tear into his flesh. And I care nothing if he cuts me down, because then it will finally be over. Live or die, it will be a relief, just so long as I have the satisfaction of seeing fear writ across that bastard's face!"

  The room grew deathly quiet. No one said a word.

  Elise wordlessly handed Val a flask. He sipped from it, enjoying the cool sensation of water refreshing his parched throat as she looked at him. She smiled, then, picking up the tome. "Come, Val, let me teach you how to read."

  An hour passed, Val grimacing his apology as he struggled alongside Elise, trying to fathom what literacy meant to these people, humbled beyond belief by the degree of complexity implied in a single chart. Every symbol, every connecting line was relevant to every other piece of the diagram, their very connections spawning new meanings, all of it somehow symmetrical, a mathematical proof of whatever ideas or concepts lay within. It was like the most complex of equations, and the variables weren't limited to classic maths, but could be anything from biology, to chemistry to physics, and that would be the most logical for an earthbound scientist to understand. But just in a brief aside to Elise he suddenly had the feeling that physics was far, far more complex than Earth's own, so much there explainable with just a few key equations, strikingly enough. The beauty, the symmetry of physics, it was called.