Epistem- Rise of the Slave King's Heir

by Jani Griot

  PRO wished she hadn’t built the detainment cells in her workspace, a place of invention. One not meant for confinement. But she felt conflicted when she wanted to interact with anyone, akin to her, with a grander understanding of the refined practices of higher realms. Though he was her prisoner, PRO understood that Novast (like the other prisoner) was no lesser of a being than she. The man behind her was built of Epistemic ideals. Though not a member of that vast network of growth and understanding—he was aware of the higher realms and their practices. That alone was enough to make her consider his words carefully. Even if she knew his only true objective was to escape.

  “If he is worth my time, he will be able to make it out of the garden he slipped into. Until then, I refuse to give any old blood my attention simply because he or she can use pieces of my brother’s armor,” stated PRO.

  The man grudgingly accepted her response, moving on without a hitch in his questioning. “You dare let Carter come this close to the throne when he knows what Arkanous intended for it? He may attempt to send himself to the highest realm and leave all the old-blooded descendants with no means of escape from this prison after our family’s sentence is served.” Novast took a quick breath, then rushed to continue before PRO could silence him.

  “You ripped my son’s tongue from his skull to stop him from using the gateway, yet you don’t raise a finger to stop an actual, existential threat. This is why we are trained. For moments such as this. Moments that could alter the course of life for cycles to come. Use the tools at your fingertips,” commanded Novast.

  The man, though imprisoned, had retained the demeanor and the tone of a leader. And that he had been—a leader of thousands of slaves—before being captured by the very woman he was trying to talk into setting him loose upon the realm. She examined the boy who rested just above the glow of that bright white-yellow field, his blood-stained cloak a blemish amidst such beauty.

  She exhaled and approached the empty cell. The platform was circular and concave from its edge to its center. The near room-sized space was empty but would fill with a globe made of pure univers when occupied. The liquid material was rich enough in energy to detain nearly any being in the realm and to sustain its life simultaneously.

  PRO looked to the far-left cell and grimaced as her eyes fell on the boy trapped there, sleeping endlessly, having long ago given up on escaping. PRO and Novast’s eyes met after she forced herself to look away from his broken child.

  “I cannot set either of you free no matter how many foes the throne may encounter. You both carry the rage of the sun and point it in the direction of all you face, even those under your protection, and your son’s trickery brought our realm to the brim of destruction. Nothing but time can wash away the blood you dirtied our sands with,” said PRO.

  The man shook his head and closed his eyes under her stern gaze. “My son took on my name after my disappearance, not knowing what it truly meant, but in his mind, my son spoke to our old-blooded connection to the sun and its near limitless elemental fury. But the name Novast speaks of learning. It speaks of growth and transformation from the blank slate of youth into the mosaic that is experience and achievements worth remembering and teaching,” said Novast. He floated cross-legged in the center of his own large containment cell and sighed.

  “I hope there is a chance for you to change your mind and allow for the Epistemic design to show you that even you and I can still learn as that young one now is,” said Novast before he pointed over her shoulder.

  She turned to see the slave she’d been watching for days roll onto his side, and the very room he was in burst with motion as the underground network’s security systems came to life.

  PRO scoffed and watched as he rose to his feet. She wavered in her decision to let the young slave run into the dangers, the traps, that separated him and his royal companion from freedom. She had no fears about the boy actually retaining any of the garden’s flowers. What she did fear was that the inner defenses of Endless (the realm the boys unknowingly occupied) would be triggered by the slave’s companion, as only the slave was granted such divine permission to exist in that realm. She may be able to intervene, but she couldn’t be bothered by such things now.

  She retained the cross-armed stance she’d held for the past two days. “We will let the light of Ark guide him, and if it is meant to be, our paths will cross.”

  Foreshadowing Trial

  He shook me awake. I think I managed a barely audible grunt and a rancid burp. So sweet and vile it made me shiver as it uprooted itself.

  “Fury, you gotta come look at this!” he exclaimed.

  The boy’s excited eyes burned into me. Or was it the lights? I knew this room I'd fallen into was different from anything I'd ever seen, but why did it feel like the room was spinning?

  “This place doesn't seem to get any simpler,” he said.

  The boy was speaking as I came to my feet, but I was more confused as to why I felt as if the sands beneath me flowed. We sped past the tunnel a third time before I understood what was happening. The sands were shifting beneath me, and I was now moving according to the will of the floor itself.

  “Do you see this? Something wonderful is happening here!” he said.

  My stomach emptied itself in a gush of reds and purples, splattering the section of floor the boy and I stood fixed to. We widened our stances as the speed with which we moved through the room fluctuated in sporadic intervals. The pungent, liquid chunks flattened between our open legs.

  “Feeling any better, brother Fury?” he asked.

  He chuckled to himself as I stood, looking at him trying to make a questioning display of my features so that he could explain the obvious. I put up my hood, hoping to hide from the light that fought my every sensation.

  “I don't know what's going on. This is craziest thing I've ever seen in my life, though. You sure do know how to party, don't you! Whooooo!” he screamed as we whizzed by the opening to the tunnel once more.

  I, unlike the boy, had had enough. Grabbing the bag at my feet before it rolled into the gushing sands, I dove for the tunnel entrance as we came back around once more, rolling until I collided with the far wall of the entrance.

  “You're! A! Bloody! Madman! Fury!” came from behind me both distorted and filled with laughter.

  I came to my feet, unsure if I wanted to ever leave Vassilious Manor again; if I ever made it back, that was.

  I found myself bathed in the warmth of direct sunlight. If I looked up, I could see from the bottom to the top of one of the many jungle trees. Hollowed, yet its dense outer crust still stood tall. It filled part of the tunnel with light, which was good, seeing as the Sun Lion Diamond apparently needed light to remain whole.

  I could now partially see down the long tunnel, to where it turned some ways down. Between me and that point were two more lighted areas and numerous obstacles. The closest of which were four large gears rolling back and forth on tracks, crossing the width of the tunnel, then disappearing back into the walls at seemingly random intervals. A loud metallic clang rang out when one of the gears completed its short journey across the tracks. They were not particularly fast-moving, but they did have sharp spikes for teeth.

  I gained a line of sight past the gears for a moment and saw farther down the tunnel. The gears were followed by what looked like some sort of pit. The only means of traversal were three square panels: two panels shot out from the left, forming the first and last piece of the footpath. The third panel shot out from the right, bridging the gap between the panels from the left wall. The three panels held steady for a few seconds, then disappeared back into the wall.

  What unnerved me most was the light that flooded the whole space at random times, cleansing the corners of their shadows. The walls sparkling and reflecting every possible chance of demise. Nothing had prepared me for something like this. Nothing.

  I turned at yet another imperfect time. Every light in the spinning room I had fled shifted, focusing on the
flowerbed in the room’s center. The room flared from the explosion of light refracting off the diamonds’ surface. The intensity of the flash made me take a step backward as it struck my eyes, sending surges of pain through my muddled sensory system.

  I winced, catching myself and turning around just fast enough to see the light flooding down the tunnel like flowing water. This sparked a memory, images without words fluttered, grounding me in the tunnel entrance.

  Something urged me to work through an earlier task before moving on to the one at hand. Then I saw it. The flower bed’s base was also in motion, only instead of rotating, it moved up and down. Once the flower bed elevated to a certain point, it stopped to meet the beams of light converging into the center of the room, creating a brilliant ray of light that shot through the tunnel. Just as slowly as it rose, it returned to its original position, over and over.

  “What are you doing?” the boy asked as he jumped into the tunnel with ease on one of its slower rotations.

  I stood and stepped forward into the spinning room, uneasily making my way toward the hundreds of flowers at the center. I grabbed a handful from their home as I zipped by. The flowers were much easier to grab now that they rose to greet my outward hand, but I still had to block my face from their staggering brilliance when they were at the apex.

  Running back to the room’s outer rim, I stood waiting for the right time to step into the corridor. I must have been getting used to the timing. I stepped out into the tunnel without hesitation this time.

  “How do you move like that? It's like you don't know what you’re doing until you’re already doing it,” the boy said, perplexed.

  I didn't feel very well, and something inside me told me to run, so I did. The moment the light struck the lifted diamonds was the moment after I was moving.

  The boy was so quick footed he had moved ahead of me, diving into peril.

  “Guess I'm going to have to be ready to move at any point with you, huh Fury?” the boy asked.

  We ducked and weaved through the rolling gears, making sure to keep up with the wave of light being cast from the garden. I took caution against getting trapped between the treacherous spikes and the wall. But too much hesitation would cost me the flowers.

  We made it past the gears. We stood at the third point on the path in which sunlight streamed in from above, just before the pit. I stopped to look at the flowers I held in my left hand. The stone slab we stood on depressed immediately. A small pendulum-like gear swung, latching to the wall over my right shoulder.

  Defend yourself, boy.

  A voice came softly into my mind, along with, what seemed like, images of arrows shooting from the walls in the very place I stood.

  I lifted my shield arm, pushing the boy forward out of the light. Half a dozen arrow heads bounced off the shield. But I did take one directly to the shoulder, as it had flown just above the shield. A flood of images distracted me from the wound. The small gear was on its way back, returning to its original position before the trap had been set off.

  “Fury, move!” the boy yelled.

  I dived toward the boy as arrows filled the air where I stood a moment ago. I was lying in a small section between the danger I had just escaped and the danger I had to face next. I opened my hand. The flowers had turned to dust.

  I pulled free the arrow that was lodged in my right shoulder. The sharp tip was some glinting, ruby red material that caught the eye, and was only made more dazzling coated in my blood. I was overcome with a memory, this one my own. All the images crammed into my mind blurred the lines between what was mine and what wasn’t.

  “Hold still,” Ezra said as she drew back her bow. “Father will throw a fit if I kill you.”

  We stood near the only tree in Vassilious Manor. I was mere feet from the large base of the tree. With an apple on my head.

  “Seems to be a force building in the air,” she said as she aimed and let loose another perfect shot.

  The apple snapped against the tree, lining up with the five other shots she had already taken. I glanced back at them as I picked another apple from the ground in front of me. The shots were even, at different heights. I remember feeling she must be rather good at whatever it was she was doing.

  “I hope none of my shots get taken by a force. That could be dreadful,” she said, drawing another arrow. “This is my first time. How would I know when I shouldn’t take the shot?”

  I remember her smile before she let loose the final arrow. I hadn't known I was in trouble until the arrow sank deep into my left shoulder.

  “Fury, come on! We must make a move. Soon,” the boy yelled at me, snapping me out of my daydream.

  The wave of light charged toward us as the boy was handing me flowers. We ran for it as the light bathed our backs. We effortlessly jumped the pitted section, still running at pace with the light. I couldn’t help but look down as we leaped; the depth appeared endless. We reached the bend at the end of the hall, then dropped to our stomachs as flames coated the ceiling above.

  The flowers we held turned to dust. We would be forced to go back and grab more. The open flame was a great light source for the flowers when they weren't coated in embers.

  The boy and I made a mad dash back over the black pit, careful not to put any weight on the stone slab that would release a volley of projectiles. We weaved back through the large rolling gears. I felt and heard the rhythm of the traps and obstacles. One misstep would swiftly end the boy or myself.

  “Holy Ark’s madness, we only have one more chance at this,” the boy said.

  I didn't know what he was talking about in the spinning room, but he was doing an awful lot of pointing. First to the flowers, then to the hall. What I hadn't noticed was the light that had once flooded the hall with brilliance, now had diminished into only a faint glow—one that wilted more every minute.

  “We're losing our ability to successfully get the diamond out of here,” he continued as I looked from the flower bed to the hall and back again.

  The light was dimmer now. I stared down at the flowers, then moved toward the rim of the room. This time, I stepped into the hall instead of taking off like the boy did.

  As the flowerbed rose, I pointed the flowers at the light that shot toward me. The light then bounced all over the room, filling the space more and more. I looked back to see the traps had stopped moving in the section just beyond the tunnel.

  “What are you doing now?” he asked.

  The boy was by my side again, looking at me the way I looked when I saw myself in the water bucket. Confused.

  The light danced everywhere. It bounced back and forth as the boy and I walked slowly backward. The traps seemed to disengage as well. They must have been set to activate only in darkness. I had to lift my shield arm to shade my eyes after a while, it was like looking into the sun.

  We had walked in silence for a few minutes, maybe longer, when the boy said, “I don't think my lord would ever believe me if I told him what's happening right now. Not that I would want to. This is the most fun I've ever had! Killing people for my master was the only fun I knew, before, when he was teaching me his craft because it was easy. Young nobles who think their family’s wealth can afford them so-called Master Tutors… they don’t make for exceptional practice.”

  Waves of light crashed into one another all around us. Painting the mirrored walls with different hues and sparkling (I thought that was the right word… sparkling) almost as brilliantly as the flowers themselves.

  “Now that I'm better than most of his own men he doesn't seem to trust me, anymore. I never go on missions, these days,” the boy continued, then paused. His face appeared lost, his eyes elsewhere. “Nothing at all. Just books and more books. What kind of warrior needs books?”

  I wished I could have spoken to him. I would have told him to give those books he disliked so much a little more respect. Because without them…

  “Is it warm in here to you?” the boy asked. He poked his head out between the f
lowers and the shield I held up. “I’ve never seen lights that spark before, have you?”

  That was the word I was looking for earlier, not sparkling. It was close but a single letter made such a difference. Sparking. I saw the word in my mind, a short burst of electricity or power. It was blue-hued and quick as a pulse.

  “Ow!” the boy yelped as something struck him, singeing a bit of hair or flesh.

  I felt a lick at my foot with the intensity of a flame. My sandals afforded me little protection from the heat.

  “What in the depths of Ark's water is that?” the boy yelled, bursting into a sprint farther down the tunnel.

  I hadn't seen what he was looking at quite yet. I was more worried about the flowers. I dropped my shield arm to see what was happening.

  “Run, Fury!”

  Something had formed in the light, filling the hall with heat and brightness. The soft voice I'd heard before I was shot with the arrow returned.

  This place is filled with defensive magics. You may have gotten your treasure this far, but in doing so, you've formed some kin to a Light Beast.

  I stood, frozen as the barely visible creature roared. Lightning split the air. Its pale, blue eyes were the last thing to manifest. It looked right at me.

  Fight or flee, boy!

  Honoring Vassilious

  No images came to save me. No flashes or glimpses of hope. I ran with limitless fervor, wanting to look back, but far too panicked to do so. I felt its heat right behind me, its lightning arced over my shoulders. I ran faster than I’d ever run before.

  “I take it all back. No kinship in the sands is worth any of this!” the boy yelled at me as I closed in on him.

  Things became harder as we ran, and the path started to incline. We pushed our muscles and small frames to the limit as light poured from the beast chasing us, not allowing us a second of darkness. We turned the corner and the monster closed in. Its round body filled the entire space. Images of serpentine beasts flickered through my mind and I forced myself to look back at it. This monster struck more terror within me than those painted beasts from the halls of the keep.