by G W Langdon
“Easy. I haven’t done this before.”
He gripped his legs tight against Gralin’s swaying spine and seized hold of another spike. He dug his heels into the dragon’s tough hide and used his knees and worked the frill spikes as reins to guide Gralin towards the Room of Orth.
Outside the room, he slid down and patted Gralin on the side of the neck, as he’d done with Marco, then turned into the darkened doorway. A single light shone on the front wall. Where was the huge, mournful painting? He placed his palm on the bioPad beneath the inert lightScreen and somewhere amongst the automatons a long sword sliced from its scabbard.
Armored automaton soldiers raised their swords and crowded forward from the shadows and the Feheri cavalry pointed their long lances at him as their fiery mounts stepped closer. He backed against the lightScreen. The hairs on his neck tingled and a hard pit knotted in his stomach. “They’re not real.” He pried himself off the frost-cold surface and searched the stony faces of the again-immobile automatons. He turned to the far end of the lightScreen as the air wavered.
The knight appeared in a full battle suit that shone like hardened steel, yet creased as cloth as he moved closer. Intricate designs flinted across the suit as fine tattoos in the light from the bioPad. Fierce eyes stared out from a slit in his helmet.
The knight’s helmet peeled back into a high collar. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“I have to.”
The knight placed his palm on the bioPad. “You’ll need to stand further away, on the mosaic of Jeila the Yellow.”
The lightScreen blurred as it had done in the Lower Chambers and the ghastly Fields of Orth emerged from the receding waters. The slaughter of the battle continued all the way to the grey clouds hugging the horizon. Legions of soldiers littered the ground beside scores of fallen dragons of all colors. Bunched rows of dismembered Feheri lay scattered across the low hills.
A yellow dragon lay on its side impaled with spears and harpoons. A giant warrior held aloft the severed head of the knight in one hand and rested his sword on the neck of King Jialin kneeling beside the knight’s decapitated body.
“A peace-loving civilization enslaved forever in a matter of days,” the knight said. “Decay’s armies swept everything aside. The king tried to hold the tide, but his soldiers were without hope before the battle, as if they no longer believed.”
Tom eased towards the lightScreen for a clearer look at the knight who wore a uniform with the same designs as the knight next to him. The butchery of Dael and Argoth depicted in the paintings through dramatic colors and deft brushstrokes in heavy paint were magnified in scale and misery by the lightScreen’s hyper-realistic perspective and penetrating, three-dimensional clarity. The smallest details of the Battle of Orth cried out from the hologram: the bloodlust on the faces of the soldiers, the glint on their weapons and the depth of their inflicted wounds, the shod feet of the dead Feheri, the outline of the scales beneath blackened dragon blood.
“The king and his armies fell in the heroic defence of a noble civilization, but this is only a fraction of what died that day. A million times more, so ended the sacred Nature of Tilas.”
“Something’s not right.”
“The dragon outside is half size, if that’s what you mean. There wouldn’t have been enough space for a real Gralin.”
“That’s not it.” He pointed at the colossal warrior. “Is that Decay?”
“As far as we know. However, as no data escaped Tilas after the space battle was lost, we’ve had to accept the broadcast version. It can’t be trusted, but it’s all we have.”
He rubbed his chin, unconvinced. “Those dead soldiers in the different uniform aren’t invaders.”
“They’re Karai warriors, a clan of the Panjali hill tribes. The games to select the Regents, from which only the strongest become knights, often came down to them and my clan, the Lureu.”
“What’s that?” Tom asked, pointing to the ashen stain on the green and blood-reddened fields.
“That’s where the Négus fell.”
“Where’s its body?”
“It turned to dust and blew away on the wind—if you can believe that.”
“What did it look like?”
“See for yourself, for what it’s worth.”
The knight pressed a code into the bioPad and the army of automatons retreated into a wide, three-quarter circle around the far walls. Hundreds of laser beams shone from their glowing blue eyes and the Room of Orth turned into a life-size lightMatrix of King Jialin’s last stand.
A Feheri with a wounded rider dangling from a stirrup galloped down the illuminated room, shrinking in perspective for a full ten seconds before he vanished into the consuming dark. The surrounding army of automatons was a tiny section of the thousands of soldiers and their steeds that filled the glorious holographic memorial to the fallen, but their immediate presence brought a chilling reality of the true scale to how the fight must have been at ground level.
“On my command.” The knight raised his sword. “Charge.”
The battle ignited around the arena in full hyperSpectral sight and sound.
Jeila the Yellow crashed to the floor and King Jialin leaped clear and fought from the ground. The Third Knight of the Realm halted his blue dragon and ran to the king’s side.
Tom looked to the knight in awe.
A wall of enemy fighters slashed through the king’s failing defenses and advanced on the Regents. Barrakai, a cruel blend of cunning cat and muscled hog, bounded forward, howling over to a larger pack of thirty. Hundreds of energy-coated Neonite bullets sizzled into the first line of charging Barrakai. A second line of larger Barrakai scrambled over the fallen juveniles and splintered the Regents with unnatural cooperation.
The knight rose in a column of righteous might against the impending onslaught, slicing through the first attackers with devastating fury. His swords flashed like jewels as he thrust, stabbed close in, stove to the sides, moved in short steps and half-spins, long bounds and jumps in a whirlwind of killing.
A Barrakai blindsided the knight. He rolled away from its tusks and vicious mouth and kicked the Barrakai in the snout then speared it in the throat when it attacked again. Yellow neurotoxins wept from the bite marks on his suit. The rolling tide of hair and hide turned inwards and the last line buckled.
“Fall back,” King Jialin shouted. “Form a line. Glory will be ours.”
The Knights and Regents hacked and blasted into Decay’s front line of super soldiers.
A creature with a fluid realism beyond any actor on the stage slinked down the rock face behind the king. It dropped from the cliff then swung off a savannah tree and landed on all fours, squashing the Barrakai underneath.
“Is that what I think it is?” he said, turning to the knight. The unlikely genetic mix of fierce war dragon and agile forest monkey was similar in kind to the golden creature in the church vision.
“It has to be.”
The giant warrior urged Decay’s engineered soldiers and beasts of war forward for the final rout. Hundreds of yellow-tipped arrows whistled through the air and rained down upon the last pocket of resistance.
The Négus set upon the attackers like a tightly sprung trap and in a blur of perpetual action repelled the smothering tide of bites, stings, and claws with matchless coordination, speed, and power. Its long claws ripped, skewered, and tore with precise and severing speed in a frontal maelstrom while its hind legs and tail seamlessly smashed and lacerated the Barrakai and Decay’s other unnatural creations that tried to sneak around.
The warrior aimed the harpoon and waited for an opening then fired. The Négus swung its tail, which appeared to grow longer as it uncoiled, and struck the warrior’s shield. He staggered to his feet and dropped the battered shield from his limp arm.
“I’ve never seen this version before,” the knight said.
A dozen enemy soldiers pounced on the whipsawing harpoon rope and strained it tight. The drag from the
harpoon rope slowed the Négus and a smothering sea of unnatural nature flooded over the king’s last stand. The Négus reared up in a final act of defiance.
He covered his face as the light from its oversized eyes shone upon him. “It’s too much. Stop the battle.”
The knight flashed his sword and the lightMatrix blinked out. “Come, there’s much to discuss and it’s late.”
“I cannot be your king.”
#
A soldier with his back arched to throw his spear on one half-door opposed a soldier on a Feheri taking aim with his hunting bow at full draw.
Tom trailed the knight through the carved doors and across a rug woven in the House of Tilas coat of arms. His eyes adjusted from the bright hallway and shields, swords, and racks of fighting weapons emerged from the gloom. Flags and art of great deeds from a bygone age adorned the walls. Twenty feet above, the Battle of Argoth, the most heroic of the Great Wars, cast down a gloomy pall. The room was the residence of a living knight, but it bore the mood of a mausoleum for a long-dead king. The hallway doors closed and the dark pressed upon the light from a single lamp.
“Why do you keep your quarters like this?”
“To see more clearly that which must be done.” The knight pointed his sword to a chair and reclined back.
Tom backed into the chair and gripped the oversized armrest to lift himself in. He leaned forward until the toes of his boots touched the floor.
The knight absently rubbed a whetstone back and forth along the blade of his sword. “A long time ago a great peace existed on Tilas,” he began. “Empires flourished and disease was conquered. Romantics called it the Golden Age. The Third Age began after Argoth. In the year 6405 Emperor Tilaxian killed his brother and took the throne. King Jialin was born in 6960 and showed abnormal merit from an early age. After proving his mettle, he was crowned a Great King in 6993. I was chosen to serve and protect in 6994.”
He sighted down the blade and checked the edge then placed the sword on his lap.
“The first Federation envoys arrived in 6990, one year in front of their starship, Progeny, to warn King Jialin a dark evil pursued them through the galaxy. The evil should bypass Tilas, they said, as it would never abandon its narrowing chase. They wanted to build a precautionary outpost to assist King Jialin, should the need arise, but he saw this as an unnecessary provocation that could make his lands a legitimate military target. He declined their offer and placed his faith in the strength of his army, which had served the House for millennia.” The knight’s words turned cold and precise and his face hardened. “Deep down, we knew our only hope was if the evil passed us by. If the mighty Federation and their War Cruisers were on the run, then Tilas stood no chance.”
The knight paused and resumed in a heavier voice.
“King Jialin married Queen Lillia in 6996 and they had two children— Prince Arulian first, naturally, and Princess Litieri two years later. They were a complete family until… the prince fell from the rocks when he was playing with his sister. He had a natural head for heights, and he knew not to go there. I should have protected him. It put a terrible strain on the family and the king became withdrawn in the last years as though a dark, inescapable cloud had—in more ways than one—befallen his fair world. After settling domestic concerns, the Second Exodus left in 7009.”
“But the evil stopped on Tilas,” Tom said. “At Orth in 7010.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Tilas was already weak by the time the armies of Decay arrived. From a soldier’s point of view, what is more compelling than the final victory over a blood-deep enemy?” A growing and unmistakable weariness bled into his voice, as though the power of Decay to destroy with impunity drained the knight of his strength. “The ways of Decay are subtle and go unnoticed, but its technology is as advanced as anything the Federation has. For an unknown reason, it’s stayed on Tilas ever since.”
Tom knew he should stop the knight to spare him the pain, but he needed to know.
The details became more vivid and detailed as the mournful tale about the final days that led to the demise of King Jialin continued into the night. The knight’s voice slowed and his words were deliberate and sour but never muddled as he neared the inescapable end and described the smallest details with precision as if the battle had happened yesterday.
“We surrounded the king, but when the Négus fell it was impossible to stem the tide. You know the rest. They are no more. It is all gone, and I failed my king.”
“How much do you remember about Tilas… before the Fall?”
“Everything.” The knight’s eyes glazed. “I remember life in the Royal House as if I still walked the halls. The smell of the wet polish on the wooden floors after they’d been washed; the way the light came through the glass windows and the colors on the rugs. The winter castle and its gardens of perfumed flowers, the best fishing spots on the lake, the ripples lapping on the hull, the roar of the sea crashing onto the cliffs. And some things I wish I could forget.”
“You’re not the Third Knight of the Realm. You are here, now, not fighting on Tilas at Orth with your king.”
“We are our memories.”
“How do you remember so much? The details?”
“You sound surprised that thousands of years of progression wouldn’t eventually replicate every neural network in the brain? And that’s only Tilasian technology—one wonders what the Federation is capable of.”
“But you are a different being. You do not have the same soul.”
“Thoughts, emotions, habits, secrets—they’re all stored in neural networks. It’s only the limitations of the retrieval system that prevents the illumination of the whole mind. There is no soul.” He placed the whetstone on the side table. “Why do my memories concern you so much?”
He scuffed the rug with the toes of his boots. The knight considered himself as a tangled collection of neural networks, understandable given his nature, but if everything was merely clever, rational, deterministic thinking and wretched emotions, then what was the point? “There has to be a soul.”
“Queen Lillia deemed the reconstituted memories of Orth necessary so I can impart to you the true magnitude of what lies ahead.”
Tom lowered his head. Here he was before a soldier who’d dedicated his life to a cause beyond death. In his own selfish way, he’d forgotten that he wasn’t the only one far from home, forced into a situation and wanting things to be as they once were, but knowing they never could. He squirmed in the chair. How did the knight bear such terrible memories, caught forever in a prison not of his making and unable to forget his sole purpose in life was to serve a king?
“But how would she have known about me?”
“She sees things that are hidden from our eyes. Two hundred and fifty years ago, she saw your coming to Heyre. That’s why she resurrected the Third Knight of the Realm. You are the reason I exist.”
He shifted in his undeserving throne. “I’m just…”
“Contrary to what Queen Lillia has said, you are free to choose, or not. Your free will means you can be anyone you want to be, or do you prefer the pre-ordained prison of fate, like me?”
“I cannot change the world.”
The knight stood up and slid his sword away as he headed to a wall cabinet. He lifted a sword from the velvet rack and drew it from the scabbard. “You see kings as fools, but here they are our greatest leaders.” He held the sword out in front.
“I’ve already told you I cannot be your king.”
“This is not the sword of a king. It belonged to Prince Arulian. He was your size, although only a late-child.” He presented the sword. “Please, take it.”
Tom hesitated then reached out and curled his fingers around the handle. He cut and stabbed the air. The sword was half the weight of steel, yet as sharp and hard. The fine engravings on the blade matched those on the knight’s battle suit.
“Keep the sword close to show others they cannot take you lightly.” He wound the leather belt arou
nd the scabbard and passed it to Tom. “You will achieve nothing if you think you can change the world with clever words shouted from the shadows,” he said, standing between the hallway doors. “It’s time, Thomas Ryder, to step into the light.”
Chapter 19
Tom spun the lightMatrix and watched Tilas slow to its natural rotation speed above the lightPad. The forests of Tilas spanned the equator and the largest continent shared a likeness to Africa’s topography and climate. The Fall of Tilas haunted him, as raw and visceral after thirty nine days as if he’d just witnessed the carnage and injustice yesterday. Yet how much worse must the true horror have been that led to the extinction of the global civilization and subsequent dismemberment of Nature. If it could happen to Tilas, it could—would happen to Earth. Of the million planets in the known galaxy able to sustain life, only three had produced advanced civilizations and precariously only two of these had survived to maturity and reached the stars. Colaris and Tilas were under the heel of Decay, and Earth lay in a future to be decided on Heyre.
He spun Tilas again. “Does Vera tell you what I search for?”
Queen Lillia stopped browsing through the book and relented. “Only if you venture outside your Color range.”
“Are Vera and Amie cousins, or something?”
“She’s Federation, and not our concern.” She closed the book. “They’re not related, but in familial terms Amie would be the wise old matriarch of the Dynasty and Vera would be a bright child.”
“Ba’illi talks about Amie as though she’s real.”
“More like a god. He’s a regular visitor to her realm, but I don’t see the attraction.”
“He says, ‘Amie’s Gi LaMon is a VR marvel beyond imagination.’”
“That much,” she said, smiling. “There’s nothing real about Gi LaMon. Just bright lights inside your head.”
He glanced up from the lightPad. “I might meet Sarra in there. Anything’s possible, right?”
