by Reiter
“You can have me removed, dear brother,” Dungias agreed. “Or you can name me your Second.”
“What?” Gantee asked, contemplating whether he should strike Dungias a third time.
“In the battle of the five, you are allowed to name a Second.”
“The naming of a Second has not been done in ages!” Gantee insisted.
“And already in two Rounds of these Iro-Games you have shown yourself to be the Malgovi of a new age. Let that continue!
“Name your Second the moment you are declared a contestant for the Final Round,” Dungias directed. “Do it proudly, and make it look as if it was something you knew you were going to do before you even entered this arena. If you give no sign of doubt, no one will question your intentions.”
“And what will I stand to gain in this?” Gantee questioned. “I think you think too much–”
“Being born shay-spawn did not keep me from besting our schoolmates in every race in which I participated,” Dungias testified. “The moment you name me as your Second, I will see to it that both of the youths of the Blaxidurn House have reason to fear that I will make our contest a most physical one. They will fear me, and with their attention on me–”
“They will be vulnerable,” Gantee concluded.
“All you need do is keep your focus on the other three Gamesmen,” Dungias stated. “They will be hesitant to face you. However, Vradwynn's attention will be on me and the other three Gamesmen might be inclined to join you in taking advantage of his distraction.”
“Let us say that you are right, for a change,” Gantee said. “What then will keep them from joining efforts and attacking me?”
“Keep to your speed, Vu-Prin,” Dungias answered. “You are a target, but not one that is easily struck.” He gave his younger sibling a moment to process and find solid grounding in his reasoning. Gantee looked at the ground and at a few other Gamesmen before looking back at Dungias. “Now, what do you say to this plan?”
** b *** t *** o *** r **
“You are right, of course, dear Vi-Prin and Your Majesty,” SonBa said, smiling at the large Malgovi who seemed to be the very thing that would keep these Games in the realm of the legendary! “They should be kept to their place and reminded of it.”
“My Vu-Prin is most wise, is he not, good Duke?” Sryla asked, pulling SonBa into an embrace.
“Only his love for you exceeds his measure of wisdom, your majesty,” Warseth stated as he waved to the officials to move things along. The Final Round showed great promise, and Duke MarrZo had grown interested in the Iro-Games after all.
“I am watching, Vi-Zai,” SonBa thought as he took to his chair. “Be my Light and guide my eyes.”
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(II)
The formless and nameless entity had forgotten much of what it was, so confusion was to be expected. Confidence, however, was found in abundance, and it continued to move through the body Fate had provided. Though the mind of the confiscated form could not answer every inquiry and would not define any belief, it still possessed a mind. Clearly the thing was mortal, but whatever the name of the form, the consciousness was not active. The Living Shadow was then allowed to move through the subconscious of the form with impunity.
Time meant more to the mortal perspective, but the measurement was often relatively useful, and the entity could see that the carnal shell had taken in very little time. Young was the term given to the status of the form, though most of the form’s kind were young to the entity. Still, there were enough impressions of life that it could access a sense of self-definition and awareness. The Living Shadow had a mind again, and while not all of its memory had been sustained, the urge to act and the target meant to receive said action had not been lost.
“You are a child,” the entity stated, rummaging through the thoughts and memories of a young boy who had been given the name Stewart. It was amused how the name of the form came within one letter of being poetically accurate. “I shall call you Steward, until such time that I need not call you anything. For me, that may be very soon, but for you, it will be a lifetime!
“You are one of the Binadamu!” the entity pondered as a shudder registered on the form. “Or should I call you Human? Not that it makes any sort of difference. Still, how resilient you have proven yourselves to be! The planet that so many of your kind thought was your place of origin has been destroyed, yet somehow you continue to survive. Amazing!
“But what is this?” the entity asked as light was suddenly introduced to the form. Contact! The entity expanded, surging through the form without breaking through the skin. It basked in the delight of the light and all that came with it. The mortal perspective was blind to so many things, but the entity was not so naïve, and as the light flowed through the taken form, it read all of what each particle and wave carried. Instantly it knew where it was, and the history of its location for the last one hundred seventy-seven… Human months.
The bane of immortality was boredom. There were so many entities which were not ready for the mantle of being timeless. Too many of them had made the foolish gesture of seeking out a means of distraction. Such efforts usually yielded only the undoing of the bored entity. The formless one had seen the laughable travesty happen over and over again. To guard against such outcomes, the entity had learned how to make use of light in ways that many never knew existed. Memories deposited near a true-light source would be shared by all of the true-light sources in an immediate region. Such information could also be moved between the systems. The memory of what the entity had been was placed in every system where it had discovered the Binadamu. The feed did not return each and every nuance of its former existence, but there was enough information recovered to initiate a most satisfying rebirth. Therefore, the measures it had taken would forever be considered quite resourceful.
“And now I recall the word and meaning of irony,” the entity thought as the chords of memory were gently stroked and the form it had taken shuddered once more. “I put forth such great effort to destroy these mortals, and it turns out that one of their kind is the means of my continued existence. Yes, ironic if nothing else!”
The young boy, Stewart, was inside a sleeping chamber, one designed to keep him asleep for a very long time. Suddenly, so much was made clear to the entity. The particles on the boy’s clothes, the light coming from the top of the chamber, the light in the room… all of them were from Earth, and they carried the last moments of that planet as it lost the ability to sustain life. It should have been the master stroke in its plan. The light around the child’s body also brought the memory of the Maior Nathu and how the dark entity had underestimated them, especially the one called Sere and his protégé Zaldia. Like all things related to the Binadamu, they were insignificant and only a matter of historical fact. For all of their so-called power they had no defense against themselves… no defense against Baron Nomed. It was a weakness easily exploited.
“Baron Nomed,” it thought, deciding then and there to take a female persona. It had presented a male persona before; however, the Baron was not up to the task of completion, despite the eons of effort. “I should take a name as well, if only so that I do not lose myself in the so-called minds of these… failing creatures. I choose Neve.”
“Stewart, my lad, can you hear me?” the nurse called softly to the boy as she touched the side of his face. She hated having to wear gloves at a time like this, but so much of the unforeseen had happened during the transit from Sol; precautions had to be taken. “Stewart?”
“Open your eyes, boy!” Neve insisted, sending an electrical impulse through the boy’s brain and nervous system. Stewart Campbell gasped as he opened his blue eyes. He was greeted by bright light and pain shooting through his body and his chest drew tight.
“Unexpected,” Neve remarked as the boy lost the ability to breathe. “Aahhh, and there i
s the reason… I can feel it: he’s dying! How quaint!”
“Bollocks!” the woman whispered as she accessed the control panel on the side of the sleeping chamber. She hit a few buttons, but was obviously not pleased with the result. “Crash cart!” the nurse cried out as she lowered the wall of the sleep chamber.
“Curious,” Neve thought, reflecting on the thoughts which were rushing through her mind. “Already I have been… imprinted with human-like customs. I know these fools cannot save the boy, and I feel… drawn into restoring his life.
“What a loyal soldier he would make!” she considered, calculating the lengths the boy would go to for the one who had saved his life. “Or am I simply trying to find a reason to act on his behalf? After all, what mindless ant would not serve a god?!” With a simple notion Neve took her leave of the boy’s body, taking the form of a slender, blue-haired woman with very pale skin and purple eyes. Neve reached back into Stewart and started taking the rest of his life-force. Again his eyes opened as his back arched. He screamed before his body fell limp. The alarm sounded on the machine monitoring his vital signs. “He won’t be requiring this,” she concluded as the feeding continued and she moved out of the sleeping chamber and into the medical facility.
“Neither will you!” a voice spoke to her, striking Neve’s body, penetrating the skin and ripping away the energy she was taking from the boy, along with some of her own. To lose life-force as one fed on it was a very painful experience, and Neve’s brand new knees fell to the ground.
“Oh my God!” the nurse gasped as she pressed her back to the wall.
“Not even hardly, my dear,” the man replied as he held up his left hand, and then pointed his index and middle finger toward Stewart who gasped a third time and sat up conscious and healthy. His life-force was not what it had been, but it was enough to restore him. “Just a concerned… friend who has, at last, discovered the reason why his friend and master bid him remain in this region while he sought his destiny among the stars of other systems.”
Neve stopped screaming in pain. As she turned to face a most unexpected interloper, she cried out in anger. Her clawing hand arched in front of her, trailing black light. The four burning arcs traveled across the room toward the gray bearded man and the screaming nurse. The former never even looked up as his hand swung against the arcs and absorbed each of them.
“What?!” Neve said, taking another look at this mortal.
“You’ll find I am not the garden-variety of a mortal,” the man said, feeling her eyes upon his person. His back was to her as he turned his head to the right, taking in every facet of the room with his face and ears.
“What sort of cosmic jest is this?!” Neve said as she rose to her feet. “… not the old, blind man shtick!” The man smiled as he lifted his head toward the ceiling.
“Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken,” he replied, sliding his feet further apart. “And I see you fed enough on the boy to speak from his perspective. That is hardly the tone and wording of an immortal!
“Nurse, get the boy out of here!” he directed, pointing exactly at an exit. The mysterious man could not see, but his awareness was incredibly sharp. The nurse quickly moved to do as she had been told and Neve closed her mind off from him. “How rude!” he chuckled.
“It would seem that we both have underestimated one another,” Neve said, feeling her form beginning to weaken.
“I’ve made no estimation to miss,” the man replied as his brow furled.
“He feels me about to move!” Neve thought. “It would seem that humanity has indeed improved.”
“We aim to please,” the man said as his body relaxed. He knew he could not stop her from leaving, and her ability to traverse distances exceeded his own. “Another time,” he said as Neve moved through the far wall and the ceiling of the corridor. She was out of the facility and at the heart of a massive gathering of Humans.
A ship! The medical facility had been inside a ship and that vessel had been docked in a very special place. Most of the light Neve had read belonged to the craft itself. The rest had been filtered by the aged one. He must have felt her and encapsulated the entire dock. For a mortal that was a monumental task.
To her great surprise, a few of the mortals could actually see her, so Neve was forced to move quickly and separate into five different streams of black light, all collecting inside a woman who was waiting her turn to be appraised and then sold. Deep under the feelings of woe, pity, pain, and depression, Neve found an adequate hiding place as people rushed by looking into handheld scanners as they moved through the crowd. Apparently the man had not been exaggerating about his difference of variety. Using only enough of her power to see through the woman’s eyes, she could see most of the men were in uniform, but their auras radiated with various energies. They covered the limits of the building before running back to the old man who was now out of the gigantic ship and walking with the use of a staff.
“My Lord,” one of the men said as he ran up to the blind man.
“What do you have, Lieutenant?” the blind man asked.
“We lost her after she departed the Exodus,” the man advised. “The changes you made in our Readers were effective for only a few seconds.”
“Do not erase the configuration,” the man commanded as he continued to move through the crowded masses without making any collisions or tripping over their articles or children. “She is still here, but she has hidden herself amongst these good people; within one, no doubt.” A series of beeps came from the officer and the blind man stopped walking, looking slightly disgusted. The Lieutenant held up his left hand and an emitter fixed to the forearm area of his jacket sleeve created a holographic projection of a man who was clearly of a higher rank than the Lieutenant.
“All the more reason why you should have waited until she was away from the spaceport,” the man snapped. Neve was curious why the man felt he needed to project his image to a blind man.
“A boy’s life was at stake, Commander,” the blind man replied quickly. “… and must I remind you once more that I am not obligated to follow any of your orders? I am Freund! I will come and go as I please in accordance to my friend and master.”
“You–”
“Need not hear any more of this!” Freund said, lifting his left hand away from the staff. The communication device was deactivated, but not before the Commander was given a sharp pain behind his eyes.
“Interesting,” Neve thought. “In all my time of viewing the Binadamu, this is the first protector of their kind I could actually grow to like.”
“I am sure, given time, I might feel the same about you,” Freund replied, stroking his beard. “What you and I must do is not for these people to experience. We are both beyond them. Find your form and then come to find me. We shall work towards a means of resolution and not waste time going through countless scenarios where I will always arrive in time to thwart your aims. I do not age as these others here, but senseless repetition aggravates us both.”
“Indeed it does,” Neve spoke through the woman, shattering her restraints and stepping from the auction side stage. Three would-be keepers tried to take hold of the assumed form, but Neve’s hold had been worked too deeply and the strength of the slave girl’s body had been augmented exponentially. She strode with a simple grace, flinging the three keepers with a single gesture. “You act with honor, though with a surprisingly tasteful amount of discretion and tolerance. Let us further dispense with you waiting for me to assume a form. As you can see, I already have one.”
“Yes, it would appear that you have,” the man answered as the uniformed men around him moved to engage Neve.
“Take aim, m–” the Lieutenant moved to draw his weapon, but he and every man in his command found themselves without the ability to move. Their bodies had been encased inside an energy form and no thought could penetrate the lock Freund had on their minds. Neve estimated he could have stopped every human in the spaceport.
“Yes, but tha
t would have taken considerable effort,” Freund explained, demonstrating he could still perceive her thoughts. “Shall we?” Freund was not facing her, but his extended hand did not miss the mark.
“Let’s,” Neve smiled, taking his hand. She could feel Freund release each man as he teleported the two of them, bringing along a third, to a castle that floated freely in outer space. Though there was much in the way of technology woven throughout the fortress, there was no active machine that accounted for the fresh air, warmth and gravity.
“You are welcome to take a seat at the game table,” Freund directed. He turned toward the third body, which had only just formed. She was a younger Human and very close to the old man with regard to the feelings they shared for one another. She was his daughter and quite powerful with her mind as well. Her long white-blonde hair shimmered in the candlelight and her piercing sky-blue eyes locked on Neve before softening to look at her father. “And as you can see, darkened one, I am not truly blind. She is my Isse.”
“May I state once more–” his daughter started.
“That which you have stated thrice already?” Freund cut in, though his tone was still soft. “Thank you, no. I have work to do, and I believe you do as well.”
“I understand,” she said, bowing low to Freund before taking her leave.
“What work awaits her? If I may ask.”
“You may,” Freund replied, walking to the opposite side of the table where Neve had taken her seat. “She must deal with time, I’m afraid. While my daughter was able to create a clone to keep me company while she is away from our home, she failed to give it the capacity to wield the utmost of her skill without that power slowly destroying the form.
