by Alex South
“What are those things?” Oa asked. He turned to Jad. The medic had only one faceplate amid the angular metal ridges of his blocky head. His rectangular visual receptors glowed with a kind emerald light that matched his surgical implements.
Jad kept working as he replied in a sociable voice, “These are known as microburs. You can think of them as very, very tiny machines that replace the lost materials with new ones that are fed to them. The process is delicate, and the repairs can be messy, but I am one of the better healers still around so this fellow’s scar will hardly be noticeable; even if he won’t be able to feel this spot anymore.” Jad turned to look at Oa for a second before continuing. “You don’t strike me as a medic. How about you show me why Bota believes you are one?”
Oa reached into the satchel at his side and pulled out the metallic sphere. “I used this, but I wasn’t able to finish my first attempt. I don’t know if I can do it again.” He tried not to remember the event his vague explanation referred to.
“You might as well try. It’s a better idea than getting thrown off the ship by Bota over there,” Jad said, nodding toward the leery Lieutenant quietly watching from the side.
Oa looked down at the wounded Awoken who appeared to be sedated somehow. “Can he see me?”
“No, his consciousness has been temporarily suspended using that stasis ring. It’ll slow the flow of the primary and secondary bloods in his body,” Jad explained as he pointed to a tight metal coil fastened around the wounded Awoken’s soul ember, “It won’t last for long, so we need to be done before he wakes up and bleeds out. I am going to work on replacing these alloys along his side. I need you to reconnect the veins there.” Jad pointed to a spot deep in the wound.
Oa shut of his visual receptors, not quite sure how to reclaim the sight he had achieved in Swift’s hut. Then he remembered the words he had heard from within. “Your will shall be.”
I hope I work well under pressure, Oa thought as he attempted to imagine how to fix the wound. He pictured where the veins would flow, what they would connect to, and how the alloys would stitch over the wound. To Oa’s surprise, the image came naturally. He wondered if his mental creation was original, or if he was merely discovering something he already knew within. All at once his inner sight flashed open. Confusion surrounded him as the symbols battered his mind. There was no internal force aiding him this time. He had to struggle to maintain the gaze. The experience was too chaotic for Oa to discern the strings of information that tumbled past him. He could barely remember what he was supposed to do. The sphere began to glow and hover between his hands. A stream of light extended, winding around the orb randomly. The power was wild and unruly. Oa focused harder trying to direct his will, but his mind refused to stay in one place and time. He reached out his left hand, using his physical form to guide the stream toward the wound.
Jad looked up from his work and watched as Oa held the light in one hand, straining to guide it with the other. In the midst of the blinding glow, veins began to reform. Jad looked over Oa’s shoulder to see Bota watching. A slight white glow of surprise leaked out from the faceplates hidden underneath the cloth mask the Lieutenant wore.
Jad turned back to Oa’s work and watched as the light faded, leaving no sign of any damage. Jad quickly guided the microburs in patching up the remaining alloys before turning to Oa. Exhausted, the young Awoken was sitting back and staring in bewilderment at the silver sphere in his hands.
“That’s no form of medicine I have ever seen,” Jad said, baffled and impressed at the same time.
“I don’t know how it works either,” Oa said with a slightly frustrated tone. “And it’s not consistent. I meant to repair all the damage, but I only fixed the veins.”
“That could be a sort of fusion device like these microburs, but there’s nothing feeding it materials to use. That’s quite possibly the strangest thing I have ever seen,” Jad said perplexed. He turned to Bota. “This fellow will do just fine. His talent with healing far surpasses mine.” Bota nodded silently and stared out at the landscape below.
Oa helped Jad lift the unconscious Awoken into a sitting position against the side of the hold, then went to sit down near the front so he could see where they were going. Jad knelt down and began removing the stasis ring from around the wounded Awoken’s ember.
Jad completed his task and sat next to Oa, striking up further conversation. “He will come out of stasis soon enough. You have done good work. What’s your name?”
“My name is Oa,” he said evenly, wary of the strange friendliness of his captors. Before Jad could continue the idle conversation, Oa confronted him bluntly. “They killed all of those Awoken. Why would they do that?”
Bota turned sharply ready to retort, but Jad held up his hand calmly. “Don’t take too much offense, Bota. We would have responded the same way once,” he said, defusing the situation. The Lieutenant returned to staring quietly out the ship.
“We don’t kill—we survive. You’re going to be a part of it too if you want to stay alive,” Jad explained. “You’re strong and skilled like us. Unfortunately, the reality of our lives is that we need to fight to stay alive. It’s not all bad though; we are wonderful musicians when we have the time for it.”
Oa sat and listened, silently staring out at the landscape below. The seemingly endless terrain of rock sped underneath him. He was still troubled by Buri’s death. He did not miss Swift or her gang but the idea of life being taken disturbed him. The Marauders fight seemed rather one sided. Then he thought of the mysterious force that had pushed back when he was healing Buri, it hadn’t happened when he healed the Marauder. Perhaps it had just been a fluke. His attention was diverted when he noticed the smoldering wreckage of what used to be a small town off in the distance. Reentering the conversation he pointed and said with disgust, “Like that? Is that what it takes to keep you alive?”
Jad answered, “Yes, we value uninfected life. And while there are few pleasures left in this world, we fight to keep them: camaraderie, a good ship beneath our feet, and the rush of the air as we soar.
“Look there, Oa,” Jad pointed off to the horizon. The peak had begun to glow brighter. It pulsed in a flash of white light. The wave of new energy slowly spread, creeping toward them. “A new cycle begins. As long as we see that, we know we have done right.”
Oa gazed in wonder as the distant blaze moved toward them, brightening the dim landscape with a pale jade light. The peak’s glow dimmed, but the new ripple of life remained, a far-off hope. The tide of the new cycle would eventually reach their spot. He looked up at the sky. A few remaining wicks of orange and yellow light burned wearily through the dark clouds. Soon the light of my first cycle will forever rest in darkness, Oa thought to himself.
Oa sat quietly as the Reaper flew on, heading toward an unknown destination. He watched the sky as the light in the distance came toward them. To pass the time, Oa tossed the silver orb back and forth between his hands. He inspected it, trying to decipher the symbols and markings all over it. At one point he even let Jad hold it. Oa explained what he felt whenever he activated the power of the sphere. Jad tried to replicate it but was unable to. They both returned to gazing below at the cracked landscape as it sparkled and glowed. The cycle of the sky reached its brightest point for the travelers. Feeling uplifted by the light, Oa turned to Jad and asked, “With all this freedom, why do you choose to take the lives of others?”
“We don’t choose!” Bota snapped, irritated by Oa’s words.
Jad held his hand up in a calming gesture. The Lieutenant shook his head in frustration but did not speak any further. Jad answered Oa, his voice growing grim, “A long time ago before I awoke, there used to be governments and order. That’s all gone. Now there is one law that we must answer to, and that law’s name is Eol. Recently his grip has tightened. He actually sets foot on our land now. It’s not just his soldiers we have to worry about anymore.”
“You will understand soon enough,” Bota add
ed, rejoining the conversation. “Eol has an appetite for soul embers. If he is not fed, he eats away at the edge lands in search for them. I won’t let Eol devour my home, or my crew! So I feed Sleeper and Howler embers to him, to keep the peace.”
“Then you serve rather than fight, to keep your lives,” Oa reasoned as he began to understand.
Bota stared evenly at him. “Either way, Awoken are going to die. We have the strength to decide who it is. Did you see those Sleepers back there? They wallow in Eol’s grip already. Once you fixed them, they would have ripped your ember from you and sold it to Eol’s distributors. They do anything to barter for just one more Void immersion. There is no reasoning with their addiction. They are worthless beings destined to become Howlers. It’s them or us; that’s the way Eol keeps it.”
“Oa, you must be young—” Jad mused, “too young to have made hard choices yet, but you will one of these cycles. You will discover a great desire to keep yourself and the ones you love safe. Allow us to be your friends, and you can care for us the same way you tried to care for those miserable Sleepers. This time your good intentions won’t be misplaced.”
Oa wanted to protest, but he could not. Words wouldn’t come to him to explain to these Marauders any other way they should live. He still did not know enough. Oa disliked the situation but remained silent.
Jad could sense the young Awoken’s inner conflict. He put a hand on Oa’s shoulder for a moment before speaking. “We used to be more like you Oa, but times change. We didn’t always need to kill to survive. Eol has made that our reality now.”
Oa nodded and decided to change the subject. He had many questions, and Jad seemed smart enough to answer a few of them. “The Awoken you killed back there talked of the Destroyer. Were they referring to Eol?”
Jad laughed and shook his head. “Those fools go soft in the head from their addiction, and their crazy dreams ruin the ancient tales. I’m the oldest living Awoken in these parts. Everyone else is too young to know, but I’ll tell you the real story. From my early cycles I remember a fellow called the Traveler. He came through my town a few times before the place was torn down by Sleepers. He was a storyteller and a very old Awoken with a single piercing blue ocular plate. The other half of his face was covered in a strange mask. The Traveler roamed all about the edge lands carrying a talking pack, trading his stories for supplies and rides. My favorite story he told was of the Destroyer—an Awoken, the very first Awoken. He was a hero, not some monster like Eol. A great leader and peacekeeper until—“
“We are rapidly approaching the exchange point!” Kiri yelled down, interrupting Jad’s tale.
“Yes, we know you fly fast!” Bota yelled back. “Slow us down so we can arrive in formation with the Captain.” He turned to Oa and Jad. “Alright, story time is over. Let’s see if our luck holds through this new cycle. You’re one of us now Oa, so have your gear ready. Interactions with Eol can end badly.”
“We will finish that story some other time,” Jad said apologetically to Oa.
The Reaper slowed down and began to descend. Jad looked out over the deck’s edge to see where they were heading. He cursed, muttering to himself, “The Void has moved again.” He turned and shouted to Bota, “The old exchange zone is gone. The Void is advancing farther.” Intrigued, Oa poked his head out of the hold to see that they were flying toward the end of a steep ravine. The walls of the gorge sloped down into a flat field of rock that led to the familiar dark abyss.
“Are you sure?” Bota shouted back to Jad. The old medic nodded, and Bota sighed. “Then we need to track the Void’s movement. Ever since Eol started walking, the Void has been following, eating away at our land. It must stop.”
Only Oa heard Jad’s muttered response. “We would have better luck trying to fold the world.”
The Marauder dropships landed on a wide flat area of the canyon just shy of the Void’s edge. Oa glanced around and counted six of the rusty Mark IV Reapers in total, all facing the black abyss. Bota got out and began walking toward the Void to meet up with a dozen Marauders who were starting to group together. Halting his stride momentarily, Bota turned and yelled back, “Stay in the ship and keep the engines hot in case we need to run off.”
“If we can,” muttered Jad. “Eol can chase us himself now.”
Kiri gave an affirmative signal with her hand. Once Bota saw it through the cockpit window, he turned and jogged over to the group standing around a case, hands ready on their weapons. Bota took his place to the right of the Captain, whom Oa recognized as the same leader from the village.
For a moment, nothing happened as the armed Awoken stood facing the Void. Oa was about to turn and ask Jad what was going on when two figures emerged from the darkness, stepping out of abyss to stand in reality. An oily dark sheen seemed to trail behind them with every move they made. They wore long black high collared coats, with boots and gloves to match. An eerie breathing apparatus concealed their face. Twin black conduits snaked out from the bottom of the apparatus and connected up to a round viewport in the center of the mask. A metal helmet with a narrow brim sat atop their heads. Oa could see no part of their bodies, only an evil crimson glow that poured out of their viewport. It looked like an eye.
A third entity emerged, clothed in many folds of tattered cloth that wrapped around its body like a shroud. The ends of the numerous rags trailed down around its ankles. The lower half of the figure’s face was covered by the wrappings, and on its head lay the smoky remains of a strange wild creature. The bottom jaw had been torn away leaving the top jaw draped over the figures head like a cowl. The carcass's dead, black eyes cast a fierce look. Two vicious slits of a deep glowing red seethed from beneath the shadow of the dead creature. The eyes of Eol.
The ominous Void dwellers walked up to the group of Marauders. The shrouded one stepped forward, standing tall and menacing in front of the Awoken. Oa wished he was close enough to hear. He saw the Captain motion toward a case another Marauder was carrying. Oa jolted as he heard a strange voice all around him. The voice was smooth and calm, yet rather unsettling.
“You have brought me an abundance, and I am very grateful. That is why it pains me to inform you that I require something more.” The Captain must have replied because the voice continued. “There is something strange among you, an anomaly.”
Bota glanced back in their direction, then stepped in close to the Captain, leaning over to whisper something.
It must be me. I’m the anomaly, Oa realized looking down at his covered chest. The Captain turned and said something to the shrouded figure. Oa waited.
A moment later the voice snarled. “Lying to me will only bring chaos. You force me to restore order!”
Oa jumped slightly as he witnessed the shrouded monster move with unnatural speed. The Marauders jumped back in shock. The crimson eyed figure stood with his arm extended, a solid black staff held straight out before him. The weapon was protruding through the head of the Marauder standing to the left of the Captain. The Marauder’s body stood stiff for a moment before dissolving away completely. The case he had been carrying fell to the ground with a clatter that Oa heard faintly.
The Captain stepped forward and gestured frantically toward Oa and the dropship he was in. The voice laughed and taunted the Marauders, “So much for your honor, Captain. Consider our treaty broken, as you have failed to uphold it. If it’s any consolation, I was never going to abide by any rules, even those of my own making. Your use to me is at an end, but you have my gratitude for finding him.”
The Marauders responded quickly, drawing their weapons. The two Void minions sprang forward into the Marauder midst. Oa had trouble seeing what was occuring in the confusion. Fists flew and shots were fired; rays and sparks of energy arced across the landscape. The two black warriors were overwhelmed. Oa glimpsed Bota firing into one of them. The wraith dispersed into a cloud of smoke as the energy beam ripped through it. The Marauders took a few steps back, their numbers dwindled. Oa could still see the C
aptain and Bota. They stood back, warily eying the shrouded figure.
Eol had not moved. He stood, still pointing his staff at the Marauders. Out of the Void more soldiers emerged. They began marching toward the Marauders, glowing red viewports glinting in the dying green light. Overhead, the cycle burned a poisonous green as rivers of energy flowed into the Void. Bota snatched the case from the ground, carrying it under one arm as he followed the Marauders in a full retreat. Oa now assumed the case contained soul embers.
As they ran back toward their Reapers, the Marauders turned and fired their weapons back at the soldiers in an attempt to slow the march of the deadly wraiths. The dark warriors reached into their coats and, in unison, pulled out compact streamlined pistols; similar to the ones Oa had seen the Marauders wield. The soldiers pointed their weapons at the Awoken and fired. Instead of noise, the air was filled with a deafening silence as black beams streaked out from the weapons, leaving behind an oily sheen in the air. The Marauders dodged and continued to run. Some of them fell and dissolved as they were ripped apart by the Void weapons. Oa saw Bota dive down behind a protruding rock and fire his weapon, obliterating several of Eol’s minions. The Lieutenant jumped to his feet with explosive speed and darted the last few steps to his ship.
“Get us out of here!” Bota yelled up to Kiri, as he bounded on board and tossed the crate to Jad. Jad immediately began strapping the metal box to the deck with gear from a compartment in the floor that Oa had not seen earlier. Kiri piloted her craft up into the air, joining other Marauder vessels in retreat. Eol’s soldiers never slowed their assault. After finishing off the stragglers on the ground, they redirected their attacks toward the fleeing Reapers.
