by A A Warren
“How?” Volonte asked, his voice rising in pitch. “How do I know which one... which body is—”
“You do not have to know,” Dulkar replied in a soothing tone. “The Cortex of the Soul Vault will find you. Let it guide you. All you need to do… is let go.”
Dulkar waved his hands, sending crackling bolts of dark energy arcing through the air. The glowing tendrils caressed Suphara, lifting her unconscious body from the hovering slab. Her sheet fell away, revealing her body of living crystal. She floated naked in the air, drifting between the two armored men. The hissing whips of energy circled around her, coalescing into a faint corona, a violet glow that reflected through her shimmering body.
“This procedure is somewhat… unorthodox,” Dulkar said, as he guided the floating woman over the carved symbols on the dais. “We must enter the Cortex as one… our energies must be intertwined, or else it will reject us. The Oreon woman shall refract my power, allowing it to surround us all. And as a Spectaran, I can modulate my living field, allowing us to replicate Zedrakon dark energy’s unique signature.”
He gestured again. The swirling glow flowed away from the woman and circled around Volonte’s feet, like a whirlpool of phosphorescent liquid. Soon, he and Dulkar were both engulfed by the same halo of light as the unconscious woman.
“What is this ‘Cortex’ you speak of?” Volonte asked. “I have seen no mention of it in the ancient scrolls.”
“You are not the only one whose life force was ripped from your body,” Dulkar hissed. “Your Zedrakon high priests also left a part of themselves here, trapped within this great fortress. The Cortex holds the remains of their power. This place… it is no mere tomb.” The sorcerer lifted a robed arm, gesturing to the crystal formations that pulsed on the horizon. “Their life force flows within these rocks. And the Cortex is the brain that guides it.”
He touched the glowing symbols, and a deafening chime rang out through the cavernous depths of the vault. Volonte’s men covered their ears, as the sound overwhelmed their senses.
A bolt of crimson energy rushed up from the platform and pierced the dark heavens above. The energy discharge struck a point several hundred meters over their heads. At the apex of the glowing beam, space seemed to ripple and bend. A wave of distortion tore through the air, and an enormous crystalline sphere lowered from the shadows. It slowly spun above, as if the crimson beam had burned away whatever force once concealed it. A deep, bass hum vibrated through the air, and the sphere pulsed with light.
The chime sounded again… The other crew members backed away from the energy beam, staring at the giant orb with suspicious eyes. Dulkar swiped at the glowing symbols once more, adjusting their position within the beam.
“It is time, my friend. The Cortex has revealed itself. When we enter its crystal matrix, your essence will be ejected from this shell and guided back to your body. And I shall project myself into your empty husk, allowing my energy field to continue its existence. We shall each find what we seek. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Volonte snarled. He turned to Aviarux. “You and the others must guard this chamber with your lives. Let nothing disturb us.”
“And what of our reward?” the woman muttered. “I see no treasure here.”
Volonte stepped towards her, drawing up to his full height. A metallic clank sounded from his arm, as his sword blade emerged. “I have waited a lifetime for this, human. If your patience is so lacking, perhaps I should terminate your contract immediately?”
Aviarux glared back at him, then shook her head. She brushed a short, jeweled braid behind her ear. “No. I hear and obey, my Captain.”
“Excellent,” Volonte replied. “And make no mistake, Aviarux… this vault holds countless secrets. Weapons, artifacts, technology… mysteries lost to time and history. We shall all receive the rewards we seek. It is only a matter of time.”
“Come, my friend.” Dulkar’s voice echoed through the cavern. “The cortex has revealed itself. Enter the light and let it show you your destiny.”
Volonte’s eyes blazed with an intense glow. He turned and stood next to the sorcerer. “How?” he asked. “What must we do to…”
“We must ascend as one… Now.” Dulkar stepped into the light. Gesturing with his arms, the floating body of Suphara followed. Dulkar peered into the swirling vortex of energy. Then he entered the beam as well.
The scream of the swirling energy echoed through the glowing column, drowning out all other sound. He felt a series of tingling shocks, as tiny sparks arched across his metal shell.
“Yes,” Volonte whispered. His synthesized voice sounded like the grinding of tiny metal gears. “I… feel something.” He stared down at his hand. The energy bolts coursed and rippled around him, growing brighter as he spread his fingers. “My hand… it feels like it once did. Alive, flesh and blood… it’s working!”
The mechanical body flexed its coils of synthetic muscles and cable as it floated up into the air. “What is this?” he asked, suddenly alarmed. “What is happening?”
“Do not fear,” Dulkar replied, his voice a soothing whisper. “The Cortex has embraced you. Now, you must allow it to separate your life essence from the crude matter which entraps it. After we ascend, your body shall be reassembled. Just let go…Just let go… Just let go…”
The sorcerer’s words echoed though the energy maelstrom. Volonte glanced down, as another bolt of crimson lightning danced across his arm. He saw a tiny scrap of metal separate from his shell and drift up into the raging light. Then another, and another… His eyes glowed with alarm, as he realized his body was disintegrating within the column of light.
Dulkar hovered alongside him, seemingly unconcerned. “Allow the Soul Vault to take you… The Cortex awaits.”
Volonte threw back his head and screamed as the spinning vortex tore his armored shell apart, piece by piece. Metal, dura-plas, wires, energy… everything was transmuted into a stream of glowing particles.
Then with a sound like a thunderclap, the three figures vanished. They shot up the beam towards the crystal sphere, like droplets of rain carried along by a raging river.
Dulkar’s inhuman laughter echoed through the shadows behind them.
Volonte Er’Gosi opened his eyes.
He stood on a hilltop, surrounded by mist and smoke. The sky was dark, and a cold, bitter wind swept over the ground. He squinted, peering into the distance. Dark, gnarled shapes dotted the horizon, but he could barely make them out through the thick, hazy air.
He took a step forward and stumbled. He felt weak, slow. He stumbled again and fell to the ground. His movements were clumsy. He was like a child, learning to walk. Picking himself up, he realized he felt a new sensation. Or rather, an old one, a feeling he had not experienced in countless years. One he could barely remember…
Pain.
Glancing down, he saw a trickle of blood dripping from a gash in his arm. His skin was a pale mossy green, and covered with a layer of fine scales. He spread his fingers, marveling at the flesh and blood he saw before him. Smooth, yellow claws tipped each of the three digits on his hand.
Dulkar was right, he thought. These memories… The Soul Vault is returning me to my body, making me whole. But where am I?
With slow, careful steps, he made his way down the hill. Loose rocks skittered around his feet, but he could see the ground through the thick, soupy fog. In the distance, flashes of light lit up the mist. Volonte’s eyes narrowed…
Pulse-fire… a battle raging in the distance.
A chorus of screams echoed through the mist. He heard women sobbing, crying in pain. More energy bolts pierced the darkness, and the roar of high-powered canons thundered through the hills.
Someone is attacking these people, he thought. I… I remember being a soldier. Perhaps I am defending this village?
Lost in thought, he tripped and fell again. He felt cold liquid slap against his face… he had fallen in a puddle of rain water. As he lifted himself up, a rush of wind d
issipated the mist. He glanced down and saw his reflection in the puddle, staring back at him from surface of the rippling water.
He had a reptilian face… a blunt, fanged snout, peering out from beneath a fierce, armored helmet. Blood streaked the helmet’s metal visor and stained the scales of his face. Then another gust of wind disturbed the water, and the reflection vanished.
He stood up on shaky legs. The wind grew stronger, howling across the battle field like a wounded beast.
He held up his hands and stared at them. He could see now. He could see everything clearly.
In the distance, a village burned. Women and children fled the tiny metal huts, stumbling across the uneven ground as they raced to escape the flames. Their screams drowned out the crackle of flames. Pulse bolts streaked the air, cutting down bodies left and right.
A woman rushed past him on his left. She fell into the mud as a barrage of glowing bolts pierced his back. More rocks scattered before him, as he rushed over to her. He looked down, and realized they were not rocks at all… they were charred, blackened skulls.
He lifted the woman from the muddy ground and held her in his arms. Her lifeless yellow eyes gazed up at him. Smoke wafted from the burn marks through her clothes. The scales on her face were gray and dull, but her features were familiar…She looked like him.
He spun around. “This is madness,” he whispered. “There is no honor is this massacre! These are my people… Zedrakons. They are civilians!”
He heard footsteps thundering across the ground. He turned and saw a horde of dark shapes, marching towards him. Pulse bolts crisscrossed through the air, but none struck his flesh.
An army came into view… a horde of Zedrakon warriors. They stormed across a battlefield littered with the corpses of warriors and civilians alike. Their weapons annihilated all who stood before them. And a single, armored warrior led their charge.
A Zedrakon wearing a general’s helmet stood at the head of the army. He swung his jagged sword left and right, slashing through anyone who got in his way. Volonte watched in horror as a Zedrakon woman in tattered clothes raced across the battlefield. She was fleeing from the carnage, carrying a wailing infant in her arms.
The armored warrior impaled the woman in the back. As her corpse fell to the ground, the savage general looked up, searching the battlefield for his next target. Volonte caught a glimpse of the warrior’s snarling face.
“Death,” the warrior roared, his voice bellowing above the clang of swords and whine of pulse-fire. “Death to the infidels! Death to all who defile the sacred words of the High Priests!”
“No,” Volonte whispered. “I remember now… “
The general raised his sword to the heavens in triumph. As he turned around, Volonte gazed upon the warrior’s blood-streaked visage…
Once again, the face staring back at him was his own.
The civil war, he thought. The death, the carnage… all these people. My people!
His trembling hand gripped the holo-crystal at his belt. As the battle raged around him, the figures of the woman and child flickered to life. The faint melody played as they spun through the hazy air.
“My family,” he shouted. “I want to see my family… take me away from this madness!”
The air around him rippled and shimmered. Volonte spun around, and saw he was no longer standing on a battlefield. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a narrow dirt path. Translucent, dome-like huts surrounded him on either side. A glowing holo-banner flickered at the end of a long pole.
He saw movement in one of the domes… shadows, shifting within the soft light inside. He moved closer. His footsteps crunched across the rocky soil. If the figures in the dome heard him, they gave no sign of it. He heard faint laughter from the door of the nearest hut.
He crept closer, and reached out with tentative fingers. As his hand brushed against the dome, the surface seemed to fade and dissolve. A translucent hole appeared before him, allowing him to see inside.
He watched as a Zedrakon woman in a simple leather frock cleared dishes from the table. Her skin was a bright emerald green, and covered in scales like his own. Tiny horns protruded through the lush, dark hair that flowed down her back. Whoever she was, she gave no sign that she could see him, although he could not be sure.
Volonte’s eyes opened wider, allowing more light to enter his photo-receptors. He craned his neck, struggling to follow the woman’s movements as she carried the plates to an adjoining room. She slipped them into a basin of water and began scrubbing. But still, he could not make out her face.
“Who is this?” he whispered. “Where am I now?”
High-pitched laughter interrupted his train of thoughts. A small child scampered into the room. He could tell by her clothes that she was a girl. She ran up to a shelf mounted to the wall and grabbed an object from the storage cubby.
Kneeling on the ground, her luminous yellow eyes opened wide as she set a sparkling holo-disk on the ground. Light from the glow sphere overhead struck the lens, and an image floated in the air.
The woman. The child.
It was them.
He heard the woman laugh from the other room. A shadow moved across the walls… a Zedrakon man stepped behind her. His skin was same green color as hers, and his hair was short and dark. He wrapped his muscular arms around her and nuzzled her neck.
In the other room, a song began to play… The girl laughed, watching the shimmering holograms spin above the disk.
As the melodic tones drifted through the air, Volonte’s head dropped. He gazed at the identical disk he held in his hand.
Suddenly, he heard a splintering crash from inside the hut. He glanced up, watching as the tiny dwelling’s door splintered and fell apart. A hulking figure crashed through the entrance. His armor was battered, and stained with blood, and his eyes were wide with blood lust, and peered out from beneath a spiked, armored helmet.
Volonte did not have to look to see who it was. He remembered now…
“No,” Volonte whispered. “They weren’t mine. They were never my family…But not this… Surely not this?”
The civilian man came running from the other room, wielding a metal staff. He leapt at the armored figure, battering him with a series of furious blows. The staff clanged against the warrior’s armor, like a rod striking a metal gong. But the attack was futile. The invading warrior was too heavily armored, too strong, too lost to rage and bloodlust.
He ignored the blows and swung his sword. The powerful blow threw the man backwards. He slammed into a wall, reeling from the force of the attack. Before he could recover, warrior looked up.
Volonte stared upon the face of his old body.
His younger self snarled, and hurled the blade through the air. The spinning weapon buried itself into the man’s chest, pinning him to the wall.
The Zedrakon woman screamed and leapt onto the armored warriors back. She beat at him with her hands and fists, howling in rage and grief.
In the other room, the girl screamed, and hid behind the shelves. She slipped the holo-disk into her pocket as the warrior threw her mother to the ground, and held her in place with his massive armored boot.
He drew a heavy pistol from his belt. With a leering grin, he aimed it at the woman.
Outside the hut, Volonte spun around and closed his glowing eyes tight. He heard the retort of the weapon as it fired. He could smell the acrid smoke, rising from the corpse… the lingering taint of burning flesh.
No, he thought. I smell nothing. None of this is real. It’s all a memory. My memory…
He heard his footsteps echo across the floor as the warrior marched into the living room. Heard the screams of the little girl, and the clatter of the holo-crystal as it fell from her fingers and rolled across the floor.
He remembered reaching down, picking it up.
The song… the tinkling chimes of the melody became a haunting dirge in his mind. He held up his disk, watching as the two glowing figures spun in the
air.
The servos in his fingers made a clicking sound as he closed his hands into a fist. The crystal shattered in his grasp. He could feel the tiny shards and fragments that remained, slipping between the gaps in his joints. The figures blinked out of existence.
But the song… he could still hear the song. He covered his ears, but the tune only seemed to play louder.
I was a murderer! I massacred my own people. This family…
“No!” he shouted. “This is not… I don’t want this! I don’t want these memories! This is not what we agreed Dulkar! Do you hear me, you accursed sorcerer! This is not what I want!”
Volonte’s eyes clicked open. The hut was gone. The figures had disappeared, and the cursed chimes no longer played. He was rushing through space, following a shimmering trail of blue light leading into the distance.
He reached out and felt himself drop closer to the glowing trail. He could feel it leading him back, back into the infinite expanse of his memory core.
“I want to go back!” He screamed into the void. “I want to go back! You shall not cast me out to this wasteland of regret! I want to go back!!!”
His metal fingers touched the blinding trail of light. He roared in pain as a surge of white-hot energy ran through his circuits. His body dissolved into a stream of glowing white dots. Only his conciseness remained intact. The ribbon of light grew brighter, more painful to touch…
But still he raced on, skimming across the synapses of his memory core. He knew not where he was, nor where his journey would end.
Only that it would take him away from the desolate graveyard of his past.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Swirling blue symbols of light spun through the void and waves of energy rippled across the cockpit windows as the Star Claw shot out of the glowing star-path. The ship’s engines groaned, and the hull creaked as Talon activated the reverse thrusters. Their forward velocity slowed to a crawl.
Outside the ship, the space ahead of them was dark… Hazy clouds of dust spiraled through the void, and not a single star pierced the inky black veil before them. Crackling discharges of energy lit up the clouds in the distance, then faded back into shadow.
